Elections

It was winter in Black New York, and the last thing Eric Leroy Adams wanted to do was join the New York City Police Department.It was the early 1980s and waves of joblessness and crime were sweeping over working-class swaths of the city. In Black neighborhoods, the Police Department, still overwhelmingly white, had become an occupying force, deepening the misery and the injustice.Inside a Brooklyn church, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a veteran of the civil rights movement, told a young Mr. Adams, then a local college student, that it was time to join the N.Y.P.D. The community, Mr. Daughtry said, needed someone to make change from the inside.“You gotta be out of your mind,” Mr. Adams recalls telling Mr. Daughtry.On Jan. 1, when Mr. Adams, 61, is sworn in as mayor, Mr. Daughtry’s vision will be realized. Working-class Black New York, which makes up the heart of the Democratic base but has long been shut out of City Hall, will finally have its moment.To many, the future mayor is still an enigma. The Black Democrat talks of law and order, but also Black Lives Matter. He courts Wall Street, then travels to Ghana to be spiritually cleansed. He parties late into the night alongside the rapper Ja Rule and the former Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt. His talent and intellect are obvious. But he sounds nothing like Barack Obama.What exactly Mr. Adams intends to do once at City Hall is unclear. What is certain for now is that Mr. Adams knows who sent him there.New York’s Black Democratic base had endured a plague and marched for Black lives. They had kept the city going, along with municipal workers of all backgrounds, while wealthier New Yorkers remained safely at home. They had felt the rise in violence in their neighborhoods, and seen the resurgence of white supremacy under President Donald Trump. Their choice for mayor was Eric Adams.In his victory speech in November, Mr. Adams said his election belonged to the city’s working poor. “I am you. I am you. After years of praying and hoping and struggling and working, we are headed to City Hall,” Mr. Adams boomed. “It is proof that people of this city will love you if you love them.”New York’s first Black mayor, David Dinkins, died last year at the age of 93. A soft-spoken Marine, in his signature bow tie, he made plain he intended to serve the entire city, which he famously called a “gorgeous mosaic.” Mr. Dinkins served just one term in office after he was ousted by Rudy Giuliani in 1993 in an election fraught with racist backlash. It was a bitter defeat Black New York would never forget.Mr. Dinkins was part of a storied tradition of Black politicians from Harlem that included Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Charles Rangel, Percy Sutton, and Basil Paterson. The political club swung Black votes in the city for more than a generation.Mr. Adams’s pathway to Gracie Mansion runs through a different New York.He was born in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, among the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Later, the family moved to South Jamaica, a largely Black enclave in Queens. Like many of his neighbors, Mr. Adams grew up poor, the fourth of six children of Dorothy Mae Adams, a single mother who worked cleaning houses, and later, at a day care center.At 15, Mr. Adams was arrested on a criminal trespass charge for entering the home of an acquaintance. He has said he was beaten so severely by police officers that his urine was filled with blood for a week.Several years later, Mr. Adams met the Rev. Herbert Daughtry. The pastor was recruiting young Black New Yorkers to organize Brooklyn’s struggling communities as part of the National Black United Front, a Black empowerment group.“It was a tough time,” Mr. Daughtry, now 90 years old, said in a phone interview. Mr. Adams stood out. “He was rather precocious,” Mr. Daughtry said. “He didn’t just want a job. He was concerned about the lack of progress, the gang violence, the addiction.”Mr. Adams joined the N.Y.P.D. in 1984 and served in the Police Department for 22 years. He co-founded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a group that protested police brutality. He also served as president of the Grand Council of Guardians, a statewide group of Black law enforcement officials.He was protesting police brutality in the late 1980s when he met the Rev. Al Sharpton. Both were the sons of single mothers who had arrived in New York from Alabama.And both men said they reveled in eschewing the snobbishness exuded by the Black elite: a small but dazzling world of the powerful — if not always wealthy — shaped by historic college fraternities and sororities, and exclusive societies like the Boulé (boo-lay) and The Links. The groups were created in the depths of segregation to help members network and uplift the Black community. Some of the organizations are over a century old.“Me and Eric used to tease each other,” Mr. Sharpton told me recently. “I used to say, ‘You’re the guy with the patrolman’s hat and I’m the guy with the conked hair style like James Brown, and we do not care if the bougies don’t like us,’” he said. “We used to laugh about that.”Mr. Dinkins was a member of Sigma Pi Phi, known as the Boulé. That fraternity, among the most exclusive of the bunch, counted Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a member. Percy Sutton, once the highest ranking Black elected official in New York, belonged to Kappa Alpha Psi — one of the “Divine Nine” historically Black fraternities and sororities. Representative Hakeem Jeffries is also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi. Former Representative Charles Rangel is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha but only joined Boulé several years ago (“They never invited me” before that, he said). Vice President Kamala Harris is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.“I’m not part of any of those things, you know what I’m saying?” Mr. Adams told me. “But the energy and spirit they bring, we need that.”By 2006, Mr. Adams had risen to the rank of captain, but his public advocacy had made him a thorn in the side of the N.Y.P.D.’s clubby, white male brass. He left the department and was quickly elected to the State Senate. In 2013, he was elected Brooklyn borough president, a largely ceremonial role — but a good launching pad for a campaign for mayor.In the decades since David Dinkins had left office, the center of Black life and political power had shifted firmly from Harlem to Brooklyn. Letitia James, the state attorney general, is from Brooklyn. Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, is also from Brooklyn. Representative Hakeem Jeffries represents part of the borough, as well as a part of Queens.Making the rise of these Black politicians possible was a decades-long shift to an increasingly diverse electorate from one that had once been dominated by white voters. Some white Democrats have proven more willing to vote for Black candidates. The changes have turned Brooklyn into a political powerhouse.In 2013, that Brooklyn coalition, led by Black voters, sent Mayor Bill de Blasio to Gracie Mansion.Then, in early 2020, the pandemic hit New York City, claiming tens of thousands of lives. It killed people from all walks of life, but hit especially hard in the minority and immigrant communities in the Democratic base. Every level of government, including City Hall, had failed them.A year later, the Democratic primary included three major Black candidates. One of them, Maya Wiley, a progressive, garnered significant support. But working-class Black New York went with Mr. Adams, handing him a narrow victory. Basil Smikle, director of the public policy program at Hunter College, said they wanted someone who understood their everyday lives. “The Dinkinses and the Obamas of the world, yes it’s aspirational, we’d all like our children to grow up to be them,” said Mr. Smikle, who is Black. “But to what extent do you know how people are living?”Mr. Adams’s political showmanship doesn’t hurt.In 2016, when Mr. Adams became a vegan, reversing a diabetes diagnosis, he touted the diet as a way to liberate Black Americans from the history of slavery and published a cookbook.Years earlier, in the State Senate, Mr. Adams produced a dramatized video from his office encouraging parents to search their children’s belongings for contraband. “You don’t know what your child may be hiding,” Mr. Adams tells the camera, pulling a gun out of a jewelry box. The political stunt left political insiders giggling. But it demonstrated how deeply connected Mr. Adams was to the voters he represented.“It is comical, but let me tell you, my mom would probably be nodding her head for the entire video,” said Zellnor Myrie, 35, who holds Mr. Adams’s former Senate seat, and was raised in the district by his mother.Much of what appears to be paradoxical about Mr. Adams is, to Black Americans, just familiar.“All of us have been at dinner with some uncle who talks about ‘Black on Black’ crime,” said Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “We know Eric Adams.”Yet, Mr. Adams is familiar to New Yorkers of many backgrounds. They recognize the swagger of the beat cop; the blunt cadence of southeast Queens, with its languorous vowels; the hustle and ambition found all over New York.Starting Jan. 1, he will be mayor for the entire city. His support is expansive and includes large numbers of Asian, Latino and Orthodox Jewish voters. If he can cement this coalition, he may become a formidable force nationally in a Democratic Party hungry for stars.Mr. Adams has also shown a savvy for courting The New York Post, announcing his pick for police commissioner — Nassau County chief of detectives Keechant Sewell, a Black Queens native — in the right-wing tabloid. Better to feed the beast, Mr. Adams understands, than let it maul you.At his inner circle, though, is a tight-knit group of Black New Yorkers who have waited a generation for their shot to run City Hall.Outside a public school in Brooklyn recently, Mr. Adams stood with David Banks, a veteran Black educator he tapped to serve as schools chancellor. “If 65 percent of white children were not reaching proficiency in this city, they would burn the city down,” Mr. Adams said to the enthusiastic, largely nonwhite crowd.From the moneyed corners of Manhattan to the gracious brownstones of Cobble Hill, there is a creeping sense of shock: The new mayor is not necessarily speaking to them. Power in America’s largest city has changed hands.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

The House committee said investigators wanted to ask Mr. Jordan, a Republican congressman from Ohio, about his conversations with former President Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Capitol attack asked Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio on Wednesday to sit for an interview with its investigators, in the latest step the panel has taken to dig into the role that members of Congress played in trying to undermine the 2020 election.The committee’s letter to Mr. Jordan, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, says that investigators want to question him about his communications related to the run-up to the Capitol riot. Those include Mr. Jordan’s messages with Mr. Trump, his legal team and others involved in planning rallies on Jan. 6 and congressional objections to certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.“We understand that you had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on Jan. 6,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, wrote in the letter. “We would like to discuss each such communication with you in detail.”Mr. Jordan, a Republican, was deeply involved in Mr. Trump’s effort to fight the election results. He participated in planning meetings with senior White House officials, including a gathering in November 2020 at Trump campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., and a meeting at the White House last December, where Republican lawmakers discussed plans with the president’s team to use the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 to challenge the election outcome.On Jan. 5, Mr. Jordan forwarded to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, a text message he had received from a lawyer and former Pentagon inspector general outlining a legal strategy to overturn the election.Understand the U.S. Capitol RiotOn Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?“On Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence,” the text read.Mr. Jordan has acknowledged speaking with Mr. Trump on Jan. 6, though he has said he cannot remember how many times they spoke that day or when the calls occurred.The committee is particularly interested in what Mr. Trump was doing during the riot, Mr. Thompson said, noting that it had already received testimony “indicating that the president was watching television coverage of the attack from his private dining room” before his legal team resumed the effort to “delay or otherwise impede the electoral count.”Mr. Thompson also said the committee wanted to ask Mr. Jordan about any discussions involving the possibility of presidential pardons for people involved in any aspect of Jan. 6.Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, has said that Mr. Jordan is a “material witness” to the events of Jan. 6. Mr. Jordan has said he will consider cooperating with the committee depending on its requests, though he also called the panel a “sham.”Mr. Thompson noted that Mr. Jordan told the Rules Committee in November, “I have nothing to hide.”Despite claiming on the House floor on Jan. 6 that “Americans instinctively know there was something wrong with this election,” Mr. Jordan has since said that he never called the election stolen.A spokesman for Mr. Jordan did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the congressman referred to the letter in an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday evening.“We just got the letter today,” Mr. Jordan said. “We’re going to review the letter.” He added that he had “real concerns” about the committee, claiming that it had altered documents in a misleading way when presenting evidence to the public.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

The postponement risks further destabilizing the oil-rich North African country, which has been mired in divisions and violence in the decade since Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was toppled and killed in a revolution.Libya’s Parliament declared that it would be impossible to hold a long-awaited presidential election on Friday as scheduled, a delay that risked further destabilizing the oil-rich North African nation, which has been troubled by division and violence in the decade since the dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was toppled and killed in a revolution.The announcement on Wednesday by the president of the parliamentary election committee, Hadi Al-Sagheer, confirmed what virtually everyone in Libya already knew. Nonetheless, it threatened to take political tensions to a boil from a simmer.“After reviewing the technical, judicial and security reports,” Mr. Al-Sagheer said in a statement, “we would like to inform you that it will be impossible to hold the elections on the date set by the elections law.” Western diplomats, along with many Libyans, had thrown their support behind this election, viewing it as a crucial step toward ending nearly a decade of civil conflict and reunifying a country still largely split in two. The election of a new president is regarded as the key to beginning the evictions of the armies of foreign fighters who were brought in over recent years to wage civil conflicts, to starting the consolidation of Libya’s multiple militias into a single national army, and to reuniting fractured government institutions.Libya was already on edge as the delay was announced on Wednesday morning. In the capital, Tripoli, on Tuesday, armed men and tanks had deployed on the streets and closed down the road to the presidential palace, sending residents scrambling to stock up on food and fueling fears of an imminent armed conflict. No violence had broken out by nightfall, but many feared the tenuous quiet would not last.For more than a year, Libya had been working toward the election on Dec. 24, which was to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the country’s independence. But it had become increasingly clear in recent weeks that the election could not go forward as planned because of disputes over the eligibility of the major candidates and over the electoral law. Electoral officials had already told election workers to go home on Tuesday night.The question now is not only when a vote might take place, but whether a postponed election would be any less brittle — and who would control Libya in the interim. While international mediators continued to try to find a new election date not long from now, Libyan politicians were already vying for control of a country that looked in danger of becoming rudderless with the added uncertainty surrounding the vote.The board of the High National Elections Commission has proposed Jan. 24 as a new election date.Local media reported earlier on Wednesday that the head of the High National Elections Commission, Emad al-Sayeh, said the board of the commission had stepped down after the failure to hold the election on schedule. But Ahmed Sharkasi, a member of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, the U.N.-convened body that set out the road map to the interim government and elections, later denied it.Nearly 100 candidates, including a few who are among the most prominent in Libyan politics, had declared they were running for president in Libya, which has a population of about seven million people. More than a third of Libyans are registered to vote, and more than two million of them had signaled their intentions to participate by picking up their voting cards. More

Michael Flynn sues Capitol attack committee in bid to block subpoenaLawsuit filed by longtime adviser to Donald Trump is the latest in a flood of litigation by targets of the committee Michael Flynn, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, has sued the congressional committee investigating the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol in hopes of blocking it from obtaining his phone records.Flynn alleged in a lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, that a subpoena issued to him by the House of Representatives select committee was too broad in scope and punishes him for constitutionally protected speech as a private citizen.Flynn also alleged in the lawsuit that the committee “has no authority to conduct business because it is not a duly constituted select committee”.An appeals court has rejected that argument, ruling on 9 December that the committee was valid and entitled to see White House records Trump has tried to shield.The committee issued a subpoena to Flynn, Trump’s short-lived former national security adviser, in November, seeking testimony and documents about a “command center” at Washington’s Willard Hotel set up to steer efforts to deny Joe Biden his November 2020 election victory.After the election Flynn urged Trump to deploy the military to overturn the results and gave speeches sowing doubts about the vote.The select committee did not comment.Flynn’s lawsuit is the latest in a flood of litigation by targets of the committee, seeking to prevent it from enforcing its subpoenas.Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and founder of the rightwing website Infowars, filed a similar case on Monday.Trump has similarly sought to block the committee from obtaining his White House records from 6 January and the preceding days, asserting they are protected by a legal doctrine called executive privilege. An appeals court rejected Trump’s arguments last week. He is expected to appeal to the supreme court.Flynn was previously charged as part of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election won by Trump.Flynn, a retired Army general, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about interactions he had with Russia’s ambassador to the US in January 2017. Trump later pardoned him.TopicsMichael FlynnUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Boric, de 35 años, se ha convertido en el rostro más destacado de la generación de chilenos que piden una ruptura con el pasado.Gabriel Boric saltó a la fama en Chile hace diez años como un estudiante de cabello largo que lideraba manifestaciones masivas por una educación pública gratuita y de calidad. Este año se postuló para la presidencia con un programa en el que exigía un trato justo para más chilenos, así como incrementar las protecciones sociales para los pobres y aplicarles mayores impuestos a los ricos.Ahora, después de haber ganado la presidencia —con más votos que cualquier otro candidato en la historia— Boric está listo para supervisar lo que podría ser la transformación más profunda de la sociedad chilena en décadas.No solo quiere enterrar el legado de la dictadura del general Augusto Pinochet reformando el modelo económico conservador que el país heredó al final de su mandato en 1990. El gobierno de Boric también supervisará las etapas finales de la redacción de una nueva Constitución para remplazar la carta magna de la era de la dictadura que sigue definiendo a la nación.Además está su personalidad: elegido a los 35 años, Boric será el presidente más joven en la historia del país cuando asuma el cargo en marzo. Nunca terminó la carrera de abogado porque las protestas se interpusieron. Habla de manera abierta sobre su trastorno obsesivo compulsivo. Y escandalizó a la política tradicional chilena al presentarse en su primer día como diputado en 2014 con una gabardina beige y sin corbata.Para muchos chilenos, la victoria de Boric es la institucionalización natural del lamento generacional que ha resonado en todo el país durante al menos una década. Es visto como la voz de una generación que está dispuesta a romper con el pasado y que ha salido a las calles por decenas e incluso cientos de miles para reclamar un país más igualitario e inclusivo.Boric, como presidente de la federación de estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile, liderando una manifestación en Santiago en 2012.Claudio Santana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Chile ya había cambiado antes de que Boric fuera elegido”, dijo Fernanda Azócar, de 35 años, una votante que participó en las protestas de 2006 y 2011 que duraron semanas. “Es solo que ahora tenemos un presidente que puede hacer que estos cambios sean permanentes”.Un elemento central de las afirmaciones de los manifestantes ha sido la idea de que las promesas de los grupos gobernantes (que postulan el principio de que el mercado producirá prosperidad y que la prosperidad solucionará los problemas) les han fallado. Más del 25 por ciento de la riqueza producida en el país es propiedad del uno por ciento de la población, según datos de las Naciones Unidas. Los bajos salarios, los altos niveles de deuda y los fondos insuficientes de los sistemas de educación y salud pública han hecho que muchas personas sigan esperando una oportunidad.Sobre esas protestas, y sobre la campaña presidencial, se cierne el legado de la sangrienta dictadura de Chile. El general Pinochet llegó al poder con un violento golpe de Estado en 1973, y sus años en el poder estuvieron ensombrecidos por informes de corrupción y represión, incluidas torturas y ejecuciones extrajudiciales.Boric es hijo de la democracia chilena. Tenía solo cuatro años cuando el general Pinochet cedió el poder y no solía mencionar al general durante su campaña electoral. Pero, en muchos sentidos, su elección fue un rechazo total al dictador y lo que significaba para el país.El general Pinochet fue el artífice tanto del modelo económico de libre mercado como de la Constitución que Boric y sus aliados han criticado durante mucho tiempo diciendo que ha favorecido a los ricos, y al sector privado, a expensas de todos los demás.“Si Chile fue la cuna del neoliberalismo, también será su tumba”, gritó Boric ante una multitud después de su victoria en las primarias a principios de este año.Además, el hombre que Boric venció en las elecciones del domingo, José Antonio Kast, es hermano de un exasesor del general Pinochet que se ha pronunciado favorablemente sobre la dictadura y propuso duras medidas de seguridad que hicieron que muchos recordaran los días del gobierno militar.Manuel Antonio Garretón, sociólogo y profesor de la Universidad de Chile, calificó la confluencia de la elección de Boric con el voto nacional para reescribir la Constitución como “el segundo momento más clave” para superar la dictadura, solo detrás del plebiscito de 1988 con el que los chilenos pusieron fin al régimen de Pinochet.Boric en un mitin de campaña celebrado en Santiago, en noviembreEsteban Felix/Associated PressBoric nació en Punta Arenas, en la Patagonia, el 11 de febrero de 1986. Tiene dos hermanos menores, y proviene de una familia de clase media de origen croata, descendientes de inmigrantes que llegaron a fines del siglo XIX. Su padre y su abuelo trabajaron en la industria petrolera en la provincia de Magallanes.Boric estudió en una escuela privada británica local, donde el gobierno de Pinochet se debatía abiertamente, lo que no sucedía en muchas partes de Chile.Su hermano Simón, de 33 años, dijo en una entrevista que aunque su familia no era ferozmente política sí se había opuesto a Pinochet. Un tío era copropietario de una estación de radio que criticaba los crímenes del régimen. “Más de alguna vez mi familia fue amenazada”, dijo, y agregó que “llegaron cartas anónimas debido a las actividades de mi tío”.Meses después de ganar su primer mandato en el Congreso, Boric describió su temprana determinación por entender la política. Venía de un entorno bastante protegido y su padre se ubicaba políticamente hacia el centro. Pero el dirigente afirma que cuando era un estudiante de secundaria en Punta Arenas comenzó a leer sobre los líderes revolucionarios y los procesos políticos. Fue un esfuerzo solitario: no tenía un grupo con el que pudiera hablar de política.Entonces, cuando todavía estaba en la secundaria, decidió que quería ser miembro de un grupo de extrema izquierda que había apoyado la lucha armada, el Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria o MIR. Esa organización fue perseguida y reprimida durante gran parte de la dictadura. Entonces, Boric navegó por Google y encontró el correo electrónico de una de las pequeñas fracciones supervivientes del movimiento. Aunque escribió un correo preguntando cómo podía contribuir a la revolución, nadie le respondió.En Punta Arenas, Boric ayudó a reiniciar la federación de estudiantes de secundaria de su ciudad. Luego, en 2004, se trasladó a Santiago, la capital, para estudiar derecho. Completó sus estudios en 2009, pero reprobó una parte del examen final, según dijo su hermano. Aunque podía volver a presentar el examen y obtener su título, pronto se vio envuelto en el activismo estudiantil y la política, y nunca regresó a clases.En 2011, cuando los manifestantes salieron a las calles para exigir una mejor educación pública, se postuló para la presidencia de la federación de estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile y ganó, convirtiéndose en uno de los líderes clave del movimiento.Boric durante una protesta estudiantil en 2012Fernando Lavoz/Getty ImagesA partir de ese momento, se dedicó al trabajo político y se convirtió en uno de los cuatro líderes de las protestas estudiantiles que fueron elegidos para el Congreso en 2014.Durante 30 años, dos coaliciones se han alternado el poder en Chile, pero Boric no está alineado con ninguna.Matías Meza, de 41 años, y amigo de toda la vida del presidente electo, dijo que Boric está motivado por su comprensión del pasado, lo que muestra su deseo de sacar al país definitivamente de la sombra de la dictadura.“Tiene un gran conocimiento de la historia y es muy consciente de su posición en la sociedad y de los privilegios que ha tenido”, dijo Meza.Boric ganó las elecciones del domingo con el 55 por ciento de los votos, 11 puntos por delante de Kast, lo que le otorga un fuerte respaldo popular para restructurar el país a la luz de sus promesas.Entre otras cosas, el dirigente ha propuesto cambiar el sistema de pensiones privado a uno público, perdonar las deudas estudiantiles, aumentar la inversión en educación y salud pública, y la creación de un sistema de atención que aliviaría la carga de las mujeres que realizan la mayor parte del trabajo de cuidar a los niños, los parientes mayores y otras personas. También ha prometido restaurar el territorio de las comunidades indígenas y apoyar el acceso irrestricto al aborto.Sin embargo, en el camino de la transformación que ha prometido se interponen grandes obstáculos.Boric enfrentará una economía afectada por la pandemia, un Congreso dividido y las altas expectativas de los votantes: los de la izquierda, que lo apoyaron en la primera vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales, y los del centro, que lo apoyaron en la segunda vuelta cuando su retórica se volvió más moderada.“Tendrá que elegir entre ser moderado o radical”, dijo Patricio Navia, profesor de estudios políticos en la Universidad Diego Portales de Chile. “Independientemente de lo que elija, alienará a muchos votantes”.The 35-year-old former student activist is set to become the nation’s youngest leader and its most liberal since President Salvador Allende.Juan Carlos Avendano/ReutersEsta elección dejó claro que la mayoría de los chilenos exigen un cambio significativo, dijo José Miguel Vivanco, director de la división de las Américas de Human Rights Watch (quien también es chileno).La pregunta es qué viene después, dijo, porque Boric “será juzgado en función de si tiene la capacidad para cumplir”.Julie Turkewitz es jefa del buró de los Andes, que abarca Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Perú, Surinam y Guyana. Antes de mudarse a América del Sur, fue corresponsal de temas nacionales y cubrió el oeste de Estados Unidos. @julieturkewitz More

Robert Menendez Jr., 36, has won backing from key Democrats in the northern New Jersey congressional district.Robert Menendez Jr., the 36-year-old son of New Jersey’s senior United States senator, has told political leaders that he will run for Congress to replace Representative Albio Sires, who announced on Monday that he will not seek re-election.If elected, Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, and his father, Senator Robert Menendez, the 67-year-old chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, would be likely to serve together in Washington.The younger Mr. Menendez is a practicing lawyer who would be making his first run for public office, and he is expected to face challengers from the left in the Democratic stronghold that includes heavily urban parts of Hudson, Essex and Union Counties. He did not return calls or emails.But even before Mr. Sires confirmed that he intended to step down when his term ends next year, powerful political leaders had already begun to coalesce support behind Mr. Menendez.In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Sires, a former mayor of West New York, N.J., who has served in the House of Representatives since 2006, said the younger Mr. Menendez told him that he planned to run and asked for his support.Senator Menendez, who declined to comment through a spokesman, held the same seat in the House before being appointed to the Senate in 2006 to fill a position vacated by Jon Corzine after he was elected governor; the borders of the district, now known as the Eighth Congressional District, have since been slightly redrawn.In June, Mr. Menendez was appointed a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey after being nominated by Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a fellow Democrat.“I think he’s the perfect fit for the district,” said Mr. Sires, 70, who emigrated from Cuba as an 11-year-old.As a moderate who also is of Cuban heritage, Mr. Menendez would connect well with voters, Mr. Sires said.“He’s bright. He’s articulate. He’s energetic,” Mr. Sires said. “He comes from good stock.”“He told me, ‘Whatever I can do to help him, please do,’ ” Mr. Sires added. “I told him I would be there.”Brian Stack, a state senator who is also the mayor of Union City, a largely Latino community that is a key voting bloc in the district, also quickly expressed support for Mr. Menendez.“He will be a great congressman,” Mr. Stack told the New Jersey Globe, which first reported that Mr. Sires was retiring and that Mr. Menendez planned to run for the empty seat.Hector Oseguera, a left-leaning Democrat who challenged Mr. Sires last year and lost by a large margin, said that running in the district required a deep understanding of the Democratic political machine in Hudson County.“You can’t really parachute in,” said Mr. Oseguera, who said he would consider running again only if “nobody emerges from the progressive movement.”Ravi Bhalla, a progressive Democrat who was re-elected mayor of Hoboken last month, had been considered a potential candidate for the seat. But on Tuesday Mr. Bhalla, the first Sikh elected mayor in New Jersey, dashed talk that he had any interest in running and strongly suggested that he would support the candidate tapped by the Democratic Party leadership.“While I’m honored and humbled to have been approached by members of the Sikh and South Asian community, along with other stakeholders to run for Congress,” he wrote on Twitter, “I’m 100% committed to serving the residents of Hoboken as mayor.”Mr. Sires, who has served on the House transportation and foreign affairs committees, said that he considered passage of President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill — and the benefits it offers for public transit in New Jersey — the capstone of his career.He is one of 25 members of Congress who have announced that they were quitting politics.“It was time,” said Mr. Sires, who also served in the New Jersey Legislature, where he was the first Latino Assembly speaker. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity this country gave me, and I’m happy to have had the chance to give back.”He said the hyperpartisan political divide in Washington had played a role in his decision.“Washington is a very difficult place to work now,” he said. “You either have to be part of the left or part of the right. There seems to be no room in the middle.”Senator Menendez’s quest for power is markedly different than his son’s. Before he was 21, the senator was elected to the school board in Union City, where he was raised, the son of Cuban immigrants. He went on to become the mayor of the city and a state legislator.Decades later he survived an admonishment from a Senate panel for accepting gifts from a wealthy doctor and a 2017 federal trial on corruption charges. He emerged years later as one of the most powerful Democratic members of Congress.Only two of New Jersey’s 12 House representatives are Republicans. But a redistricting commission is expected to release the state’s new congressional map on Wednesday, and several Democrats in swing districts are likely to face fierce challenges for re-election as Mr. Biden’s popularity wanes.It is not uncommon for a child to follow a parent into Congress; it has occurred at least 42 times in the Senate alone between 1774 and 1989, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.But only a handful of children have served in Congress at the same time as their parent, and there are no pairs in the current 117th Congress, according to the Library of Congress.Mr. Menendez, who is registered to vote in Jersey City, N.J., is a 2008 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to a biography on his law firm’s website. He and his father both graduated from Rutgers Law School.Representative Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat who has worked closely with Mr. Sires in the House, called Mr. Sires “a giant in every sense of the word.”“Albio has battled for Amtrak and our commuters. He has battled for immigrants and human rights. And he’s battled to give the Garden State its rightful share of the pie we are so often denied,” Mr. Pascrell said in a statement.“He’s my buddy and I’m going to miss him greatly,” he added. “We have big shoes to fill.” More

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, says Democratic outrage over Senator Joe Manchin’s opposition to sweeping policy bills shows he is not welcome in his party any longer.WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell is extending an open invitation to Senator Joe Manchin III — come on over to our side.Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader, said on Tuesday that he was astonished by the angry response that Mr. Manchin of West Virginia elicited from the White House and his fellow Democrats with his Sunday bombshell that he would oppose President Biden’s signature domestic policy bill.The Senate, Mr. McConnell noted, is an institution where the most important vote is the next one, leaving the Republican leader perplexed as to what drove Democrats to impugn Mr. Manchin’s integrity by accusing him of reneging on commitments to the president.“Why in the world would they want to call him a liar and try to hotbox him and embarrass him?” Mr. McConnell, who is just one Senate seat away from regaining the majority leader title, asked in an interview. “I think the message is, ‘We don’t want you around.’ Obviously that is up to Joe Manchin, but he is clearly not welcome on that side of the aisle.”It is hardly a secret, Mr. McConnell said, that he has wooed Mr. Manchin for years, only to have Mr. Manchin, a lifelong Democrat, resist. And Mr. Manchin this week said he “hoped” there was still a place for him in the party.Despite his break with Mr. Biden over the sprawling safety net and climate change bill, Mr. Manchin would not be an exact fit for the Republican Party. He is closer to Republicans than Democrats on some flashpoint cultural issues like guns and abortion. But he has a more expansive view than most Republicans of the role of government in social and economic policy. And in both of former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trials, Mr. Manchin voted to convict.But Mr. McConnell seemed to see the clash over the spending measure as potentially providing a new opening for a party switch that would both restore him as majority leader and shift the ground in Washington. And he is also not against stirring up trouble for Democrats however and whenever he can.“Obviously we would love to have him on our team,” said Mr. McConnell. “I think he’d be more comfortable.”Mr. McConnell’s appeal to Mr. Manchin came as the Republican leader celebrated the year coming to a close without Democrats advancing two of their most ambitious priorities: legislation to bolster voting rights and the sprawling domestic policy bill that Mr. McConnell characterized as part of a “socialist surge that has captured the other side.”Considering how Republicans began 2021 — in the minority in Congress, a newly elected Democrat poised to move into the White House and a public worn down by a pandemic and alarmed by an assault on the Capitol — Mr. McConnell and his colleagues say they have had a successful year. In some respects, it was all the things they did not do that may have served them best.They did not maneuver themselves into shutting down the government as they have in the past — despite demands from the right that they never work with Mr. Biden. And they did not allow the government to default, with Mr. McConnell providing Democrats a circuitous path to raising the debt ceiling. Either could have created a backlash for Republicans.“We had a good deal of drama,” Mr. McConnell said about the high-wire act over the debt ceiling, “but in the end, we got the job done.”As Democrats spent months trying to hammer out the huge policy bill among themselves, Republicans were relegated to the sidelines. Mr. McConnell said Democrats’ inability to come together on it so far reflected a misreading of the 2020 elections, when voters gave them the White House but bare majorities in both the Senate and the House.“They did not have a mandate to do anything close to what they tried to do,” said Mr. McConnell, suggesting that progressive “ideology overcame their judgment.”The decision by Mr. McConnell and other Republicans to help Democrats write and pass a separate, $1 trillion public works bill was, Mr. McConnell said, a smart one, even though Republican supporters of the measure took heat from others in the party, notably Mr. Trump.Mr. McConnell said that applying pressure to keep the policy bill separate from the infrastructure measure denied Democratic leaders leverage over Mr. Manchin, who helped negotiate the infrastructure measure, while delivering a bipartisan bill that met legitimate needs. He said that Mr. Trump and other Republican critics had been proven wrong.“I think it was a much smarter play to support the infrastructure bill,” he said. “I think it was, A, good for the country, and B, smart for us politically.”Democrats have not given up on either the social policy bill or winning over Mr. Manchin, meaning Mr. McConnell and Senate Republicans will have to maintain their campaign against the legislation into the new year. Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, also intends to press forward with voting rights measures fiercely opposed by Mr. McConnell and is threatening to try to change Senate rules if Republicans try to filibuster it again.Democrats say Mr. McConnell is being complicit in allowing some states to impose new voting restrictions meant to target voters of color, a charge he rejects, saying that the impact of the new laws is being exaggerated. He said he was relying on Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who recently reaffirmed her opposition to changing filibuster rules, to hold steady.“Kyrsten Sinema has been quite unequivocal that she is not going to break the Senate and eliminate the legislative filibuster,” he said. “Thank goodness for that.”One area where Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats have posted some victories is on judicial confirmations, with 40 judges being seated in the president’s first year, a number well in excess of other recent presidents. It is a subject of special interest to Mr. McConnell, since he spent the Trump era pushing conservative judges through the Senate.“Look, there’s some advantages to having the White House,” he said. “I’m not surprised, but the three Supreme Court justices and the 54 circuit judges we did are still there and I think will be good for the country for a long time to come.”Mr. McConnell said he believed his party’s performance this year and the struggles of the Democrats were setting Republicans up for a strong midterm election next year and his potential return to running the Senate no matter what party Mr. Manchin is in. Despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to encourage candidates he favors in key Senate races, Mr. McConnell said he was intent on avoiding the type of primary contests that in the past have hurt Republicans by saddling them with primary winners who falter in general elections.“I feel good about how we handled ourselves this year and I feel good about how the American public is reacting to what they are trying to do,” he said of the Democrats. “I believe it will be an excellent environment for us.” More

The panel investigating the Capitol attack faced stonewalling from allies of former President Donald J. Trump on two new fronts.WASHINGTON — Two allies of former President Donald J. Trump took steps on Tuesday to try to stonewall the House committee investigating the Capitol attack as Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, filed a lawsuit against the panel, and a House Republican who played a key role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election refused to meet with investigators.Mr. Flynn, who spent 33 years as an Army officer and has emerged as one of the most extreme voices in Mr. Trump’s push to overturn the election, filed suit against the committee in Florida, trying to block its subpoenas.“Like many Americans in late 2020, and to this day, General Flynn has sincerely held concerns about the integrity of the 2020 elections,” his lawsuit states. “It is not a crime to hold such beliefs, regardless of whether they are correct or mistaken.”The House committee has said it wants information from Mr. Flynn because he attended a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18 in which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the false idea that the election was tainted by widespread fraud. That meeting came after Mr. Flynn gave an interview to the right-wing media site Newsmax in which he talked about the purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to “rerun” the election.Read Michael Flynn’s Lawsuit Against the Jan. 6 CommitteeMichael T. Flynn, former President Donald J. Trump’s first national security adviser, sued the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, seeking to block the panel’s subpoenas.Read Document 42 pagesMr. Flynn’s suit comes as Representative Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican closely involved in Mr. Trump’s push to undermine the election, said on Tuesday that he was refusing to meet with the Jan. 6 committee.Mr. Perry, the incoming chairman of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, called the committee “illegitimate.”Understand the U.S. Capitol RiotOn Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.What Happened: Here’s the most complete picture to date of what happened — and why.Timeline of Jan. 6: A presidential rally turned into a Capitol rampage in a critical two-hour time period. Here’s how.Key Takeaways: Here are some of the major revelations from The Times’s riot footage analysis.Death Toll: Five people died in the riot. Here’s what we know about them.Decoding the Riot Iconography: What do the symbols, slogans and images on display during the violence really mean?“I decline this entity’s request and will continue to fight the failures of the radical Left who desperately seek distraction from their abject failures of crushing inflation, a humiliating surrender in Afghanistan, and the horrendous crisis they created at our border,” Mr. Perry wrote on Twitter.The committee on Monday sent a letter seeking testimony and documents from Mr. Perry, the first public step it has taken to try to obtain information from any of the Republican members of Congress who were deeply involved in Mr. Trump’s effort to stay in power.The committee asked Mr. Perry to meet with its investigators and voluntarily turn over all “relevant electronic or other communications” related to the buildup to the Capitol riot, including his communications with the president and his legal team as well as others involved in planning rallies on Jan. 6 and the objections in Congress to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.To date, the panel has been reluctant to issue subpoenas for sitting members of Congress, citing the deference and respect lawmakers in the chamber are supposed to show one another. But Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the panel, has pledged to take such a step if needed.“Representative Perry has information directly relevant to our investigation,” said Tim Mulvey, a committee spokesman. “The select committee prefers to gather relevant evidence from members cooperatively, but if members with directly relevant information decline to cooperate and instead endeavor to cover up, the select committee will consider seeking such information using other tools.”Representative Scott Perry speaking at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Pennsylvania last year.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Flynn and Mr. Perry are among a small number of witnesses who have not cooperated with the panel. More than 300 witnesses have met with investigators, most voluntarily without receiving a subpoena.There have been consequences for those who refuse.The House has voted twice to hold allies of Mr. Trump in criminal contempt of Congress, referring those cases to federal prosecutors. A grand jury indicted Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser, who faces charges that carry up to two years in jail and thousands in fines. Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, awaits a decision from federal prosecutors.Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump have sued to block the release of thousands of records, after the former president asserted executive privilege over a vast array of documents.Some key witnesses have settled on the tactic of invoking their right against self-incrimination to avoid answering questions. Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department lawyer who participated in Mr. Trump’s plans to overturn the election, has said he would invoke the Fifth Amendment in response to questions.Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 9The House investigation. More