Elections

The tight governor’s race in Virginia is a proving ground for strategies that could help determine control of Congress next year.Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat running for governor of Virginia, distilled the election into a single sentence.“It all adds up to the same thing here: Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump,” he said the other day.Contests for governor in Virginia have long been a barometer of the national political mood a year into a new presidency. For Democrats, the stakes have never seemed higher: A defeat for Mr. McAuliffe, a popular former governor seeking his old job back, could deal a devastating blow to the party’s confidence heading into next year’s midterms and to its strategy of running against Mr. Trump even when he is not on the ballot.For Republicans the stakes are less fraught: Their nominee, Glenn Youngkin, a first-time candidate, could lose narrowly given Virginia’s increasingly blue tinge but still represent a proof of concept that a G.O.P. candidate can unite the party’s moderates and hard-liners without going all in on Trumpism.Whether it is Mr. McAuliffe hammering away at Mr. Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election or Mr. Youngkin walking a Trump tightrope — nodding to the base on election fraud, while keeping the former president partly at arm’s length — Mr. Trump has been an unavoidable factor in the Virginia campaign.The unexpectedly close contest, which is effectively the opening act of the 2022 midterms, will also test the two parties’ appeal to the most crucial and coveted voters nationwide — those in populous and diverse suburbs, who are widely expected to decide the Virginia race as well as control of Congress next year.“I think every Democrat is following Virginia as a bellwether,” Gordon Hintz, the Democratic leader of Wisconsin’s State Assembly, said. “It definitely set the tone in 2017 for the 2018 cycle.”Beyond the broad-brush strategies, each candidate has landed on a favorite issue in the final two weeks before the Nov. 2 election, both of which are likely to feature prominently in races elsewhere. For Mr. McAuliffe, the issue is abortion rights, newly under threat in the Supreme Court. For Mr. Youngkin, the issue is parental control of schools, which could broaden his appeal to independents who abandoned the G.O.P. under Mr. Trump.Polls show a statistically tied race in Virginia, with worrying implications for President Biden, who easily won the state. Democrats say they are battling stiff but temporary headwinds: rising inflation, the lingering pandemic and an impression of Democratic incompetency in Washington, where the party has been in a stalemate over passing its big domestic priorities.“Youngkin, to his credit, has done a real good job of maintaining the loyalty of the Trump base while attempting to generate some suburban defections from the Democratic Party,’’ said Bob Holsworth, a longtime Virginia political analyst. “If a Republican can win in Virginia talking about critical race theory, about his pro-life beliefs — a state Biden carried by 10 points — it would be far more than a wake-up call for Democrats. It would be somebody playing reveille in their bedrooms with a trumpet.”Virginians, who vote for governor a year after presidential elections, have a long record of rebuking the party that holds the White House. Mr. McAuliffe’s win in 2013, a year after President Barack Obama was re-elected, was the sole exception in four decades. During the Trump years, the state swung even more toward Democrats in state and federal elections, driven by college-educated voters in the suburbs of Northern Virginia and Richmond who rejected the president’s divisive leadership.Terry McAuliffe is trying to link his opponent to Donald Trump as a way to motivate voters.Eze Amos for The New York TimesMr. Biden’s capture of 54 percent of suburban voters nationally last year was chiefly what put him in the White House. Suburbanites tipped battleground states including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. They also hold the key to the majority of competitive House races in 2022. Whether Democrats have earned suburbanites’ long-term allegiance or Mr. Biden merely “rented” them, as strategists like to put it, is a major question that the Virginia election could help clarify.Republicans think they already know the answer. “The closeness of this race suggests the suburban swing voter is moving back to Republicans fast,’’ said Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC that focuses on House races. “That is a warning sign for the many incumbent Democrats in swing suburban districts.’’But Democrats believe that fear of Trumpism will keep the suburbs in their corner. Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, chairman of the Democrats’ 2022 congressional campaign arm, said recently he was advising members in competitive suburban seats to run against “Trump toxicity without Trump on the ballot.”“You’ve got to remind them the other side is for insurrection, when we’re trying to do infrastructure,” Mr. Maloney said, speaking to the liberal podcast “Pod Save America.” “They’re for fighting, when we’re trying to fix problems.’’From the beginning, Mr. McAuliffe’s playbook has been to fuse Mr. Youngkin with Mr. Trump in voters’ minds. A new TV ad this week tries to link Mr. Youngkin to the former president’s equivocation about the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017.Mr. McAuliffe was handed fresh ammunition last week when Mr. Trump phoned in an endorsement of Mr. Youngkin to a rally that began by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance using a flag that organizers said had been carried on Jan. 6 in Washington. Mr. McAuliffe pounced, and Mr. Youngkin, who had not attended the rally, issued a statement calling the use of the flag “weird and wrong.”Glenn Youngkin, center, is focusing on parental control of schools, which could broaden his appeal to independents.Eze Amos for The New York TimesMr. Youngkin has tried to straddle the party’s divisions, appealing to Mr. Trump’s devotees as well as to moderate Republicans and independents. The enthusiasm edge that some polls show Virginia Republicans hold over Democrats suggests he has had some success in uniting the party.That’s not an easy feat. “Youngkin seems more adept at trying to avoid Trump,’’ said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who is working for several Senate candidates in competitive 2022 races. “The degree to which that is successful will be a strong signal to lots of races around the country.”Mr. Youngkin began the general election emphasizing the conventional Republican issues of taxes and job creation, but he is now aggressively leaning into conservative attacks on the way race is taught in schools and on giving parents more control.A yearlong uproar in Loudoun County, targeting school board members over policies about racial equity and transgender students, suggests that Mr. Youngkin may be able to harness an issue that not only turns out conservatives, but persuades some suburban moderates.Jon Seaton, a Republican strategist from Virginia, said the schools issue was breaking through to suburban parents. “In my little focus group on the sidelines of soccer games on weekends — I’m fairly certain they didn’t vote for Trump in 2020 — at least some are extremely frustrated by what’s going on in the public schools,’’ said Mr. Seaton, who consults for candidates around the country. “It’s certainly possible that education, for the first time in a very long time, becomes something that Republican candidates run on.’’Pressing the issue, Mr. Youngkin has spent more than $1 million on a TV ad that plucks a statement of Mr. McAuliffe’s from a debate slightly out of context, in which he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”A Fox News poll of likely Virginia voters conducted last week showed a split decision on education. By a 23-point margin, parents among likely voters said they should have a say in what schools teach. However, when asked which candidate they backed, parents preferred Mr. McAuliffe 53 to 43 percent.For Mr. McAuliffe’s part, abortion is the issue he has leaned into in the race’s final stretch, spending heavily on a TV ad showing hidden-camera video of Mr. Youngkin acknowledging that he must publicly downplay his opposition to abortion to win independent voters, but promising to go “on offense” if elected.A second McAuliffe TV ad on abortion predicted that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade and featured Mr. Youngkin saying he opposed adding a right to an abortion to Virginia’s constitution.Historically, a single-minded focus on abortion has driven mostly conservative voters. Now that abortion opponents appear on the brink of achieving what they have long sought, the power of the issue may shift toward Democrats. Its ability to motivate voters is receiving a trial run in Virginia. More

MIDNIGHT IN WASHINGTONHow We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still CouldBy Adam SchiffThe impact of Donald J. Trump’s presidency on the Republican Party has been a story well told, from reporters and scholars to Republicans of all stripes. Less frequently related, to the detriment of the reading public and the American voter, has been Trump’s impact on the Democratic Party.Few Democrats at the outset of 2016 believed he could be nominated, let alone win the presidency. “The G.O.P. is not that suicidal” and the “Democratic Party is not that lucky,” Representative Adam Schiff of California assured audiences that year. So naturally, when Trump became the Republican standard-bearer, Democratic lawmakers were at once horrified and delighted. They were shocked Republicans would nominate somebody they viewed as wildly unfit for the job but thrilled because surely the electorate would reject a crass demagogue and the party that enabled him.Voters would eventually punish Republicans, but it took Trump’s failed campaign for a second term before Democrats were able to claim control of the White House, House and Senate. In the meantime, Democratic leaders were left to grapple with what his ascent said about the country, their colleagues and the very system of American government.Few Democratic officials have done so in print, however, because they are still serving and because the Trump story is still unfolding. Schiff is one of the first to try to account for the last five, tumultuous years in American politics. As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a top lieutenant to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Schiff is well positioned to deliver insights on the time of Trump, at least from the perspective of a Democratic insider.“Midnight in Washington” delivers on that promise. Fittingly for a regular on television news shows, Schiff’s volume reads like a well-composed MSNBC segment on the Trump presidency — but with behind-the-scenes details on the working of Congress to go with the liberal commentary. The book is also something of a midlife memoir, as Schiff recalls his career as a prosecutor, his early campaigns and his first years in Congress following his 2000 election. There are recurring touches about his wife, Eve — yes, he notes, Adam and Eve — and some attempts at grounding himself by recounting how his two children responded to his Trump-era fame. (His daughter, borrowing Trump’s favorite insult for him, told him why so many strangers now recognized him: “Well, Dad, it’s the pencil neck.”) Mostly, though, this is a blistering indictment of Trump and his Republican enablers set alongside a what-I-saw-at-the-revolution account of Schiff’s role investigating Trump’s misdeeds..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The 61-year-old congressman is, understandably, appalled at Trump’s blithe disregard for the country’s foundational political norms. To read this recent history is to remember how brazen Trump was when, for example, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked him in 2019 if in his 2020 re-election bid he’d accept information from a foreign power on an opponent or contact the F.B.I. “I think maybe you do both,” Trump replied, adding: “I think I’d take it.”The heart of the book is the first impeachment of the former president: Schiff oversaw the inquiry from his committee perch and then served as the lead impeachment manager. He moves far more quickly through Jan. 6 and the second, more historically significant impeachment, in part because he was not as central a figure in those events.After the House voted to impeach Donald Trump, Dec. 18, 2019; Adam Schiff on left.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesIn more readable prose than most politicians are known to produce, Schiff recounts his conversations at high-stakes moments during Trump’s tenure. There was the time he and Pelosi determined that, with evidence growing that Trump had pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joseph R. Biden Jr., they decided to drop their longstanding reluctance to pursue impeachment. Speaking with Pelosi on his cellphone in a parking lot in September 2019, Schiff told her he thought it was time to move ahead on impeachment — but that he was appearing on a Sunday television news show the following day and did not want to get ahead of her. “You just tell ’em what you think,” the speaker responded in her clipped style, before taking his measure one last time as they hung up: “Are you ready to do this?” she asked.Just as vivid, if certainly one-sided, are Schiff’s vignettes about his Republican colleagues on the Intelligence Committee. Revealing conversations and text messages, he portrays them as reasonably good-faith actors at the outset of Trump’s tenure before becoming foot soldiers for the White House. These are names only the most committed political follower will recognize — Devin Nunes, Trey Gowdy, Michael Conaway — but in some ways their stories are more telling, and certainly fresher, than one more account of Trump raging in the Oval Office.After Schiff was told that Gowdy, a now-retired South Carolinian, was uneasy about holding public hearings into connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, Schiff tracked down his colleague in the Republican cloak room. In Schiff’s telling, Gowdy confessed that the real reason for his reluctance was that Republican lawmakers felt the then-F.B.I. director James Comey’s recent public testimony, acknowledging a federal investigation into Trump’s campaign, had been “an unmitigated disaster.”“Now things began to make a perverse sense,” Schiff writes, adding: “The hearing was a disaster in their eyes precisely because the public learned Trump campaign officials were under investigation, and that was evidently a fact that some of the Republican members of our committee would have preferred to remain secret.” This and similar realizations left Schiff in a state of near-despair about the opposition, although he had had congenial relationships with many of them through his career in Congress.For example, he once got along well with Nunes, a fellow Californian: The two would text about their favorite N.F.L. team, the Raiders. They both served on the House Intelligence Committee when Republicans were in the majority during the Obama years, and Nunes, Schiff writes, was “in the mold of a country club Republican.” Recounting Nunes’s transition to loyal MAGA man in the first year of Trump’s presidency, however, Schiff offers little by way of explanation. The only apparent attempt Schiff made to get through to Nunes resulted in his Republican colleague acting like something of a zombie. “He stared back at me impassively,” Schiff says.Schiff writes thoughtfully in the first chapters about the appeal of populist demagogues overseas, and how it could happen here, but he is less eager to delve too deeply into why Republican lawmakers fell into a Trump trance. Perhaps as a serving congressman, he senses political danger in pointing a finger at Republican voters who have made their party a personality cult.This suggests one reason that, as a genre, books by active politicians are typically not very edifying. Self-serving and less than candid about those they’ll need to further their careers — be they donors, voters or colleagues — the authors usually produce accounts that are closer to extended political pamphlets than works of history. Schiff’s is better than most, offering valuable contributions to the historical record. However, he’s still constrained by his present position and future ambitions.He muffles even mild criticism of Democratic lawmakers, though he’s clearly tempted to let loose as he alludes to those who, unlike him, have never faced a contested race. “Listening to the debates among my colleagues in Congress from time to time, I wished that all of them had run in a competitive general election just once,” he writes. Please, Mr. Schiff, go on.Perhaps he will when he retires. More

The country’s normally fractious opposition has rallied around a conservative mayor who just might be able to oust the authoritarian prime minister after more than a decade.HODMEZOVASARHELY, Hungary — A devout Catholic, he abhors abortion as “murder” and once voted for Viktor Orban, Hungary’s pugnacious populist leader, impressed by his promises to root out corruption and end the disarray left by years of leftist rule.On Sunday, however, Peter Marki-Zay, the mayor of this town in Hungary’s conservative rural heartland, became the most potent threat yet to the decade-long stranglehold on the country by Mr. Orban and his combative brand of far-right nationalism.Mr. Marki-Zay, 49, victorious in a primary election that brought together six previously squabbling opposition parties, is now the standard-bearer for a rickety political alliance that will challenge and, according to opinion polls, perhaps defeat Mr. Orban and his political machine, Fidesz, in legislative elections next year.Previous challengers hoping to unseat Mr. Orban, who has been prime minister since 2010, mostly channeled the frustrations and anger of a liberal elite in Budapest. This time, the mayor is fighting Fidesz on its own terms and home turf — small towns and villages where many voters, Mr. Marki-Zay included, once found comfort in Mr. Orban’s conservative message but grew disenchanted with what they see as his corruption, hypocrisy and authoritarian tendencies.“Orban’s only real ideology now is corruption,” Mr. Marki-Zay, the mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, (pronounced HOD-may-zur-vash-ar-hay), in southern Hungary, said in an interview in Budapest.Opposition supporters in Mr. Marki-Zay’s hometown, Hodmezovasarhely, casting ballots on Sunday in a primary to choose a single candidate to oppose Prime Minister Viktor Orban in elections next year.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesMany voters, particularly in Budapest, he added, do not share his own conservative views, “but they know I don’t steal and can beat Orban. I’m not corrupt.”Janos Csanyi, a 78-year-old former porcelain factory worker who used to vote for Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party, scoffed at Mr. Orban’s oft-repeated claim that, by demonizing migrants, many of whom are Muslim, and confronting the European Union over media freedom, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and other issues, Hungary is defending Europe’s traditional, Christian values.“I don’t understand what he is talking about,” Mr. Csanyi said, resting in the sun on a park bench in Hodmezovasarhely’s main square, adding that he had other priorities. “There are Ten Commandments and a very important one of these is: ‘Don’t Steal.’”An anti-corruption stance resonates loudly in Hodmezovasarhely. A former Fidesz mayor and a close associate of Mr. Orban, Janos Lazar, is part owner of a vast hunting lodge on a landed estate outside town, and a contract for an E.U.-funded street lighting project when it was controlled by Fidesz went to a company controlled by Mr. Orban’s son-in-law, upsetting many.Mr. Orban’s party had previously been Hodmezovasarhely’s only serious political force.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesThe European Union’s anti-graft agency investigated the lighting project and in 2018 reported “serious irregularities” and “conflicts of interest” in the awarding of contracts. Fidesz-appointed prosecutors declined to take up the case.“The lights don’t even work. When the sun goes down you can’t see anything,” said Norbert Forrai, a local resident who, despairing at Hungary’s direction under Mr. Orban, moved to England but recently returned home “to be part of the change that I hope is finally coming.”Fidesz still has many ways to block that change. It has a firm grip on most media outlets, and controls an extensive patronage network rooted in jobs in the state sector and in companies controlled by Mr. Orban’s associates.This gives the governing party far more levers to influence voters than the region’s other populist strongmen, one of whom, Andrej Babis, the Czech Republic’s billionaire prime minister, this month suffered an electoral defeat at the hands of a center-right coalition.Trained to savage Mr. Orban’s opponents as traitorous liberals serving the Hungarian-born financier George Soros, pro-Fidesz media outlets have struggled to find a new line of attack against an unexpected conservative opponent. A news portal close to Fidesz gave up trying over the weekend and claimed that Mr. Marki-Zay was also an agent of Mr. Soros.Mr. Marki-Zay with supporters at a campaign event in Budapest last week.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesFidesz has been so wrong-footed by the primaries that, at its local headquarters in Hodmezovasarhely last week, it was still collecting signatures for a petition denouncing a candidate who had already lost — the liberal mayor of Budapest.The Budapest mayor, Gergely Karacsony, withdrew from the primaries after the first round last month and urged his liberal base to rally behind Mr. Marki-Zay, a former marketing manager with seven children, who lived for five years in Canada and the United States.“We have to accept political reality. It is not liberals or greens who can beat right-wing populists,” Mr. Karacsony said in an interview. A future government led by a churchgoing provincial mayor, he added, “will obviously have different strategies than those I would pursue,” but “the important thing is to pick a candidate who can win against Orban.”And, he said, “Nationalist populism is most successful in small towns and rural areas where people are afraid.” He added, “Marki-Zay is a mayor in one of these places and understands the fears and problems of these people.”“We have to accept political reality. It is not liberals or greens who can beat right-wing populists,” Mayor Gergely Karacsony of Budapest said.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesThe populist wave that swept across Eastern and Central Europe and other parts of the world over the past decade was, he said, in the process of “passing” following the defeat of President Donald J. Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Mr. Babis in the Czech Republic.“Now it is up to Hungary and Poland,” Mr. Karacsony said, referring to his own country’s election next year and elections in 2023 that will decide whether Poland’s nationalist governing party, Law and Justice, hangs on to power.While describing himself as “first and foremost a Catholic,” Mr. Marki-Zay insists he respects the separation of church and state in Hungary and that his personal views on things like abortion will not shape his policies should he become prime minister. Mr. Orban, he added, was never really a conservative, “just an opportunist.”“He openly betrays Europe, the United States, NATO and Christian values,” he said, referring to Mr. Orban’s warm relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and China’s Communist Party leadership. “He is a crook.”Counting votes in Budapest on Sunday. The primary election brought together six previously squabbling opposition parties.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesHe expressed dismay that right-wing pundits and politicians in the United States like Tucker Carlson, who visited Hungary in August and lavished praise on Mr. Orban, view the country as a bastion of conservative values and a lodestar for those who value liberty. “Tucker Carlson forgot to mention where Orban stands on China and Putin,” Mr. Marki-Zay said.Mr. Marki-Zay shocked Fidesz in 2018 when he easily won a by-election in his hometown after the death of the incumbent, a supporter of Mr. Orban. A year later, he won a regular mayoral election with an even bigger margin.The end of Fidesz’s previous near-monopoly over local affairs rattled the party faithful.“It came as a big surprise for us all,” said Tomas Cseri, a Fidesz member of the municipal council.“If this could happen in a place like this it can happen anywhere,” Mr. Cseri added. “The longer you are in power the more and more people think it is time for a change.”“Fear is what keeps the whole system together,” said Imre Kendi, an architect who runs a construction business in Hodmezovasarhely, referring to Mr. Orban’s political machine.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesHe acknowledged that Mr. Marki-Zay is a more threatening opponent to the party than the losing left-wing candidate in the final round of the opposition primary, but, echoing a line promoted by Fidesz’s propaganda apparatus, dismissed him as a Trojan horse for leftists in the six-party coalition and denounced corruption allegations against Fidesz as a lie.“If we had stolen so much I would not be still riding that,” he said, pointing to an old bicycle parked against a lamppost.Still, anger against what many local residents, including former fans of Mr. Orban, see as theft and bullying by Fidesz is widespread.Imre Kendi, an architect who runs a construction business, used to vote for the governing party and once served as an adviser to Mr. Lazar when Fidesz still controlled the town. But he fell out with the former mayor, and soon found himself not being paid for money he was owed for a government contract, which he said forced him to declare bankruptcy.“Fear is what keeps the whole system together,” he said.But, he predicted, “change started here in this small town and now it is going to continue around the nation.”Portraits of Mr. Marki-Zay at a campaign event in Budapest.Akos Stiller for The New York Times More

Sometimes a dress is just a dress. Sometimes it’s a strategy.Senator Kyrsten Sinema may have been in Europe recently on a fund-raising trip and out of reach of the activists who have dogged her footsteps, frustrated with her obstruction of President Biden’s social spending bill. But despite the fact her office has been keeping her itinerary under wraps, were those protesters able to follow her overseas, there’s a good chance they would be able to find her.Not just because of her political theater. Ever since she was first elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2005, Ms. Sinema has always stood out in a crowd. And as Ms. Sinema’s legislative demands take center stage (along with those of Senator Joe Manchin, the other Biden Bill holdout) her history of idiosyncratic outfits has taken on a new cast.As Tammy Haddad, former MSNBC political director and co-founder of the White House Correspondents Weekend Insider, said of the senator, “If the other members of Congress had paid any attention to her clothing at all they would have known she wasn’t going to just follow the party line.”The senior senator from Arizona — the first woman to represent Arizona in the Senate, the first Democrat elected to that body from that state since 1995, and the first openly bisexual senator — has never hidden her identity as a maverick. In fact, she’s advertised it. Pretty much every day.Indeed, it was back in 2013, when she was first elected to the House of Representatives, that Elle crowned Ms. Sinema “America’s Most Colorful Congresswoman.” Since she joined the Senate, she has merely been further embracing that term. Often literally.Notice was served at her swearing-in on Jan. 3, 2019, when Ms. Sinema seemed to be channeling Marilyn Monroe in platinum blond curls, a white sleeveless pearl-trimmed top, rose-print pencil skirt and stiletto heels: She was never going to revert to pantsuit-wearing banality.Senator Sinema leaves the Senate reception room at the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump in 2020, her cape sweeping behind.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesInstead, she swept in as a white-cape-dressed crusader for Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, in January 2020. Modeled a variety of Easter-egg colored wigs — lavender, pink, green — to demonstrate, her spokeswoman Hannah Hurley told The Arizona Republic in May of last year, a commitment to “social distancing in accordance with best practices, including from salons.” (Ms. Hurley specified the wig cost $12.99.) Sported pompom earrings, a variety of animal prints, neoprene, and assorted thigh-high boots. And presided over the Senate on Feb. 23 of this year while wearing a hot pink sweater with the words “Dangerous Creature” on the front, prompting Mitt Romney to tell her she was “breaking the internet.”Her reply: “Good.”To dismiss that as a stunt rather than a foreshadowing is to give Ms. Sinema less credit than she is due. “She’s saying, ‘I can wear what I want and say what I think is important and I’m going to have a lot of impact doing it,’” Ms. Haddad said. “She is unencumbered by the norms of the institution.”Lauren A. Rothman, an image and style accountability coach in Washington who has been working with members of Congress for 20 years, said it’s part of a growing realization among politicians that “you are communicating at all times, because a clip on social media can be even more meaningful than something on national TV.” And that means “thinking at all times about what story you are telling with your nonverbal tools, which means your style.”As Washington has begun to realize. Conversation with various insiders and Congressologists offered theories on the wardrobe that suggested it was either: a sleight-of-hand, meant to distract from Ms. Sinema’s journey from progressive to moderate to possibly Republican-leaning; or meant to offer reassurance to her former progressive supporters that she wasn’t actually part of the conservative establishment.Richard Ford, a professor at Stanford Law School and the author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Changed History,” said he thought her image was designed to telegraph: “I’m a freethinker, my own person, not going along with convention, so even though I’m a part of the Democratic Party I am representing your interests, not theirs.” (As it happens Ms. Sinema is featured in the book as an example of a woman “unapologetically” bringing a more feminine approach to dress to “the halls of power.”)Whatever the interpretation, however, no one expressed any doubt that she knew exactly what she was doing. To pay attention is simply to acknowledge what Ms. Haddad called “a branding exercise” being done “at the highest level.” Either way, the senator’s office did not respond to emails on the subject.Senator Sinema in non-traditional silver talking with Senator Thom Tillis in traditional dark suit in 2020.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressSenator Sinema in the U.S. Capitol Building in 2020.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesAnother of Senator Sinema’s wigs, which came in a variety of Easter egg shades. This one matches the large flower on her dress.Pool photo by Tom WilliamsSenator Sinema stood out like a beacon in a bright red halter dress, blue beads, and an apple watch during a news conference in July.Alex Wong/Getty ImagesAfter all, said Hilary Rosen, the vice chair of the political consultancy SKDKickerbocker, who has known Ms. Sinema since 2011, the senator “used to dress more like the rest of us, in simple dresses” and the occasional suit jacket. But, Ms. Rosen said, “I’ve seen a real shift in the last few years, and I think they way she dresses now is a sign of her increasing confidence as a legislator. She’s not afraid to wear her personality on her sleeve, and that’s rare in a politician. They usually dress for ambiguity.”There are few places, after all, more hidebound when it comes to personal style than Congress, which long had a dress code that included the caveat that congresswomen were not supposed to show their shoulders or arms in the building. The House changed its rules in 2017, but the Senate hewed to tradition until Ms. Sinema’s election; the rules were actually changed for her.According to Jennifer Steinhauer’s book “The Firsts: the Inside Story of the Women Reshaping Congress,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, the senior member on the Senate Rules Committee, went to leadership before the last swearing-in to request the rules be reconsidered to reflect the modern world. She knew Ms. Sinema, a triathlete, had a penchant for showing her arms, and believed the new senator “needed to be allowed to wear what she wanted” in her new workplace. Some male senators grumbled, but acceded. (In the end, Ms. Sinema compromised by carrying a silver faux-fur stole to cover her shoulders.)But for women, Capitol Hill is traditionally a land of Talbots and St. John’s; of dressing to camouflage yourself in the group so it is your words that stand out, not your clothes. As Mr. Ford said, “Women are always subject to heightened scrutiny and criticism,” and in Washington this is even more true.There’s a reason Kamala Harris, the first female vice president, seems to wear only dark pantsuits. A reason the Women’s Campaign School at Yale Law, an annual five-day intensive training course for female elected officials hosted by the school (though not administered by it), includes a seminar entitled “Dress to Win.” Any woman in the political public eye has to make a decision about her clothes, whether she likes it or not, and resorting to the most nondescript common denominator is the norm.Senator Sinema, on the second day of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol in February, modeling message dressing.Pool photo by Joshua RobertsSenator Sinema on Capitol Hill in September in tiger stripes, though not the kind normally seen in nature.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesSenator Sinema in September, this time in a sort of cow print.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesYet more wild animal imagery, courtesy of the sweater Senator Sinema wore for a vote in the Capitol in March.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesWhen statements have been made with dress, they have been made with clear intent, both individually — the flamethrower coat Nancy Pelosi wore when she faced down President Donald J. Trump over his border wall; her many face masks; her mace pin — and with critical mass, as when the women of the House wore white to Mr. Trump’s State of the Union in 2019 and 2020. However, such visual messaging remains the exception to the general rule (that’s part of what makes these moments stand out, and gives them their power).When fashion comes into play, it is more generally as a gesture of international diplomacy (where it is often left to the first lady to get fancy in the name of playing nice on a state visit) or national boosterism, using the political spotlight to promote local business and thus justify the choice of a designer name as a move to help the economy (see President Biden’s decision to wear Ralph Lauren to his swearing-in).Senator Sinema began her Washington career by breaking that tradition, clearly reveling in a seemingly endless wardrobe of eye-catching, idiosyncratic and colorful clothes speckled with flowers and zebra stripes: the kind more often labeled “fun” rather than, say, “sober” or “serious”; the kind that were unidentifiable in terms of provenance (where did she get them? where were they made? who knew?); the kind that are not unusual in civilian life, but stand out like neon lights under the rotunda of the Capitol; the kind that maybe call to mind an uninhibited co-worker with a zest for retail therapy at the mall. But that the senator continued to do so as she ascended the political ranks served two purposes.Everything’s coming up floral, as Senator Sinema leaves a closed-door bipartisan infrastructure meeting on Capitol Hill in June.Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated PressMore blooms on Senator Sinema in September.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesPuffed sleeves and poesies on Senator Sinema in September.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIt made her nationally recognizable in a way very few new members of Congress are, and it placed her at the forefront of a social trend at a time when dress codes of all kinds are being reconsidered — and often left behind. (It’s no accident that the other congresswoman sworn in at the same time who has become a household name, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is equally good at using the tools of image making to craft her political message.)And, it made it clear she just wasn’t going to apologize for enjoying shopping. She clearly does a lot of it. So what? As far as she is concerned, she can have her stuff and substance too.In other words, all those seemingly kooky clothes that Ms. Sinema is wearing aren’t kooky at all. They’re signposts. And the direction they are pointing is entirely her way. More

Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state who played a pivotal role in attempting to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday. After his time in government, Powell remained a hugely influential commentator on US politics and public life. During a 2011 speech, he spoke about what he considered the most important element of leadership

Washington mourns death of Colin Powell as first tributes come in – live More

NASHVILLE — When NPR’s tech reporter, Bobby Allyn, tweeted last week that the social media site Parler was moving its headquarters from Nevada to Nashville, a single word came to my mind — a word this newspaper will not publish, no matter that it is the only word in the English language truly appropriate to the situation.Parler’s chief executive, George Farmer, offered some reasons for moving the company. “Tennessee has great weather, an abundance of Southern hospitality, wonderful music and barbecue,” he wrote in an email announcement. “Even more than that, though, Tennessee shares Parler’s vision of individual liberty and free expression.”Founded in 2018 as a less regulated alternative to Facebook and Twitter, Parler is an online place where high-profile right-wing commentators and political figures can promulgate lies and conspiracy theories without interference. Though the company notified the F.B.I. about threats of violence in advance of the insurrection on Jan. 6, and has since added algorithms to detect posts calling directly for violence, it was nonetheless Parler’s vision of “free expression” that helped bring about the invasion of the U.S. Capitol by homegrown terrorists.The craven Republicans running Tennessee might share that vision of liberty, but Nashville definitely does not. Nashville, according to NBC News, is “a big blue dot in a deep red state.” That fact should tell you all you need to know about the relationship between this city and our state government. You likely know this dynamic already because it exists in virtually every major city or college town in every gerrymandered state governed by Republicans: Think Oxford, Miss.; Atlanta, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; Lexington, Ky.; Austin, Texas.; Chapel Hill, N.C.What you might not know is that Nashville is also in the midst of a convulsive identity crisis, unsure whether it wants to remain Music City or become something more like a tech incubator or a health care center or a financial services hub. Or maybe just the place where bridesmaids come to get drunk in the street.A midsize city on its way to becoming a big city can be all these things at once, of course, especially if it is a midsize city that is growing deliberately, in ways that do not displace its low-income residents or its work force. Especially if it is a midsize city that is investing in its public schools and building out its infrastructure to accommodate its meteoric growth.Nashville is doing those things poorly, if at all, and some of the blame for this paralysis can be laid at the feet of state government, which frequently passes pre-emptive laws or issues pre-emptive executive orders designed to tie the hands of Nashville leaders. The very last thing this city needs is to become the headquarters of a social media site favored by the right-wingers who are most poisoned by lies and hatred and fear.The truth is that high-profile members of the far right have been moving to Middle Tennessee since long before Parler announced its impending relocation. As the Nashville Scene’s Steven Hale noted when the conservative media celebrity Ben Shapiro decided to move the headquarters of The Daily Wire, the media company he co-founded, from Los Angeles to Nashville: “Look, we try hard to ignore these people,” Hale wrote. Nevertheless, here they are.And it’s not just celebrities who are moving to town. The coronavirus pandemic taught a lot of people that they can work wherever they want to work, and increasingly where people seem to want to work is in a state with no income tax. In my neighborhood alone, we have newcomers from Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and a bunch of other places I can’t name because I haven’t met the new people yet. A few weeks ago, I overheard a conversation between two new neighborhood children on bicycles. “Are you from Nashville?” the first child asked. “I’m from Des Moines,” the other kid said.We are hospitable people here in Tennessee, it’s true, and we do have great music and barbecue. But Mr. Farmer should know that Tennessee’s “great weather” includes six of the 18 billion-dollar weather disasters to hit the U.S. this year — catastrophic weather events triggered by a changing climate that many on his site deny exists. More

Bret Stephens: Gail, I know we don’t typically talk about office politics, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid — as when our friend and colleague Nick Kristof leaves us to run for governor of his home state of Oregon. Our readers ought to know what an incredible guy he is behind the scenes.Gail Collins: Bret, I am extremely proud to say that when I was the editor of this section, I lured Nick over from the news side to be a columnist.One of his early projects was to write about the vile goings-on in a remote African country. I can’t remember all the details. But it involved a short plane ride that cost about $10,000 because he was barred from entry and had to be flown in by a brave pilot who claimed to be transporting a barrel of wheat.Bret: Now you’re going to see Nick’s opponents accuse him of flying private.Gail: I was of course impressed by the work, but the small, evil part of my brain thought, “Wow, this guy is going to cost me a fortune.” Then I started getting his bills for the long trek through Africa that followed, and they were like, hotel: $2; dinner: $1.25.Bret: Nick is one of the few people I know who actively seeks out opposing points of view, which only makes him hold his own with greater depth and zero rancor. He and I probably disagree on 95 percent of policy issues (OK, Oregon lefties, make that 100 percent). But I never missed his columns because there was always something important and interesting to learn from them.Also, accounts of Kristof family holidays fill me with a sense of both awe and deep parental inadequacy.Moving from the inspiring to the debased, what do you think the chances are that Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy will ever challenge Donald Trump on his claims of election fraud?Gail: Well, about the same as my chances of competing in the next Olympics.Bret: Your chances are better.Gail: Watching the rally Trump had recently in Iowa, I was sort of fascinated by his apparent inability to focus on anything but the last election. Don’t think a 2020 do-over is at the top of anybody else’s list of priorities.Bret: It would be nice to think that his obsession with 2020 is solely a function of his personal insecurities. But there’s a strategy involved here, which is hard to describe as anything less than sinister. Within the Republican Party, he’s making the stolen-election fantasy a litmus test, which Republican politicians defy at the peril of either being primaried by a Trump toady or losing vital Trump voters in close elections. At the national level, he’s creating a new “stab in the back” myth to undermine the legitimacy of democracy itself.Of course Joe Biden’s job performance so far isn’t helping things.Gail: About our current commander in chief: Biden’s moving into troubled waters — through no fault of his own — as chances grow of strikes or some kind of work stoppage everywhere from the cereal industry to tractor factories. He’s vowed to be “the most pro-union president” in history. Am I right in guessing that’s not something you’d look forward to?Bret: Anyone remember a certain politician from the late 1970s named James Callaghan? He was the U.K.’s Labour prime minister during the “Winter of Discontent,” when the country seemed to be perpetually on strike. Those strikes were the proximate cause of Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979, which is something the Biden administration might bear in mind before getting too close to the unions.Gail: Did I ever tell you that long ago, in days of yore, I was president of the union at a small paper in Milwaukee? We only formed it because the publisher was a truly evil guy who’d threaten to write editorials denouncing local businesses unless they invested in advertising. Went on strike and the publisher closed down the whole operation.Bret: He sounds like Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons.” You went on to bigger and better things.Gail: This is a prelude to saying that I think unions are critical to protecting the nation’s workers, but well aware that they don’t protect everybody who needs it.Bret: I still think the most pro-worker thing the White House can do is get the infrastructure bill passed. Biden dearly needs a political victory, especially one like infrastructure that will divide Republicans while keeping Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on the Democratic side, as opposed to the social spending bill that unites Republicans and alienates those two.Gail: I’ll refrain from pointing out that Sinema appears to be the captive of big-donor business interests and that the climate change part of Biden’s bill is now under pressure because of Manchin’s ties to Big Coal.Instead, remind me how you came around to be on the side of Big Spending.Bret: I love your concept of “refraining.”In my perfect world, the federal government would be about one-third the size that it is today and we would privatize and regulate functions like the Post Office, Amtrak and Social Security. But we live with the reality of big government and a Democratic presidency, so I’d prefer my tax dollars to go into investments that produce blue-collar jobs in the short term and long-term returns in public utilization. Plus, a lot of our infrastructure could really use a major upgrade: Just think of New Jersey.Gail: Ah, New Jersey. Sending you sympathy, which you’ll have time to appreciate while caught in traffic jams and train backups.Bret: In the meantime, it looks like the commission Biden appointed to study reforms for the Supreme Court was divided on the idea of adding new justices. The commission also seemed lukewarm on other ideas, like term limits for justices. Personally, I’m pretty relieved, but some of my liberal friends seem to think this was a lost opportunity.Gail: I’d like to be on your side when it comes to court appointments. Having one arm of government that takes an apolitical, long-term view of the world is definitely desirable.I hate to say one more time that I remember when …But I remember when both parties regarded Supreme Court appointments as something special; everybody tried to join hands in search of candidates who were wise and willing to rise above short-term partisan concerns.Well, at least that’s what they said. And even pretending to be bipartisan is better than nothing.Bret: Forty years ago, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ronald Reagan’s first nominee, was confirmed by the Senate in a vote of 99-0. The vote for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bill Clinton’s first nominee, was 96-3. Since then, things have pretty much gone to hell.Gail: Mitch McConnell ruined the tradition by refusing to hold hearings on Barack Obama’s nominees. I truly doubt we’ll ever be able to return to the old ways. And if so, we should do some reorganizing. That might include term limits of maybe 18 to 20 years.Bret: I would quarrel a bit about whether the blame lies solely with Mitch. Some of us remember Harry Reid, when he was Senate majority leader, blocking qualified judges nominated by George W. Bush. But I also think a 20-year term-limited appointment to the high bench wouldn’t be the worst thing.Gail: By the way, speaking of long-running arguments, I see the New York City Council is thinking about tossing Thomas Jefferson’s statue out of City Hall. We’ve talked about this before, but any change in your feelings about whether we should withdraw that kind of honor from founding father slaveholders?Bret: My mind’s unchanged. If you’re going to get rid of Jefferson’s statute on that account, then why not get rid of the statues of George Washington, since he was also a slaveholder? For that matter, why not start a campaign to rename both the national capital and the state? This is the kind of dumb, symbol-chasing leftism that can only wind up helping Trump.Gail: Not arguing for renaming all the George Washington stuff, but it’d be nice to have a state named after, say, Susan B. Anthony.Bret: Anthony’s home state of Massachusetts should consider it. It would relieve the commonwealth of the sin of cultural appropriation and is also a lot easier to spell.We should be able to see our founders’ profound flaws while also honoring the fact that they established a republic in which the principle of human liberty and equality were able to take root and flourish as nowhere else, and in which the concept of a “more perfect union” is written into the Constitution. In the context of the late 18th century, that was an extraordinary step forward.Gail: Jefferson’s always been one of my least-favorite founders — his attitude toward women could be creepy even by 18th-century standards.Bret: Him and J.F.K. and a few other presidents I could mention.Gail: My rule is that big names of the past should be honored on the basis of their main thing — I’m OK with giving Columbus a holiday to commemorate his life as an explorer, as long as we spend a good part of it recalling his slaughter of Native Americans.Bret: Agree entirely. And preserve the names of Ohio’s capital and the Upper West Side’s premier institution of higher learning in the bargain.Gail: What bothers me about the Virginia founding fathers is that although they made inspiring speeches about liberty, most of them were focused on protecting their state institutions from federal intervention. Particularly plantation life and culture, which included slaves.The New-York Historical Society may be willing to take Jefferson’s statue on a “loan” and that seems like a good plan.Bret: That’ll give us something to keep arguing about.Gail: In the meantime, I’ll honor Jefferson for the Declaration of Independence. Always appreciate somebody who’s good with words. Which is why I enjoy our conversations, Bret. Bet I wouldn’t have nearly as much fun going back and forth with Thomas J.Bret: Nor I with Susan B.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

Robert Jimison, Jessica Cheung More