Elections

MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed new voting restrictions into law on Thursday that put him in line with other Republicans around the country — with a display of nose-thumbing contempt toward journalists that evoked former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. DeSantis’ brash style has made him stand out from other potential heirs to Mr. Trump’s populist legacy. But his actions are part of a national effort by Republicans to limit the use of popular ballot drop boxes, add identification requirements for voters requesting absentee ballots and do away with local laws that allow automatic registration for absentee voting.The next big move could happen in Texas, although the situation at the State Capitol in Austin is in flux. There is movement in virtually every state with a Republican-controlled legislature — including in Arizona, where G.O.P. lawmakers are conducting an audit of the November results, an exercise that has been plagued by lapses in basic security and accounting procedures.All of this comes in the wake of Mr. Trump’s loss, and his subsequent false claims that expansion of ballot access led to rampant voter fraud. Official audits of election results around the country, conducted by officials from both parties, found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.Mr. DeSantis enacted the legislation even after he had promoted Florida’s handling of the November elections. Mr. Trump won the state by three percentage points.The governor gave Fox News, his preferred major cable news outlet — and Mr. Trump’s — an exclusive to broadcast the bill signing ceremony from West Palm Beach on Thursday morning, in an event that resembled a campaign rally as much as an official act of state government.Supporters of Mr. DeSantis gathered inside a Hilton near the airport, donning DeSantis and Trump campaign gear. Before they entered, some people waved Trump-DeSantis and DeSantis 2024 banners, according to photos on social media shared by journalists locked outside the doors.“Right now, I have what we think is the strongest election integrity measures in the country,” a seated Mr. DeSantis told Fox as a rowdy crowd cheered behind him.Mr. DeSantis and his predecessors have been known to sign bills, especially controversial ones, in private. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a lower-key politician who has kept Mr. Trump at a relative arm’s length, signed his state’s bill in a conference room in his office, as a Democratic state legislator knocked on the door, demanding to be let in.Giving exclusive access to a cable news network was unusual, if not unprecedented. A reporter from a local CBS station said it was supposed to carry the broadcast feed for other stations, a practice known as pooling, but was also not allowed inside.Florida is the latest state to pass voter restrictions as Republicans move to reverse gains made by Democrats in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere. In Texas, Republicans in the legislature are brushing aside objections from corporate titans like Dell Technologies, Microsoft and American Airlines and moving on a vast election bill that would be among the most severe in the nation. It would impose new restrictions on early voting, ban drive-through voting, threaten election officials with harsher penalties and greatly empower partisan poll watchers. The main bill passed a key committee in a late-night session on Thursday, and could head to a full floor vote in the House as early as next week.Bills to restrict voting have also been moving through Republican-led legislatures in Arizona and Michigan. More

MADRID — En mitad de la campaña electoral más crispada de la democracia, y con las encuestas en contra, Edmundo Bal se abrazó a un lema sencillo para desmarcarse de la competencia: “Vota al partido que no insulta”. El aspirante de Ciudadanos a la presidencia de la región de Madrid quedó último. El resultado deja a su partido, que en sus orígenes fue visto como una esperanza frente a los bandos tradicionalmente enfrentados, fuera del parlamento y al centro político español moribundo. Aunque Bal trató de focalizar su campaña en planes de acción concretos, nadie escuchaba en medio del ruido.Edmundo Bal, el aspirante de Ciudadanos a la presidencia de la región de Madrid, quedó último.David Fernandez/EPA, via ShutterstockEl debate político en Madrid quedó reducido a las consignas de los salvapatrias de uno y otro bando. Mientras la derecha sostenía que la democracia solo sobreviviría en sus manos —“comunismo o libertad”—, la izquierda se presentó como muro de contención frente a un fascismo que supuestamente estaba a punto de tomar la Puerta del Sol.La victoria fue para la conservadora Isabel Díaz Ayuso, que disparó su popularidad durante la pandemia al mantener la economía abierta y resistirse a aplicar las restricciones impuestas en otras regiones españolas. La presidenta madrileña, del Partido Popular, consolida con su triunfo aplastante el ayusismo, una nueva variante de la derecha populista que ha explotado con habilidad la polarización de la política nacional.La votación confirmó la maldición histórica del centro en España. Los intentos de reinventar la tercera vía española han fracasado desde el declive de la Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD), el partido que pilotó los primeros años de transición democrática tras la dictadura del general Francisco Franco, entre 1975 y 1982. Las razones de ese fiasco continuo hay que buscarlas en una mezcla de errores propios, traiciones internas y sabotajes externos, a los que suelen unirse con similar entusiasmo derecha e izquierda. Ciudadanos es el mejor ejemplo de cómo llevar un partido desde lo más alto a la destrucción en apenas dos años.La formación “naranja” nació en Cataluña con el liderazgo carismático de Albert Rivera, un político entonces rompedor que en su campaña de 2006 se presentó literalmente desnudo ante la ciudadanía. Era su manera simbólica de ofrecer transparencia, reformismo, meritocracia y diálogo, la oferta con la que atrajo a las clases urbanas, liberales y profesionales de las grandes ciudades. Al partido no le importó pactar con los socialistas en Andalucía y con los conservadores en Madrid, porque sus objetivos regeneradores se imponían a las preferencias ideológicas.En abril de 2019, Ciudadanos se convirtió en la tercera fuerza del país.La idea era que Albert Rivera cambiaría la política, pero la política lo cambió antes a él. El éxito alimentó sus ambiciones y lo apostó todo a convertirse en el líder hegemónico de la derecha, alejándose del centro e incluso legitimando a la extrema derecha en un movimiento que traicionó los principios liberales de su partido. Su negativa a pactar un gobierno de coalición con Pedro Sánchez, forzando una repetición electoral, hizo que Ciudadanos pasara de 57 diputados a 10 entre las elecciones de abril y noviembre de 2019. Rivera dimitió y su sucesora, Inés Arrimadas, ha intentado desde entonces un regreso al centro.Inés Arrimadas, su sucesora, ha intentado regresar al centro, pero todo indica que ya es tarde.Seguidores de Isabel Díaz Ayuso en Madrid.Bernat Armangue/Associated PressEl espacio moderado se ha achicado y estos días la estrategia que mejor funciona pasa por la retórica agresiva, el enfrentamiento y la creación de enemigos, reales o ficticios. La extrema derecha lo comprendió muy pronto y en Madrid ha renovado esa estrategia, con la colaboración a veces voluntaria y otras entusiasta de medios de comunicación que se han convertido en altavoces de su histrionismo. Vox captó la atención estigmatizando con datos falsos a menores migrantes, redobló su lenguaje guerracivilista y alimentó miedos populares como el crimen, a pesar de que Madrid es una de las ciudades más seguras del mundo, con el único propósito de presentarse como solución. El partido mejoró sus resultados, incluso con el ayusismo amenazando parte de su espacio electoral.La política española sube el tono con cada votación y devora cada vez más rápido a sus líderes, quemados en un ambiente de polarización extrema y un sistema de partidos que castiga la disidencia interna. La renuncia en estos años de destacados dirigentes con talento y capacidad de diálogo —el socialista Eduardo Madina, el popular Borja Sémper o el centrista Toni Roldán, que abandonó Ciudadanos por su viraje a la derecha—, empobrece el debate público y deja el espacio abierto a demagogos y oportunistas. Triunfan políticos que, a izquierda y derecha, carecen de preparación o curiosidad intelectual, desprecian la inteligencia o la razón sin el menor complejo, ofrecen soluciones simples para problemas graves y explotan sin escrúpulos el hartazgo de la gente.El centro, mientras tanto, vuelve a quedar huérfano y no se vislumbra una alternativa a las expectativas que una vez generó Ciudadanos. Es una mala noticia porque se necesita con urgencia un partido dispuesto a acercar a las dos Españas, aún a riesgo de recibir golpes de ambas. En otro momento de gran tensión, cuando en los años setenta el país vivía un pulso entre fuerzas autoritarias y democráticas, la figura de Adolfo Suárez y la desaparecida UCD fueron clave para crear una atmósfera que lograra un consenso por el bien común.España vuelve a necesitar un partido que ejerza ese papel mediador y sea capaz de dejar las trincheras ideológicas para buscar soluciones pragmáticas a los problemas de los ciudadanos. En mitad del embrutecimiento actual de la política nacional, el coraje no reside en gritar más alto al adversario, hoy convertido en enemigo, sino en sentarlo a dialogar las diferencias. Un país sin espacio para el centro está condenado a enfrentarse en los extremos.David Jiménez (@DavidJimenezTW) es escritor y periodista. Su libro más reciente es El director. More

A wrestler’s job is to sell an absurd fiction, and make it reality — maybe it’s not so different from politics.Listen to This ArticleThe eighth episode of “Young Rock” finds the show’s protagonist, a 15-year-old Dwayne Johnson, in a classic sitcom predicament. He has pretended to be rich to impress a classmate named Karen, who has the blond hair and movie-grade makeup that teenage boys dream of. Now she is coming over for dinner and expecting to see a palace; in reality, Young Rock is squeezed into a small apartment with his parents, who struggle to pay the rent. The show, which just finished its first season on NBC, follows the actor’s childhood growing up around the professional wrestling business, back when his father, Rocky Johnson, was a star. In a bind, Young Rock turns to his father for the sort of advice only he can provide.“I understand,” Rocky says with paternal knowingness and a roguish smile that implies he has been here before. “You were working a gimmick, and you cornered yourself.” In pro wrestling, working a gimmick is the tapestry of untruths you speak and act into reality — the commitment to character that propels the most gifted fabulists into superstardom. The all-American Hulk Hogan persuaded children to eat their vitamins; the Undertaker somehow made people think he really was an undead mortician; Rocky, who dressed fantastically and went by “Soulman,” was the coolest guy around. (It wasn’t more complicated than that.) It’s why, on the show, he leaves the wrestling arena in a fancy Lincoln Continental, only to check into a run-down motel for the night — he has created a high-rolling persona for the fans, and he must keep it intact. And it’s why he dismisses Young Dwayne’s concerns that maybe he should just come clean with Karen. “Wrong, son,” he says. “What you gotta do is work the gimmick even harder.”Professional wrestling is a form of entertainment that invites viewers to understand its fictive properties but nevertheless still buy into its dramas; in fact, the knowledge that it’s all constructed quickly gives way to a form of meta-appreciation. And unlike actors in a conventional TV drama, wrestlers are their characters, even in real life. This informal contract between performer and audience to never break character means that no matter where Rocky Johnson goes, he’s still recognizable as himself and must behave accordingly.With “Young Rock,” Johnson may very well be trying to find out if this alchemy can be performed for real: if a fiction can be created in front of an audience and then imposed on reality. The framing device for the show, the reason we’re learning about Young Rock’s life, is that Johnson is on the campaign trail for the 2032 presidential race, where he has a real shot to win. Like all coming-of-age stories — and most instantly remaindered political memoirs — “Young Rock” purports to trace how Johnson’s upbringing turned him into the man he is today: wrestling champion, the highest-paid actor on the planet, maybe a future president. Roll your eyes, but accept the possibility. Ever since Donald Trump was elected, plenty of charismatic celebrities have been floated as potential candidates. More than the other contenders — Oprah, Mark Cuban — Johnson has gained real traction, even going so far as to publicly state that he wouldn’t run in 2020 but that it was something he “seriously considered.”Johnson passes every cosmetic test: handsome, tall, voice like a strong handshake. He’s the star of several film franchises that future voters will have grown up watching. And while a different show might play all this for laughs, “Young Rock” frequently lapses into what messaging for Johnson’s actual campaign might sound like. It’s never specified whether he’s running as a Democrat or a Republican; he presents as a third-way politician who just wants America to push past its divisions. Candidate Rock is a little like Michael Bloomberg, but with more convincing platitudes and even better delts. One episode shows Young Rock watching his grandmother’s wrestling company struggle to adjust to contemporary trends, something that leads candidate Rock to sympathize with everyday Americans concerned about their jobs being replaced by automation. Another ties his childhood friendship with Andre the Giant to his selection of a female general (played by Rosario Dawson) as his running mate — because, just like Andre, the general will “always push me to consider other points of view.” (She had previously endorsed his opponent.) Celebrity politicians, like Trump or Arnold Schwarzenegger, can usually skip this self-mythologizing process; the reason they’re running is that people already know who they are. But on “Young Rock,” Johnson runs a fairly conventional campaign; he even engenders a small controversy when he eats a Philly cheesesteak improperly. The insistence that his candidacy would be in any way conventional only heightens the sense that the show is a road map for an actual run.Back in 1987, Young Rock takes his father’s advice to double down on the gimmick in order to impress Karen. It backfires when she sees through the ruse, because for most people charisma can transform reality only so far — and even wrestlers run into this barrier, once their stars fade a little, or their addictions take root, or they simply grow older. Wrestling history is littered with ignoble ends and performers who couldn’t quite accept that the show was over. But there’s one — the only one who has ever lived, actually — who has kept doubling down and seen his star ascend accordingly. For most people, charisma can only transform reality so far — and even wrestlers run into this barrier. Johnson followed his father into professional wrestling, then left the W.W.E. at the apex of his success to get started in Hollywood; he latched himself to the “Fast & Furious” franchise, always playing some version of his stentorian, trash-talking wrestling persona, until he became a movie star in his own right; when his name started coming up as a potential presidential candidate, he indulged the rumors rather than say, “Wait a minute, I’m the guy who says, ‘Can you smell what the Rock is cooking?’” And here he is now, maybe sort-of speaking his fictional presidential campaign into reality, a compelling “will he or won’t he” drama that’s up there with any of his best wrestling or Hollywood stories.“Young Rock” has been modestly successful, averaging more than four million viewers per episode. It’s not Trump’s “The Apprentice,” which was a genuine hit for a decade. But Johnson has many other concurrent efforts to expand his fame across American life: A new “Fast & Furious” movie comes out in June; his relaunch of the much-maligned X.F.L., which he purchased last year, is still in the works; there are rumors that he’ll return to the W.W.E. for a final match. Nobody has ever taken this path to the Oval Office, but you could have said that about Trump, who also understood the importance of committing to character. When your supporters want to believe what you’re saying, there’s no limit to how far the gimmick can go.Source photographs: Mark Taylor/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images; David M. Benett/WireImage, via Getty Images; PM Images, via Getty Images. More

House Republicans were lobbying to replace Representative Liz Cheney, who has vocally called out Donald J. Trump’s lies, with Representative Elise Stefanik, who has embraced them.WASHINGTON — Top Republicans moved swiftly on Wednesday to purge Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from their leadership ranks for vocally rejecting Donald J. Trump’s election lies, laying the groundwork to install a replacement who has embraced his false claims of voting fraud.The move to push out Ms. Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican in favor of Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, a Trump loyalist who voted to overturn President Biden’s victory in key states, reflected how thoroughly the party’s orthodoxy has come to be defined by fealty to the former president and a tolerance for misinformation, rather than policy principles.“The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution,” Ms. Cheney wrote in a searing opinion piece published in the Washington Post on Wednesday evening. She framed her fate as a referendum on the party’s future and warned that Republicans must “steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality.”Ms. Cheney, 54, is a conservative who rarely defected from Mr. Trump’s policy positions in Congress, but she has refused to absolve him or the party of their roles in fomenting the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol with groundless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Ms. Stefanik, 36, is more moderate and has more often parted ways with Republicans over her years in Congress, but she has emerged recently as one of Mr. Trump’s most vociferous defenders, willing to indulge and even amplify those claims.After days of quiet discussions about ousting Ms. Cheney, the effort erupted into open Republican warfare on Wednesday morning. Party leaders and Mr. Trump himself publicly boosted Ms. Stefanik, both women issued defiant statements about their intentions and dueling factions in the party competed to frame an episode with broad implications for the 2022 midterm elections and beyond.By day’s end, even President Biden had weighed in on what he called a “mini-rebellion” in the Republican ranks, arguing that the party was plagued by an inability to define itself.The turmoil illustrated how heavily Mr. Trump still looms over the Republican Party, where a pilgrimage to pay homage to the former president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., has become a required stop for elected leaders and efforts to restrict voting — in the name of his claims of a stolen election — are proliferating around the country.What was clear on Wednesday was that House Republicans were headed for a confrontation, as soon as next week, that now appears likely to result in Ms. Cheney’s firing from her leadership post. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican, became the highest-ranking figure to call for her removal, endorsing Ms. Stefanik as Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, lobbied behind the scenes on the New Yorker’s behalf.“House Republicans need to be solely focused on taking back the House in 2022 and fighting against Speaker Pelosi and President Biden’s radical socialist agenda,” said Lauren Fine, a spokeswoman for Mr. Scalise. “Elise Stefanik is strongly committed to doing that, which is why Whip Scalise has pledged to support her for conference chair.”Support from Mr. McCarthy, in particular, had helped save Ms. Cheney from a similar challenge in February after her vote to impeach Mr. Trump. But the top leader, like rank-and-file Republicans, had grown increasingly frustrated in recent weeks as Ms. Cheney continued to call out Mr. Trump in media interviews and took shots at her own party for tolerating his falsehoods, including during a party retreat in Orlando last week.By Wednesday, as it became clear that Mr. McCarthy had turned on her, Ms. Cheney was hitting back at him personally, noting that while the leader had initially condemned Mr. Trump for failing to call off his supporters during the Jan. 6 riot, “he has since changed his story.”Mr. Trump, who had been furious at Mr. McCarthy and others for backing Ms. Cheney earlier this year, sought to drive a nail in her political coffin on Wednesday. In a statement, he derided her as a “warmongering fool” and endorsed Ms. Stefanik, whom he called “a far superior choice.”“We want leaders who believe in the Make America Great Again movement, and prioritize the values of America First,” he wrote. “Elise is a tough and smart communicator!”Ms. Stefanik, a fourth-term congresswoman representing New York’s Adirondack region, had initially been wary of appearing as if she was pushing Ms. Cheney out for personal gain. But mere minutes after receiving Mr. Trump’s support, she abandoned any hint of reticence and took her campaign to replace Ms. Cheney public. “We are unified and focused on FIRING PELOSI & WINNING in 2022!” she wrote on Twitter.Seeing votes stacking up against Ms. Cheney, her supporters said she would not fight the drive to dethrone her; unlike in February, she has not tried to rally her allies on or off Capitol Hill. But they said she also did not intend to go quietly.Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, perhaps Ms. Cheney’s most outspoken supporter, demanded on Twitter that every lawmaker “go on the record as to how they will vote on @RepLizCheney in operation #coverupJan6 and concerned donors should take notes.”Ms. Cheney herself sought to appeal to like-minded Republicans in her opinion piece, warning that they risked driving the party toward irrelevance for short-term gain.“While embracing or ignoring Trump’s statements might seem attractive to some for fund-raising and political purposes, that approach will do profound long-term damage to our party and our country,” Ms. Cheney wrote. “Trump has never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people. This is immensely harmful.”Yet she found few other Republicans willing to defend her publicly, even among those who forcefully condemned Mr. Trump after Jan. 6 and sought to wrestle control of the party away from him.Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader who vocally stood behind Ms. Cheney in the past and had previously made clear he wanted to purge Mr. Trump from the party, declined to address her predicament on Wednesday.“One hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this administration,” he said, repeating the sentence almost word for word in response to follow-up questions about the move to oust Ms. Cheney.Weighing in on Wednesday from the White House, Mr. Biden, who has sought out Republican support to pass a series of sprawling infrastructure plans, expressed regret about what he characterized as a party at risk of imploding.“We badly need a Republican Party,” Mr. Biden said. “We need a two-party system. It’s not healthy to have a one-party system.”In rallying around Ms. Stefanik, Republicans were turning to a figure who has embodied elements of the party’s transformation since she arrived in the House in 2015, as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at the time. A Harvard graduate and former aide to President George W. Bush and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the 2012 vice-presidential nominee, Ms. Stefanik has shifted easily from the old Republican establishment to a new one forming around Mr. Trump.Representative Liz Cheney has refused to absolve Mr. Trump or the Republican Party of their roles in fomenting the assault on the Capitol.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesWhile she began as one of the more moderate members of the Republican Conference — her voting record is far less conservative than Ms. Cheney’s, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation — Ms. Stefanik became one of Mr. Trump’s most strident loyalists. That role has buoyed her rapid ascension and brought in millions of dollars in campaign donations.In a lengthy, error-riddled statement published on Jan. 6 explaining why she would vote to invalidate the election, Ms. Stefanik repeated a number of Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of widespread improprieties, including incorrectly claiming that “more than 140,000 votes came from underage, deceased and otherwise unauthorized voters” in one county in Georgia alone.Her metamorphosis mirrored that of her upstate New York district, where voters had supported a string of Democratic presidential candidates — including Barack Obama twice — before throwing their backing to Mr. Trump in 2016.Yet Ms. Stefanik has also been at the forefront of her party’s efforts to improve its standing and representation among women at a time when Mr. Trump’s caustic style threatened to alienate them and further narrow Republicans’ appeal. Her political action committee supported several of the current freshman class’s rising stars, all of them women who almost single-handedly secured the party’s impressive gains against Democrats in last year’s elections.“I know I am here in Congress because Republican women like Elise Stefanik paved the way,” said Representative Young Kim, Republican of California. “She saw the importance of helping women candidates to make it out of the primary if Republicans were serious about electing more women and growing the G.O.P. base.”Her allies argue that Ms. Stefanik’s ascendancy will bolster the party as Republicans seek to win back the House and the Senate in the midterm elections, describing her as a disciplined messenger with easy mastery over policy.“They are going to find a very smart, charming and confident younger member of Congress,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist who worked with Ms. Stefanik as an aide to Mr. Ryan in 2012. “And I think that is a good thing for the Republican Party right now.”In a glowing blurb for Time magazine’s “100 Next” list in 2019, Mr. Ryan, who has also backed Ms. Cheney, hailed Ms. Stefanik as the future of the Republican Party.“Like any good architect, Elise sees around the corner,” Mr. Ryan wrote. “She is thinking about the big picture when the crowd is scrambling to capitalize on the controversy of the day.” More

Facebook has increasingly become one of the most vital weapons in a political campaign’s arsenal, and few had tapped into its potential for advertising and fund-raising as aggressively as Mr. Trump’s.The decision by Facebook on Wednesday to keep former President Donald J. Trump off its platform could have significant consequences for his political operation as he tries to remain the leader of the Republican Party, thwarting his ability to amplify his message to tens of millions of followers and hampering his fund-raising ability.Facebook has increasingly become one of the most vital weapons in a political campaign’s arsenal, with its ability to juice small-dollar online-fund-raising numbers into the millions, expand and acquire contact information, help build out data on a campaign’s voter file and provide the most sophisticated advertising platform available.Few campaigns had tapped into Facebook’s potential for advertising and fund-raising as aggressively as Mr. Trump’s. His successful 2016 campaign said its prolific use of Facebook had allowed it to send millions of different, hyper-targeted political ads to small slices of the population.“Facebook was the method,” Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign manager in 2020 and digital director in 2016, told “60 Minutes” in 2017. “It was the highway which his car drove on.”That continued in 2020, as his re-election operation devoted a nine-figure budget to Facebook advertising. And much like he did with his Twitter account, Mr. Trump often turned to Facebook’s advertising platform in times of political crisis.During Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial in September 2019, his campaign began flooding Facebook with ads criticizing the impeachment as a hoax and subversive effort by far-left Democrats.Though Mr. Trump is out of office and living at his resort in Florida, he retains broad influence over the Republican Party. But his platform for reaching Americans has diminished greatly without access to big social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which has permanently suspended the former president. Some Trump aides think that the absence of Facebook, which was crucial to his success in 2016, will hinder him if he decides to run again in 2024, which he has told several advisers is his plan.Facebook’s ruling was delivered by an oversight board, which also said the company’s indefinite suspension was “not appropriate’’ and gave Facebook six months to come up with a final decision on whether Mr. Trump would regain access.His Facebook ads proved a useful tool to draw out big crowds to his signature rallies. Days before the president was scheduled to arrive in a given city, Facebook users around the region would begin seeing ads about the rally, with a link to sign up for a free ticket.The decision by Facebook does not immediately hamper Mr. Trump’s fund-raising ability — he still maintains control of a large number of supporter email addresses and phone numbers. But fund-raising lists must be continually refreshed, and Facebook has proved a crucial place for Mr. Trump to do so.“He has the best fund-raising list, but that decays over time if you’re not adding back into it,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist. “So because they don’t have the ability to run ads on Facebook, they’re losing out on petitions to grow their email list, surveys, things like that — the tactics that every campaign has to be doing 365 to really maintain their fund-raising.”Throughout 2020, the Trump campaign would run ads asking users to “take this SOCIALISM poll” or “Wish Melania a Happy Birthday,” which would help both with keeping lists current while occasionally expanding or adding new names to their lists, or getting a direct donation from the ad.In recent days, Mr. Trump’s operation has begun to more aggressively solicit supporters for cash via text message — including one reacting to the Facebook decision on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump’s team announced he would begin posting his thoughts on political developments to his own website, trying to brand it as “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump.” But the power of Mr. Trump’s pronouncements on social media had been their ability to ricochet quickly across the web and into the streams of his supporters — something far harder to achieve while being deplatformed.But even without Facebook, some Republican strategists note that Mr. Trump still has one of the largest megaphones in the world, simply because of the public interest in his plans, which might lessen the impact of Facebook’s ban.“I compare it to somebody who has a sprained ankle,” said Tim Cameron, a Republican digital strategist. “It’s kind of hobbling for a little bit, and he’s not going to be at the strength that he would be with the ability to reach people on Facebook and other social platforms, but it’s certainly not something that’s going to stop him.”Even with the Facebook spigot turned off since January, Mr. Trump began the spring with more than $85 million in his various political committees, according to an adviser, after banking tens of millions of dollars that he raised after the election.But perhaps most immediately, the ban against running any political ads hampers one of Mr. Trump’s most current prized roles: Republican primary kingmaker.“He’s really committed to settling scores and making sure his allies get boosted,” Mr. Wilson said. “They won’t have access to Facebook to help the candidates he wants to support in the primaries in 2022.” More

The No. 3 Republican in the House faces a party uprising over her acknowledgment of reality.When Senator Joseph McCarthy was caught on national television pressing a case built on falsehoods against the supposed threat of communism in the U.S. Army, it was his breaking point.Edward R. Murrow gave voice to a frustrated public as it awoke to the bamboozling, and McCarthy’s political career was done.When President Donald Trump perpetrated the false narrative that his re-election had been stolen from him, leading his supporters into what became a fatal attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, he was booted from Twitter and Facebook. But he didn’t lose most of his support.And for the Republican Party’s rank-and-file, whose modern-day Murrow is Tucker Carlson, that falsehood is still the dominant narrative.That fact is hitting home hard on Wednesday for Representative Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, whose refusal to bow to Trump’s lies has put her on the brink of being purged from G.O.P. leadership. In a tweet on Monday, Cheney called out Trump and anyone promoting his stolen election narrative for “spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”For House Republicans in thrall to a Trump-loyalist base, and who just weeks earlier had voted down an attempt to depose her, Cheney’s challenge to the story line was a bridge too far. The effort to remove her regained momentum, and on Wednesday Representative Steve Scalise, the Republican whip, became the highest-ranking member of his party to publicly support Cheney’s ouster.Cheney has not shied from the fight: Late Wednesday afternoon, she published an op-ed in The Washington Post entreating her fellow Republicans to respect “the rule of law,” and to be mindful of the eyes of history. “The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution,” she wrote.In the process, they will decide on her fate: House Republicans are expected to hold a vote as early as next week on whether to relieve her of her leadership post.“This is not good for the party, certainly not good for a party that has had problems with suburban women, educated women — to go at somebody because they’re speaking what most of them know is the truth,” said Barbara Comstock, a former Republican congresswoman who represented a district in suburban Virginia until she was swept out by the anti-Trump blue wave in 2018. “Ronald Reagan, who is why I became a Republican, certainly allowed for dissent in his own party, and for people to be critical. I think it’s a very disturbing development.”Representative Elise Stefanik, who hails from an upstate New York district, has emerged as the party’s choice to replace Cheney, and her own history works as a metaphor for what’s going on with the G.O.P. more broadly.Stefanik flipped her district red in 2014, and she had amassed a relatively moderate record until her aggressive questioning of Democratic witnesses during Trump’s first impeachment trial, which earned her direct praise from him. She took his endorsement and ran with it, and in the past year-plus has become a staunch ally to his cause. She disputed the election results in Pennsylvania in a House vote on Jan. 6, and she later voted against impeaching him.Her policies, of course, are another thing entirely. The 36-year-old Stefanik actually voted with Trump less often during his four years as president than Cheney did. Notably, she voted against his signature tax cut bill, which Republicans are now hastening to defend.Pool photo by Caroline BrehmanBut the line that’s being drawn in the Republican sand isn’t about policy. It’s about loyalty to a narrative of Trump’s creation, and in G.O.P. primaries across the country, contravening can be fatal.“The challenge is that members don’t want to be primaried,” said Glen Bolger, a veteran Republican pollster. “These seats are mostly drawn as Democratic or Republican seats, so the way to lose isn’t in November, it’s in a primary.”Still, he added, “the difference between being a majority or a minority is decided in November. But politicians, understandably so, think of themselves first, and what’s good for me is good for the party.”In Texas, a primary election last weekend in a suburban House district set up a confrontation between the two wings of the party. A Trump-backed Republican, Susan Wright, won nearly 20 percent of the vote, while Jake Ellzey, a Republican who has the endorsement of former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, came in second place. The two candidates now advance to a runoff, and here’s the rub: All the district’s voters will be eligible to participate, not just Republicans.In the Senate, most Republican lawmakers have done their best to look away from the 211-car pileup taking place in the House Republican Conference, and have mostly moved on from discussions of the 2020 election. But there’s far less willingness to do so among House Republicans, whose every-two-year election cycle keeps them in closer conversation with the party’s base.And a flamboyant coterie of relatively young Republican lawmakers in the House has begun to emerge, led in part by Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a frequent presence on Fox News and prominent Trump ally, who has helped put Stefanik in position for her ascent.Just a month ago, Cheney seemed to have survived the attempt on her political life; her allies in the Wyoming state legislature beat back an effort to change election rules that would have imperiled her in the 2022 primary. The former Republican speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner committed to helping her fund-raise.Cheney had decided against a run for Senate last year because she saw an auspicious future in the House leadership, possibly even as speaker.But now she finds herself at odds with a party whose leader is silent in the press but still a fan favorite among the party faithful. “A guy who got 47 percent is not the future of our party,” Comstock said, referring to Trump’s total in the 2020 election. “The toxic personality divided our country and is now dividing our party.”On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. More

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, hit back at leaders of her own party on Wednesday, warning her colleagues that “history is watching” as they consider expelling her from their leadership ranks for continuing to reject Donald J. Trump’s election lies.Ms. Cheney’s broadside, published Wednesday afternoon as an opinion essay in The Washington Post, came as the top two House Republicans were working to oust and replace her with a Trump loyalist, and after the former president weighed in demanding Republicans dethrone her. At issue is Ms. Cheney’s insistence on repeatedly rebuking her party for its role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob and for embracing Mr. Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 presidential election.In the column, Ms. Cheney warned that the Republican Party was at a “turning point,” and suggested that some Republicans were playing a dangerous game by continuing to support “the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality.”“While embracing or ignoring Trump’s statements might seem attractive to some for fund-raising and political purposes, that approach will do profound long-term damage to our party and our country,” Ms. Cheney said. “Trump has never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people. This is immensely harmful.”Ms. Cheney also lashed out at Mr. McCarthy, noting that he initially agreed that Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the riot, only to walk the remarks back.“History is watching. Our children are watching,” Ms. Cheney concluded. “We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.”Ms. Cheney’s column effectively acted as a rejoinder to Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, who on Wednesday morning became the highest-ranking party figure to openly call for Ms. Cheney’s ouster and the elevation of Representative Elise Stefanik of New York in her place as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, the third-ranking position. Lawmakers said Mr. McCarthy was also working the phones behind the scenes, urging colleagues to support Ms. Stefanik, a close ally and rising Republican star.“House Republicans need to be solely focused on taking back the House in 2022 and fighting against Speaker Pelosi and President Biden’s radical socialist agenda,” said Lauren Fine, Mr. Scalise’s spokeswoman. “Elise Stefanik is strongly committed to doing that, which is why Whip Scalise has pledged to support her for conference chair.”Mr. Trump, who has seethed over Ms. Cheney’s criticism of him, piled on a short time later, deriding her as a “warmongering fool” and endorsing Ms. Stefanik, whom he called “a far superior choice.”“We want leaders who believe in the Make America Great Again movement, and prioritize the values of America First,” he wrote in a statement. “Elise is a tough and smart communicator!”Ms. Stefanik, who had been quietly building support among colleagues behind the scenes, wasted no time after Mr. Trump’s endorsement in declaring her intentions publicly. In a post on Twitter just minutes after his statement, she thanked him for his support and said Republicans were “unified and focused on FIRING PELOSI & WINNING in 2022!”It was a remarkable show of force by the party’s top leaders to run out a once-popular figure now deemed unacceptable by fellow Republicans because she has rejected Mr. Trump’s lies and refused to absolve him or the party of its role in perpetuating the false claims of a fraudulent election that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.The fate of Ms. Cheney, who survived a February bid to oust her after she voted to favor of impeaching Mr. Trump for his role in stirring up the riot, has once again become a bellwether for the direction of the Republican Party. It has implications for Republicans’ chances of wresting control of the House in 2022, and has become a test of whether loyalty to Trump and a tolerance for misinformation have overtaken conservatism as the party’s guiding orthodoxy.The turmoil could come to a head as early as next week, when House Republicans are expected to meet and could call a vote to replace Ms. Cheney. More

KOLKATA, India — I am a member of the Indian Parliament, and on Sunday, the political party I belong to, the All India Trinamool Congress, defeated the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections for the West Bengal State legislature. Our party and my leader, Mamata Banerjee, the only female chief minister of a state in India today, showed what it takes to defeat Mr. Modi’s divisive, misogynist politics.Out of the 292 seats in West Bengal’s state legislature, Mr. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party won 77. We won 213 seats. But we weren’t simply fighting to form a state government. We were fighting to stop Mr. Modi’s centralizing, authoritarian juggernaut, which seeks to destroy India’s federalism and its secular character, and transform our country into an autocratic Hindu state.Mr. Modi and Amit Shah, India’s home minister, have systematically hollowed out the institutions that India held sacred and trusted. During the course of the West Bengal election, I witnessed how they reduced the once-respected Election Commission of India, a supposedly independent body that conducts state and national elections, to an errand boy serving their political agenda.On Feb. 26, when the second wave of Covid-19 was rising in India, the commission announced that elections in West Bengal would be conducted in eight phases staggered from March 27 to April 29. Four other Indian states were also going to polls, but the commission restricted them to one or two phases.By scheduling the West Bengal election in this way, the commission made it possible for Mr. Modi to campaign extensively in West Bengal. Indian elections are energetic, festive and crowded affairs. Our party protested and petitioned the commission to limit the election to fewer phases, as a dangerous second wave of Covid-19 had set in. The commission refused to listen.Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah, whose ministry is responsible for disaster management in the country, held numerous public meetings in West Bengal. Both men often appeared unmasked in the public rallies, setting a terrible example for the tens of thousands who attended and the millions who watched the widely televised events.Mr. Modi’s government did absolutely nothing to prevent religious gatherings such as the Kumbh Mela, a festival in Haridwar in the northern state of Uttarakhand, where millions of Hindus gathered for a dip in the Ganges River.On April 17, when India was reporting more than 250,000 new Covid-19 cases, Mr. Modi made a mild and vague appeal to the pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela, asking them to consider going home, and suggested that the festival should be “symbolic.” Yet by late afternoon on that day, Mr. Modi attended a public meeting of over 50,000 people in West Bengal. “Wherever I look, I just see people,” he gloated.The election was turning out to be a super spreader of coronavirus infections. The commission continued ignoring us while the second wave was battering India’s health care systems. The craven dereliction of duty compelled the Madras High Court to remark that the commission “should be put up on murder charges probably!”Mr. Modi prioritized pursuit of political power above Indian lives. The vital first three weeks of April, when the prime minister and his cabinet should have been working on ramping up critical health infrastructure and coordinating with state governments to prevent our catastrophic situation, were lost.India’s women will also remember Mr. Modi’s campaign in West Bengal for its brazen misogyny and toxic masculinity. On April 1, while at a public rally at Uluberia, a city in the state’s Howrah district, Mr. Modi referred to Ms. Banerjee, the leader of my party and the chief minister of West Bengal known affectionately as Didi, as “Didi Ooo Didi!” — to stupendous applause from crowds of men. He continued using that tone and phrase in other public rallies.To my ears, the tone and phrase were ominously close to what a neighborhood cat-caller may call out to girls walking past. To the Bengali middle class, the prospect of handing over the reins of the state to someone who openly endorsed a practice so much at odds with their sensibilities was frightening. Female voters in West Bengal, who make up 49.1 percent of the state’s electorate, cringed. A majority of women voted for our party. They did not allow such misogynist politics to win the day.A supporter of Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the All India Trinamool Congress, which supports a secular, inclusive ideology.Rupak De Chowdhuri/ReutersAnd culture matters. Mr. Modi and his B.J.P. hoped they would win by equating Bengali identity with Hindu culture. They failed to understand that Bengali culture is not a monolith; it combines secularism with non-vegetarianism and a strong contrarian instinct.We joke that laid-back middle-class Bengalis are content with three things: educating our children, the matinee on Saturday (“shoni bar e matinee”) and a mutton curry on Sunday (“robi baar e mangsho”).At the very least, the Bengalis reject anyone who wants to control what we eat, whom we love and what we wear.The Bengal experience has demonstrated that the B.J.P. is not invincible, that all Indians are not attracted to the idea of a majoritarian Hindu state and that Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah are not the master election strategists they are made out to be. Despite their huge financial resources, their misuse of federal investigative agencies to target opponents and accusations that they have been buying off opposition politicians, the B.J.P. can still be defeated by a focused regional party that stays true to its grass roots and a secular, inclusive ideology.It took a catastrophic pandemic for even Mr. Modi’s supporters to see they need oxygen cylinders more than they need a Hindu state. And it took the Bengal election for the rest of India to realize they don’t need toxic machismo. What India needs in a leader is a heart and a spine.Mahua Moitra is a member of the Indian Parliament from the All Indian Trinamool Congress.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