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      ‘The View’ Has Narrowed

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      Illustration By The New York TimesThe ladies of “The View” were in high spirits. A piece of news they’d been hankering for had broken at last: President Biden, a revered figure around their talk show table, had kicked off his re-election campaign.The show’s hosts — known in “View” parlance as “the ladies” — had been hyping this moment for months. They’d lavished praise on President Biden for leading the country out of the pandemic and overseeing what they described as a thriving U.S. economy. They’d downplayed scandals and investigations involving Mr. Biden and his family members. They’d also taken extraordinary pains to disqualify as “ageist” questions of whether he is simply too old to run again. Mr. Biden would be 86 by the end of a second term, but when the Democratic strategist David Axelrod expressed mild concern, the comedian Joy Behar snapped that he “should keep his mouth shut.”“I’d rather have Joe Biden, drooling, than any Republican,” Ms. Behar said another day.Now the ladies agreed that Mr. Biden’s campaign announcement made them feel hopeful. They were tired of what Sunny Hostin called Republican “fearmongering,” which, in a startlingly casual aside, she noted had “led to the demise of our democracy.” If any of the ladies was perturbed by the irony of decrying scare tactics while calling U.S. democracy dead, she kept it to herself.“You get behind him,” the actress Whoopi Goldberg said of Mr. Biden, seemingly instructing the Democrats at large, “and we won’t have a problem.”This kind of unabashed cheerleading is reserved for Mr. Biden. The panel of “View” hosts has been annoyed and dismissive of other Democrats who might vie for the nomination. (“You start making inroads — maybe this person, maybe this person — we’re done for,” Ms. Goldberg said.) When compelled to discuss the Twitter-hosted presidential campaign announcement of Gov. Ron DeSantis of the Florida — a man they’d decried as “fascist,” “bigot” and “Death Santis” — the ladies used the occasion to mock the platform and its new owner, Elon Musk, for the tech failures that disrupted the event. As for Mr. Trump, forget about it: Ms. Goldberg won’t even utter his name, referring to him instead as “you know who.”The day after Mr. Biden’s announcement, the co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Republican political operative who’d already been silenced by Ms. Goldberg, giggled from her end of the table. Ms. Farah Griffin has said she’d write in another candidate before voting for either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump, but her counterpoints tend to get interrupted or dismissed by the rest of the panel.Mr. Biden “needs another four years to finish the job,” Ms. Behar said. “You can’t fight fascism in four years only. You need eight years for that.”“He has had a lot of accomplishments,” Ms. Hostin agreed.“He brought us back from the precipice,” Ms. Goldberg said. “Maybe it’s not a perfect country, but it’s better than where we were.”With that, the music came up and the audience applauded. The discussion was done.I’ve been a regular Viewer for years, starting when I was a foreign correspondent salving late-night homesickness via satellite TV. Along the way I’ve amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of the hosts’ marriages and hobbies, and a habit of analyzing the “Hot Topics” discussions as a bellwether of centrist America’s political and cultural trends. I’m hardly alone — “The View” has long inspired pieces of serious analysis that bob along like flotsam on a choppy sea of dressing room gossip, leaks and hate tweets. For me, though, it’s a solitary fixation, for none of my friends or family members have ever shared my interest in “The View.”“Ugh, I can’t watch that show,” they grimace. Or — this most of all — “Aren’t they always arguing?”Which is funny because, if you ask me, the co-hosts don’t argue nearly enough. At least, not substantively. Not anymore. The freewheeling discussions that once evoked a spectrum of American opinion on everything from reproductive rights to foreign policy — those have mostly fallen silent. “The View” has become a chorus of conformity. The title of this show I’ve loved for years used to suggest messy and fearless debate. Lately, it seems like a command.The hosts include centrist Democrats (Ms. Hostin and Ms. Behar), centrist Republicans (Ms. Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro) and one centrist independent (the TV journalist Sara Haines). But, anyway, they agree. They agree (or at least pretend to agree) that Mr. Biden is basically a good president. Even on topics notorious for splitting American opinion — the need for “common-sense gun reform,” protecting L.G.B.T.Q. rights and funding the war in Ukraine — they don’t find much to debate one another about. Even those who privately consider abortion a sin agree that access should be preserved in some cases.We, the people, are split. Our many divisions obstruct coherent governance. But “The View” continues to project a brightly lit illusion of accord.And there is no article of agreement more important — lending the show an intoxicating but oddly irreal flavor — as the ladies’ absolute disdain for Mr. Trump and, increasingly, anyone who belongs to his party.Current events haven’t always anchored “The View.” Since the program’s 1997 debut, celebrity interviews, gossip and relationship advice vied for time against news and politics. In its current iteration, though, “The View” carries itself like an earnest journalistic platform — a must-do interview for establishment politicians and a reliable midmorning destination for nuggets of news analysis. In 2019, The New York Times Magazine dubbed it “the most important political TV show in America.”Which has made its erasure of the country’s most dynamic and least understood political strains all the more frustrating.As the current season got underway last September, Ms. Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, came out with a sweeping justification for shunning Republicans — all Republicans, she specified, not just MAGA loyalists — because polls showed that the majority of Republicans regard Mr. Trump as their figurehead.“So if you are saying that he is a fascist, what are they? If you are saying that he is a white supremacist, what are they?” Ms. Hostin continued. “If you follow someone that has hate in their heart, and I believe that he does, then you are complicit in that, and you don’t have a pass.”I gathered that Ms. Hostin was enshrining the new ground rules of “The View,” updated to reflect our ever more divided age. She has become the show’s dominant voice, although I can’t tell if that’s by design or whether it’s the inevitable result of her indomitable delivery and the clear, unambiguous opinions she’s polished into repeatable bites.Either way, the idea that Republicans could be written off en masse signaled a radical departure in “View” philosophy. The panelists have traditionally taken pains to distinguish between bad politicians and the regular people who vote for them. Barbara Walters, who created the show and presided over it for years, urged the ladies to appeal to an imaginary viewer in Wyoming, according to interviews with current and former panelists for the podcast “The View: Behind the Table.” When Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Behar stormed off the set mid-interview in 2010 to protest anti-Muslim rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly (“Muslims killed us on 9/11”), Ms. Walters was outraged.“You have just seen what should not happen,” Ms. Walters told the audience that day. “We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands” of one another “and screaming and walking offstage,” she said.But that was a different age. Ms. Hostin’s wholesale dismissal of Republicans comes across as a bleak but frank acknowledgment that the show had adopted the coping mechanisms of our time: Ban thoughts we don’t like and carry on as if all the reasonable people agree. It’s been particularly chilling to watch this attitude finally take hold at a mainstream women’s program that has long postured as a nonthreatening place to air whatever opinions were working their way through the land, a make-believe living room where you could disagree about politics but then bond over bratty bridal behavior and unrealistic beauty standards.There is an argument, familiar by now, that denying Mr. Trump and his supporters a platform is the only moral approach to a movement many regard as a historic evil. But trying to smother any serious consideration of his politics has the unfortunate effect of suggesting that we are afraid of letting Americans hear these ideas because — why? They might like them too much?To be fair, the animosity between “The View” and Republicans is mutual, and finding the origin point is something of a chicken-versus-egg conundrum. For example, “The View” invited Mr. DeSantis to appear this season — a fact we only know because his spokesman tweeted out the invitation, along with the governor’s refusal, which cited various slurs and insults the ladies had used to refer to Mr. DeSantis.Even beyond “The View,” many conservatives, especially those in the thrall of Mr. Trump, now avoid mainstream journalists they decry as purveyors of “fake news.”Whatever the reason, one fact is undeniable: “The View” brazened all the way through Mr. Trump’s first campaign and presidency without deigning to hire a Trump supporter.The closest the show came was Meghan McCain, who spent so much time name-checking her father and bickering peevishly that she often drowned out her own points — which amounted to tortured efforts to reconcile her disgust for Mr. Trump with a desire to speak up for his voters.This may not be a popular take on Ms. McCain (who eventually left the show amid mockery of her entitled attitude and embarrassing lapses in decorum), but she had moments of clarity. She raised valid but then-taboo questions about America’s pandemic response and, to the acute annoyance of her co-hosts, analyzed failures and weaknesses of the Democratic Party.In 2020, when the other ladies nitpicked Bernie Sanders (saying, among other things, that he was ineffective, a fake Democrat and backed by Russians), Ms. McCain calmly laid out her repugnance for the Vermont senator’s leftist policies while acknowledging that his runaway popularity could land him the nomination. It was Ms. McCain who frankly discussed the populist sentiment fueling the rise of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders.Ms. McCain’s seat was filled this season by the more cordial — or perhaps more easily cowed — Ms. Farah Griffin, a former spokeswoman for the Trump administration. Ms. Farah Griffin quit her job amid Mr. Trump’s election lies and went on to testify before the House select committee investigating the insurrection of Jan. 6 — insufficient atonement, according to her new colleagues. Her early weeks on the show were full of struggle sessions in which her co-hosts (most notably Ms. Hostin and Ms. Navarro) snubbed and needled her until she coughed up, yet again, a denunciation of Mr. Trump.“I do question you … ’cause you’re a very smart woman,” Ms. Hostin said to her in a typical early exchange. “When you looked at his history … did it give you pause? As a woman who considers herself a brown woman, ‘My God, I’m working for a racist’?”Ms. Farah Griffin repeated the familiar explanation: She believed public service was a higher calling and didn’t think it was acceptable to cede the White House to “the crazies.”“I could spend the rest of my life debating if that was the right choice and, honestly, I spend a lot of time thinking about it,” she said, sounding weary. “But what I worry about is that this man could be president again.”When I first started watching “The View,” I was immersed in the violence and upheaval that followed Sept. 11, 2001. Peering westward through the window of the TV, I’d marvel at how unaffected the ladies seemed, how coifed and manicured, chatting about cheating husbands while the wars ground along. Sometimes I had the sense of watching anesthesia dripping into the veins of the American public.But then, like clouds parting, the ladies would say real things. Looking back now, I’m struck by how layered and blunt those conversations were — especially compared to those of today.In a 2007 episode, for example, the ladies clashed over torture, morality and America’s reputation abroad. Elisabeth Hasselbeck sneered that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed deserved to be tortured for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks. “Why don’t we give him milk and cookies at the same time,” Ms. Hasselbeck said. “And a lawyer, and let him watch ‘American Idol’?”Rosie O’Donnell countered by asking if labeling someone a terrorist nullified that person’s humanity. “They have been treating them like animals, Elisabeth, not like human beings,” she said.The U.S. government was “sanctioning torture,” Ms. O’Donnell went on, “from the president all the way down,” leading to anti-American protests around the world.Ms. Hasselbeck was unmoved. “I’d rather be safe than liked,” she said.Ms. Behar, a compulsive mood lightener with a habit of cracking jokes and steering the discussion back to daily practicalities, sided with Ms. O’Donnell, saying that she wanted to be greeted warmly on vacation in Italy.“I want them to say, ‘Hey, Americana, come,’” Ms. Behar said. “I don’t want them to not like me.”I still loathe what Ms. Hasselbeck said — suggesting torture as a punishment, mocking the right to a lawyer, prizing safety above all else. But it didn’t shock me. Those values had dominated the U.S. government since 2001, and I’d been watching them play out disastrously in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. If anything, it was cathartic to hear the arguments trotted onto TV, to see them falter and collapse under challenge.What strikes me now, though, was how that debate ended. “I think you’re wrong,” Ms. O’Donnell told Ms. Hasselbeck. “I still love you, but I think you’re wrong.”I love you, but you’re wrong. “The View” isn’t like that anymore. I think Americans are, or could be, or want to be — but we certainly don’t see it done on TV.The ladies often seem on the brink of having an honest and textured discussion — somebody will say something intriguing — but the most compelling comments tend to go untouched.I envision behind them the suited figures of the ABC network and the Walt Disney Company, which owns the network, and the companies that buy ads to sell things in the breaks, all of which benefit from predictable centrist leadership and regard eruptions of popular sentiment as an undesirable expense.Ms. Goldberg, seemingly keen to avoid any steep ideological edges, frequently shuts down conversation with a sweeping and vague speech on the uncertainty of politics or the unreliability of polls or some such.One recent morning, Ms. Haines fretted about the insurrection of Jan. 6 and the erosion of public trust.“The media is at its lowest. The Supreme Court is at its lowest,” she said, ticking off on her fingers. “People don’t trust anyone these days, so to completely ——”Ms. Behar interrupted: “They trust us,” she snapped.“Yes!” Ms. Hostin said emphatically, hands folded around her coffee mug, like a teacher’s pet who’s just called the right answer. As the audience exploded in applause, Ms. Haines stammered to regain her thought.Ms. Behar shrugged, and interrupted again. “Sure,” she said curtly.And that was that.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

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      Democrats Want Trump? They’re Out of Their Minds

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      Did we learn nothing from 2016?That, you may recall, was when Donald Trump’s emergence as the Republican presidential nominee seemed like some cosmic joke. Some cosmic gift. Oh, how Democrats exulted and chortled.Donald Trump?!?Hillary Clinton could start working on her inauguration remarks early.Or so many of us thought. We got “American carnage,” two impeachments and a deadly breach of the U.S. Capitol instead.And yet some Democrats are again rejoicing at the prospect of Trump as his party’s pick. They reason that he was an unproven entity before but is a proven catastrophe now and that his troubles with the law, troubles with reality, egomania and megalomania make him an easier opponent for President Biden, who beat him once already, than Gov. Ron DeSantis, Senator Tim Scott or another Republican aspirant would be. Perhaps they’re right.But if they’re wrong? The stakes of a second Trump term are much, much too high to wager on his weakness and hope for his nomination. The way I size up the situation, any Republican nominee has a decent shot at the presidency: There are enough Americans who faithfully vote Republican, lean Republican or are open to a Republican that under sufficiently favorable circumstances, the party’s candidate wins. And the circumstances in November 2024 are neither predictable nor controllable — just as they weren’t in November 2016. If Trump is in the running, Trump is in the running.So I flinch at thoughts and remarks like those of Senator Debbie Stabenow, the Michigan Democrat, who told Politico in late April: “Trump’s obviously an extremely dangerous person who would be very dangerous for the country. But I’m confident that President Biden could beat him.” She added that “politically, for us, it’s helpful if former President Trump is front and center.” The headline on that article, by Burgess Everett and Sarah Ferris, was “Dems Relish Trump-Biden Rematch.”The headlines on other reports that month: “Why a Trump-Biden Rematch Is What Many Democrats Want in 2024” (The Wall Street Journal) and “Trump or DeSantis? Democrats Aren’t Sure Who They’d Rather See Biden Face in 2024” (NBC News).Granted, those three articles appeared before the Washington Post/ABC News poll that shook the world. Published on May 7, the survey gave Trump a six-point lead over Biden in a hypothetical matchup and showed that voters regard Trump, 76, as more physically fit and mentally sharp than Biden, 80.Over the weeks since, I’ve noticed a muting of Democrats’ confidence that Biden can roll over Trump. But I still hear some of Biden’s supporters say that they’d prefer Trump to, say, DeSantis, who can define himself afresh to many voters, or to Scott, whose optimism might be a tonic in toxic times.And I worry that many Democrats still haven’t fully accepted and seriously grappled with what the past seven years taught us:There is profound discontent in this country, and for all Trump’s lawlessness and ludicrousness, he has a real and enduring knack for articulating, channeling and exploiting it. “I am your retribution,” he told Republicans at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Those words were chilling not only for their bluntness but also for their keenness. Trump understands that in the MAGA milieu, a fist raised for him is a middle finger flipped at his critics. DeSantis, Scott, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley — none of them offer their supporters the same magnitude of wicked rebellion, the same amplitude of vengeful payback, the same red-hot fury.Trump’s basic political orientation and the broad strokes of his priorities and policies may lump him together with his Republican competitors, but those rivals aren’t equally unappealing or equally scary because they’re not equally depraved.He’s the one who speaks of Jan. 6, 2021, as a “beautiful day.” He’s the one who ordered Georgia’s secretary of state to find him more votes. He’s the one who commanded Pence, then his vice president, to subvert the electoral process and then vilified him for refusing to do so and was reportedly pleased or at least untroubled when a mob called for Pence’s execution. He’s the one who expends hour upon hour and rant after rant on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him — a fiction that’s a wrecking ball aimed at the very foundations of our democracy. His challengers tiptoe around all of that with shameful timidity. He’s the one who wallows happily and flamboyantly in this civic muck.There are grave differences between the kind of threat that Trump poses and the kind that his Republican rivals do, and to theorize a strategic advantage to his nomination is to minimize those distinctions, misremember recent history and misunderstand what the American electorate might do on a given day, in a given frame of mind.I suspect I’d be distraught during a DeSantis presidency and depressed during a Pence one. But at least I might recognize the America on the far side of it.Forward this newsletter to friends …… and they can sign up for themselves here. It’s published every Thursday.The Ears Have ItGetty ImagesI was never much of a listener. It just wasn’t how I took in information. I read. And read. I seemed to register and retain facts and ideas better if they came through my eyes, and I organized my consumption of news and words around that inclination — until a freak stroke about five and half years ago and a marked deterioration of my eyesight forced me to test myself, to stretch, to change.Now I’m all about my ears. I consume perhaps twice as many audiobooks as I do printed ones. I get a fair share of my morning news via podcasts. So I’m not merely grateful for the iOS app for audio journalism that The Times recently introduced; I’m more like ecstatic.It combines, in one terrifically user-friendly place, Times podcasts and narrated articles from all the fields that this news organization so ambitiously and enterprisingly covers — politics, culture, food and more. It’s a sonic storehouse of journalists, including Opinion columnists, whose literary voices you may be well familiar with but whose actual voices you’ve yet to discover. It includes the archive of “This American Life.” And it has audio versions of stories from top magazines beyond the ones that The Times puts out.It’s a convenience, and a mercy, for those of us whose daily rituals or physical quirks make listening an important alternative to reading. It’s available for Times news subscribers, and you can start exploring it by downloading the New York Times Audio app here.For the Love of SentencesMike Segar/ReutersIn The Guardian, Emma Beddington served notice to friends about just how much she enjoys their visits to her and her husband’s home: “We don’t have many guests, because I get funny when people use my mugs, and offer a welcome along the lines of the peregrine falcon nest boxes I watch on webcams: a few strewn pebbles, dismembered pigeon corpses, me hunched and glaring in a corner, covered in viscera.” (Thanks to Steve Verhey of Ellensburg, Wash., for his, um, eagle-eyed notice of this.)Also in The Guardian, Jay Rayner appraised the more-is-more culinary sensibility of a dish at Jacuzzi, which was opened recently in London by the Big Mamma group: “I would have been happy with simple ribbons of that pasta with that ragu, but going to a Big Mamma restaurant in search of simplicity is like going to a brothel hoping to find someone to hold your hand.” (Robert Tilleard, Salisbury, England)In The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., Josh Shaffer marked Memorial Day by recalling a 22-year-old soldier from Raleigh who died in battle in 1918: “Harry Watson got all the honors a young lieutenant could expect on the Western Front — a hasty burial under a fruit tree, laid shoulder to shoulder with three other men.” Shaffer concluded his excellent article by noting that Watson “is recognized as Raleigh’s first casualty in ‘the world war.’ But more would follow — casualties and wars alike.” (Barry Nakell, Chapel Hill, N.C.)In The Washington Post, Matt Bai challenged the idea that candidates for vice president never affect the outcomes of presidential races: “I’d argue that Sarah Palin mattered in 2008, although she was less of a running mate than a running gag.” (Anne Pratt, Millbrook, N.Y.)Also in The Post, Ron Charles noted the publication of “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” by Senator Josh Hawley: “The book’s final cover contains just text, including the title so oversized that the word ‘Manhood’ can’t even fit on one line — like a dude whose shoulders are so broad that he has to turn sideways to flee through the doors of the Capitol.” (Sue Borg, Menlo Park, Calif.)In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane reflected: “As career moves go, the path from neo-Nazism to horticulture has not, perhaps, received the attention it deserves. That strange omission is rectified by ‘Master Gardener,’ the new movie from Paul Schrader.” (Trudy McMahon, Danville, Calif., and Liz Nichols, Oakland, Calif.)In The Times, A.O. Scott eulogized the writer Martin Amis: “He tapped at the clay feet of his idols with the chisel of his irreverent wit, even as he clambered onto their shoulders to see farther, and more clearly, than they ever could.” (Gerrit Westervelt, Denver)Also in The Times, Michelle Cottle characterized Ron DeSantis as having “the people skills of a Roomba.” (Stephen Burrow, Teaneck, N.J., and Tim McFadden, Encinitas, Calif., among others)And David Mack explained the endurance of sweatpants beyond their pandemic-lockdown, Zoom-meeting ubiquity: “We are now demanding from our pants attributes we are also seeking in others and in ourselves. We want them to be forgiving and reassuring. We want them to nurture us. We want them to say: ‘I was there, too. I experienced it. I came out on the other side more carefree and less rigid. And I learned about the importance of ventilation in the process.’” (Laurie McMahon, Hinsdale, Ill.)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.What I’m Writing and ReadingGettyOn the day when DeSantis formally entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, The Times published this essay of mine about the puzzling ways in which his own actions contradict and undercut the initial case for his candidacy, which has “the Trump negativity minus the Trump electricity.”There were many excellent tributes to Tina Turner after her death last week but none with more soul, rhythm, blues, jazz and pop than Wesley Morris’s in The Times. It could have filled the entire For the Love of Sentences section, but I’m giving it its own special spotlight here.Ditto for Maureen Dowd’s column last weekend: a mother lode of vibrant prose, deserving of its own special shout-out for that reason, for its wisdom about the necessity of literature and the humanities and because reading or rereading it is your way of honoring Maureen for her just-acquired master’s degree in English literature from Columbia. Congratulations, my brilliant friend.On a Personal (by Which I Mean Regan) NoteFrank BruniIt’s customary for Regan to slow down in the late spring and summer, her interest in movement falling with the mercury’s rise, but there has been a steeper drop this year, and it’s not a function of her health, which is good. It seems to be a function of her age. She’s almost 9½ now, and her mix of breeds (Australian shepherd, Siberian husky) suggests a life span of 12 to 15. So she’s getting up there.I see that in her sleep, deeper and more frequent. I see that in her face, where the black fur is newly stippled with gray. But I see it mostly in her stillness. We’ll get a mile into her 8 a.m. walk, and she’ll sit down or turn around, ready to go back home. We’ll get 20 steps into her 5 p.m. walk, and she’ll do the same, her appetite for exercise having been sated by her morning constitutional. This doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens somewhat frequently, and why shouldn’t it? The squirrel chasing aside, she’s not the sprightly girl she once was.Occasionally I push her, because I want to keep her stimulated, fit and limber, and I’ve observed that she enjoys most outings once she surrenders to them: Her initial reluctance is as much idle reflex — she psyches herself out — as it is a considered assessment of her ability and vigor. Other times I heed her, because her body may well be telling her something and she’s passing that message along to me.Always I wonder at the line between her reality and my projection of my own situation. At 58, I may be in a place on the human life spectrum similar to hers on the canine one. I find myself wanting to slow down; I exhort myself to speed up, because deceleration can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, an irreversible lull, and because I want to maximize the years and energy that remain. When I coax Regan to put in five or six miles on a given day rather than two or three, am I in part coaxing myself, and does the effort have to do with a whole lot more than the physical distance that the two us cover?Just as I don’t know exactly what’s going on in her head, I don’t know exactly what’s going on in mine. We walk together through this fog, grayer each month, our gaits less swift, our mileage less ambitious, our devotion to each other a consolation beyond the ravages of time. More

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      Ron DeSantis’s Entry Into the Republican Race

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      More from our inbox:The Futility of Debating TrumpListen to Trans People, and Detransitioners TooRegulating A.I.: Can It Be Done?Splitting Finances During DivorceMusing About the ‘Best’ Eze Amos for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Hot Mic, Dead Air and Eventually, DeSantis Speaks” (front page, May 25):So Ron DeSantis finally entered the race. Among his highest priorities is a crusade against D.E.I. (diversity, equity and inclusion) and “woke” that we must all witness now.I have three questions for Mr. DeSantis:First: What is wrong with diversity? Ecosystems are more resilient if there is diversity. Likewise for human societies. And diverse societies are more fascinating. Color is interesting; monochrome is boring.Second: What is wrong with equity? Don’t all Americans believe in equality of opportunity and equality before the law? And we know that extreme inequality of income and wealth hurts the economy.Third: What is wrong with inclusion? Which group do we propose to leave out? Don’t all God’s creatures have a place in the choir?Bonus question: D.E.I. is what wokeness is all about. What is so bad about wokeness? Whom does it harm? Where is the angry mob? Why should “woke” go to Florida to die?I put these questions to the governor.Michael P. BaconWestbrook, MaineTo the Editor:While Twitter may have its share of weaknesses, Gov. Ron DeSantis has skillfully demonstrated his leadership qualities and strengths. Choosing facts over fear, education over indoctrination, law and order over rioting and disorder — Mr. DeSantis’s record speaks for itself.Because of his common sense and guidance, Florida is growing now more than ever as people are migrating and planting new roots in the Sunshine State. With Florida as the model, we need look no further than Ron DeSantis as our nation’s future.JoAnn Lee FrankClearwater, Fla.The Futility of Debating Trump Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:It is not too early to mention presidential debates. The Times should make an unprecedented recommendation that the sitting president not debate former President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign.One simply cannot debate an inveterate, incessant liar. I mean that in the most literal sense: Lying is not debating, and it takes two to engage in debate. It cannot be done.Witness the recent CNN debacle, where, even when checked assiduously by the moderator, Mr. Trump repeated nothing but lies. Everyone who could have conceivably been convinced that the former president ignores the truth completely was already convinced. All others will never be convinced.Therefore, there is no upside whatsoever to sharing the stage with such a mendacious bloviator. In fact, it may serve only as an opportunity for the former president to call for another round of “stand back and stand by.” Should President Biden give him that opportunity?David NeuschulzChatham, N.J.Listen to Trans People, and Detransitioners TooChloe Cole, who lived for years as a transgender boy before returning to her female identity, now travels the country promoting bans on transition care for minors. She received a standing ovation at Gov. Ron DeSantis’s State of the State speech in Florida in March.Phil Sears/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “G.O.P. Focuses on Rare Stories of Trans Regret” (front page, May 17):While the article rightly notes that the campaign to ban gender transition in minors is led by Republicans, it falls into the trap of viewing youth gender medicine and detransition as a right-versus-left issue. Many people who support equality for trans and detrans people insist that a public health lens is crucial.The article doesn’t mention the growing transnational archive of people who detransition, commonly with feelings of regret for having transitioned. If you look at countries with national universal health care systems like Sweden, youth gender care has recently evolved following state-funded reviews of transgender treatment. By contrast, in the U.S., our highly privatized and compartmentalized managed care system contributes to the politicization of this issue to the detriment of all.Perhaps this is why the article seems to downplay the trauma that saturates detransitioners’ testimonies. To mourn the loss of one’s breasts or ability to reproduce is no small matter.Journalists should stop equating detransition with an attack on transgender people. Instead, they should see young people testifying to medical harm as a call for accountability and strive to understand the full range of their experiences without fueling the dangerous right-left divide.Daniela ValdesNew Brunswick, N.J.The writer is a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University who researches detransition.Regulating A.I.: Can It Be Done?Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, believes that developers are on a path to building machines that can do anything the human brain can do.Ian C. Bates for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Most Important Man in Tech (Right Now)” (Business, May 17):Warnings about the enormous dangers of artificial intelligence are warranted, but mere calls for “regulations” are empty. The question is not whether regulatory regimes are needed, but how to control the uses to which A.I. can be put.Anything human or nonhuman that is capable of creative thought is also capable of creating mechanisms for self-preservation, for survival. The quest for a “precision regulation approach to A.I.” is likely to prove elusive.Norman Cousins, Carl Sagan, Alvin Toffler and many others have presciently warned that technological advances provided both a cure to some of humanity’s afflictions and a curse, potentially threatening human existence.One doomsday scenario would be for tech scientists to ask A.I. itself for methods to control its use and abuse, only to receive a chilling reply: “Nice try!”Charles KegleyColumbia, S.C.The writer is emeritus professor of international relations at the University of South Carolina.Splitting Finances During Divorce Lisk FengTo the Editor:Re “Rebuilding Finances After Divorce” (Business, May 18):Your article is correct in advising spouses that they may “land in financial hot water” unless they seek expert advice concerning splitting retirement assets at divorce. But getting good advice, while a necessity, is not enough.Even if a spouse is awarded a share of a 401(k) or pension benefit as part of a divorce decree, that alone is not enough. Under the federal private pension law ERISA, spouses must obtain a special court order called a qualified domestic relations order (better known as a Q.D.R.O.) to get their rightful share of private retirement benefits.This should be done earlier, not later. Getting a Q.D.R.O. after a divorce is much harder — and sometimes impossible — to get.So, to protect themselves at divorce, the word “Q.D.R.O.” should be part of every woman’s vocabulary.Karen FriedmanWashingtonThe writer is the executive director of the Pension Rights Center.Musing About the ‘Best’ O.O.P.S.To the Editor:Re “Our Endless, Absurd Quest to Get the Very Best,” by Rachel Connolly (Opinion guest essay, May 21):As far as I’m concerned, the best of anything is the one that meets my particular needs, not those of the reviewer, not those of the critic and not those of anybody else.Likewise, what’s best for me is not necessarily best for you. I guess you could say that the “best” is not an absolute; it’s relative.Jon LeonardSan Marcos, TexasTo the Editor:While some may suffer from a relentless pursuit of perfection, some struggle with making choices, period. I’ve witnessed parents trying to get their toddlers to make choices about food, clothing, activities, etc. Hello, they’re 2!I wonder how many suffer from what I call “compulsive comparison” chaos, when one goes shopping after purchasing an item to make sure they got the best deal, even if satisfied with their purchase. True madness.Vicky T. RobinsonWoodbridge, Va. More

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      Trump, Biden and Others Troll DeSantis’s Twitter Announcement

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      Former President Donald J. Trump called it a “disaster,” President Biden’s campaign took a sly shot to raise a little extra cash, and low-polling Republicans tried to use Gov. Ron DeSantis’s glitchy, delayed campaign rollout to steal some attention for themselves.As technical difficulties derailed Mr. DeSantis’s attempt to make a splash by appearing in a Twitter livestream with the platform’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, much of the internet couldn’t resist poking fun — including the two leading presidential candidates and other trailing wannabes.The mix of 26 minutes of mostly dead air, followed by an intermittent celebration of Mr. Musk, made the livestream feel “a bit like an ad for Twitter,” Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official who has turned sharply against Mr. Trump, wrote on Twitter. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a Trump ally, called his governor “DeSedative.”But perhaps nobody enjoyed the stumbling start to Mr. DeSantis’s presidential bid more than his current and potentially future rivals.Mr. Trump — still shunning Twitter in favor of his Truth Social platform — called the DeSantis announcement a “catastrophe.” “His whole campaign will be a disaster,” he added. “WATCH!”On Instagram, Mr. Trump posted a satirical video of a fake Twitter Spaces event that included Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Musk, the liberal philanthropist George Soros, former Vice President Dick Cheney, the Devil and Adolf Hitler, among others. Not surprisingly, Mr. Biden’s campaign took a more understated approach: “This link works” it wrote, pointing to a site where supporters could make donations.Mr. DeSantis received support from some corners of the right-wing media universe. Ben Shapiro, the podcast host with more than five million Twitter followers, suggested the technical meltdowns were a distraction from what Mr. DeSantis was trying to say.“If you’re obsessed with the optics of the Twitter Spaces glitch, then you’re probably not going to vote DeSantis,” Mr. Shapiro wrote. “If you’re interested in political substance, DeSantis is likely your candidate.”And some of the other attention-starved, low-polling Republican White House hopefuls tried snagging some of the rubbernecking attention for themselves.Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas took a similar approach to Mr. Biden, writing — on Twitter, of course — “Just like my policies, this link works,” with a link to his donations page. And Vivek Ramaswamy accused Mr. DeSantis of sitting for softball interviews and what sounded like reading prepared remarks.“Challenge to the GOP field,” Mr. Ramaswamy wrote on Twitter. “No pre-written speeches. No teleprompters. No pre-scripted interviews. That’ll be good for authenticity, good for America. I promise to abide.” More

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      Polls Have Shown DeSantis Trailing Trump

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has struggled in recent polling, receiving an average across polls of around 20 percent among Republicans, falling far short of former President Donald J. Trump’s roughly 50 percent. The gap between the two men has grown steadily over the past few months, as Mr. Trump’s share has increased and Mr. DeSantis has lost ground.In a Quinnipiac poll conducted May 18 to 22, Mr. DeSantis captured 25 percent of Republican voters compared with Mr. Trump’s 56 percent — doubling the former president’s lead over the Florida governor since late March. Still, Mr. DeSantis fares much better in the polls than the rest of his G.O.P. primary competitors, who remain in the low single digits.DeSantis Lags in the PollsPolling averages show Ron DeSantis’s support among Republicans dropping below 30 percent in recent weeks, as Donald J. Trump has gained strength in the primary contest.

      Source: New York Times analysis of polls aggregated by FiveThirtyEightBy The New York TimesWhile it is still early to consider the general election next fall, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump fare similarly — roughly neck-and-neck against President Biden — in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.Still, Mr. DeSantis is viewed slightly more warmly by the American public: He has a net three percentage point favorability rating on average, while views of Mr. Trump remain underwater. While Mr. DeSantis enters the race with a fairly large polling hill to climb, there are a lot of reasons to believe it’s not too early to count him out. More

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      The DeSantis Delusion

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      If Ron DeSantis is supposed to be more electable than Donald Trump, why did he sign a ban on most abortions in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy? That’s manna for the Christian conservatives who matter in Republican primaries, but it’s a liability with the moderates and independents who matter after that point. It steps hard on DeSantis’s argument that he’s the version of Trump who can actually beat President Biden. It flattens that pitch into a sad little pancake.If DeSantis is supposed to be Trump minus the unnecessary drama, why did he stumble into a prolonged and serially mortifying dust-up with Disney? Yes, the corporation publicly opposed his “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and that must have annoyed him. He’s easily annoyed. But the legislation was always going to pass anyway, and he indeed got what he substantively wanted, so there was no need to try to punish Disney and supercharge the conflict — except that he wanted to make a big, manly show of his contempt for the mighty Mouse. He wanted, well, drama. So there goes that rationale as well.And if DeSantis, 44, is supposed to be tomorrow’s Trump, a youthful refurbishment of the 76-year-old former president, why does he seem so yesteryear? From his style of hair to his dearth of flair, from his emotional remove to his fugitive groove, there’s something jarringly anti-modern about the Florida governor. He’s more T-Bird than Tesla, though even that’s too generous, as he’s also more sedan than coupe.On Wednesday he’s expected to rev his engine and make the official, anticlimactic announcement of his candidacy for the presidency. I just don’t get it. Oh, I get that he wants to be the boss of all bosses — that fits. But the marketing of DeSantis and the fact of DeSantis don’t square. Team DeSantis’s theory of the case and the case itself diverge. In many ways, he cancels himself out. His is a deeply, deeply puzzling campaign.Which doesn’t mean it won’t be successful. Right around the time Trump was declared the 2016 winner, I exited the prediction business, or at least tried to incorporate more humility into my own storefront, and I humbly concede that I feel no certainty whatsoever about DeSantis’s fate.He has a legitimate shot at the Republican presidential nomination. He absolutely could win the presidency. He governs the country’s third most populous state, was re-elected to a second term there by a nearly 19-point margin, wowed key donors, raised buckets of money and has widespread name recognition. To go by polls of Republican voters over recent months, they’re fonder of him than of any of the other alternatives to Trump. Nikki Haley and Asa Hutchinson would kill to have the kind of buzz that DeSantis has, which mostly tells you how buzzless their own candidacies are.But do Republican voters want an alternative to Trump at all? The polls don’t say so. According to the current Real Clear Politics average of such surveys, Trump’s support is above 55 percent — which puts him more than 35 percentage points ahead of DeSantis. Mike Pence, in third place, is roughly another 15 percentage points behind DeSantis.There’s an argument that Trump’s legal troubles will at some point catch up to him. Please. He’s already been indicted in one case and been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in another, and his supporters know full well about his exposure in Georgia and elsewhere. The genius of his shameless shtick — that the system is rigged, that everyone who targets him is an unscrupulous political hack and that he’s a martyr, his torture a symbol of the contempt to which his supporters are also subjected — lies in its boundless application and timeless utility. It has worked for him to this point. Why would that stop anytime soon?But if, between now and the Iowa caucuses, Republican voters do somehow develop an appetite for an entree less beefy and hammy than Trump, would DeSantis necessarily be that Filet-O-Fish? The many Republicans joining the hunt for the party’s nomination clearly aren’t convinced. Despite DeSantis’s braggartly talk about being the only credible presidential candidate beyond Biden and Trump, the number of contenders keeps expanding.Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Hutchinson and Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host, have been in the race for a while. Tim Scott filed his paperwork last Friday and made a public announcement on Monday. Pence and Chris Christie are expected to join the fray in the coming days or weeks, and three current governors — Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Doug Burgum of North Dakota — remain possibilities. That’s one potentially crowded debate stage, putting a premium on precisely the kind of oomph DeSantis lacks. Next to him, Pence sizzles.Most of these candidates are in a pickle similar to DeSantis’s. It’s what makes the whole contest so borderline incoherent. Implicitly and explicitly, they’re sending the message that Republicans would be better served by a nominee other than Trump, but they’re saying that to a party so entirely transformed by him and so wholly in thrall to his populist rants, autocratic impulses, rightward lunges and all-purpose rage that they’re loath to establish too much separation from him. They’re trying to beat him without alienating his enormous base of support by beating up on him. The circus of him has them walking tightropes of their own.And DeSantis has teetered, time and again. His more-electable argument is undercut not only by that Florida abortion law — which, tellingly, he seems to avoid talking about — but also by the measure he recently signed to allow the carrying of concealed firearms in Florida without a permit. That potentially puts him to the right of the post-primary electorate, as do some of the specific details — and the combined force — of legislation that he championed regarding education, the death penalty, government transparency and more. In trying to show the right wing of the Republican Party how aggressive and effective he can be, he has rendered himself nearly as scary to less conservative Americans as Trump is.And as mean. The genius of Scott’s announcement was its emphasis on optimism instead of ire as a point of contrast with Trump, in the unlikely event that such a contrast is consequential. “Our party and our nation are standing at a time for choosing: victimhood or victory?” Scott said. “Grievance or greatness?” Victimhood, grievance — gee, whoever could Scott have in mind? But DeSantis is all about grievance and retribution, and he’s oh so grim. He sent two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. He exults that Florida is “where woke goes to die.” How sunny! It’s the Trump negativity minus the Trump electricity.His assertion that he wants to end Republicans’ “culture of losing” is an anagram for the accusation that Trump has prevented the party from winning, but I doubt the dig will resonate strongly with the Republican base. As Ramesh Ponnuru sagely observed in The Washington Post recently, Trump’s supposed toxicity is a longstanding part of his story and his brand. “For many conservatives,” Ponnuru wrote, “Trump’s 2016 victory reinforced the idea that ‘electability’ is a ploy used by the media and squishy Republicans to discredit candidates who are willing to fight for them.”The campaigns of DeSantis and the other would-be Trump slayers rest on the usual mix of outsize vanity, uncommon ambition and stubborn hopefulness in politicians who reach for the upper rungs.But their bids rest on something else, too — something I share, something so many of us do, something that flies in the face of all we’ve seen and learned over the eight years since Trump came down that escalator, something we just can’t shake: the belief that a liar, narcissist and nihilist of his mammoth dimensions cannot possibly endure, and that the forces of reason and caution will at long last put an end to his perverse dominance.DeSantis is betting on that without fully and boldly betting on that. It’s a hedged affair, reflecting the fact that it may be a doomed one.I invite you to sign up for my free weekly email newsletter. You can follow me on Twitter (@FrankBruni).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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Republican Presidential Plot Is Thickening

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. It looks like we’ll be getting two new campaign launches soon in the race for the Republican presidential nomination: Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Any free advice you want to offer them on how they can beat you-know-who?Gail Collins: Gee, Bret, I guess they could both could use a little help being faster on their feet when they’re surrounded by curious reporters. But it’s not like I’m rooting for either of them. I’ve already told you — with multitudinous qualifications — that if I was locked up in a room and forced to choose between DeSantis and Trump, I’d beat my head against the wall and then pick The Donald.Bret: Gail! No! No no no no. You’re reminding me of the old “Bad Idea Jeans” skit from “Saturday Night Live,” in which a bunch of middle-aged guys bat around some really, really terrible brainstorms: “Well, he’s an ex-freebase addict and he’s trying to turn his life around, and he needs a place to stay for a couple of months ….”What about Tim Scott?Gail: Scott hasn’t been a serious enough possibility for me to worry about. Give me a little more time to judge what looks like it will be a growing throng.You’re the one who’s in charge of Republicans. Nikki Haley was your fave — is she showing any serious promise? Who’s next on your list?Bret: Scott has a $22 million campaign war chest, which alone makes him a potentially serious contender. He speaks the Reaganesque language of hope, which is a nice contrast to the vituperative and vengeful styles of Don and Ron. He’s got an inspiring, up-from-poverty life story that will resonate with a lot of voters. He has the potential to attract minority voters to the G.O.P., and, as important, appeal to middle-of-the-road voters who might be persuaded to cast a ballot for a Republican provided they won’t feel guilty or embarrassed by it.Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressRebecca Blackwell/Associated PressAll he needs is to work on his answers to those pesky questions about his position on abortion. As for DeSantis, he needs to stop coming across as a colossal, monomaniacal, humorless, lecturesome and tedious jerk, the Ted Cruz of this campaign season.Gail: Well, your recipe for Scott certainly does seem more doable. Sorta depressing though, that we judge potential candidates for the highest office in the land by their ability to raise money, a lot of it from special interests. Sure there are folks out there planning to send Tim $10 online, but we’re basically talking about big money donors.Bret: Sorry, but is it any different than Democrats? Didn’t President Biden just headline a $25,000-a-plate fund-raiser at the home of a former Blackstone exec? Our standards have become so debased in the last few years that I’m grateful for anything that passes as politics as usual.Gail: Sigh. Moving on — I guess we should talk about the debt limit negotiations. Any deep thoughts?Bret: Not sure if they’re deep, but the Republican insistence on capping spending at 2022 levels is going to cripple military spending in the very decade in which we face serious strategic competition. I’m all for budget discipline, but the G.O.P.’s rediscovery of fiscal purity is fundamentally at odds with its tough-on-China stance. It also reminds me of the composer Oscar Levant’s quip: “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.”Gail: I always love your quotes but fitting in Oscar Levant may be a new high.Bret: All joking aside, I think the Biden administration would be smart to make a few concessions on spending, both because it’s the right thing to do and because it will help pin the blame on Republicans in the event we end up in default and possibly recession. Your thoughts?Gail: Biden’s clearly ready to go there. What we’re watching is a dance to see who gets the most credit for avoiding default while avoiding super-outrage from the base.Bret: Big problem here is that too much of the Republican base is basically unappeasable. They’d rather put the nation’s finances in a wooden barrel and send it hurtling over Niagara Falls than be accused of compromising with Democrats.Gail: One of the Republicans’ big yelling points has been a stricter requirement that able-bodied people who get federal aid should do some kind of work for it.Most people aren’t against that in theory, but the enforcement is a big, potentially expensive, pain that could lead to deserving people getting cut off by bureaucratic snafus, and causing big trouble for some single mothers. Without any real turnaround in the status quo.I find it deeply irritating, but I’m kinda reconciled to the idea that something will happen. You’re a big supporter, right?Bret: The work requirements of the 1996 welfare reform bill were one of the best achievements of the decade — and helped make Bill Clinton a two-term president. Even if enforcement is difficult, it’s politically, financially and morally preferable to subsidizing indolence.Switching subjects, Gail, Democrats were enraged when DeSantis and the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, started busing migrants north to New York City and other self-declared sanctuary cities. Now the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, is declaring a crisis and busing some of those same migrants out of the city, often to the consternation of nearby smaller cities like Newburgh that are straining under the weight of the new arrivals. Are you ready to denounce Adams?Gail: Not quite the same thing, Bret. States like Texas have a permanent relationship with countries across the border — it’s part of their economy. In times like this, the rest of the country should offer support — from good border enforcement to services for the needy. And of course to accept these folks if they come to our states of their own volition.Bret: Not quite sure why some states should bear a heavier share of the immigration burden just because they happen to be next to Mexico, particularly when immigration enforcement is primarily a federal responsibility. I think we in the nonborder states have so far sort of failed to appreciate the scale of the crisis and the burden it has imposed on border towns.Gail: We know Texas has been mass-shipping immigrants to places like New York to make a political score, not solve a problem.Bret: Well, both are possible.Gail: Adams isn’t the best-organized mayor in history, but I don’t think even a great administrator could have successfully coped with all of this. There just aren’t enough places in the city for these people to go. And Gov. Kathy Hochul had big plans for expanding housing around the state, which were killed off by nonurban lawmakers.It’s true some of the smaller cities have also been flooded with needy newcomers. But there are plenty of wealthier suburban and rural communities who could do a lot more. Having spent part of my career covering state government for suburban papers, I can tell you there’s nothing that a lot of those towns hate/fear/oppose more than programs that bring in lower-income would-be residents.Bret: As a matter of moral conviction, I believe we ought to be welcoming to strangers. And I’m mindful that my mother arrived in this country as a refugee, albeit one who waited year after year for a U.S. visa.But as a matter of politics, the Biden administration’s performance has been disastrous. In the next New York City budget, emergency migrant aid is projected to cost more than the city’s Fire Department. Every government has a far greater responsibility toward its own citizens — especially the neediest — than it does to people who arrive here in violation of the law. And if President Biden doesn’t get an effective handle on the border, he’s going to turn the entire country against immigrants in a way that will permanently damage our spirit of openness.Gail: This is going to require a lot more arguing in the future.Bret: We’ll put it aside for now. In the meantime, the most profound, meaningful and soul-rending article in The Times for as long as I can remember is our colleague Sarah Wildman’s essay about the loss of her daughter Orli, at age 14. Where there are no words, Sarah found the words:Recently, several people quietly told me that she had helped them in some way, inspired them or helped them with their pain. If she could continue to engage, to be concerned beyond herself, they could, too. Her instinct was always to assist, to write to the kid on the other side of the country struggling with chemo-related hair loss, to find out if a friend’s sibling headed to the hospital needed advice on how to navigate hospital time, to see if a newly diagnosed child wanted tips on making life in cancer care more bearable, or even to encourage someone going through a divorce to dance. And so, even when I’m crushed with grief, Orli continues to teach me. Some of the lessons are basic but worth repeating: It matters to reach out, over and over, even in minor ways. It matters to visit. It matters to care.May Orli’s memory always be for a blessing.Gail: Bret, this one is so moving I have to throw in one last comment: Agreed, agreed.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump Is Back, to Tear Our Families Apart Once More

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      My cousin back in rural Illinois, where I grew up and where most of my family still lives, sent me a nice note over Facebook the other day. She saw I had a novel coming out and told me she was proud of me and couldn’t wait to read it. I thanked her and said I’d love to catch lunch the next time I’m in town. She said that would be nice.Then she added: “And no politics … I promise!”I promised as well. We’re going to do our best to honor that promise. But it’s getting harder. Again.Families across America that were so divided by the Trump era have only started to heal in the last couple of years — and now we’re facing the real possibility of a sequel.I’m dreading, and I sense that she and many other Americans are dreading, having to go through this gantlet so soon again. Politics have divided families in ugly ways, and I do sense that the Biden era, for many, has been a chance to try to heal. But the wounds may be about to be reopened.One of the implicit, but central, selling points of a Joe Biden presidency was that, if he did his job right, the average American wouldn’t have to pay much attention to him. The “normalcy” Mr. Biden vowed to return us to was partly about making the executive branch a functioning arm of government again, and about no longer being the (very scary) joke that the country had become globally during the Donald Trump presidency.But at home, for many Americans, it was about something simpler than that: It was about returning to a world where we did not have to talk and fight about politics all the time. It was about being in your own home, among your own family and being able to forget, if just for a little while, that politics were happening at all — or at least assume that reasonable people were taking care of it.The Trump years made this impossible, and the ubiquitousness of politics, the sense that you had to be screaming about the state of the world at all times, fractured families across the country. What had once been merely some awkward moments at Thanksgiving became constant fissures pitting kids against parents, siblings against siblings, generation against generation.Some of these fissures became ruptures, or even chasms: I have one friend who clashed with his in-laws over Mr. Trump so dramatically that they still haven’t met their 3-year-old granddaughter. The constant and inescapable political discourse of 2015 to 2021 frayed every bond of American society, perhaps family most of all.But there has been a quiet change the last couple of years. These disagreements have not gone away: The world is as perilous and fraught as it has always been. But since Mr. Trump left office, you’ve been able to find moments of escape and respite, and even, yes, normalcy. There have not been constant presidential tweets; there has not been a ban on travel from several predominantly Muslim countries; whatever verbal gaffes Mr. Biden might make, you have felt fairly confident he’d never refer to another country with a scatological vulgarity.Things have not been perfect, and there are still people desperately trying to fight about everything — there’s always that relative who insists on making sure you saw his “Let’s Go Brandon” hat. But with the easing of a pandemic that scrambled the planet, you have been able to walk around in the world for at least a few minutes at a time without worrying that it would explode. Maybe you even mended some fences with the people who, no matter how much you may disagree with them, you love. (My friend’s daughter finally has a meeting with her grandparents planned for this summer.)You could take those first steps, because, for the first time in a long time, politics hasn’t been the center of American life. But the recent CNN town hall with Mr. Trump was a reminder of storm clouds on the horizon — and these clouds look very familiar.A majority of Americans do not want to see another matchup between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. There are many reasons for this, yet I wonder if a big one for many people is the fear that those tumultuous times that we just went through and unceasing torrent of political battles that invaded our holiday dinner table are about to return. Trump versus Biden? This is what we just went through. We have to go through that again?And what if Ron DeSantis gets the Republican nomination over Mr. Trump? Maybe that will just lead to entirely new fights. Though considering how bruising any nomination battle that Mr. Trump loses would be — if such a battle ends at all — I suspect it won’t leave the country in a healing mood, either.My cousin and I disagree on many things, and there have been times — as when I saw her on Facebook cheering on the buses of “patriots” on their way to Washington on Jan. 5, 2021 — when I thought our relationship was essentially over. This was not long after she, someone who detasseled corn in the vast Illinois fields alongside me when we were both children, called me an “elitist deep stater.” It was difficult to wrap my mind around how much had changed: I had gone from affably disagreeing with her about Mitt Romney to wondering if she’d lost touch with reality entirely.But the fact remains: I love my cousin, and my cousin loves me. It is impossible to imagine my life, who I would be, without her place in it, and I’m sure she feels the same way. She has known me forever in a way so few people have. I’ve enjoyed reconnecting and have even thought, “If our relationship can survive 2020, it can survive anything.” But can it survive that twice? I am not sure. I suspect many families across the country are wondering the same thing.We can avoid talking about it, but it’s coming. It lurks, waiting to blast us all apart again. If you want to know why millions of Americans are so wary of a Trump-Biden sequel, that gathering storm is a big part of the answer.Will Leitch is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Time Has Come,” and is a contributing editor at New York magazine.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More