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      There Is No Happy Ending to America’s Trump Problem

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      Debate about the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence has settled into well-worn grooves. Mr. Trump and many Republicans have denounced the act as illegitimate. Attorney General Merrick Garland is staying mostly mum. And Democrats are struggling to contain their enthusiasm.Liberal excitement is understandable. Mr. Trump faces potential legal jeopardy from the Jan. 6 investigation in Congress and the Mar-a-Lago search. They anticipate fulfilling a dream going back to the earliest days of the Trump administration: to see him frog-marched to jail before the country and the world.But this is a fantasy. There is no scenario following from the present that culminates in a happy ending for anyone, even for Democrats.Down one path is the prosecution of the former president. This would be a Democratic administration putting the previous occupant of the White House, the ostensible head of the Republican Party and the current favorite to be the G.O.P. presidential nominee in 2024, on trial. That would set an incredibly dangerous precedent. Imagine, each time the presidency is handed from one party to the other, an investigation by the new administration’s Justice Department leads toward the investigation and possible indictment of its predecessor.Some will say that Mr. Trump nonetheless deserves it — and he does. If Mr. Garland does not press charges against him for Jan. 6 or the potential mishandling of classified government documents, Mr. Trump will have learned that becoming president has effectively immunized him from prosecution. That means the country would be facing a potential second term for Mr. Trump in which he is convinced that he can do whatever he wants with complete impunity.That seems to point to the need to push forward with a case, despite the risk of turning it into a regular occurrence. As many of Mr. Trump’s detractors argue, the rule of law demands it — and failing to fulfill that demand could end up being extremely dangerous.But we’ve been through a version of the turbulent Trump experience before. During the Trump years, the system passed its stress test. We have reason to think it would do so again, especially with reforms to the Electoral Count Act likely to pass during the lame duck session following the upcoming midterm elections, if not before. Having to combat an emboldened Mr. Trump or another bad actor would certainly be unnerving and risky. But the alternatives would be too.We caught a glimpse of those alternative risks as soon as the Mar-a-Lago raid was announced. Within hours, leading Republicans had issued inflammatory statements, and these statements would likely grow louder and more incendiary through any trial, both from Mr. Trump himself and from members of his party and its media rabble-rousers. (Though at a federal judge’s order a redacted version of the warrant affidavit may soon be released, so Mr. Trump and the rest of his party would have to contend with the government’s actual justification of the raid itself.)If the matter culminates in an indictment and trial of Mr. Trump, the Republican argument would be more of what we heard day in and day out through his administration. His defenders would claim that every person ostensibly committed to the dispassionate upholding of the rule of law is in fact motivated by rank partisanship and a drive to self-aggrandizement. This would be directed at the attorney general, the F.B.I., the Justice Department and other branches of the so-called deep state. The spectacle would be corrosive, in effect convincing most Republican voters that appeals to the rule of law are invariably a sham.But the nightmare wouldn’t stop there. What if Mr. Trump declares another run for the presidency just as he’s indicted and treats the trial as a circus illustrating the power of the Washington swamp and the need to put Republicans back in charge to drain it? It would be a risible claim, but potentially a politically effective one. And he might well continue this campaign even if convicted, possibly running for president from a jail cell. It would be Mr. Trump versus the System. He would be reviving an old American archetype: the folk-hero outlaw who takes on and seeks to take down the powerful in the name of the people.We wouldn’t even avoid potentially calamitous consequences if Mr. Trump somehow ended up barred from running or his party opted for another candidate to be its nominee in 2024 — say, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. How long do you think it would take for a freshly inaugurated President DeSantis to pardon a convicted and jailed Donald Trump? Hours? Minutes? And that move would probably be combined with a promise to investigate and indict Joe Biden for the various “crimes” he allegedly committed in office.The instinct of Democrats is to angrily dismiss such concerns. But that doesn’t mean these consequences wouldn’t happen. Even if Mr. Garland’s motives and methods are models of judiciousness and restraint, the act of an attorney general of one party seeking to indict and convict a former and possibly future president of the other party is the ringing of a bell that cannot be unrung. It is guaranteed to be undertaken again, regardless of whether present and future accusations are justified.As we’ve seen over and over again since Mr. Trump won the presidency, our system of governance presumes a certain base level of public spiritedness — at the level of the presidency, in Congress and in the electorate at large. When that is lacking — when an aspersive figure is elected, when he maintains strong popular support within his party and when that party remains electorally viable — high-minded efforts to act as antibodies defending the body politic from the spread of infection can end up doing enduring harm to the patient. Think of all those times during the Trump presidency when well-meaning sources inside and outside the administration ended up undermining their own credibility by hyping threats and overpromising evidence of wrongdoing and criminality.That’s why it’s imperative we set aside the Plan A of prosecuting Mr. Trump. In its place, we should embrace a Plan B that defers the dream of a post-presidential perp walk in favor of allowing the political process to run its course. If Mr. Trump is the G.O.P. nominee again in 2024, Democrats will have no choice but to defeat him yet again, hopefully by an even larger margin than they did last time.Mr. Trump himself and his most devoted supporters will be no more likely to accept that outcome than they were after the 2020 election. The bigger the margin of his loss, the harder it will be for Mr. Trump to avoid looking like a loser, which is the outcome he dreads more than anything — and one that would be most likely to loosen his grip on his party.There is an obvious risk: If Mr. Trump runs again, he might win. But that’s a risk we can’t avoid — which is why we may well have found ourselves in a situation with no unambivalently good options.Damon Linker, a former columnist at The Week, writes the newsletter “Eyes on the Right” and is a senior fellow in the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center.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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      Marcy Kaptur, a Veteran Democrat, Breaks with Biden in New TV Ad

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      Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the second-most tenured woman in congressional history, has released a new television ad explicitly breaking with President Biden, the most prominent Democrat to do so, as she seeks re-election in a Toledo-area seat that was redrawn to be sharply more Republican.Ms. Kaptur, who was first elected in 1982, criticized Mr. Biden in the ad over “letting Ohio solar manufacturers be undercut by China” and ended it with an attempt to cast her identity as independent from his.“Marcy Kaptur: She doesn’t work for Joe Biden; she works for you,” the ad concludes. “I’m Marcy Kaptur and I approve this message.”The remapping of districts in Ohio made Ms. Kaptur’s seat substantially more red this year by taking away parts of the Cleveland suburbs and exchanging them for a western swath of the state that reaches toward the Indiana border. The result turned the district from one that Mr. Biden easily won in 2020 to one that former President Donald J. Trump would have carried that year.Still, the ad from Ms. Kaptur is a relative surprise. She appeared with Mr. Biden only a few weeks ago, greeting him at an airport in Cleveland where photos appear to show the president kissing her hand on the tarmac.Mr. Biden greeting Ms. Kaptur in Cleveland in July.Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn response to her new ad, Republicans were already recirculating video of Ms. Kaptur campaigning for Mr. Biden in 2020 and declaring, “It will be my honor to not just vote for Joe Biden but to work for him.”The ad signals how important the political makeup of a district is, as it is increasingly rare for a lawmaker to hold a seat in an area that the opposing party’s presidential candidate won.Ohio has steadily trended Republican ever since Mr. Trump won the state in 2016. In 2020, the perennial presidential battleground had become a distinctively second-tier swing state. Mr. Trump succeeded in part by making inroads with the kind of union constituency that has always been a key part of Ms. Kaptur’s base.In her new ad, Ms. Kaptur says that while she has been “fighting back” against Mr. Biden, she has also been “working with Republican Rob Portman,” the state’s retiring senator.At least one other incumbent congressional Democrat has aired an ad distancing himself from Mr. Biden: Representative Jared Golden of Maine, who in 2020 won the most pro-Trump House seat of any Democrat in the nation. He aired an ad earlier this month positioning himself as an “independent voice” and saying he had voted against “trillions of dollars of President Biden’s agenda because I knew it would make inflation worse.”The leading House Republican super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, announced a new ad on Friday linking Mr. Golden to Mr. Biden, saying he “cast one of the deciding votes for Biden’s new massive spending bill.”Democrats are seeking to boost Mr. Biden’s image after the recent signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, with the Democratic National Committee being the latest to announce an ad buy highlighting parts of the package.In Ms. Kaptur’s ad, she also calls her opponent, J.R. Majewski, out by name and labels him an “extremist.”Mr. Majewski, an Air Force veteran, was a surprise primary winner in May who first garnered attention after turning his lawn into a 19,000-square foot “Trump 2020” sign. He said he was proud of going to Washington on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but added, “I didn’t do anything illegal. Unfortunately, there were some that did.” He has spread the baseless theory that the attack was “driven by the F.B.I. and it was a stage show.”Mr. Majewski has also expressed interest in the Qanon conspiracy theory, which espouses falsely that there is a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles controlling the government.The Cook Political Report rates the Ohio contest as a tossup. More

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      Think the Economy Is Hard to Predict? Try the Midterms.

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      The overturning of political norms is testing the limits of an established and generally dependable forecasting model that relies solely on economics.Based on the economy alone, Democrats face a big problem in the midterm elections.Inflation has been extremely high and economic growth has been weak or even negative. That is a toxic political combination — bad enough for the Democrats to lose the House of Representatives by a substantial margin.That, at least, is the forecast of an econometric model run by Ray Fair, a Yale economist. He has used purely economic variables to track and predict elections in real time since 1978, with fairly good results, which he shares with his students and which are available on his website for anyone who wants to examine the work.The party in power always starts off with a handicap in midterm elections, and a bad economy makes matters worse, Professor Fair said in an interview. “At the moment, the Democrats definitely have an uphill climb.”Yet Professor Fair acknowledges that his model can’t capture everything that is going on in the country.While his analysis shows that the Democrats have fallen into an increasingly deep hole as the year has gone on, prediction markets and public opinion polls are more upbeat for the Democrats right now, and show a surge that began in late June.Eric Zitzewitz, a Dartmouth professor who has studied prediction markets extensively, says the improved odds for the Democrats may be linked to an important development beyond the economy: the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.The power of the economyNo one would question whether economic conditions have a major influence on politics.But Professor Fair’s work goes further than that. In his book “Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things,” and in a series of papers and online demonstrations, he has shown that the economy is so powerful that it explains the broad outcome of most national elections since 1916. His relentlessly economic approach does not include any consideration whatsoever of the staples of conventional political analysis: the transcendent issues of the day, the personalities of the candidates or the tactics employed by their campaigns.This year, as high inflation has persisted and economic growth has slowed, he finds that the electoral prospects for the Democrats have worsened. Based on data through July, he estimates that Democrats will get only 46.70 percent of the raw national vote for congressional candidates in November.How this projection translates into results for individual congressional seats is beyond the scope of Professor Fair’s grand experiment.“That’s not what this model is built to do,” he said. “I leave that to the political scientists. But I think the model is showing that, because of the economy, the odds aren’t good for the Democrats holding the House of Representatives.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.Something missingYet, as Professor Fair readily acknowledges, his model’s single-minded exclusion of noneconomic factors inevitably misses some important things.In the 2016 presidential election, for example, it projected that Hillary Clinton would lose the popular vote to Donald J. Trump. She won the popular vote but lost the presidency in the Electoral College.“It’s possible,” he said, “that some of that was Trump’s personality, and that the model couldn’t pick that up.”Something similar may have happened in 2020. The model estimated that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would receive only 47.9 percent of the popular vote but he actually got 52.27 percent. In both cases, Professor Fair said, “Trump did not do as well as he was predicted to do by the model.”The model’s singular focus may be unable to adequately account for what Professor Fair calls “the Trump effect.” That shorthand encompasses the array of norm-shattering behaviors and issues associated with President Trump and his adherents, including the Jan. 6 insurrection; Mr. Trump’s denial of President Biden’s election win in 2020; and the decision of the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had been the law of the land for 50 years.What prediction markets sayIn theory, the prices in perfectly efficient markets synthesize the knowledge of each participant, making them better at assessing complicated issues than any individual can. But perfect conditions don’t exist for any market on earth and certainly not for prediction markets. Still, Professor Zitzewitz says these markets are highly informative.He pointed out that as recently as June 23, PredictIt, a leading prediction market, gave the Republican Party a 76 percent chance of taking the House of Representatives and the Senate from the Democrats in November.But the next day, June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. By June 30, the probability of a Republican sweep, calculated from bets placed on the PredictIt site, dropped to 60 percent. They were down to 39 percent on Thursday, with a higher probability, 47 percent, given to a different outcome: Democratic control of the Senate and a Republican victory in the House.Public opinion polls appear to have moved in a similar direction. The average of the polls tracked by Real Clear Markets has shifted from total Republican dominance to a virtual dead heat in the generic congressional ballot. On the other hand, Mr. Biden’s job rating in those polls is still awful, with nearly 16 percent more people disapproving of his performance than approving of it.Did the Supreme Court ruling shift the odds for the midterms? Did the Jan. 6 hearings swing public opinion? Has a string of legislative victories added luster to the Biden aura and moved some voters toward Democrats?It’s impossible to prove cause and effect for any of these things.Economic anomaliesIt is conceivable that the unique economic situation is muddling the projections in Professor Fair’s model.Gross domestic product and the inflation rate are the only economic factors the model uses, and may not be adequate for analyzing the state of the economy now, with the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine causing disruptions around the globe. Both the G.D.P. and inflation numbers for the United States are bleak and the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates, giving rise to speculation that the country is heading into a recession or is already in one.But other metrics, like gross domestic income and the unemployment rate, have been more positive. If the economy turns out to be in better shape than the core G.D.P. and inflation data indicate, the vote projections for the incumbent Democrats would improve, and they would worsen for the Republicans.Then again, Professor Fair said, “The economy and the political situation are always unique.”Reality is recalcitrant. Human behavior never fits entirely into any model or market yet invented.It’s worth knowing as much as you can about the underlying factors, but they come down to people. I find that reassuring.In the end, elections depend on the voters coming out and the public as a whole respecting the results. Astonishingly, in 2022, that basic civics lesson needs reinforcement. The legitimacy of the 2020 election is still under attack.So, remember, whatever the models, the markets, the polls, the pundits or the candidates say, the future is in your hands. When Election Day comes around, it’s more important than ever to get out and vote, and to make sure your vote counts. More

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      Liz Cheney Paid the Price of ‘True Patriotism’

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      More from our inbox:Aid the AfghansMr. President, Please Wear a Bike HelmetGuns in PhiladelphiaThat’s No Theory; It’s a LieRepresentative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, facing an uncertain political future, has been widely seen as weighing a 2024 presidential campaign.Kim Raff for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Cheney, a Vocal Critic of Trump, Loses to a Candidate He Backed” (front page, Aug. 17):On Tuesday, Americans witnessed the price an individual often pays for exhibiting true patriotism.Sadly, the vast majority of Republicans continue to embrace the former president’s “Big Lie” about a stolen election, ignore his attempted coup and promote baseless conspiracy theories.Standing apart from their Republican colleagues, 10 G.O.P. members of the House, recognizing the serious threats that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies posed to our republic, voted to impeach the former president — two of them subsequently volunteering for and serving nobly on the Jan. 6 select committee.Each knew their actions could — and for eight did — end any realistic hopes for re-election, among them Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.Patriotism is not about waving the flag or chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” Rather, it requires an unwavering commitment to the truth, the Constitution and protecting our fragile democracy.For her courage in defense of the Constitution, knowing she was likely sacrificing her political career, Representative Liz Cheney, together with Representative Kinzinger and, for his actions on Jan. 6, former Vice President Mike Pence, should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for demonstrating the true meaning and often cost of patriotism.Dick NewbertLanghorne, Pa.To the Editor:Liz Cheney lost a fair election, but she was hardly defeated. As she said to her supporters, “We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.”Her righteous opposition to Donald Trump and her defense of the Constitution and the rule of law stand in stark contrast to her critics in the Republican Party whose names belong in the ash heap of history. If, if, the Republican Party survives Donald Trump, it will be because of the leadership of Liz Cheney and a few other brave men and women.Liz Cheney is truly a “Profile in Courage.”Mary Ann LynchCape Elizabeth, MaineTo the Editor:The new Trump-aligned Republican Party has not just left its old house of small government, low taxes and cutting regulations behind. It has locked the door and burned it to the ground. It has left behind a party of conservatism and issues-oriented ideas and replaced it with a party coalescing around one very deeply flawed man.Liz Cheney has been a lonely independent voice in a party that values servitude to Donald Trump. She has watched fellow Republicans like the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and her replacement in leadership, Elise Stefanik, turn their backs on her as they sought the boss’s approval while leaving their consciences behind. She has proved herself to be a historic leader in the process.This is a turning point for our democracy. We have defeated slavery, a horrendous depression and McCarthyism and passed historic civil rights legislation, and we are at another inflection point. It will take leadership from Liz Cheney and others to really make America great again.Elliott MillerBala Cynwyd, Pa.To the Editor:I’m confused. Voters in Wyoming rejected Liz Cheney because they know that elections can be, and have been, rigged and she didn’t espouse that belief. So please help me understand why they are so convinced that this election was valid and that they just ousted Ms. Cheney? Asking for a friend.Barbara RosenFullerton, Calif.Aid the AfghansA Taliban guard looking on as Afghans receive food in Kabul. The country has been afflicted by a hunger crisis in the year since the Taliban’s takeover.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “U.S. Won’t Release $3.5 Billion in Afghan Aid” (news article, Aug. 16):The U.S. government’s delay has dire humanitarian consequences for the Afghan people. Assistance, a functioning banking sector and a more stable economy are essential to deliver services, bolster infrastructure and create livelihood opportunities for Afghan citizens, yet foreign reserves remain frozen, the central bank is still not functional and development assistance largely remains withdrawn.Afghanistan faces an unprecedented crisis, with 90 percent of its population facing food insecurity and more than half its population dependent on humanitarian aid. While ensuring that funds are not used to harbor terrorists is essential, so is taking urgent action to address the drivers of the crisis.If fundamental economic issues are not addressed by all sides, millions of Afghans will continue to suffer, and we will be in a relentless cycle of humanitarian response to meet people’s basic needs. The Afghan people need and deserve more.Bernice G. RomeroFresno, Calif.The writer is executive director, Norwegian Refugee Council USA.Mr. President, Please Wear a Bike HelmetPresident Biden on Kiawah Island on Sunday. Mr. Biden has deep ties to South Carolina.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “No Fuss for Biden, Just Sun and Peace” (Kiawah Island Memo, Aug. 17):As a survivor of a bike crash in which a bicycle helmet most likely saved my life, I was stunned to see a photograph of the president of the United States, of all people, riding on a beach, wearing a baseball cap instead of protective headgear.Where was the Secret Service to intervene and insist on a bike helmet for President Biden? Based on the photographic evidence, it seems that the president’s own security detail was without a helmet, too.Protecting presidential documents is a national security issue, for sure; protecting a president’s noggin surely should be one, too.Tom GoodmanNew YorkGuns in PhiladelphiaTeens hold up signs against violence while standing near the Octavius V. Catto Memorial at City Hall as they participate in a “Die In” to draw attention to gun violence on April 14, 2022, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “As Shootings Soar, Philadelphia Deals With Being Flooded With Guns” (news article, Aug. 12):Firearm violence is now the leading cause of death in the U.S. for children and adolescents 1 to 19. As a pediatrician in Philadelphia, I regularly screen caregivers for firearm ownership and counsel on safe storage practices to reduce firearm injuries. The adolescents referred to in the article remind us of the importance of screening our teenage patients for the presence of — or easy access to — firearms in homes, schools and communities.It has recently been shown that exposure to neighborhood firearm violence in Philadelphia is associated with an increase in children’s acute mental health symptoms leading to emergency department visits.While there is no simple solution to halting the influx of weapons in our city, screening teenagers at well-child medical visits — ahead of acute crises related to violence — can assist with connecting those at risk with community-based supports. Debates on tackling the firearm violence epidemic ought to center on evidence-based strategies to build trust with vulnerable populations, not actions that stigmatize like stop-and-frisk.Deniz CataltepePhiladelphiaThe writer is a member of the board of directors of SAFE: Scrubs Addressing the Firearm Epidemic.That’s No Theory; It’s a Lie USA Today Network, via ReutersTo the Editor:Why are we still using the term “conspiracy theory”?In science, a theory is a proposed explanation supported by confirmed facts and contradicted by no confirmed fact. In laymen’s informal talk, “theory” is often used as a synonym for “educated guess.”But the nonsense promoted by people such as Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene fits neither definition.Can we please call their attempts to inflame the gullible what they really are: conspiracy lies and conspiracy fantasies?Mike MeeEndicott, N.Y. More

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      Will Biden’s Recent Victories Lift the Democrats?

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      More from our inbox:What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job?President Biden is still one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history, despite his political victories.Yuri Gripas for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Biden Basks in String of Wins. Will This Be a Turning Point?” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 9):The president’s legislative agenda, a close approximation to the one promised, has passed. These are accomplishments, not rhetorical speculations. That the president has low ratings at this juncture speaks volumes not about him — he has delivered, and in under two years — but about the fuzzy-thinking electorate surveyed by pollsters.Yes, voters are perennially concerned about their purchasing power and the brutal effects of inflation. Americans need to be reminded that presidents do not bring inflation with them to the White House. A complex set of global problems — including a war, a pandemic and supply chain problems — contribute to a disrupted economy.Americans would do well in this historic moment to stop and smell the proverbial roses: We, as a country, have finally acted on climate change. And drug pricing. And infrastructure. And, incredibly, guns. Much remains to be done on all these fronts. Nothing is perfect, though voters polled seem disappointed that all their wishes don’t come true on Election Day.President Biden’s poll numbers are low, but let us take a poll of climate activists, people struggling with the cost of drugs, those who understand the truly herculean effort it took to pass the Inflation Reduction Act bill. Would his numbers be higher? I’ll go out on a limb and say they would triple.Will SouthColumbia, S.C.To the Editor:As a Democrat who had previously been disillusioned with President Biden’s commitment to working with Congress in a bipartisan manner, I found the legislative and economic accomplishments noted in this article reassuring and worth celebrating.However, they may not mark a turnaround for the Biden presidency, especially with respect to the coming midterm elections. We can simply revisit the first two years of the Obama administration to see why.Barack Obama’s legislative, economic and judicial achievements through the second year of his presidency are comparable, if not more remarkable, than those of Mr. Biden. By August 2010, Mr. Obama had already nominated two Supreme Court justices, passed Dodd-Frank and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and signed into law what was arguably his crowning piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act.But, as we all know, he and the Democrats suffered substantial losses in the midterm elections of 2010.So, is Joe Biden on a legislative hot streak? Yes. But will it play to his advantage during the midterms? History suggests otherwise.Ravin BhatiaBrookline, Mass.What’s Better, an After-School Program or a Job? BjelicaS/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “The Best Extracurricular Is a Job” by Pamela Paul (column, July 31):Ms. Paul is right to lament the decline in the number of teenagers who work after school. Teens who work can learn valuable things about themselves and work life that are not readily available otherwise.Where Ms. Paul goes wrong is in playing down extracurricular and after-school activities. After-school experiences help teens develop soft skills and self-confidence. They also provide credentials for getting good jobs down the road.In my research, I spoke with dozens of human resources professionals who had conducted mock job interviews with teens who had participated in after-school programs.The professionals were impressed with the experiences and skills that the teens had acquired and considered many of them to be hirable, even without a history of paid employment. In particular, after-school programs provide opportunities for teens to develop complex leadership skills, something they can rarely do at work.Teens need sequences of after-school programs and work experiences that build on each other, providing the best of both worlds.Bart HirschEvanston, Ill.The writer is professor emeritus of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, and the author of “Job Skills and Minority Youth: New Program Directions.” More

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      Why Isn’t Biden Ever on TV?

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      Americans are seeing a lot less of the president than they did of his predecessor. That’s partly by design.On a sweltering day last month, President Biden traveled to Somerset, Mass. Appearing on a bulldozed patch of land where a coal-fired power plant recently stood, and where a substation for an offshore wind farm eventually will, Biden delivered what the White House press office billed as remarks on “actions to tackle the climate crisis.” The previous week, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia seemingly torpedoed Biden’s ambitious climate package (though Manchin would soon resurrect it). In the meantime, much of the country was suffering from extreme weather: wildfires, floods, record heat. Now Biden, sporting Ray-Bans and forgoing a tie in the blistering heat, looked out at the crowd and the cameras. “Let me be clear,” he declared. “Climate change is an emergency.”Does any of this sound familiar? Can you picture it? Probably not: None of the three major cable news channels carried the speech live. All three network news shows led with stories about record-high temperatures — “the suffocating heat gripping more than 100 million Americans,” as NBC’s Lester Holt described it, only to be one-upped by ABC’s David Muir, who spoke of “heat warnings and advisories for 29 states now, more than 140 million Americans.” But they didn’t cover Biden’s speech until well into their newscasts, and then only for a minute or so; if you had stepped away to adjust your air-conditioner, you might have missed it.The leader of the free world does not have much of a visual presence in it.If you saw any of the president’s speech online, it was most likely the brief segment in which he recalled the oil refineries near his childhood home and said they were “why I and so many damn other people I grew up with have cancer.” Critics, seizing on what they saw as a gaffe, circulated that clip all over social media: “Did Joe Biden just announce he has cancer?” an official Republican National Committee account posted on Twitter. Biden’s defenders said he was referring to the nonmelanoma skin cancers he has had removed in the past. Bill Clinton once prompted a debate about “the meaning of the word ‘is’”; Biden’s speech started one about the semantics of “have.”The lack of substantive coverage of the climate speech itself illustrates an unusual feature of Biden’s presidency: The leader of the free world does not have much of a visual presence in it.No president, of course, could have quite the visual presence of Biden’s predecessor. Donald Trump filled our screens. The cable channels went live for his speeches and cabinet meetings and grip-and-grins with foreign dignitaries — even his walks from the White House to a helicopter — in the entirely justified hope that he would do something newsworthy. Try to pick the indelible image of Trump’s presidency. It’s impossible: There are too many. The white-knuckled squeeze of Emanuel Macron’s hand during an uncomfortably long shake. Standing on the South Lawn reading from a Sharpie-festooned legal pad, denying any “quid pro quo” with Ukraine. Holding up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church during the protests over George Floyd’s murder. These images compete with dozens, maybe hundreds, more. Now try to select an image from — much less the indelible image of — Biden’s presidency. You can’t, because there aren’t any. This is partly by design. Biden’s 2020 campaign was founded, in large part, on the promise of a return to normalcy, and it is not normal for Americans to be thinking about their president as relentlessly as they did during the Trump years. “People got tired of listening to and seeing the president,” Martha Joynt Kumar, a scholar of presidential media strategy, told me. “They were exhausted by the end of the Trump administration.”Biden has provided a respite. According to Kumar’s tabulations, he has held about half as many as news conferences and given around a third as many interviews as Trump had at this point in his presidency. It’s not just submitting to fewer questions from the press; he’s in front of cameras less frequently than Trump as well, even spending days with nothing at all on his public schedule. To Republicans, this is proof of Biden’s senescence; to the press, his lack of transparency. But when CNN asked the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, what Biden was doing during two days out of view last month, she replied that he had been “very busy dealing with the issues of the American people, and meeting with his staff and senior staff the last two days.”That could well be true. The problem, for Biden, is that his predecessor redefined what’s expected of the president. There has long been a performative component to the role, but Trump made public performance the entire job. The press covered his every appearance not just because his behavior resulted in gaffes but because it set policy. A defining feature of the Trump years was the president publicly fulminating about something, and then administration officials scrambling to cobble together policy proposals that matched his fulminations. To pick one of many instances, in 2018 Trump announced, while venting to reporters about immigration, that he was enlisting the U.S. military to guard the border with Mexico. The White House subsequently clarified that Trump meant he was mobilizing the National Guard, not active-duty military, but when Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was produced to explain the plan to reporters, she had no details to offer: “We’ll let you know as soon as we can,” she said. “I’m going to get on phone calls right now.” Biden, somewhat anachronistically, still insists on putting the horse before the cart. After Manchin seemed to sink the administration’s climate agenda last month, Democrats called on the president to formally declare a climate emergency, which would theoretically allow him to circumvent Congress in taking action. But he demurred. Speaking to reporters after the Massachusetts speech — in which he pointedly did not declare a climate emergency — he explained, “I’m running the traps on the totality of the authority I have.” This should be an admirable trait. But Biden’s reticence often registers as an absence. When Democrats criticized him for not being forceful enough in his response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, it wasn’t necessarily because they expected him to do anything; as a matter of law, there was little he could do. But they did want the face of their party to assume a mantle of leadership, demonstrate resolve and help channel their energies. Considering Biden’s limitations — his age, his focus on policy — you might expect to see his young vice president out making the case for the administration. But Kamala Harris has her own problems. In the pair’s absence, Democrats are looking elsewhere. Some get excited whenever Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s secretary of transportation, goes on Fox News to dismantle a few loaded questions, circulating YouTube clips with titles like “Pete Buttigieg HUMILIATES Fox News Host with EPIC Response on Live TV.” Others hail Gov. Gavin Newsom of California as “an effective and fierce fighter,” in the words of the liberal pundit Dean Obeidallah, for running ads in Florida and Texas trolling those states’ Republican governors. A Michigan state senator named Mallory McMorrow raised more than $1 million from donors in 50 states after her speech on the G.O.P.’s treatment of the L.G.B.T.Q. community went viral. On their screens and in their imaginations, Democrats are experiencing a great and public void. At some point, someone is going to have to fill it for them.Source photographs: Jim Watson/Getty Images; Andrew Merry/Getty Images; Joseph Prezioso/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images; Frans Lemmens/Getty ImagesJason Zengerle is a contributing writer for the magazine. He is working on a book about Tucker Carlson and conservative media. More

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      Democrats Enter the Fall Armed With Something New: Hope

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      Vulnerable incumbent Democratic senators like Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada are already planning events promoting the landmark legislation they passed over the weekend. Democratic ad makers are busily preparing a barrage of commercials about it across key battlegrounds. And the White House is set to deploy Cabinet members on a nationwide sales pitch.The sweeping legislation, covering climate change and prescription drug prices, which came together in the Senate after more than a year of painfully public fits and starts, has kicked off a frenetic 91-day sprint to sell the package by November — and win over an electorate that has grown skeptical of Democratic rule.For months, Democrats have discussed their midterm anxieties in near-apocalyptic terms, as voters threatened to take out their anger over high gas prices and soaring inflation on the party in power. But the deal on the broad new legislation, along with signs of a brewing voter revolt over abortion rights, has some Democrats experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.“This bill gives Democrats that centerpiece accomplishment,” said Ali Lapp, the president of House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC.In interviews, Democratic strategists, advisers to President Biden, lawmakers running in competitive seats and political ad makers all expressed optimism that the legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act — would deliver the party a necessary and powerful tool to show they were focused on lowering costs at a time of economic hardship for many. They argued its key provisions could be quickly understood by crucial constituencies.“It is easy to talk about because it has a real impact on people every day,” Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff, said in an interview. The measure must still pass the House and could come up for a vote there later this week. “It’s congressional Democrats who’ve gotten it done — with no help from congressional Republicans.”Senator Chuck Schumer on Sunday after Democrats in the Senate passed the climate and tax bill.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesWhether Democrats can keep the measure in the spotlight is another matter. On Monday evening, former President Donald J. Trump said the F.B.I. had searched his Palm Beach, Fla., home, a significant development that threatened to overshadow the news of the Senate deal and that gave already-energized Republicans a new cause to circle the wagons around Mr. Trump.Still, for younger voters, who polls have shown to be cool to Mr. Biden and his party, the package contains the most sweeping efforts to address climate change in American history. For older voters, the deal includes popular measures sought for decades by Democrats to rein in the price of prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare. And for both the Democratic base and independents, the deal cuts against the Republican argument that a Democratic-controlled Washington is a morass of incompetence and gridlock unfocused on issues that affect average Americans.“It’s very significant because it shows that the Democrats care about solving problems, it shows that we can get things done and I think it starts to turn around some of the talk about Biden,” said Representative Dina Titus, a Nevada Democrat running in a competitive re-election race, alluding to angst about the president as his national approval rating has hovered around 40 percent.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsKansas Abortion Vote: After a decisive victory for abortion rights in deep-red Kansas, Democrats vowed to elevate the issue nationwide, while some Republicans softened their stands against abortion.Wisconsin Primary: Former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters have turned the false notion that his 2020 defeat can still be reversed into a central issue ahead of the state’s G.O.P. primary for governor.Election Deniers: In Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republicans who dispute the legitimacy of the 2020 election are on a path toward winning decisive control over how elections are run.Senate Races: The key question with less than 100 days until the fall election: Can Democratic candidates in crucial Senate contests continue to outpace President Biden’s unpopularity? Adding to the Democratic Party’s brightening outlook were the results of the Kansas referendum on abortion rights last week, when a measure that would have removed abortion protections from the Kansas Constitution was overwhelmingly defeated. It was a stark reminder of the volatile and unpredictable political impact of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.Voters in Lawrence, Kan., last week when the state abortion referendum was defeated.Katie Currid for The New York Times“I can kind of feel it on the streets, that there’s some change in momentum,” Ms. Titus said.Indeed, in recent days, Democrats pulled ahead of Republicans for the first time this year when voters were asked which party they would prefer to control Congress — the so-called generic ballot test — according to polling averages maintained by the data-journalism website FiveThirtyEight.There is no guarantee of success in selling the bill. Last year, the White House shepherded through a rare bipartisan infrastructure deal. But its passage, which drew great fanfare in Washington, did little to arrest the continual decline in Mr. Biden’s approval ratings — and many Americans were still unaware that the measure passed months later, polling showed.Republicans say the new legislation could galvanize their own base against an expansive progressive wish list that has been decades in the making, just as the passage of the Affordable Care Act preceded the Republican wave of 2010.“That’s the sort of thing that could really set a spark to the powder keg — in the same way that the midnight passage of Obamacare was the moment that electrified Republican voters and started to really pull independents in our direction,” said Steven Law, who leads the main Republican super PAC devoted to Senate races.Republican assaults on the legislation — for bulking up the Internal Revenue Service, for creating a green energy “slush fund,” as Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, has called it, and for expanding spending programs despite the bill’s Inflation Reduction Act title — have already begun. 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      Democrats and Republicans Struggle to Forecast 2022 Midterms

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      Doug Sosnik is the kind of political analyst who likes to figure out the results of the next election well in advance — it’s just how he’s wired.But even Sosnik, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who now tries to forecast elections as a hobby, is stumped about the 2022 midterms.“I can’t figure this one out,” Sosnik said on Monday, a day after Democrats passed Build Back Better — whoops, pardon me, the Inflation Reduction Act, a woolly mammoth-size package that aims to shrink both the deficit and the risk of catastrophic climate change.The bill’s passage is one of a string of recent victories for beleaguered Democrats, who have spent the past 18 months squabbling among themselves and fretting about the coming elections. Gas prices are ticking down. Jobs are plentiful, with the unemployment rate at a 50-year low.Congress also passed the bipartisan CHIPS Act, a bill that would provide $52 billion in subsidies and tax credits to companies that manufacture chips in the United States and would add more than $200 billion for applied scientific research.Even President Biden, whose age and concern about the virus forced him to spend much of the 2020 presidential election campaigning from his home in Wilmington, Del., managed to shrug off 18 days of coronavirus-induced quarantine.As Ethel Merman might say, everything seems to be coming up roses for Joe and the gang in recent weeks, despite widespread predictions that Democrats are likely to lose the House and possibly the Senate.A ‘blood bath’ that might never arriveAccording to the usual logic Sosnik uses to make predictions, Democrats should expect a “blood bath” in the fall. But he’s not so sure anymore and is questioning everything he knows about the deeper patterns of U.S. elections.He is puzzled by one thing in particular: Which past elections offer a guide to 2022?The question doesn’t have an easy answer, in part because times have changed — there was no recent assault on the Capitol with the partial backing of one particular party in the 1982 midterms, for instance — and in part because the nature of political partisanship has changed.That latter point makes it really hard to compare today’s approval ratings to the past; back in, say, the 1960s, voters were much more inclined to give the president the benefit of the doubt. Today, far fewer partisans are willing to give the other side an ounce of credit or respect.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsKansas Abortion Vote: After a decisive victory for abortion rights in deep-red Kansas, Democrats vowed to elevate the issue nationwide, while some Republicans softened their stands against abortion.Wisconsin Primary: Former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters have turned the false notion that his 2020 defeat can still be reversed into a central issue ahead of the state’s G.O.P. primary for governor.Election Deniers: In Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Republicans who dispute the legitimacy of the 2020 election are on a path toward winning decisive control over how elections are run.Senate Races: The key question with less than 100 days until the fall election: Can Democratic candidates in crucial Senate contests continue to outpace President Biden’s unpopularity? Midterms are completely different animals than presidential election cycles, too: Fewer voters turn out, and the electorate tends to be older and more Republican.Historically, or at least since World War II, the party in power has lost seats in every midterm election but two: 1998 and 2002.The first came as Clinton skillfully exploited the unpopularity of congressional Republicans, whose impeachment drive backfired. The second came after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when patriotic sentiments were still running high.But these midterms are structurally different from many others. For one thing, many of the Democratic House members in battleground districts — the Cindy Axnes and Elissa Slotkins of the world — were elected in the anti-Trump wave of 2018. Those who held onto their seats in 2020, a good year for Republicans in Congress despite Trump’s loss, may know a thing or two about staying in office. More