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      Older Americans Fight to Make America Better

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      Neil Young and Joni Mitchell did more than go after Spotify for spreading Covid disinformation last week. They also, inadvertently, signaled what could turn out to be an extraordinarily important revival: of an older generation fully rejoining the fight for a working future.You could call it (with a wink!) codger power.We’ve seen this close up: over the last few months we’ve worked with others of our generation to start the group Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for progressive change. That’s no easy task. The baby boomers and the Silent Generation before them make up a huge share of the population — more nearly 75 million people, a larger population than France. And conventional wisdom (and a certain amount of data) holds that people become more conservative as they age, perhaps because they have more to protect.But as those musicians reminded us, these are no “normal” generations. We’re both in our 60s; in the 1960s and ’70s, our generation either bore witness to or participated in truly profound cultural, social and political transformations. Think of Neil Young singing “four dead in O-hi-o” in the weeks after Kent State, or Joni Mitchell singing “they paved paradise” after the first Earth Day. Perhaps we thought we’d won those fights. But now we emerge into older age with skills, resources, grandchildren — and a growing fear that we’re about to leave the world a worse place than we found it. So some of us are more than ready to turn things around.It’s not that there aren’t plenty of older Americans involved in the business of politics: We’ve perhaps never had more aged people in positions of power, with most of the highest offices in the nation occupied by septuagenarians and up, yet even with all their skills they can’t get anything done because of the country’s political divisions.But the daily business of politics — the inside game — is very different from the sort of political movements that helped change the world in the ’60s. Those we traditionally leave to the young, and indeed at the moment it’s young people who are making most of the difference, from the new civil rights movement exemplified by Black Lives Matter to the teenage ranks of the climate strikers. But we can’t assign tasks this large to high school students as extra homework; that’s neither fair nor practical.Instead, we need older people returning to the movement politics they helped invent. It’s true that the effort to embarrass Spotify over its contributions to the stupidification of our body politic hasn’t managed yet to make it change its policies yet. But the users of that streaming service skew young: slightly more than half are below the age of 35, and just under a fifth are 55 or older.Other important pressure points may play out differently. One of Third Act’s first campaigns, for instance, aims to take on the biggest banks in America for their continued funding of the fossil fuel industry even as the global temperature keeps climbing. Chase, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo might want to take note, because (fairly or not) 70 percent of the country’s financial assets are in the hands of boomers and the Silent Generation, compared with just about 5 percent for millennials. More

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      Germany’s ‘Invisible’ Chancellor Heads to Washington Amid Fierce Criticism

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      Olaf Scholz will try to repair Germany’s credibility in the Ukraine crisis when he meets President Biden on Monday. Next on his agenda: Kyiv and Moscow.BERLIN — One headline asked, “Where is Olaf Scholz?” A popular magazine mocked the German chancellor’s “art of disappearance.” And his ambassador in Washington wrote home that Germany was increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in a leaked memo that was all the buzz this past week and began with the words: “Berlin, we have a problem.”With the threat of war hanging over Europe and rising tensions in the standoff with Russia over Ukraine, Mr. Scholz is headed to Washington on Monday for his first meeting with President Biden since taking over as chancellor in December. Foremost on his agenda: Show the world that Berlin is committed to the Western alliance — and, well, show his face.Less than two months after taking over from Angela Merkel, his towering and long-serving predecessor, Mr. Scholz is drawing sharp criticism at home and abroad for his lack of leadership in one of the most serious security crises in Europe since the end of the Cold War.His Social Democrat-led government, an untested three-way coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats, has refused to send arms to Ukraine, most recently offering 5,000 helmets instead. And it has been cagey about the type of sanctions that could be imposed in the event of a Russian invasion.As for the chancellor, he has made himself conspicuously scarce in recent weeks — so scarce that the newsmagazine Der Spiegel described him as “nearly invisible, inaudible.”While President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy have been busy calling President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Scholz has so far neither picked up the phone to Moscow nor visited. He has not gone to Kyiv, Ukraine, yet, either, and his visit to Washington, some note, took almost two months to organize.Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday on the front line in eastern Ukraine. While the United States and other NATO countries rushed military aid to Ukraine, Germany offered 5,000 helmets.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesLast week, Emily Haber, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, sent a memo to Berlin, warning of “immense” damage to Germany’s reputation. It was not just the news media but many in the U.S. Congress who questioned Germany’s reliability, she reported. In the view of many Republicans, she wrote, Berlin is “in bed with Putin” in order to keep the gas flowing.It has not helped that since then, Gerhard Schröder, a former German chancellor from Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats, accused Ukraine of “saber rattling” and just on Friday announced that he would join the board of Gazprom, Russia’s most prominent energy company.“Scholz’s central mission for his Washington visit has to be restoring German credibility,” said Thorsten Benner, a founder and the director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.“It’s not how Mr. Scholz envisaged his first U.S. trip as chancellor,” Mr. Benner added. “But international security was never near the top of his agenda.”Mr. Scholz, 63, has been a familiar figure in German politics for more than two decades. He was general secretary of his party and mayor of the northern port city of Hamburg before serving in two governments led by Ms. Merkel’s conservatives, most recently as her finance minister.A labor lawyer and lifelong Social Democrat, Mr. Scholz narrowly won the election last fall on a platform promising workers “respect” and a higher minimum wage, while nudging Germany on a path to a carbon-neutral future.Foreign policy barely featured in his election campaign, but it has come to dominate the first weeks of the new administration. Rarely has a German leader come into office with so many burning crises. As soon as Mr. Scholz took over from Ms. Merkel in early December, he had to deal not just with a resurgent pandemic but with a Russian president mobilizing troops on Ukraine’s borders.Russian infantry vehicles during drills in January in the Rostov region of Russia. The standoff with Russia over Ukraine has proved particularly vexing for Mr. Scholz.Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters“It wasn’t the plan,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the vice president of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “This is a government that has huddled around an ambitious plan of industrial transformation, but the reality of a crisis-ridden world has interfered with their plans.”Of all of the crises, the standoff with Russia has proved particularly uncomfortable for Mr. Scholz. His Social Democrats have traditionally favored a policy of working with Moscow. During the Cold War, Chancellor Willy Brandt engineered “Ostpolitik,” a policy of rapprochement with Russia.The last Social Democratic chancellor, Mr. Schröder, is not just a close friend of Mr. Putin’s, he has also been on the payroll of various Russian energy companies since 2005, notably Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the two gas pipelines connecting Russia directly with Germany under the Baltic Sea.It was not until last week, after Mr. Schröder’s comments about Ukraine, that Mr. Scholz felt compelled to publicly distance himself from the former chancellor.“There is only one chancellor, and that is me,” he told the public broadcaster ZDF.His party’s divisions over Russia are one way to explain why Mr. Scholz has shrunk away from taking a bolder lead in the standoff with Russia, prompting some to lament the loss of leadership of his conservative predecessor.Mr. Scholz won the election last year primarily by convincing voters that he would be very much like Ms. Merkel. Terse, well briefed and abstaining from any gesture of triumph, he not only learned to sound like the former chancellor, he even emulated her body language, holding his hands together in her signature diamond shape.But now that he is running the country, that is no longer enough. German voters are hungry for Mr. Scholz to reveal himself and increasingly impatient to learn who he is and what he actually stands for.The receiving station for the $10 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia directly with Germany. If Russia invades Ukraine, Mr. Scholz will be under enormous pressure to close it down. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesAs the current crisis unfolds, Mr. Scholz’s imitation of Ms. Merkel is also less and less convincing. She was understated and studious, and often kept her work behind the scenes, but she was not invisible.In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin invaded Crimea, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day. It was Berlin that united reluctant European neighbors behind costly sanctions and persuaded President Barack Obama, distracted by domestic affairs, to focus on a faraway conflict.At that point, of course, Ms. Merkel had already been chancellor for nine years and knew all of the protagonists well.“The crisis came very soon for Scholz,” said Christoph Heusgen, a veteran diplomat and Ms. Merkel’s foreign policy adviser during the last Ukraine crisis.Mr. Scholz’s advisers have been taken aback by the level of criticism, arguing that Mr. Scholz was merely doing what Ms. Merkel had so often done: Make yourself scarce and keep people guessing while engaging in quiet diplomacy until you have a result.When Mr. Scholz has spoken up on the current crisis — referring to the Russia-owned gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 as a “private-sector project” before pivoting to saying that “everything” was on the table — he has conspicuously recycled language that Ms. Merkel used before.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France, in June 2014. In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin first invaded Ukraine, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day.Sasha Mordovets/Getty ImagesBut given the escalation in the current crisis, that language is long outdated, analysts say.“He’s overlearned the Merkel style,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund said. “He’s Merkel-plus, and that doesn’t work in a crisis.”After facing mounting criticism from Kyiv and other Eastern European capitals, Mr. Scholz’s leadership is increasingly being questioned at home, too.In a recent Infratest Dimap poll, Mr. Scholz’s personal approval rating plummeted by 17 percentage points, to 43 percent from 60 percent in early January, the sharpest decline for a chancellor in postwar history, the firm says. Support for his Social Democrats fell to 22 percent, lagging the conservatives for the first time since last year’s surprise election victory.Mr. Scholz’s team announced that after returning from Washington, the chancellor will pivot to a full schedule that he hopes will shift German diplomacy into high gear. Following his meeting with Mr. Biden, he will meet with Mr. Macron; the Polish prime minister, Andrzej Duda; and the three leaders of the Baltic States. The week after, he will travel to Kyiv and Moscow, in that order.Senior diplomats say it is high time for such a pivot, starting with Monday’s visit to the White House.Mr. Scholz has a seeming center-left ally in Mr. Biden, who has so far refrained from publicly criticizing Berlin. Not since President Bill Clinton’s second term have both the White House and the German chancellery been in the hands of center-left leaders, and for all of the wavering on the German side, the two administrations have been in close contact throughout.Mr Scholz, right, listening to President Biden, left, at the start of the virtual Summit for Democracy in December. Mr. Biden has so far held off on publicly criticizing Berlin.Michele TantussiBut patience is running thin, and Mr. Scholz will have to bring something to the table.“There has to be a visible sign of commitment to the alliance,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “That’s what other allies are doing: The Spanish, the Baltic countries, the Poles, the Brits — everyone has offered something to strengthen deterrence on the eastern flank.”German lawmakers have started preliminary conversations about beefing up their troop presence in Lithuania, officials say. Other options include more naval patrols in the Baltic Sea and more air patrols in Bulgaria and Romania.As important as any material commitment may be the words Mr. Scholz uses — or does not use — to publicly communicate that commitment.“Maybe for the first time he could mention Nord Stream 2 by name when talking about possible sanctions,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “He needs to make a clear statement that Germany gets the situation and will stand with its allies in a language that appeals to people in the U.S. and ideally not in his usual flat language,” he added. More

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      The Politics of Gloom: Suburban Women Voice Concerns

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      Some voters aren’t sold on the idea that an election will save them from their anguish.Earlier this week, 10 women from across the country met on Zoom and talked for two hours as part of a focus group on politics. All of the women were white, lived in the suburbs and had been identified as swing voters. One was a mother from Iowa who owns a small business. Another teaches special education in Florida. And there was a school bus driver from Pennsylvania.The session was sponsored by several liberal groups who invited us to tune in but asked us not to identify the participants or the organizations. They cited a need to protect the participants’ privacy and to separate the views of the focus group from the views of the sponsoring organizations.The women first responded to a question about how things were going in the country. The most optimistic answer might have been “uncertain.” The others shared that they were “nervous,” “concerned,” “frustrated” and “irritated.”The teacher from Florida spoke about struggling to keep up with medical bills for her cancer treatment. “I thought I was ahead but I keep falling behind,” she said. One recently split up with her spouse over how seriously to take Covid. One devotes an entire day every weekend to running her errands, so she can save money on gas.“It’s been the worst time,” said an educational consultant in Pennsylvania. “I can’t believe that we’re living through this.”This focus group of 10 women is a grain of sand on the beach that is the American electorate. But they open a window into a widespread gloom that helps explain why some voters doubt that the Biden administration can fulfill its promise to restore their lives to normal. These women are consumed by the problems that the federal government has said it’s trying to solve, but they seem to believe that the government lacks the power to fix them.Focus groups are but one data point in the run-up to an election. A professional mediator guides the group’s discussion, with the goal of revealing perspectives that don’t usually get captured in polling, which is a far more scripted and fast-paced interaction.Focus groups can provide anecdotes to explain trends in polling, and the organizers tend to group voters by their demographics. The organizer of this focus group is conducting sessions with multiple demographic groups; the one we were invited to this week happened to center on the views of white women. The participants were identified as swing voters because they had expressed misgivings about their past votes — some of the women had voted for Donald Trump, while others had voted for President Biden.Democrats need support from suburban women if they want to keep their House and Senate majorities in November. The women in the focus group didn’t necessarily dislike Biden. They supported the infrastructure law and opposed measures that restrict voting access. They applauded Biden for his hot-mic moment — the one when he muttered a disparaging remark about a Fox News reporter. They disliked Trump, and they were disgusted with those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.Despite all of that, they weren’t eager to vote for Democrats in the midterm elections in November.“I can’t really have any hope for 2022 coming up,” said a woman from Tennessee who works for a professional wrestling company. “So they’re not giving me any sort of ambition to feel like I have any sort of trust in the government to fix things or at least get the ball going in the right direction.”A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Campaign Financing: With both parties awash in political money, billionaires and big checks are shaping the midterm elections.Key Issues: Democrats and Republicans are preparing for abortion and voting rights to be defining topics.Democrats know they need to campaign on their accomplishments to preserve their majorities. Biden himself has suggested that he needs to do a better job telling voters what his administration and Democrats in Congress have done. But, as these women made clear, just talking to voters isn’t enough. Democrats need to make sure voters feel the effects of their efforts, too.“It’s absolutely essential that by Election Day, these suburban women are looking at Washington and seeing it as a place that can get things done,” said Meredith Kelly, a Democratic strategist.Learning ‘how to play in the sandbox’The women in the focus group did not know that the moderator guiding the discussion was a Democrat or that the sponsors were liberal organizations. All they knew before logging on was that they would be observed, though they did not know by whom. Some of them refused to answer a few questions, saying they were not informed enough to form an opinion. And some of them said they usually avoided talking about politics.When they were asked how they saw their role in the midterm elections, they laughed. “The suckers,” an Arizona mother answered. “We’re that automated laugh reel,” joked a woman in Utah.They saw Washington more as a playground than as a place where problems get solved.“At the end of the day you need to learn how to play in the sandbox together,” an interior designer from Georgia said, lamenting about bickering politicians.When it came to the infrastructure law, some of the women agreed that Democrats had included nonessential items that had nothing to do with roads or bridges. But they also thought Republicans should have voted to pass it anyway.“We need it, so whatever’s shoved in there at this point, just take it,” the Georgia woman said.They generally agreed that Biden stood out from other politicians for being “empathetic.” But even if they believed that Biden had wanted to make a difference, they didn’t think he was an exception to the rule. They seemed to doubt that any politician could solve the country’s biggest problems.The women expressed that corporations and the wealthiest Americans wielded the most power, not politicians. But they didn’t think there was anything the government could do to make corporations pay their fair share — these companies always find loopholes, they argued.After two hours of venting their frustrations, they concluded the conversation with an excoriation of the rioters who stormed the Capitol.“How did we let it get that bad?” asked the woman in Utah.With that, the moderator told them their time was up. She asked them to type up final thoughts before they logged off. One immediately left the call, while the others took a moment to say their goodbyes. The teacher in Florida, who spoke of struggling with cancer, was the last to sign off.“Thank you,” she told the moderator. “I got a lot out of it.”What to read tonightIn Washington State, Black voters’ ballots were rejected four times as often as those of white voters in the 2020 election, Mike Baker reports. All of those ballots were thrown out because of problems with voters’ signatures.Biden spoke alongside Mayor Eric Adams of New York to assert his support for law enforcement and other measures to increase public safety, Katie Glueck, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael Wilson report.Sarah Bloom Raskin, the nominee for vice chair of supervision at the Federal Reserve, has an even narrower path to being confirmed if Senator Ben Ray Luján is out while recovering from a stroke. Raskin, who is well-known in the banking industry, is married to Representative Jamie Raskin.the former guyDonald Trump endorses David Perdue for governor of Georgia.Perdue for GovernorThe Kool-Aid ManRemember those old commercials in which a giant, smiling pitcher of Kool-Aid interrupts a baseball game or a wedding, bursting through a wall to share the joy of a sugary beverage?From the Republican establishment’s perspective, the role of the Kool-Aid Man was played this week by the former president, who crashed the proverbial party in two states: Georgia and New Hampshire.In Georgia, Trump cut his first face-to-camera ad for a candidate, David Perdue. At Trump’s urging, the former senator is challenging Brian Kemp, the sitting governor, in the upcoming Republican primary.“The Democrats walked all over Brian Kemp,” Trump says in the ad. “Brian Kemp let us down. We can’t let it happen again.”It’s an allusion to Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him in Georgia, and another way to air his anger that Kemp refused to go along with his efforts to overturn the vote. The district attorney in Georgia’s Fulton County is investigating Trump for seeking to improperly influence the outcome of that election.“While President Trump brought jobs back from overseas, David Perdue made a career outsourcing them to China, Mexico and other countries,” Cody Hall, a spokesman for the Kemp campaign, said of the ad. “That’s not America First — that’s David Perdue padding his own wallet on the backs of hardworking Americans.”As for New Hampshire, Trump’s on-and-off political lieutenant, Corey Lewandowski, told a conservative radio host that the former president had empowered him to find a primary challenger for the state’s moderate Republican governor.​​“The president is very unhappy with the chief executive officer of the State of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu,” Lewandowski told Howie Carr, a Boston-area radio personality. “And Sununu, in the president’s estimation, is someone who’s never been loyal to him. And the president said it would be really great if somebody would run against Chris Sununu.”A spokesperson for Sununu did not respond to a request for comment. But Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, had plenty to say about Trump’s intervention.“This is another outrageous example of the Trump cancel culture that will do nothing except help elect more Democrats,” Hogan said. He added, “If we double down on failure and focus on the former president’s strange personal grievances, then we will deserve the result.”Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Clyburn Pushes Childs for Supreme Court, Testing Sway With Biden

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      The highest-ranking Black member of Congress is credited with helping resurrect the president’s 2020 campaign at a critical point. Now he is calling in a favor.WASHINGTON — Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina was already picturing Judge J. Michelle Childs sitting on the Supreme Court bench in early 2020 when he suggested Joseph R. Biden Jr. could revive his faltering presidential campaign by pledging to nominate the first Black woman to serve there.Mr. Biden did so, paving the way for an endorsement from Mr. Clyburn ahead of the South Carolina primary that was a critical turning point in the race. In the months since the election, Mr. Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat and the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, has not been shy about taking his share of credit for Mr. Biden’s victory and trying to exert influence on the president’s policy and personnel choices.Now, Mr. Clyburn is mounting an aggressive campaign to persuade Mr. Biden to nominate Judge Childs, a district court judge in his home state of South Carolina, to succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is retiring. It is a blatant effort to call in a political favor in the form of a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court and, perhaps, the most consequential test yet of the Biden-Clyburn relationship.“I make my case, I share my views, sometimes my feelings, and then I go on,” Mr. Clyburn, 81, said in a recent interview, describing how he uses his sway with Mr. Biden. This time, he is going all out, and irking some of the president’s allies in the process.Within hours of Mr. Breyer’s retirement announcement, Mr. Clyburn held a conference call with South Carolina reporters, stating that Judge Childs’s humble background — she attended large public universities on scholarships, earning her undergraduate degree at the University of South Florida and law and business degrees at the University of South Carolina — would better represent the country than another justice with an Ivy League pedigree. (Ketanji Brown Jackson, another top contender, has two degrees from Harvard, while a third, Leondra R. Kruger, has one from Harvard and one from Yale.)Allies in South Carolina immediately began emailing talking points to potentially helpful surrogates, noting that Judge Childs was “rooted in the African American community,” a member of Delta Sigma Theta, the prestigious Black sorority, and a member of the oldest Black Catholic church in Columbia.Over the past week, Mr. Clyburn has plugged her case on television and noted that she had the backing of Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. On Wednesday, he and Mr. Graham had breakfast in the Senate dining room with Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, to discuss, among other issues, Judge Childs and how to make a bipartisan case for her nomination. Mr. Graham posted a picture on Twitter of the three men smiling.“It’s good for the country to have the court look more like America,” Mr. Graham said afterward. He said he had told the White House that Judge Childs, who is regarded as more moderate than other candidates Mr. Biden is thought to be considering, “would draw some Republican support.”At the White House, Mr. Clyburn has been talking her up to the president since a few days after Inauguration Day, although he said he had not spoken to Mr. Biden about Judge Childs since Mr. Breyer’s retirement announcement. It was Mr. Clyburn who urged the president to nominate her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is considered a feeder to the Supreme Court. Mr. Biden announced in December that he would do so.“He’s just determined,” said Representative G.K. Butterfield, Democrat of North Carolina, said of Mr. Clyburn. “He wants a pick who is racially and geographically diverse, whose views reflect the mainstream of the American people.”The result has been the kind of pressure campaign that longtime Biden aides say can sometimes backfire. Mr. Biden recoils at being lobbied through the television. And there is sensitivity among some of his allies and former aides that his selection must look like the president’s own historic pick, not like a political chit he owes to Mr. Clyburn.Mr. Clyburn, left, received his diploma from Mr. Biden at the South Carolina State University’s commencement ceremony in December.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesBut for Mr. Biden, a believer in sticking with the people who helped him get to where he is, Mr. Clyburn, a friend of many decades, still enjoys a special status.“I’d almost walk to South Carolina to be able to do that for Jim,” Mr. Biden said when he visited South Carolina in December to give the commencement speech at his alma mater, South Carolina State University. Mr. Clyburn, who received his diploma by mail when he graduated in 1961, walked with the graduates and received his diploma from Mr. Biden.“When it comes to the Black community in general, Jim Clyburn is on that short list of people he will always call,” Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist, said.Mr. Clyburn is an old-school Southern politician perhaps better known for his annual fish fry, which draws most of the Democratic presidential candidates every four years, than he is for his role as House whip. He is a natural political operator who cultivates press coverage, values loyalty and understands how to press an advantage when he can.Over the decades when they overlapped in Congress, Mr. Biden and Mr. Clyburn often played golf and appeared together on Charlie Rose’s talk show. They first bonded over the fact that one of the cases in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that held that segregating schools was unconstitutional, was from South Carolina and another was from Mr. Biden’s home state of Delaware.“We spent time talking about the similarities of these cases,” Mr. Clyburn recalled of their early conversations.When Mr. Biden drew criticism during the 2020 campaign for boasting of his work with segregationist Democrats in the 1970s, Mr. Clyburn was there to defend him.Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, said that Mr. Clyburn’s advocacy must be looked at in light of how he “basically resurrected” Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign.“I think Joe Biden has to listen to him,” he said.The White House has downplayed the influence of any single voice in the selection of a nominee, but has confirmed that Judge Childs is being considered.“The president’s focus is not on gaming out the process; it’s on picking the right candidate,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said at a briefing this week when asked about Mr. Clyburn and Mr. Graham’s coordinated campaign.Mr. Clyburn said he was aware that the administration would not always heed his advice. But that has not deterred him from pushing.He lobbied successfully for his longtime friend Marcia L. Fudge to join the president’s cabinet, for Shalanda Young to be chosen as director of the Office of Management and Budget and for Jaime Harrison, a former South Carolina representative, to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee.He has also tried to expand his role as a kingmaker, inserting himself into a party primary in Ohio to boost a more moderate candidate over a progressive acolyte of Senator Bernie Sanders. His chosen candidate won, but his involvement angered some on the left, underscoring the ideological divide among Democrats between establishment veterans in Congress and a progressive new generation that is increasingly challenging them.Judge Childs’s potential nomination has also drawn pushback from some progressives and labor activists, who have flagged her work as a lawyer representing employers opposing unionization drives.In terms of policy, he and his congressional allies credit Mr. Clyburn with pushing for the “10-20-30 formula,” which directs investments to poverty-stricken communities, to be included in the president’s budget request. They also give him credit for pressing for more money for broadband in the infrastructure law.Mr. Clyburn, never a shrinking violet, goes further.“It was yours truly who made broadband an infrastructure issue,” he said. “The White House has supported me with all these issues.”Judge Childs with Mr. Clyburn, who has said her background would better represent the country than another justice with an Ivy League pedigree.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImageMr. Clyburn also takes credit for Mr. Biden’s pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, though others say he played only a partial role.“I decided that Joe Biden needed to do something that would demonstrate a high level of respect for Black women,” he said. “What higher level of respect can there be?”Biden campaign aides recall things slightly differently. It was Ms. Fudge, they said, who first raised the issue of making the pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court during a meeting Mr. Biden held with members of the Congressional Black Caucus aboard the U.S.S. Yorktown in Charleston, S.C.During the meeting, the group, which included Mr. Clyburn, had a frank conversation with Mr. Biden about the state of his campaign.“We said, ‘If you really want to be the nominee, you’re going to have to do something dramatic,’” Mr. Thompson recalled. “If you don’t win the debate, and ultimately the Saturday primary, it’s over.”Ms. Fudge then told Mr. Biden he needed to find a forum where he would pledge to put a Black woman on the Supreme Court. Mr. Clyburn and Mr. Thompson agreed.“We left there with the impression that he was going to do it,” Mr. Thompson said.Some of Mr. Biden’s advisers, however, thought making such a pledge on the debate stage would be viewed as pandering to Black voters. In a debate preparation session, Symone D. Sanders, a former top aide who is Black, said she did not think it was a good idea.But Mr. Biden ultimately made the pledge, and Mr. Clyburn’s endorsement soon followed.The White House has not always accommodated his requests. He originally pushed for Ms. Fudge to be nominated as agriculture secretary, but she ended up as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development.Mr. Clyburn remains optimistic that Mr. Biden will choose Judge Childs and that he will have had a hand in the selection of a groundbreaking Supreme Court nominee.But even if Judge Childs does not get the nod, Mr. Clyburn’s allies said he had already made his mark on the process.“At 81, as his career nears an end, his legacy is for the most part written, but you can always add accouterments,” said Bakari Sellers, a Democratic strategist and former member of the South Carolina legislature. “You can’t mention the first Black female on the Supreme Court without mentioning the name Jim Clyburn.” More

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      Read the Nov. 18 Memo on Alternate Trump Electors

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      Privileged and Confidential The Real Deadline for Settling a State’s Electoral Votes

      voting margin) to change the rules governing its deliberations, a result which cannot be squared with Art. I, § 5, providing that “[e]ach House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings . . . .” As Professor Tribe has noted, “[t]here is no constitutionally prescribed method by which one Congress may require a future Congress to interpret or discharge a constitutional responsibility in any particular way.” Tribe, supra note 3, at 267 n.388 (citing Laurence H. Tribe, 1 American Constitutional Law, § 2-3, at 125-26 n.1 (3d ed. 2000)). See also Chris Land & David Schultz, On the Unenforceability of the Electoral Count Act, 13 Rutgers J. of Law & Pub. Pol’y 340, 368-77, 385-87 (2016); Vasan Kesavan, Is the Electoral Count Act Unconstitutional?, 80 N. Car. L. Rev. 1654, 1729-59, 1779-93 (2002).

      Florida had a strong interest in qualifying under this safe-harbor provision was a key factor in its decision to halt the ongoing Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election. Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 110-11 (2000) (per curiam).

      However, nowhere has the Wisconsin Legislature placed any priority on ensuring that post-election procedures in presidential contests are completed by the safe-harbor date. Far from mandating that certificates of election must be issued by this date, the Legislature has, with regard to all elections, affirmatively banned certificates of election from being issued unless and until all timely brought recounts, and subsequent judicial proceedings, have been exhausted:

      When a valid petition for recount is filed . . . the governor or commission may not issue a certificate of election until the recount has been completed and the time allowed for filing an appeal has passed, or if appeal until the appeal is decided.

      Wis. Stat. § 7.70(5)(a).5

      5 To be sure, in accord with ordinary practice, under which the winner of the electoral votes in Wisconsin will typically be known well in advance of the date when electors cast their votes, the Legislature has provided that in presidential elections, the govenor “shall prepare a certificate showing the determination of the results of the canvass and the names of the persons elected,” and send six duplicate originals to one of the electors on or before the date electoral votes are cast. Wis. Stat. § 7.70(b). Obviously this ministerial duty exists only when a certificate of election has already issued under § 7.70(a), after all post-election recounts and related legal proceedings have reached finality. There is nothing in § 7.70(b) that purports to affect the timetable for resolving post-election proceedings.

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      Read the Dec. 9 Memo on Alternate Trump Electors

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      TO: James R. Troupis FROM: Kenneth Chesebro DATE: December 9, 2020 RE: Statutory Requirements for December 14 Electoral Votes

      Here is a summary of the requirements under federal law, and under the law of the six States in controversy, concerning what is required for presidential electors to validly cast and transmit their votes. Obviously, there are party leaders and/or officials in each State who are familiar with the relevant details who would deal with the logistics, most of whom have handled such details in past elections. This memo merely supplies a general overview.

      It appears that even though none of the Trump-Pence electors are currently certified as having been elected by the voters of their State, most of the electors (with the possible exception of the Nevada electors) will be able to take the essential steps needed to validly cast and transmit their votes, so that the votes might be eligible to be counted if later recognized (by a court, the state legislature, or Congress) as the valid ones that actually count in the presidential election. (On why this could work, see here and here.) And, they can do so without any involvement by the governor or any other state official (except, in some States, where access to the Capitol Building is or might be needed, or where the Governor must approve a substitute elector or, in Nevada, where the Secretary of State is involved).

      It is important that the Trump-Pence Campaign focus carefully on these details, as soon as possible, if the aim is to ensure that all 79 electoral votes are properly cast and transmitted – each electoral vote being potentially important if the election ultimately extends to, and perhaps past, January 6 in Congress. The National Archives has a very helpful checklist, here.

      I. FEDERAL LAW

      The federal-law requirements for the December 14 electors’ meeting are set out in 3 U.S.C. §§ 6-11 (copy here).

      ! Under federal law, the Trump-Pence electors must all meet, together, on December 14, “at such place in each State as the legislature of such State shall direct.” 3 U.S.C. § 7.

      ! In most States there is no requirement that they meet in public. It might be preferable for them to meet in private, if possible, to thwart the ability of protesters to disrupt the event. Witness, via this video, what happened when the Trump-Pence electors met in public in Wisconsin in 2016, even though the Trump- Pence victory had not been contested. Even if held in private, perhaps print and even TV journalists would be invited to attend to cover the event.

      M E M O R A N D U M More

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      Donald Trump and the Peril to Democracy

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      More from our inbox:$30 TrillionWhen We Wrote It by HandOver the weekend, Donald Trump dangled, for the first time, that he could issue pardons to anyone facing charges for participating in the Jan. 6 attack if he is elected president again.Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Sought Ways to Seize Vote Machines” (front page, Feb. 1):New accounts that show that former President Donald Trump was directly involved in plans to use security agencies, including the military, to seize control of voting machines in swing states some six weeks after Election Day confirm how perilously close the nation came to a burgeoning autocracy.Were it not for some of Mr. Trump’s trusted advisers, including the clownish, conspiracy-theory-peddling Rudy Giuliani, Americans might have witnessed armed military personnel rolling into their communities, crushing democracy along the way.That Rudy Giuliani might have been a voice of reason during this moment is in itself a weird and chilling commentary on just how fragile our electoral system is.Cody LyonBrooklynTo the Editor:Re “Trump Suggests He May Pardon Jan. 6 Rioters if He Has Another Term” (news article, Jan. 31):“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt.” So spoke Donald Trump at a recent rally.Mr. Trump’s strategy to prevent his indictment is to threaten riots. Indeed, with many millions of cultlike true believers, his indictment surely would cause mass civil unrest and perhaps civil war, especially given that many of his most ardent supporters are well armed.And one might well ask: Which side would the police and members or ex-members of the military be on? Many of them are ardent Trumpists. Would any prosecutor be willing to risk this?Mr. Trump’s strategy is clear, and those of us who want to rescue our country from this would-be autocrat need a clear strategy, too. And that, unfortunately, cannot include the liberal fantasy of Mr. Trump in the dock or jail. Trump and Trumpism must be defeated at the ballot box. It’s the only way.Gerald Lee VogelGermantown, Md.To the Editor:If Donald Trump runs for re-election as president, it would take me a ream of printer paper and 8-point type to list the reasons for not voting for him. And I am a registered Republican.But now a new reason has arisen that takes its place at the top of the list. On Saturday, at a rally in Texas, Mr. Trump said that if he is re-elected as president, he would consider pardoning those prosecuted for what they did at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Somehow Mr. Trump feels that the people being charged with crimes are being treated unfairly.I was at home on Jan. 6 and spent most of the day watching news coverage. It took our former president almost three hours to ask the crowd to disperse and go home, telling them, “Go home, we love you, you’re very special.” Several of his aides, including his daughter Ivanka, as well as legislators and conservative media reporters, begged him earlier to ask the rioters to disperse and go home. That did no good.It boggles my mind that anyone who watched even part of what happened on Jan. 6 and saw Mr. Trump’s reaction to it could in any way support or vote for him. I certainly cannot. Mr. Trump may have thought the people who overtook the Capitol deserved our love and were very special. I did not.Gerald S. TanenbaumCharleston, S.C.To the Editor:Re “Trump’s Aim: Keep Power at All Costs,” by Shane Goldmacher (news analysis, front page, Feb. 2):The prospect of Donald Trump’s bid for another term as president has the media in a tizzy. The same media that allowed Mr. Trump to control the narrative during the 2016 presidential campaign may be overcompensating for its past failures by sounding the alarm bell with headlines predicting the demise of freedom as we know it. With Mr. Trump’s unfitness for office well documented and his waning ability to use the media as a conduit to deceit, why such angst?Have you forgotten how soundly Mr. Trump was defeated just 15 months ago? President Biden received the most votes ever cast for a U.S. presidential candidate and won by a margin of more than seven million votes.The media can rest assured in the knowledge that the electorate is democracy’s safe harbor.Jane LarkinTampa, Fla.$30 TrillionThe Treasury Department in Washington.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “National Debt Breaks Record at $30 Trillion” (front page, Feb. 2):Well, the national debt wouldn’t be so high if big money — corporations and individuals — were paying its fair share of taxes.Eva ZuckerNew YorkWhen We Wrote It by Hand  The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Case for Writing Longhand” (Inside The Times, Jan. 21):As a retired teacher, I found that your article brought back many memories. I am from the time when the nuns converted left-handers like me into writing right-handed by some encouragement and some strapping.Most of the first two decades of my teaching career, the 1980s and ’90s, saw all of the student work handwritten and most of my notes and tests handwritten and then copied; I loved the smell of a mimeograph machine early in the morning.The next two decades saw the increase in typing and the decrease in handwriting skills, including my own. There was a time when many people were illiterate, but now they are illegible.Many students were surprised to know that if examiners couldn’t read your answers they couldn’t give them marks, and they wouldn’t spend time trying to translate the scribbles into words.It’s time to bring back pen “licenses” that confirm that young children can write neatly enough to now use a pen, and make sure the kids deserve them.Dennis FitzgeraldMelbourne, Australia More

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      Do Democrats Win When They Talk About Race?

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      With the midterm elections just nine months away, the Democrats face some hefty existential questions that need answers: Who are they in this post- and possibly pre-Trump era of American politics? Are they simply the anti-Trump party? Or are they the party of progress? Who are the voters they need to turn out in November? Should they excite the base by building a coalition united against white supremacy, or should they moderate their message to win over Republican-defectors?This week on “The Argument,” Jane Coaston brings together two voices that represent the factions in the Democratic Party’s existential struggle. Lanae Erickson is the senior vice president of social policy, education and politics at the center-left think tank Third Way. She argues that Democrats need to make their platform as broadly popular as possible in order to bring more voters under the party’s big tent. That’s the way to win, and then enact progressive policies.Steve Phillips disagrees. He’s the founder of the political media organization Democracy in Color and author of the book “Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority.” He counterargues that the Democrats must run and win as the party united around a vision of a multiracial, just society, unapologetically calling out racism on the other side of the ticket.The two political strategists strongly disagree on what the party needs to do to win in November, but they agree on one thing: Democrats are afraid and need to answer the question of who they are, fast.[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify or Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Mentioned in this episode:“The Argument” episode debating the future of the Republican Party: “Can the G.O.P. Recover From the ‘Big Lie’? We Asked 2 Conservatives.”“The Ezra Klein Show” episode with Ron Klain: “What Biden’s Chief of Staff Has Learned, One Year In.”Joe Biden For President first campaign video: “America Is an Idea.”Steve Phillips’s book “Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority” and his forthcoming “How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.”Steve Phillips’s podcast, “Democracy in Color.”(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Cavan Images/Getty ImagesThoughts? Email us at argument@nytimes.com or leave us a voice mail message at (347) 915-4324. We want to hear what you’re arguing about with your family, your friends and your frenemies. (We may use excerpts from your message in a future episode.)By leaving us a message, you are agreeing to be governed by our reader submission terms and agreeing that we may use and allow others to use your name, voice and message.“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez and Vishakha Darbha, and edited by Anabel Bacon and Alison Bruzek; fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; engineering by Carole Sabouraud; and audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin, Pat McCusker and Kristina Samulewski. More