Biden, Joseph R Jr

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Is a Red Wave Coming for Biden’s Presidency?

      by

      This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Tuesdays and Thursdays.The Republican Party, you may have heard by now, has a lot of news to celebrate after last week’s elections. In Virginia, a state that President Biden won by 10 points last year, it took back the governor’s mansion, a feat it hadn’t managed in over a decade. Republicans also came within striking distance of doing the same in New Jersey, a more deeply blue state that Biden won by about 16 points. And in New York, Democrats lost ground in local races too.Needless to say, tonight’s results are consistent w/ a political environment in which Republicans would comfortably take back both the House and Senate in 2022.— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 3, 2021
      What does the G.O.P.’s rebound tell us about how the electorate is changing, and what does it portend for the country’s political future in 2022 and beyond?The thermostat strikes backIn 1995, the political scientist Christopher Wlezien developed a theory known as the thermostatic model of American politics: The idea, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp explains, is “to think of the electorate as a person adjusting their thermostat: When the political environment gets ‘too hot’ for their liking, they turn the thermostat down. When it gets ‘too cold,’ they turn it back up.”In practice, the thermostatic nature of public opinion means that the president’s party tends to struggle in off-year elections. Such swings have been observed for decades:The effect occurs for two reasons, The Washington Post’s Perry Bacon Jr. explains. “First, there is often a turnout gap that favors the party that doesn’t control the White House,” he writes. “Off-year elections have much lower turnout than presidential ones, but typically more people from the party that doesn’t control the presidency are motivated to vote in opposition to whatever the incumbent president is doing.” A turnout gap was certainly in evidence last week.The second reason for thermostatic backlash is that some voters switch from the president’s party, which also appears to have happened last week: Exit polls suggested that 5 percent of 2020 Biden voters backed Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, while just 2 percent of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 supported Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat. “That only accounts for a few points,” Bacon notes, but given that Youngkin won by less than two percentage points, “those small shifts matter.”[“How shocking were New Jersey and Virginia, really?”]So why are voters cooling toward the Democrats?As Democrats make sense of their losses, “one fact stands out as one of the easiest explanations,” The Times’s Nate Cohn wrote. “Joe Biden has lower approval ratings at this stage of his presidency than nearly any president in the era of modern polling.”Why?Some argue that Biden is performing poorly because he has tacked too far left on policy. Representative Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, told The Times: “Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos.”Others blame a more general political-cultural gestalt: “wokeness.” “Wokeness Derailed the Democrats,” the Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote last weekend. This line of argumentation has drawn criticism for being deliberately, even insidiously vague. But when it comes to last week’s elections, much of the “wokeness” debate, on both sides of the aisle, has revolved around the so-called critical race theory controversy in K-12 schools, which this newsletter explored at length in July.There are strong counterarguments to both of these explanations. As Beauchamp writes, while Youngkin did at one point vow to ban what has disingenuously been called critical race theory in public schools, his campaign wasn’t nearly as focused on the issue as some pundits made it out to be. Nor does the “critical race theory” controversy explain the election results in New Jersey, where there was a similar backlash against Democrats despite the race’s not being “particularly culture-war focused.”The Times columnist Michelle Goldberg argues that the real reason education was such an incendiary issue this election cycle “likely had less to do with critical race theory than with parent fury over the drawn-out nightmare of online school.” Zachary D. Carter agrees: “A lot of suburban parents lost faith in Virginia’s public schools over the past year, and as a result, they’re more open to conservative narratives about problems in public schools.”As for the idea that the Democrats’ underperformance owes to Biden’s leftward shift on policy, one could just as easily — if not more easily — take the opposite reading of events: During his campaign, Biden openly aspired to a presidency that would rival or even eclipse that of F.D.R.; in office, however, his legislative agenda, which remains broadly popular, has been stripped down and delayed by his own party. Couldn’t disappointment, not backlash, be to blame for his party’s low turnout?Some say that last week’s electoral shifts have even more general causes. Put simply, Americans are in a gloomy mood. A chief reason appears to be the pandemic, which has disrupted everyday life and the economy for longer than many expected.In the words of The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, Democrats are losing the “vibe wars”: “Despite many positive economic trends, Americans are feeling rotten about the state of things — and, understandably, they’re blaming the party in power.”3 trends worth watchingRepublicans can succeed — and are perhaps even stronger — without Trump. As the G.O.P. pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson notes, Youngkin was able to enjoy the advantages of Trump — who over the past five years turned many formerly disengaged voters into habitual Republican voters — without incurring any of his liabilities. He did so mainly by neither embracing nor disavowing the former president.“In the current political environment, the Trump coalition seems primed to turn out and stick it to the Democrats even if Trump isn’t on the ballot himself,” she writes. And that means that “trying to use the fear of Trump to hold on to swing voters doesn’t seem as viable a strategy for Democrats.”Democrats’ problem with white non-college-educated voters is getting worse. For decades now, left-wing parties around the world have been losing support among their traditional working-class base. The Democratic Party has also suffered from this phenomenon, as the white electorate has become less polarized by income and more polarized by educational attainment.That trend appeared to assert itself in Virginia’s election last week, according to FiveThirtyEight, as the divide between white voters with and without a college degree grew.It’s not just white voters. In recent years, Democrats have also lost ground among Latino voters and, to a smaller extent, Black and Asian American voters, with the sharpest drops among those who did not attend college.The writer and researcher Matthew Thomas argues that there are signs that the racial depolarization of the electorate may be accelerating: In New York’s mayoral election last week, he notes, Queens precincts that are more than 75 percent Asian swung 14 points toward Republicans from four years ago, while Queens precincts that are over 75 percent Hispanic swung 30 points toward Republicans.“There’s no easy solution to the decades-long demobilization of working-class voters,” he writes. “But the left can’t afford to chalk up all of our defeats to whitelash alone. This country is in the midst of a profound realignment along axes of culture and education that are about to make race and class seem like yesterday’s news.”[“Why Americans Don’t Vote Their Class Anymore”]So are Democrats — and free and fair elections — doomed?As Bacon notes, the results from last week suggest that the Republican Party will suffer few electoral consequences in 2022 for its recent anti-democratic turn. “In normal circumstances, I’d see that as a bad thing, since my policy views are closer to the Democrats,” he writes. “But in our current abnormal circumstance, with U.S. democracy on the precipice because of the extremism of the current G.O.P., everyone needs to understand that normal could well be catastrophic.”How should Democrats respond?Some argue that they should tack to the center: “Congress should focus on what is possible, not what would be possible if Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and — frankly — a host of lesser-known Democratic moderates who haven’t had to vote on policies they might oppose were not in office,” the Times editorial board writes.Samuel Moyn, a professor of history and law at Yale, thinks that’s precisely the wrong approach given the popularity of progressive economic policies: “Even if progressives were to secure a welfare package and retain influence in their party, Trump — or an even more popular Republican — could still win the presidency. But this outcome is a near certainty if the Democrats return to centrist form — as seems the likeliest outcome now.”In the end, as Moyn suggests, policy may not have the power to save Democrats from defeat. As The Times’s David Leonhardt noted last week, some political scientists believe that Democrats overweight the electoral importance of policy and don’t talk enough about values.And the values Biden ran on were, in effect, a liberal answer to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” creed, a promise to restore “the soul of America” to its former self. “Joe Biden promised normality, Americans got abnormality, and Democrats got punished at the polls for it,” Thompson writes in The Atlantic. “The path toward a more successful midterm election for Democrats in 2022 flows through the converse of this strategy. First, make things feel better. Then talk about it.”Do you have a point of view we missed? Email us at debatable@nytimes.com. Please note your name, age and location in your response, which may be included in the next newsletter.READ MORE“What Moves Swing Voters” [The New York Times]“Why Virginia’s And New Jersey’s Elections Could Suggest A Red Wave In 2022” [FiveThirtyEight]“The Powerful G.O.P. Strategy Democrats Must Counter if They Want to Win” [The New York Times]“Bill Clinton Saved His Presidency. Here’s How Biden Can, Too.” [The New York Times]“How to Rebuild the Democratic Party” [The New Republic] More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      The Democrats’ No Good, Very Bad Day Changes the Landscape

      by

      Gail Collins: Gee, Bret, the Democrats lose a gubernatorial election in Virginia and the next thing you know, the nation has a brand-new $1 trillion public works program. Who says democracy isn’t efficient?Bret Stephens: Defeat has a wonderful way of concentrating the political mind.Gail: You’ve always been a fan of the infrastructure bill, right? Any reservations on that front now that it’s going to be signed into law?Bret: As someone who occasionally drives the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey — gripping the wheel with both hands while idly wondering if a bridge that was built in the Hoover administration will hold for another five minutes or collapse into the Hackensack River — I remain a committed fan of the infrastructure bill.Gail: Bridges of America, rejoice!You wrote a terrific column about the elections last week, Bret. Can’t say I agreed with all your conclusions but it was, as always, very smart. If you were on the phone with Nancy Pelosi today, what would you advise her to do next?Bret: First, madam speaker, please don’t hang up on me.Second, put the social spending bill in the basement ice box and don’t take it out until Democrats have the kind of majorities that can pass it.Third, look for a bipartisan win on immigration reform, starting with a trade on citizenship for Dreamers in exchange for more border security and a firm “Remain in Mexico” policy for migrants.And finally, find ways to separate the Democratic Party brand from Toxic Wokeness.Gail: I’m with President Biden that the next stop is his social spending program. Admittedly it’ll be carved down, but it has to include support for workers who temporarily need to stay home to take care of newborns or aging family members. And of course that universal preschool education.Bret: Maybe you’re right and over time those programs will prove wildly popular and successful. But I’m struggling to see how anything the Democrats are doing these days directly addresses the sorts of issues that average voters worry about day to day. Inflation is at a 30-year high, while personal incomes are down. Gas prices (at least where I live in the far suburbs) are close to $4 a gallon. Illegal crossings at the southern border are the highest they’ve been since at least 1960.Gail: As a person who very seldom attempts to justify her positions by pointing to the stock market I will refrain from noting that the Dow Jones rose on better-than-expected job numbers.Bret: Hehe. We should all enjoy this tulip mania while it lasts.Gail: And I’m with you on some of your immigration points — certainly citizenship for Dreamers. As far as the message of the election goes, I think the biggest lesson for the Democrats after Virginia is not to run against Donald Trump unless Donald Trump is running. And to remember that when voters decide if they like their governor, they don’t necessarily think much about national issues.Bret: Also: Don’t infuriate that itty-bitty voting bloc known as “parents of school-age children.”But I also think Democrats need to take a step back and see the broader message of the election, which is that the party has shifted waaaaaaay too far to the left. How else did the Republican Ann Davison get elected city attorney in Seattle? Or the Republican Jack Ciattarelli nearly win the governor’s race in deep-blue New Jersey?Gail: For me, New Jersey was mainly about people yearning for a fresh face now and then. And in Seattle I guess you have a point — if your message is that the voters shouldn’t have picked a candidate for city attorney who had once praised whoever had apparently set off explosives inside a police precinct. Duh.And local elections are … local. Some of our Seattle readers were quick to point out that their mayor-elect was far from a traditional law-and-order candidate. That’s the guy who promised to “put Seattle on fire with our love.”Bret: True, though he was the least-leftist candidate in the race.Gail: Pretty clear that the future, for local government, lies in candidates who promise to reform the police while also giving them strong budgetary support. Our own incoming mayor Eric Adams comes to mind.Bret: Hope Adams can save the city. He’s got a big job ahead of him. The city hasn’t seemed so dirty in decades. There’s an infestation of giant rats. The other day I watched a drug deal go down on Eighth Avenue in sight of two cops who stood around pretending nothing was going on. (For the record, I was not part of the deal.) Addicts are shooting up near our office in broad daylight. All of this brought to you by the Worst-Mayor-Ever-From-The-Rosy-Fingered-Dawn-Till-The-Bitter-End-Of-Time-Bill-expletive deleted-de Blasio.Gail: Hehehehe. That would make a great nickname if de Blasio ever tried, God help us, to run for president again.Bret: Or governor! Also, many Americans don’t take well to being lectured on, say, MSNBC about how Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia is a sign of a racist white backlash when Virginians also elected a Republican, Winsome Sears, to become the first Black woman to serve as lieutenant governor.Gail: Well, the results from Virginia’s governor’s race were pretty normal given the state’s history of voting against the party of a new president. Looking at that, I didn’t make the racist backlash argument.However, I would say that given the Republicans’ crazed howling about teaching the history of racism in America, voters were being misled in the way they were being urged to think there was something wrong with the schools.Bret: We agree on teaching the history of racism. I’m less keen on using teachers to propagate the ideological legerdemain that goes by the name of “antiracism.”But leaving aside the policy issues themselves, all of these Democratic fixations are gifts to the populist right. Someone needs to start a “Sanity Democrats” caucus to save the party from the progressive “Justice Democrats.”Gail: Certainly important for prominent Democrats not to sound didactic or obsessive when it comes to race and racism, but I sure as heck don’t want to discourage them from taking it into context when they’re passing legislation.Bret: In the meantime, Gail, have I ever mentioned how relieved I am never to have used Facebook?Gail: This doesn’t count the fact that your column goes up there, right? I’m all for using Facebook to pass along written pieces you like. But I haven’t had time to engage in any conversations there for years.Bret: Does my column really post on Facebook? Didn’t know that.This probably sounds horribly misanthropic, but when Facebook came around I feared it would be a handy way of connecting with people … to whom I didn’t particularly want to be connected. So-and-so from graduate school? Maybe we fell out of touch for a reason. Second cousin, twice removed in Melbourne? Hope they’re having a nice life. It’s hard enough to be a good friend to people in our real lives to waste time on virtual friendships in digital spaces.Now I’ve been reading a multipart investigation in The Wall Street Journal on the perils of the platform, which include less sleep, worse parenting, the abandonment of creative hobbies and so on. Facebook’s own researchers estimate that 1 in 8 people on the platform suffer from some of these symptoms, which amounts to 360 million people worldwide. As someone pointed out, the word “user” applies to people on social media just as much as it does to people on meth.I guess the question is whether the government should regulate it and if so, how?Gail: This takes me back to early America, when most people lived in small towns or on farms and had very little input from the outside world.They were very tight-knit, protective, familial — and very inclined to stick to their clan and isolate, discriminate, persecute and yes, enslave, the folks who weren’t part of the group. You had a lot of good qualities of togetherness and helping the team, but a lot of clannishness and injustice to nonmembers.Bret: Almost sounds like an academic department at a placid New England college. Sorry, go on.Gail: The Postal Service brought newspapers and letters and changed all that. And of course there were also unfortunate effects — a lot of mobilizing to fight against the newly discovered outside world.I think the digital revolution is maybe as important — people are making new friends around the globe, discovering tons and tons of new information, but also ganging up on folks they don’t like. Discriminating not only against minority groups but also the less popular members of their own.Bret: The moral of the story is that there’s no substitute for in-person relationships, whether it’s between colleagues, acquaintances, friends, family members or even two columnists who agree about 40 percent of the time. Which reminds me that there’s this cabernet that we still need to share, so that we can mourn — or celebrate — last week’s news.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

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      A Way Forward for Biden and the Democrats in 2022 and 2024

      by

      Swing voters in two blue-leaning states just sent a resounding wake-up call to the Biden administration: If Democrats remain on their current course and keep coddling and catering to progressives, they could lose as many as 50 seats and control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections. There is a way forward now for President Biden and the Democratic Party: Friday’s passage of the bipartisan physical infrastructure bill is a first step, but only a broader course correction to the center will give Democrats a fighting chance in 2022 and to hold on to the presidency in 2024.The history of the 2020 election is undisputed: Joe Biden was nominated for president because he was the moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders and then elected president as the antidote to the division engendered by Donald J. Trump. He got off to a good start, especially meeting the early challenge of Covid-19 vaccine distribution. But polling on key issues show that voters have been turning against the Biden administration, and rejecting its embrace of parts of the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez playbook.According to our October Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, only 35 percent of registered voters approve of the administration’s immigration policies (which a majority view as an open-borders approach); 64 percent oppose eliminating cash bail (a progressive proposal the administration has backed); and most reject even popular expansions of entitlements if they are bundled in a $1.5 to $2 trillion bill based on higher taxes and deficits (the pending Build Back Better initiative). Nearly nine in 10 voters express concern about inflation. And 61 percent of voters blame the Biden administration for the increase in gasoline prices, with most also preferring to maintain energy independence over reducing carbon emissions right now.Progressives might be able to win the arguments for an all-out commitment to climate change and popular entitlements — but they haven’t because they’ve allowed themselves to be drawn into a debate about the size of Build Back Better, not its content. Moderate Democrats have always favored expanded entitlements, but only if they meet the tests of fiscal responsibility — and most voters don’t believe Build Back Better does so, even though the president has promised it would be fully paid for. Putting restraints on these entitlements so that they don’t lead to government that is too big, and to ballooning deficits, is at the core of the moderate pushback on the bill that has caused a schism in the party.Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema are not outliers in the Democratic Party — they are in fact the very heart of the Democratic Party, given that 53 percent of Democrats classify themselves as moderates or conservative. While Democrats support the Build Back Better initiative, 60 percent of Democrats (and 65 percent of the country) support the efforts of these moderates to rein it in. It’s Mr. Sanders from Vermont and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez from New York who represent areas ideologically far from the mainstream of America.The economy and jobs are now the top national issues, and 57 percent see it on the wrong track, up from 42 percent a few months ago, generating new basic kitchen-table worries. After the economy and jobs, the coronavirus, immigration and health care are the next top issues, but Afghanistan, crime, school choice and education are also serious areas of concern for voters.To understand the urgency for future Democratic candidates, it’s important to be cleareyed about those election results. Some progressives and other Democrats argue that the loss in the Virginia governor’s race, where culture war issues were a factor, should not be extrapolated to generalize about the administration. The problem with that argument is that last week’s governor’s race in New Jersey also showed a double-digit percentage point swing toward Republicans — and in that election, taxes mattered far more than cultural issues. The swing is in line with the drop in President Biden’s approval rating and the broader shift in the mood of the country.Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee in Virginia, ran for governor in 2013 and won by offering himself as a relative moderate. This time, he deliberately nationalized his campaign by bringing in President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama, and he closed out the race with the head of the teacher’s union, an icon on the left. He may not have brought in the progressive Squad, but he did hug a range of left-of-center Democratic politicians rather than push off the left and try to win swing voters.It’s hard to imagine Democratic candidates further to the left of Mr. McAuliffe, and of Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, doing any better with swing voters, especially when the math of elections requires two new voters to turn out to equal a single voter who switches from Democrat to Republican. It’s easy to dismiss individual polls that may or may not be accurate — but you can’t dismiss a clear electoral trend: the flight from the Democrats was disproportionately in the suburbs, and the idea that these home-owning, child-rearing, taxpaying voters just want more progressive candidates is not a sustainable one.After the 1994 congressional elections, Bill Clinton reoriented his administration to the center and saved his presidency. Mr. Biden should follow his lead, listen to centrists, push back on the left and reorient his policies to address the mounting economic issues people are facing. As a senator, he was a master at building coalitions; that is the leadership needed now.This would mean meeting the voters head on with stronger borders, a slower transition from fossil fuels, a focus on bread-and-butter economic issues (such as the price of gas and groceries), fixes to the supply chain fiasco that is impacting the cost of goods and the pursuit of more moderate social spending bills. Nearly three in four voters see the border as a crisis that needs immediate attention. Moving to the center does not mean budging from core social issues like abortion rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights that are at the heart of what the party believes in and are largely in sync with suburban voters. But it does mean connecting to voters’ immediate needs and anxieties. As Democrats found in the late ’90s, the success of the administration begets enthusiasm from the base, and we actually gained seats in the 1998 midterms under the theme of “progress not partisanship.”Mr. Biden’s ratings since the Afghanistan withdrawal have fallen from nearly 60 percent approval to just above 40 percent in most polls. By getting the physical infrastructure bill passed with Republican votes, Mr. Biden has taken a crucial step to the center (79 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Republicans supported it in the Harris Poll). Follow that infrastructure success by digging into the pending congressional budget office analysis of Build Back Better and then look closely at bringing in more of the popular benefits for people (such as expansion of Medicare benefits for dental and vision and family leave) and cutting out some of the interest group giveaways like creating environmental justice warriors.Of course, this may require some Houdini-like leadership to get votes from the Progressive Caucus for a revised Build Back Better bill. But this is the best strategy to protect Democratic candidates in 2022.Yelling “Trump, Trump, Trump” when Mr. Trump is not on the ballot or in office is no longer a viable campaign strategy. Soccer moms, who largely despised Mr. Trump, want a better education for their kids and safer streets; they don’t see the ghost of Trump or Jan. 6 behind Republican candidates like now Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. Remember that only about one quarter of the country classifies itself as liberal, and while that is about half of the Democratic Party, the rest of the electorate nationally is moderate or conservative. While many rural and working-class voters are staying Republican, the message from last Tuesday is that the Democrats have gone too far to the left on key issues for educated suburban voters. Even Bergen County in New Jersey, a socially liberal bedroom community outside New York City, almost swung into the Republican column.While Mr. Youngkin waded directly into racially divisive issues, he also based his campaign on positive messages of striving for excellence in the schools and for re-establishing the American dream as a worthy goal. Those messages tapped into the aspirations of voters in ways that in the past were at the heart of the Democratic message. These are enduring values, as is reaffirming the First Amendment and the power of free speech.Demographics is not destiny. We live in a 40-40-20 country in which 40 percent are hard-wired to either party and 20 percent are swing voters, primarily located in the suburbs. After losing a game-changing slice of Midwestern working-class voters, who had voted for Mr. Obama, over trade, immigration and cultural policies, Democrats were steadily gaining in the suburbs, expanding their leads in places like New Jersey and Virginia. Without voters in these places, the party will be left with only too small of a base of urban voters and coastal elites. Unless it re-centers itself, the risk is that the Democratic Party, like the Labor Party in Britain, will follow its greatest success with an extended period in the desert.Mark Penn served as adviser and pollster to President Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton from 1996 to 2008. Andrew Stein is a former president of the New York City Council.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

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      F.B.I. Searches James O’Keefe’s Home in Ashley Biden Diary Theft Inquiry

      by

      Authorities carried out a court-ordered search at the New York apartment of the Project Veritas founder two days after searching the homes of his associates.Federal authorities on Saturday searched the home of James O’Keefe, the founder of the conservative group Project Veritas, according to witnesses and people briefed on the matter, a day after Mr. O’Keefe acknowledged that the group was under investigation by the Justice Department in connection with a diary reported to have been stolen from Ashley Biden, President Biden’s daughter.The F.B.I. carried out a court-ordered search of Mr. O’Keefe’s apartment in Mamaroneck, N.Y., early on Saturday morning, after having searched the homes of two associates of Mr. O’Keefe on Thursday as part of the investigation.An F.B.I. spokesman on Saturday said that agents had “performed law enforcement activity” at the building, but would not discuss the investigation.Mr. O’Keefe did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. But in a video statement on Friday, he said that his group had recently received a grand jury subpoena and acknowledged that Project Veritas had been involved in discussions with sources last year about the diary.Jimmy Maynes, who lives next to Mr. O’Keefe at an apartment complex in Mamaroneck, said a handful of F.B.I. agents arrived early Saturday morning.“They asked for James,” Mr. Mayne, an entertainment manager, said. “I thought they were banging on my door. I opened the door.”“They told me to close the door and I closed the door,” he added. “That’s exactly what happened. It was still dark.”Brent Mickol, a teacher who lives across the hall from Mr. O’Keefe, said it was about 6 a.m. when agents arrived. Mr. Mickol said the agents said “something along the lines of ‘F.B.I. Warrant. Open up.’”“I ran to the door and looked out the peep hole and clearly saw an F.B.I. raid,” he said. “You saw the jackets. Literally, it was just out of a movie.”Mr. Maynes and Mr. Mickol said the F.B.I. agents were at the apartment for several hours.In his video statement on Friday, Mr. O’Keefe offered a lengthy defense of his group’s handling of the diary, saying that he and his colleagues had been operating as ethical journalists, had turned the diary over to the law enforcement authorities last year and had sought to return it to a lawyer for Ms. Biden.“It appears the Southern District of New York now has journalists in their sights for the supposed crime of doing their jobs lawfully and honestly,” Mr. O’Keefe said in the video statement. “Our efforts were the stuff of responsible, ethical journalism and we are in no doubt that Project Veritas acted properly at each and every step.”Project Veritas did not publish Ms. Biden’s diary, but dozens of handwritten pages from it were posted on a right-wing website last year a week and a half before Election Day, at a time when President Donald J. Trump was seeking to undermine Mr. Biden’s credibility by portraying his son Hunter as engaging in corrupt business dealings. The posting was largely ignored by other conservative outlets and the mainstream media.The website said it had obtained the diary from a whistle-blower who worked for a media organization that refused to publish a story about it before the election. It claimed to know where the actual diary was located and that the whistle-blower had an audio recording of Ms. Biden admitting it was hers.Ms. Biden, 40, is Mr. Biden’s youngest child. She has maintained a low profile and attracted far less attention than Hunter Biden, her half brother.The Trump administration’s Justice Department, then led by Attorney General William P. Barr, opened an investigation into the matter shortly after a representative of the Biden family reported to federal authorities in October 2020 that several of Ms. Biden’s personal items had been stolen in a burglary, according to two people briefed on the matter.Mr. O’Keefe said in the video that “tipsters” had reached out to Project Veritas in 2020 to alert them to the existence of the diary, saying that they had stayed in a room that Ms. Biden had recently been in. But Mr. O’Keefe said that his group could not authenticate the diary and made an “ethical” decision to not publish it.He said that Project Veritas gave the diary to “law enforcement” and attempted to return it to a lawyer representing Ms. Biden, who he said “refused to authenticate it.” Mr. O’Keefe portrayed the investigation as politically motivated, questioning why the Justice Department under Ms. Biden’s father was pursuing the case.In recent weeks, federal investigators have reached out to at least one person who worked for Project Veritas to question that person about the diary, one of the people briefed on the case said.On Thursday, federal authorities searched the residence in Manhattan of Spencer Meads, a longtime Project Veritas operative and confidant of Mr. O’Keefe, and an apartment in Mamaroneck linked to another O’Keefe associate.Project Veritas has a history of targeting Democratic congressional campaigns, labor groups, news media organizations and others. The group conducts sting operations using hidden cameras and fake identities. At one point, Project Veritas relied on a former British spy named Richard Seddon to help train its operatives, teaching them espionage tactics such as using deception to secure information from potential targets.Flyover Media, the company that owns the website that published the pages from the diary, is registered to the same Sheridan, Wyo., address as Mr. Seddon’s company, Branch Six Consulting International. Mr. O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, was once the president of a company that later registered at the same address. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Trapped in a Pandemic Funk: Millions of Americans Can’t Shake a Gloomy Outlook

      by

      Despite signals that the economy is improving and the virus is waning, many Americans said they were frustrated by polarized politics and a sense of stagnancy.A year ago, Michael Macey, a barber who lives in the suburbs outside Atlanta, was thrilled to help propel President Biden to victory, hopeful that Democrats would move swiftly to tackle policing laws and other big issues. But then he watched his hopes for sweeping changes wither in Washington.Now, Mr. Macey’s sense of optimism — like that of millions of Americans — has been dashed. By the pain of an unending pandemic. By rising prices. By nationwide bickering that stretches from school board meetings to the United States Capitol.“I don’t like the division,” Mr. Macey, 63, said. “I don’t like the standstill. We need something to get accomplished.”For so many voters in this November of discontent, the state of the union is just … blech.Despite many signals that things are improving — the stock market is hitting record highs, hiring is accelerating sharply with 531,000 jobs added in October, workers are earning more, and Covid hospitalizations and deaths are dropping from their autumn peaks — many Americans seem stuck in a pandemic hangover of pessimism.More than 60 percent of voters in opinion surveys say that the country is heading in the wrong direction — a national funk that has pummeled Mr. Biden’s approval ratings and fueled a backlash against Democrats that could cost them control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.More than 60 percent of voters in opinion surveys say that the country is heading in the wrong direction — a national funk that has pummeled Mr. Biden’s approval ratings.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn more than two dozen interviews across the country, voters ticked off a snowballing list of grievances that had undercut their faith in a president who ran on a pledge of normalcy and competence: The chaotic, deadly pullout from Afghanistan. A spike in migrants crossing the southern border. A legislative agenda stymied by Republican opposition and Democratic infighting.The complaints are not just coming from conservatives. Voters who supported Mr. Biden said they had grown dispirited about his ability to muscle through campaign pledges to address climate change, voting rights and economic fairness while also confronting rising prices and other disruptions to daily life exacerbated by the pandemic.“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Daniel Sanchez, who lost his teaching contract at a community college in suburban Phoenix when enrollment plunged during the pandemic. Now, he is making minimum wage at an organic market and searching for full-time teaching work.Mr. Sanchez, 36, said he still supported Mr. Biden, echoing many Democratic voters who said they believed the president was being unfairly blamed by Republicans and the news media for problems beyond his control, such as the price of gasoline or Covid spikes among Americans who refuse to get vaccinated.But Mr. Sanchez has grown exasperated with the endless melodrama in Washington as a Democratic effort to confront climate change and strengthen the social safety net has stalled amid intraparty disputes. He is particularly frustrated with two moderate Democratic senators — Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Mr. Sanchez’s own senator, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.“It seems like the answers are right in front of them, and people are willing to do nothing about it,” he said.Daniel Sanchez has grown exasperated with the endless melodrama in Washington as a Democratic effort to confront climate change and strengthen the social safety net has stalled. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesMr. Biden came into office vowing to “build back better.” But voters said little was getting built as Democrats fight over multitrillion-dollar measures to strengthen the country’s social safety net and improve physical infrastructure. Normal life was not back, and might never be. And voters said so many things just felt worse.It is not just the federal government they blame. Trash is piling up on city streets because of a dearth of garbage haulers. School bus services are being canceled and delayed for want of drivers. Americans who have been hurt economically by the pandemic are still struggling to get rental assistance and unemployment benefits, sometimes months after applying.“Our political system — it’s almost completely a failure,” said Carla Haney, a 65-year-old swimming instructor who has yet to receive about 14 weeks of unemployment benefits from the State of Florida that she applied for in May 2020. “I don’t see it getting better at all.”With the global supply chain gummed up, voters around the Phoenix metro area said they were paying the price in lost money and wasted time. A restaurant chef in Phoenix is once again struggling to buy paper plates and napkins. A plumbing supplier in Tempe is losing commissions because he cannot fill orders.And at gas stations across the country, drivers cringe at paying an average of $3.40 a gallon — prices that have risen by more than $1 a gallon from a year ago.“Everything goes up, and pay pretty much stays the same,” said Brandon Hendrix, 39, of Athens, Ga., who works in security for an auto plant.Even with the unemployment rate at 4.6 percent, falling but still above its prepandemic levels, Mr. Hendrix, said job security is not his top concern. Instead, it is the rising of prices for “gas, grocery stores, rent — just about everything you can think of” that worry him. Still, he blames much of the country’s grim state on the pandemic, Republicans’ obstruction and relentless criticism of the Biden administration.“They instigated too much division,” Mr. Hendrix said of Republicans. “Basically, they’ve kind of boiled it down to politics and power play. They’re not really solving issues. They’re just keeping you divided so they can do whatever they want.”A gas station in Queens. The rising of prices for “gas, grocery stores, rent — just about everything you can think of,” worry Brandon Hendrix, 39, of Athens, Ga.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesWorries around trash piling up, flights canceled because of staff shortages and rising grocery prices may be small compared with a global pandemic that has killed five million people, or a fast-warming climate that has contributed to floods inundating towns and wildfires burning the American West. But they are stuck like pebbles in voters’ shoes: Tiny, but impossible to ignore.“Every day or so, my younger one will say, ‘Dad, there’s no bus. Can you come get me?’” said John Radanovich, 58, the father of an eighth-grader and an 11th-grader in Lake Worth, Fla., near West Palm Beach.Mr. Radanovich, a Democrat, said he believed the increasingly vocal dissatisfaction in the country — on vivid displays as Republicans won the governorship in Virginia, flipped a Democratic State House seat in San Antonio and routed Democrats in New York’s suburbs — were likely to doom Democrats in 2022.“There’s so much hatred,” Mr. Radanovich said, adding that he hoped to leave the country once his younger son finished high school. “You can see it in the schools, the diet, our lifestyle, the stress. How expensive things are. It’s a mystery that life has become so much worse in the U.S. It’s just worse and worse and worse.”In Colorado, where hospitals are being overwhelmed by a new surge of largely unvaccinated patients, some communities have reimposed mask mandates. Amanda Rumsey said she was losing patience with the shifting requirements that she worried were now simply antagonizing a divided electorate.Ms. Rumsey, a crisis therapist who has seen a spike in young and teenage patients with suicidal thoughts during the pandemic, voted for Mr. Biden, but now found herself unhappy with his leadership.“It doesn’t seem like he is doing anything to help us be more unified,” she said as she stood outside a Walmart in the fast-growing suburban community of Lafayette, north of Denver.Protesting against a proposed mask mandate in Anchorage in September.Ash Adams for The New York TimesAs the world slumps toward a third year of the pandemic, through more mask fights and breakthrough infections and grim new death milestones, some mental health experts said the country’s sour political mood reflected a condition called languishing. Different from depression or hopelessness, it is a sense of stagnant drift.Even if the pandemic does ease, many Americans said they were resigned to another year of polarized politics. One example they cited was the prospect of Republicans making schools the heart of their midterm-election strategy, seizing on divisions over how students should learn about race and how teachers should confront the pandemic in the classroom.“It’s just not a civilized country,” said Ted Laarkamp, 76, a retired businessman from Media, Penn., just outside Philadelphia. “It’s just a bunch of people that think they can go it alone — like a bunch of lone rangers. Nobody trusts anybody; everything is a conspiracy.”The atmosphere was gray as Mr. Laarkamp and other shoppers shared their views outside a supermarket in downtown Media.“It’s unfortunate because we have serious tasks ahead of us, and we need all hands on deck,” said Eve Miari, 44, who voted for Mr. Biden but faulted him for publicly criticizing Americans who resisted mask and vaccine mandates. “We are talking about getting out of a global pandemic and resolving big issues like climate change. You can’t have everybody divided.”Reporting was contributed by More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Republicans Are Going to Use Dog Whistles. Democrats Can’t Just Ignore Them.

      by

      The Virginia election results should shock Democrats into confronting the powerful role that racially coded attacks play in American politics. No candidate would think of entering an election without a winning message on the economy or health care. Yet by failing to counter his opponent’s racial dog whistles, Terry McAuliffe did the equivalent, finding himself defenseless against a strategy Republicans have used to win elections for decades.Crucially, the Republican nominee, Glenn Youngkin, was able to use racially coded attacks to motivate sky-high white turnout without paying a penalty among minority voters. This appears to solve the problem bedeviling Republicans in the Trump era: how to generate high turnout for a candidate who keeps Donald Trump at arm’s length, as Mr. Youngkin did.Before Tuesday night, conventional wisdom held that racially coded attacks could well spur higher white turnout but that those gains would be offset by losses among minority voters. Mr. Youngkin proved this assumption false. He significantly outperformed other Republicans among white voters, especially women: In 2020, Joe Biden beat Mr. Trump among white women in Virginia by 50 percent to 49 percent, but according to exit polls, Mr. Youngkin beat Mr. McAuliffe among them by 57 percent to 43 percent. At the same time, Mr. Youngkin suffered no major drop-off among minority voters — if anything, he appeared to slightly outperform expectations.This should terrify Democrats. With our democracy on the line, we have to forge an effective counterattack on race while rethinking the false choice between mobilizing base voters or persuading swing voters.It will not work to ignore race and talk about popular issues instead. Mr. McAuliffe’s closing message was a generic appeal on infrastructure and other issues that poll well. He was following the strategy known as popularism, which has gained in influence since the 2020 election, when Democrats’ disappointing down-ballot performance was attributed to rhetoric like “defund the police.”In the heat of a campaign, popularism fails because Republicans will not let Democrats ignore race. Mr. Youngkin dragged race into the election, making his vow to “ban critical race theory” a centerpiece of his stump speech and repeating it over the closing weekend — even though in Virginia the prominence of C.R.T., which teaches that racism is woven into the structures of American society, was vastly exaggerated.Some Democrats may resist accepting the centrality of race, pointing to the bearish national political environment and cyclical patterns. This would be a mistake for two reasons. First, C.R.T. helped create the rough national environment, with Fox News hammering it relentlessly; and cyclical explanations, like thermostatic public opinion (a longstanding tendency for voters to drift toward the views of the party out of power on some issues), do not explain Democrats’ loss of support in the suburbs or the strong turnout. Voters in New Jersey, where a stronger-than-expected Republican performance caught Democrats off guard, have been inundated with C.R.T. hype by Fox News, too.Second, the past half-century of American political history shows that racially coded attacks are how Republicans have been winning elections for decades, from Richard Nixon’s “law and order” campaign to Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” and George H.W. Bush’s Willie Horton ad. Many of these campaigns were masterminded by the strategist Lee Atwater, who in 1981 offered a blunt explanation: Being overtly racist backfires, he noted, “so you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.” C.R.T. is straight out of the Atwater playbook.In recent years, it has become commonplace in Democratic circles to think that our diversifying population has relegated such attacks to the past. The theory goes that Democrats can counteract racist appeals by encouraging high turnout among people of color. This interpretation took a ding in 2016 and a bigger hit in 2020, when Mr. Trump shocked many people by making major inroads with Latinos. Latinos recently became the largest population of color, and Democrats cannot win on the national level without winning them by large margins. Yet from 2016 to 2020, Democrats saw a seven-point drop in support among Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center.How did the most racist president of our lifetime outperform a more generic Republican like Mitt Romney with Latinos? Research by Equis Labs suggests that Latinos found Mr. Trump’s populist message on the economy appealing.And as Mr. Trump showed — and Mr. Youngkin confirmed — racially coded attacks do not necessarily repel Latino voters. They may even attract them. One of us, Ms. Gavito, was among the first to flag this disturbing trend. In focus groups in battleground states during the lead-up to the 2020 election, pollsters with Lake Research tested a message that denounced “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.” Both whites and Latinos found this message persuasive, but Latinos found it appealing at significantly higher rates than whites.This, then, is the Democrats’ problem: The fact that Republicans can drag race into the conversation with ease kicks the legs out from under the idea that Democrats can succeed by simply talking about more popular things. And the fact that racially coded attacks spur turnout among white voters without necessarily prompting a backlash among minority voters undermines the idea that mobilizing a diverse electorate can win elections for Democrats.That’s the bad news. The good news is, we know what a path forward looks like.First, Democrats must separate our (accurate and necessary) analysis of structural racism from our political strategy in a country where the electorate remains nearly 70 percent white — and as much as or more than 80 percent white in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Instead of ignoring race while Republicans beat us silly with it, Democrats must confront it and explain that powerful elites and special interests use race as a tool of division to distract hard-working people of all races while they get robbed blind. Then pivot back to shared interests. The pivot is critical: Without it, Democrats are simply talking past voters, while Republicans play on their racial fears.This strategy is known as the “race-class narrative,” pioneered by Prof. Ian Haney López of Berkeley, the author Heather McGhee and the messaging expert Anat Shenker-Osorio (whom we have worked with). To be clear, Democrats should not seek to impose a racial-justice frame; to the contrary, research found a focus on racial justice to be less persuasive than the race-class narrative. The strategy we suggest here is a middle way: It is more powerful than a racial-justice-only frame but also more powerful than a strategy that ignores race altogether. Race is the elephant in the room, and Democrats must stop fooling themselves into thinking that they can prevent it from becoming an issue.Second, Democrats must put aside the false choice between the tactics of persuasion and mobilization and embrace them both. By confronting race as a tool of division, and then pivoting to shared interests, Democrats can offer an optimistic, inspiring and even patriotic vision. This is the approach that rocketed Barack Obama to the White House. As an African-American, Mr. Obama was never allowed to ignore race. Forced to confront it, Mr. Obama offered Americans a vision that mobilized a broad, diverse coalition — while also persuading white voters. In 2008, Mr. Obama won the highest share of the white vote since Bill Clinton in 1996.Race has infused American history and politics since our founding. It threads through most aspects of daily life, and stirs up complicated feelings that Americans of all backgrounds find difficult to discuss. But Virginia showed that race is impossible to ignore.The simple fact is that Republicans have long used race to achieve victory, and Democrats are fooling themselves if they think they can avoid it. Democrats have to get real about race, and forge a way to win.Tory Gavito (@torygavito) is president of Way to Win, a donor network focused on expanding Democrats’ power in the Sun Belt, and lead of the Latinx Justice Fund. Adam Jentleson is the executive director of Battle Born Collective, a progressive strategy organization, a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and the author of “Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.”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

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Youngkin’s Victory in Virginia's Election Is a Warning for Democrats

      by

      In the first statewide elections since Donald Trump’s defeat, Republicans appear to have won the governor’s race in Virginia, as well as coming closer than expected in New Jersey. While this is surprising — Republicans had not won a statewide race in Virginia in 12 years — Virginia voters have swung against whichever party holds the White House in 10 of the last 11 gubernatorial races. Perhaps reinforcing this penchant for split governance, Democrats appear to have held the historic gains they made four years ago in the House of Delegates, despite running within district lines heavily gerrymandered toward Republican advantage.The clearest message for Democrats nationally is that the fear of Trump 2.0 is not enough to win elections. Congressional Democrats, especially those in tough races, should be sprinting to immediately pass the boldest possible version of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Democrats need to look like the party that knows how to govern and produces results that benefit Americans of every race and region.I learned this lesson as part of the congressional class that lost the 2010 midterms. While some suggest my vote for the Affordable Care Act cost me my seat, I was sure that the real political cost was incurred by watering down the original proposal and taking far too long to pass it. Right now, the fight is not just immediately to pass Build Back Better but whether new benefits like child-care subsidies for the working and middle class kick in next year or down the road. Prescription drug reform should be strong enough that voters can see cheaper prices by next year’s election. Democrats need to run on results that families have felt.Democratic delegates ran ahead of the statewide ticket, protecting most of the gains made four years ago. As State Senator Jennifer McClellan noted: “Since taking the majority in 2019, Virginia Democrats have made generational progress on a wide range of issues voters care about. We’ve raised the minimum wage, expanded paid sick leave, passed a 100 percent clean energy law, expanded voting, civil, worker and reproductive rights, implemented criminal justice reform and taken major actions on gun safety and community college affordability.” Democratic incumbents running as “reformers with results” may be a winning formula. Voters are angry, exhausted after nearly two years of lockdowns, economic insecurity, and general disruptions of normal life. They are eager to blame whoever is in charge, which Republicans translated into enormous gains in the suburbs and sweeping wins in rural areas. Glenn Youngkin, like Mr. Trump in 2016, ran as an outsider ready to shake up the status quo. Historically, Democrats tend to win with younger “change” candidates, like John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. While Mr. Biden was seen as a break from that trend, he may have represented “change” in the immediate contrast to Trump in ways that have been harder to maintain as president.Anachronistic efforts to blame the left have fallen flat, given that neither Terry McAuliffe, Philip Murphy or Mr. Biden represent the most progressive wing of the party. The old center-left divide obscures new divides. The fault lines of American politics today are partisan, but the ideologies on either side are surprisingly fluid, as Mr. Trump proved. For the past two weeks, the Youngkin campaign flooded my digital feed with ads attacking Mr. McAuliffe for his corporate PAC donations from Dominion Energy. Banning corporate contributions was a major part of the reform platform that propelled Democratic delegates to office in 2017. This issue has grass-roots energy across the aisle. Anti-corruption advocates, namely Clean Virginia, have built broad political support while sometimes butting heads with leaders of both parties. This is a trend traditional pundits seem to miss — that winning issues are emerging less from the old bipartisan consensus than anti-establishment comparisons. This is true about antitrust enforcement and accountability for Big Tech, limiting presidential war powers, and eliminating dark money and corporate power in politics. Any course correction should focus on steering Democrats to prioritize benefits popular with moderates, like paid family leave and strong prescription drug reform, ahead of protecting corporate lobbyists.The issues gaining bipartisan support today are rarely emerge from established institutions. Republicans can win by running up numbers in vast expanses of low-population rural areas, and Democrats ignore those areas at their peril. The two groups in Virginia most likely to benefit from debt-free community college, for instance, are white rural families and recent immigrants or their children. We will not rebuild a common American dream when the establishment cares more about the price of the bill than the price Americans are paying to have a future. We do not need to win back all the old Johnny Cash Democrats, but authentic reformers with roots in these communities can level the score.The culture wars clearly profit Republicans at the polls and Facebook’s bottom line. By leaning into red-hot school board fights, Youngkin became the first major Republican candidate in years to rally the MAGA base while keeping Donald Trump out of state. The Democratic Party does not support defunding the police or teaching critical race theory in public schools, so it is not surprising they are losing a battle they have no desire to wage. They lack the ability to declare a unilateral détente in the culture wars, and fear of Trump’s shadow failed to scare suburban voters with the same intensity as the images Republicans conjured of public schools running out of control.Finally, Republicans can win fair elections. Their win in Virginia came despite Democrats passing the kind of voting rights reforms that have been stymied at the federal level. When Republicans focus more on winning over voters than making it harder to vote, they can win in areas thought to be blue. Voting reform was and should be a bipartisan issue. Early and easier voting helps historically marginalized communities. While this has been and remains primarily African-American voters, it also applies to rural voters working a double shift, younger families that may be moving frequently to find work, and seniors still navigating health threats. Let’s put the lies about rigged elections to rest, and see whose agenda most voters endorse. That may not bridge our partisan divides, but could get us back to agreeing on the right rules of the game in our shared democracy.Tom Perriello represented the Fifth Congressional District of Virginia in the House from 2009 to 2011, and ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2017 race for governor.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

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Biden Is Hopeful for a Democratic Win in Virginia Governor’s Race

      by

      Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More