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      Los ataques contra Kamala Harris reflejan el auge de la vulgaridad y la intolerancia en internet

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      Los políticos suelen sufrir ataques racistas y sexistas en internet. Pero Harris está siendo atacada en más plataformas, con nuevas tecnologías y ante audiencias más numerosas que Barack Obama y Hillary Clinton.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En internet ya se hacían ataques racistas y sexistas mucho antes de que la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris iniciara su campaña presidencial este mes, incluso durante la campaña de Barack Obama y Hillary Clinton. Sin embargo, desde las últimas elecciones presidenciales, se ha vuelto aún más virulento y más central para la política estadounidense.En 2008, Obama se enfrentó a un ecosistema en el que Facebook tenía millones de usuarios, no miles de millones, y el iPhone apenas tenía un año de haber salido al mercado. En 2016, la campaña de Clinton vigilaba un puñado de plataformas de redes sociales, no decenas. En 2020, cuando Harris era la compañera de fórmula de Joe Biden, era mucho más difícil utilizar la inteligencia artificial para producir las representaciones pornográficas falsas y los videos engañosos en los que ahora se dice que aparece.En solo una semana desde que Harris —negra, de ascendencia india y mujer— se convirtió en la presunta candidata presidencial demócrata, han aparecido falsas narrativas y teorías conspirativas sobre ella por todo el panorama digital.Muchas cosas han cambiado de cara a las elecciones de 2024. Ahora, a esas afirmaciones se han incrementado, alimentadas por un tono cada vez más agresivo del discurso político respaldado por políticos de alto nivel, impulsado por la IA y otras nuevas tecnologías, y difundido a través de un paisaje en línea mucho más fragmentado y repleto de plataformas sin moderación.“La esfera política ha sido sexista y racista durante mucho tiempo. Lo que ha cambiado es el ecosistema de medios en el que crece esa retórica problemática”, afirmó Meg Heckman, profesora adjunta de Periodismo de la Universidad Northeastern. “Es casi como si hubiera varios universos mediáticos paralelos, de modo que no todos operamos con un conjunto de hechos compartidos”, agregó.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden and Trump Have Succeeded in Breaking Reality

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      Four years ago the Republican convention was a bizarre spectacle, a cross between a Napoleonic fantasy and a Leni Riefenstahl movie. The dominant image was of an imperial dynasty laying claim to forever rule. I expected more of the same when I tuned in on Monday night to watch this year’s convention, but amped up even further by the weekend’s terrifying near-miss assassination attempt.What I saw instead was an even-toned, inclusive performance that seemed designed to resemble conventions of a more, well, conventional era, or perhaps just entertainment-world award shows. The lineup of speakers offered racial, gender and even ideological diversity — including the Teamsters’ president, Sean O’Brien, who announced from the main stage that his organization was “not beholden to anyone or any party.”You don’t have to agree with Donald Trump on everything was a consistent talking point. As for the shooting, it had been instantly mythologized as a miracle of survival: Speaker after speaker, including Trump himself, credited the Almighty with saving the former president so he could save America. There was no reference to the speculation, multiplying across the internet, that the deep state was behind the assassination attempt. Even Donald Trump was, by his standards, cogent and calm.While one half of the electorate was being served this bland spectacle, the other half struggled to follow a dispiriting and confusing story in which the stakes in the presidential election are existential — and the only man who can save American democracy is President Biden. Even as more and more funders, political operatives and ordinary Democratic voters said that he should withdraw his candidacy, the campaign told them to put their faith in a frail, diminished man — worse than that, it insisted that he was neither frail nor diminished.In the interview with Lester Holt that was broadcast on the first night of the Republican convention, Biden’s most energetic moment came when he lashed out at the press for criticizing him rather than his opponent — a favorite tactic of demagogues everywhere. If the media criticize him, then the media are bad. If the polls show a lack of support for his candidacy, then the polls are wrong. If his allies are trying to save him from himself, then they are no longer his allies. The president and his campaign have adopted the habits of the monster they promise to save us from.The week felt like an emotional reprise of the early months (or was it years?) of the Trump presidency. Every day, it seemed, brought news that felt like it would change history. We assimilated it and moved on, getting up in the morning, going about our business, pausing to express shock at another piece of news, and starting the cycle over again. We developed the ability to feel simultaneously shaken and bored, dismayed and indifferent. As media outlets engaged with Trump’s lies — some enthusiastically and others because it could not be avoided — we grew accustomed to an ever growing gap between reality as we experienced it and the ways in which it was reflected back to us by politicians and journalists.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Edgy and Unscripted, Tucker Carlson Fires Up the Convention Crowd

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      The former Fox News host, who is now firmly a part of Donald Trump’s inner circle, appeared to relish his return to the limelight.Tucker Carlson’s return to prime time kicked off with a roar.Mr. Carlson, a Fox News star until his firing 15 months ago, brought the Fiserv Forum to its feet when he emerged onstage at the Republican convention on Thursday evening, his support from the Make America Great Again crowd clearly intact. The grin on his face suggested just how much he relished his return to the limelight.Mr. Carlson is freshly embedded in former President Donald J. Trump’s inner circle, and he delivered an unscripted monologue straight out of his old Fox News show, complete with off-color jokes and dark visions of a nation at risk of falling into tyranny should Mr. Trump not prevail in November.And on a night when convention organizers were keen to present a softer, more humanized version of Mr. Trump — emphasizing his love of family and music — Mr. Carlson broached harder-edged topics, making thinly veiled cracks about President Biden’s age and nodding to Republican conspiracy theories that the 2020 election had been stolen.“You could take, I don’t know, a mannequin, a dead person, and make them president,” Mr. Carlson said to laughter. “You could. You could! I’m just saying, it’s theoretically possible. With enough cheating, that could happen.”The audience loved it, bathing Mr. Carlson in cheers. There were whoops when he dropped the fact that he was speaking extemporaneously, a rhetorical flourish meant to underscore an image of authenticity. (His teleprompter stayed blank throughout his nearly 12-minute appearance.)Mr. Carlson went on to praise Mr. Trump as “the funniest person I ever met in my life,” adding a line that chimed with the softer themes of the evening: “You can’t be funny without perspective or without empathy.”Mr. Trump, though, did not hear the plaudits in person: He was not in the hall for Mr. Carlson’s appearance.One of Mr. Carlson’s attempted jokes did seem to fall flat. With a smirk, he called Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, whom he lobbied for as a Trump running mate, “one of the only politicians in Washington who is actually very close to his own wife.”The line landed awkwardly, given the conspicuous absence of Melania Trump from this week’s convention, although the former first lady arrived at the convention hall later in the evening. More

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      The Sunday Read: ‘A Republican Election Clerk vs. Trump Die-Hards in a World of Lies’

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      Tally Abecassis and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeCindy Elgan glanced into the lobby of her office and saw a sheriff’s deputy waiting at the front counter. “Let’s start a video recording, just in case this goes sideways,” Elgan, 65, told one of her employees in the Esmeralda County clerk’s office. She had come to expect skepticism, conspiracy theories and even threats related to her job as an election administrator. She grabbed her annotated booklet of Nevada state laws, said a prayer for patience and walked into the lobby to confront the latest challenge to America’s electoral process.The deputy was standing alongside a woman that Elgan recognized as Mary Jane Zakas, 77, a longtime elementary schoolteacher and a leader in the local Republican Party. She often asked for a sheriff’s deputy to accompany her to the election’s office, in case her meetings became contentious.“I hope you’re having a blessed morning,” Zakas said. “Unfortunately, a lot of people are still very concerned about the security of their votes. They’ve lost all trust in the system.”After the 2020 election, former President Donald J. Trump’s denials and accusations of voter fraud spread outward from the White House to even the country’s most remote places, like Esmeralda County. Elgan knew most of the 620 voters in the town. Still, they accused her of being paid off and skimming votes away from Trump. And even though their allegations came with no evidence, they wanted her recalled from office before the next presidential election in November.There are a lot of ways to listen to “The Daily.” Here’s how.We want to hear from you. Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Follow Michael Barbaro on X: @mikiebarb. And if you’re interested in advertising with The Daily, write to us at thedaily-ads@nytimes.com.Additional production for The Sunday Read was contributed by Isabella Anderson, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Elena Hecht, Emma Kehlbeck, Tanya Pérez, Frannie Carr Toth and Krish Seenivasan. More

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      Rep. Bob Good Seeks Funds for Virginia Primary Recount

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      The Republican primary between Representative Bob Good of Virginia, the chairman of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, and his Trump-backed challenger was still up in the air on Monday almost a week after the balloting, as the two election deniers settled in for a lengthy and ugly fight over who was the true victor.John J. McGuire, a little-known state senator and former Navy SEAL who attended the “Stop the Steal” rally outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, held a razor-thin lead of just under 375 votes out of the nearly 63,000 votes cast, according to The Associated Press. He declared victory last Tuesday night before all the votes were counted, and on Monday, former President Donald J. Trump, who endorsed him, declared Mr. McGuire the winner in a social media post.But The A.P. said on Monday that the contest was too close to call, noting that while it would be unusual for a recount to shift the outcome of such a race, it would not be impossible. And Mr. Good has already made it clear he will seek a recount, an option under Virginia law, which allows such a request if the winner of a race is less than one percentage point ahead of his opponent.John J. McGuire, a state senator, speaking to supporters in Lynchburg, Va., last week. He declared victory on election night.Skip Rowland/Associated Press“While not unprecedented, it is rare for a race of this nature to shift by a few hundred votes during a recount,” The A.P. said in explaining its finding that the race was “too close to call.” “However, A.P. research has found that Virginia has a history of making small vote corrections after Election Day and that some past statewide races have shifted by hundreds of votes during a recount.”Mr. Good would have to pay for the recount himself because he trails Mr. McGuire by 0.6 of a percentage point, just above the 0.5 percentage point difference below which the state would finance it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Max Azzarello’s Path to Setting Himself on Fire Outside Trump Trial Began in Florida

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      Friends of Max Azzarello, who set himself on fire outside Donald J. Trump’s trial, said he was a caring person whose paranoia had led him down a dark path.The journey that ended with a man setting himself on fire on Friday outside the Manhattan courthouse where Donald J. Trump was being tried seemed to have begun in Florida, with a series of increasingly bizarre outbursts.Standing in the afternoon chill, the man, Max Azzarello, 37, of St. Augustine, Fla., threw pamphlets into the air before dousing himself with an accelerant and setting his body ablaze. The police hurried to extinguish the flames, but officials said his injuries were grave, and he was being treated at a hospital burn unit.The fire just a block or two from the courthouse appeared calculated to draw widespread attention, horrifying bystanders and temporarily overshadowing the momentous trial of a former president.But a closer look at the path the man had traveled to this moment of self-destruction revealed a recent spiral into volatility, one marked by a worldview that had become increasingly confusing and disjointed — and appeared to be unattached to any political party. His social media postings and arrest records suggest the immolation stemmed instead from a place of conspiracy theories and paranoia.Until last summer, Mr. Azzarello seemed to have lived a relatively quiet life. After high school, where he was a member of a bowling team, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009, with degrees in anthropology and public policy.As a student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where he received a master’s degree in city and regional planning in 2012, he was known for leaving supportive Post-it notes for classmates in the hallways and for his karaoke performances of Frank Sinatra and Disney tunes, said a former classmate, Katie Brennan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Truth vs. Alex Jones’ Review: How Conspiracy Theories Work

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      Directed by Dan Reed (“Leaving Neverland”), the documentary offers a lesson in how conspiracy theories work and shows how parents confronted Jones in court.Even though the legal battle between Sandy Hook families and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been thoroughly covered, it is still hard to watch him in the documentary “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” without experiencing a wave of nausea.Directed by Dan Reed (“Leaving Neverland”), the film methodically lays out the horrors that families in Newton, Conn., faced on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary. Parents of the victims share memories from that morning before their children left for school. Daniel Jewiss, the lead investigator, walks viewers through how the slaughter unfolded.Then the documentary shows how, just as the parents were dealing with unfathomable grief, Jones, through his Infowars broadcasts, began promoting the idea that the shooting was a hoax. As he continued to spread falsehoods, people who latched on to such claims harassed the families. Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed at Sandy Hook, describes the harassment as coming in waves. “It was almost like I knew when Alex Jones said something,” he says in testimony excerpted in the film.If there is value in seeing these events recapped, it is in the power of seeing the parents confront Jones in court. (Over two trials, in Texas and Connecticut, they won more than $1 billion in damages.) It is also in the horror of seeing just how confidently Jones deflects questions and tries to steer proceedings to his advantage — denying the families what Alissa Parker, Emilie’s mother, calls “a moment of reflection” from him.“The Truth vs. Alex Jones” offers a lesson in just how vicious and pervasive conspiracy theories can become and a chilling portrait of how little they may trouble their purveyors.The Truth vs. Alex JonesNot rated. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute. Watch on Max. More

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      Russians Mourn People Killed in Terrorist Concert Hall Attack

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      Russian state media pushed the idea that Ukraine was the obvious culprit, but at least three of the four suspects charged on Sunday are from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan.Bodies were recovered, flowers were laid and fingers were pointed on Sunday as competing narratives took shape over who was behind the terrorist attack on a Russian concert hall where at least 137 people out to enjoy an evening of music were killed.President Vladimir V. Putin has hinted that Ukraine was behind the Friday night attack. He stopped short of accusing Kyiv directly, but on Sunday, some of his allies showed no such compunction.American officials have said that the attack appeared to be the work of an offshoot of the Islamic State, and that there is no evidence connecting Kyiv to it. But many Russian nationalist commentators and ultraconservative hawks are pushing the idea that Ukraine is the obvious culprit.A pro-Kremlin analyst who is a regular on Russian state television, Sergei A. Markov, wrote in a post on Telegram that the Kremlin must work at isolating the Ukrainian leadership by “connecting the terrorist act not with ISIS but with the Ukrainian government as much as possible.”Russian state news outlets barely mentioned that ISIS itself claimed that it was responsible for the attack at Crocus City Hall, a concert venue in the outskirts of Moscow. The ISIS offshoot U.S. officials believe was tied to the attack, the Islamic State Khorasan, which is known as ISIS-K, has been active in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.Russian were stunned by the attack. People lined up to leave flowers at Crocus City Hall, in the Moscow suburbs, on Sunday.Nanna Heitmann for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More