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      We Had to Force the Constitution to Accommodate Democracy, and It Shows

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      In August, President Biden met with several historians at the White House to discuss the threats facing American democracy.Most of the conversation, according to a report in The Washington Post, was about “the larger context of the contest between democratic values and institutions and the trends toward autocracy globally.” Those present were people who had “been outspoken in recent months about the threat they see to the American democratic project, after the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, the continued denial by some Republicans of the 2020 election results and the efforts of election deniers to seek state office.”Now, I was obviously not at this meeting. But I have been thinking about what I would say to Biden about the threats to American democracy. The most acute threat, it’s true, comes from election deniers and the authoritarian mass movement led by the previous president, Donald Trump. But the long-term threat is less an imposition from bad actors and more a constitutive part of our political system. It is, in fact, the Constitution. Specifically, it is a set of fundamental problems with the structure of our government that flow directly from the Constitution as it currently exists.We tend to equate American democracy with the Constitution as if the two were synonymous with each other. To defend one is to protect the other and vice versa. But our history makes clear that the two are in tension with each other — and always have been. The Constitution, as I’ve written before, was as much a reaction to the populist enthusiasms and democratic experimentation of the 1780s as it was to the failures of the Articles of Confederation.The framers meant to force national majorities through an overlapping system of fractured authority; they meant to mediate, and even stymie, the popular will as much as possible and force the government to act with as much consensus as possible.Unfortunately for the framers, this plan did not work as well as they hoped. With the advent of political parties in the first decade of the new Republic — which the framers failed to anticipate in their design — Americans had essentially circumvented the careful balance of institutions and divided power. Parties could campaign to control each branch of government, and with the advent of the mass party in the 1820s, they could claim to represent “the people” themselves in all their glory.Americans, in short, had forced the Constitution to accommodate their democratic impulses, as would be the case again and again, up to the present. The question, today, is whether there’s any room left to build a truly democratic political system within the present limits of our constitutional order.In his new book “Two Cheers for Politics: Why Democracy is Flawed, Frightening — and Our Best Hope,” the legal scholar Jedediah Purdy says the answer is, essentially, no. “Our mainstream political language still lacks ways of saying, with unapologetic conviction and even patriotically, that the Constitution may be the enemy of the democracy it supposedly sustains,” Purdy writes.This is true in two ways. The first (and obvious) one is that the Constitution has enabled the democratic backsliding of the past six years. Founding-era warnings against demagogues — used often to justify our indirect system of choosing a president — run headfirst into the fact that Donald Trump was selected constitutionally, not elected democratically. (Alexander Hamilton wrote, in Federalist No. 68, “The choice of several to form an intermediate body of electors will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes.” This, it turns out, was wrong.)And consider this: In the 2020 presidential election, a clear majority of Americans voted against Trump in the highest turnout election of the 21st century so far. But with a few tens of thousands of additional votes in a few states, Trump would have won a second term under the Constitution. “A mechanism for selecting a chief executive among propertied elites in the late eighteenth century persists into the twenty-first,” Purdy writes, “now as a key choke point in a mass democracy.”The Constitution subverts democracy in a second, more subtle way. As Purdy notes, the countermajoritarian structure of the American system inhibits lawmaking and slows down politics, “making meaningful initiatives hard to undertake.” One result is that political campaigns have “shifted into a symbolic and defensive mode” where the move is not to promise a better world, but to impress on voters “the urgency of keeping the other candidate and party out of power.”“If enough people believe it is their responsibility to resist and disable any government they did not help to elect, self-rule can become impossible,” Purdy writes. “Donald Trump’s presidency,” he continues, “arose from all of these dysfunctions.”Even if you keep MAGA Republicans out of office (including Trump himself), you’re still left with a system the basic structure of which fuels dysfunction and undermines American democracy, from how it enables minority rule to how it helps inculcate a certain kind of political chauvinism — best captured in the hard-right mantra that the United States is a “Republic, not a democracy” — among some of the voters who benefit from lopsided representation in the Senate and the Electoral College.What makes this all the worse is that it has become virtually impossible to amend the Constitution and revise the basics of the American political system. The preamble to the Constitution may begin with “We the People,” but as Purdy writes, “A constitution like the American one deserves democratic authority only if it is realistically open to amendment.” It is only then that we can “know that what has not changed in the old text still commands consent.” Silence can have meaning, he points out, “but only when it is the silence of those free to speak.”There is much more to say about the ways that our political system has inhibited democratic life and even enabled forms of tyranny. For now, it suffices to say that a constitution that subverts majority rule, fuels authoritarian movements and renders popular sovereignty inert is not a constitution that can be said to protect, secure or even enable American democracy.In a speech in Philadelphia last month, Biden did speak publicly on the threats to American democracy. He focused, as almost any president would, on the Constitution. “This is a nation that honors our Constitution. We do not reject it. This is a nation that believes in the rule of law. We do not repudiate it. This is a nation that respects free and fair elections. We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it.”The problem, and what this country must confront if it ever hopes to turn its deepest democratic aspirations into reality, is that we don’t actually honor the will of the people. We deny it. And it’s this denial that sits at the root of our troubles.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      El bolsonarismo no se irá de Brasil

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      El rechazo tajante al gobierno reaccionario de Jair Bolsonaro que predecían las encuestas y deseaban millones de personas no llegó. Brasil está al borde del precipicio.No todo fue negativo. En las elecciones presidenciales del domingo, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, el antiguo líder sindical de centroizquierda que gobernó con destreza a Brasil de 2003 a 2011, se llevó aproximadamente el 48 por ciento de los votos; fue un resultado satisfactorio, dentro del margen de error de las encuestas finales. Lo malo es que Bolsonaro superó las predicciones y se llevó el 43 por ciento de los votos (cifra mucho más alta que las proyecciones previas), por lo que es probable que la segunda vuelta del 30 de octubre sea más cerrada de lo que se esperaba. Por si fuera poco, varios aliados y antiguos ministros del gabinete de Bolsonaro por todo el país lograron el mismo éxito en las elecciones locales.Los resultados mostraron, sin lugar a dudas, que Bolsonaro no es ningún accidente de la historia. Podría haber sido posible restarle importancia a su sorpresiva victoria hace cuatro años, cuando llegó al poder gracias a un sentimiento antiizquierdista generalizado, y explicarla como mera suerte. Pero ya no. Detrás de sus vagas referencias a “Dios, patria y familia” hay un respaldo muy firme por todo el país y de una parte amplia y diversa de la sociedad. Independientemente del resultado que obtenga a finales de este mes, los espíritus que alborotó Bolsonaro y la política que cultivó no desaparecerán.Las primeras incursiones de Bolsonaro en la política brasileña estuvieron marcadas por la ignominia. Este capitán retirado del ejército capturó por primera vez la atención nacional a mediados de los años ochenta, cuando las fuerzas armadas comenzaron una retirada táctica de la vida política tras dos décadas de gobierno militar. Un conocido semanario reveló que Bolsonaro, insatisfecho por el salario tan bajo que recibían los militares, planeó provocar algunas explosiones en un cuartel de Río de Janeiro. Su intención, según le dijo al periodista con una tremenda franqueza, era crear problemas para el nada popular ministro del ejército.Tras una ráfaga publicitaria y una investigación interna en la que Bolsonaro pareció amenazar al periodista por testificar en su contra, el incidente quedó prácticamente en el olvido. Sin embargo, ese desplante ilustró la conducta habitual de Bolsonaro, un soldado deslucido cuyas enormes ambiciones políticas por lo regular molestaban a los militares distinguidos de mayor rango. Con todo, su pasado militar fue un arma electoral útil. En 1988, después de restaurada la democracia brasileña, decidió arrancar su carrera política posicionándose como representante de los intereses y perspectivas del militar típico.Con el paso del tiempo, su discurso adquirió un tono más general de derecha y adoptó el tono conservador, si no es que la teología, el cristianismo evangélico. La política de Bolsonaro —una mezcla de intolerancia, autoritarismo, moralismo religioso, neoliberalismo y teorías conspirativas espontáneas— casi no tuvo prominencia después del gobierno militar. No obstante, 13 años de gobierno del progresista Partido de los Trabajadores causaron descontento en la derecha. En opinión de las figuras de esa ideología, las repetidas victorias electorales de la izquierda parecían indicar que había juego sucio y atentaban contra la propia noción de democracia. Al frente de esta embestida, con una grandilocuencia ideológica inimitable, estaba Bolsonaro. En la mayor democracia de América Latina, ahora habla en nombre de decenas de millones de personas.Los sucesos del domingo subrayaron esta lamentable situación. Los candidatos respaldados por Bolsonaro tuvieron los mejores resultados en todo el país y obtuvieron victorias importantes contra candidatos respaldados por Da Silva en São Paulo y Río de Janeiro. De hecho, la primera vuelta de las votaciones parece indicar que el proyecto político que se impuso en 2018 (en una palabra, el “Bolsonarismo”) no solo sigue vigente, sino que puede crecer. Si pensamos en el desastroso manejo de la COVID-19 por parte de Bolsonaro, sus constantes amenazas a la democracia brasileña y la serie de escándalos de corrupción en torno a él y su familia, el futuro luce sombrío.Pero esto no es inexplicable. Aunque hay mucho que no sabemos (el censo, postergado debido a la pandemia y a un sabotaje institucional, tiene más de una década de retraso), algunas cosas son claras. A pesar de que Bolsonaro conservó su abrumadora ventaja en las áreas del oeste y el noroeste del país, el aspecto más sorprendente de las elecciones fue con cuánta claridad mantuvo las líneas establecidas de apoyo regional. En el sureste, un bastión tradicional de política conservadora, Bolsonaro prosperó. En el noreste, refugio del Partido de los Trabajadores, Da Silva sobresalió. El éxito de Bolsonaro ha consistido en mantener y ampliar la base de apoyo conservadora tradicional, convocándola en torno a sus amargas denuncias de los progresistas, el sistema de justicia, la prensa y las instituciones internacionales.Sin embargo, con todo y esta gran demostración de dominio de Bolsonaro, el resultado más probable todavía es la victoria de Da Silva. Después de todo, el segundo lugar en la primera vuelta de las elecciones nunca en la historia ha ganado la segunda vuelta. Además, lo más probable es que los candidatos que terminaron en tercer y cuarto lugar, Simone Tebet, de centroderecha, y Ciro Gomes, de centroizquierda, apoyen a Da Silva. El gusto del expresidente por las actividades de campaña, evidente en un animado mensaje que escribió en Twitter en cuanto los resultados fueron claros, es otra ventaja. Cuatro semanas dedicadas a hacer campaña deberían sentarle bien.El problema es que prolongar la campaña también podría ser peligroso. Los partidarios de Bolsonaro ya han estado envueltos en varios actos de violencia en contra de los seguidores de Da Silva. No sería inesperado que el “Bolsonarismo”, movimiento arraigado en una retórica violenta, se cobre más vidas antes del 30 de octubre. Mientras tanto, gracias a su sorpresivo éxito, el presidente Bolsonaro tiene más tiempo y credibilidad para seguir adelante con sus planes en contra de la democracia brasileña.Bolsonaro todavía debe librar varios obstáculos para hacerse con el poder. Pero acaba de superar uno muy importante.Andre Pagliarini (@apagliar) es profesor asistente de Historia en Hampden-Sydney College, investigador en la institución independiente Washington Brazil Office y columnista de The Brazilian Report. More

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      A Plan B for Democrats Living in Red States

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      BOZEMAN, Mont. — Before we get to the point, keep in mind that during Montana’s recent primary election, in the Second Congressional District race in Garfield County — a stretch of eastern badlands and prairie nearly the size of Connecticut — 14 Democrats voted. Then again, maybe that is the point.After the 2020 census, Montana regained the second House seat it lost 30 years ago. Here in the western mountains where I live, the First District could be competitive for Democrats if the college towns and Indian reservations can outflank clumps of Trumpists and armed Christian separatists. But when I asked Dorothy Bradley — a Democratic icon since she got elected to the state legislature as a 23-year-old in 1970 — about the Second District, she replied point blank, “A Democrat can’t win in eastern Montana.”She is, however, floating a Plan B. In April, Ms. Bradley invited to the Capitol in Helena her opponent in the 1992 gubernatorial race, Marc Racicot, the two-term governor and former chair of the Republican National Committee. In the contest for the House seat in the eastern district, they endorsed an independent, Gary Buchanan, who is running against Montana’s current at-large representative, Republican Matt Rosendale. The Bradley-Racicot endorsement was a singular milestone in Montana politics, as if the C.E.O.s of Pepsi and Coke called a truce to sell some Dr. Pepper.President Biden’s plea to rational Republicans and independents to vote for Democrats in the midterms, as a ploy to root out authoritarian Republican extremists, could persuade the already persuadable. But winning the popular and electoral votes in 2020 does not change the fact that he lost in about 2,500 of the nation’s 3,000 or so counties. While the Republican Party spurns observable reality, the Democratic Party has alienated most of the continent (which is also unrealistic in a republic if governing is the goal). In landscapes where, as former Senator Conrad Burns described eastern Montana, there is “a lot of dirt between light bulbs,” defending pluralist democracy might require a pluralist task force. Realistic Democrats allying with Republican defectors and the unaffiliated to elect civic-minded independents could look like the bipartisan coalition backing Mr. Buchanan and an experiment south of here in Utah.The Utah Democratic Party decided not to field a U.S. Senate candidate and instead endorsed the independent Evan McMullin, a former C.I.A. officer who ran for president in 2016, to oppose Mike Lee, who initially supported Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election. That was a stirring, patriotic feat. Still, what did they have to lose? The last Democrat to win the Senate in Utah was born in 1911 and lost to Orrin Hatch in 1976.These independents overlap in ways that could be instructive in future races — levelheaded centrists with establishment support and a sense of place running against mortifying Republican oddballs in regions where Democrats are pariahs. And while Mr. Buchanan has raised about twice as much money as his Democratic opponent, the fact that Mr. McMullin doesn’t have a Democrat to contend with has helped propel him to a statistical tie with Senator Lee, according to a Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.No responsible American can vote for congressional Republicans — with few exceptions, like Senator Lisa Murkowski — for the foreseeable future because of the threat that party poses to orderly elections. Montana’s Representative Rosendale, who voted against certifying the 2020 election results, personifies that threat.Mr. Buchanan, who owns an investment advisory firm in Billings, made a last-minute decision to run for the House after Mr. Rosendale voted against a bipartisan resolution titled “Supporting the People of Ukraine.”How do you know if your representative is not the least bit representative? When the House votes 426-3, and yours is among the three.Mr. Buchanan described that vote as the moment “when embarrassment became shame.” It’s worth noting that our right-wing governor, Greg Gianforte, was so offended by the invasion, he started immediately divesting the state’s Russian assets, proclaiming, “Montana stands with Ukraine.” It’s such a near-unanimous position that even I will stand with my journalist-clobbering governor, though I will be 10 yards away wearing my dad’s welding helmet.Pondering Representative Rosendale’s peculiar record (he was also in the minority when the House voted 394-18 to support Sweden and Finland joining NATO), Mr. Racicot summarized his disapproval: “These aren’t necessarily moral judgments. These are almost mathematical judgments.”Though I voted for Dorothy Bradley in 1992, I do find Mr. Racicot, as a former R.N.C. chair who publicly endorsed Joe Biden for president, to be a reliable sherpa in ascending to the ideal of country above party.“I don’t care about the things that are debatable, that thoughtful people can argue about and come to different conclusions,” he told me. “What I care about is betraying the country and betraying the democracy.” Because of fidelity to the Constitution, he argues that “a lot of people are to the point where they can finally say: ‘You know what, I’m not a Democrat first. I’m not a Republican first.’”A man in a bar recently asked Mr. Buchanan if he’s an F.B.I. agent or a Mormon. He looks like he served as Montana’s first Department of Commerce director in the early 1980s. Sounds dull, yet those were desperate years, when much of the old Montana up and died — the Butte copper mine, the Great Falls refinery and the Anaconda smelter shut down, and the farm crisis incited hundreds of farmers in Montana and the Midwest to take their own lives. Mr. Buchanan oversaw “Build Montana,” a program focused on beefing up what’s now the economic pillar of tourism. He created the still ubiquitous “Made in Montana” label to promote homegrown products, a marketing ploy I fall for every time I face life’s jelly and jam dilemmas. Endangered fossil fuel towns might appreciate his experience with tough transitions. And his fealty to the right to privacy in the Montana Constitution, which guarantees abortion rights (for now), provides an alternative to Representative Rosendale’s rigid opposition.Mr. Buchanan told me that when he’s out campaigning in the eastern district, he meets Montanans who have never heard of the category of independent, but they instantly see themselves in that word. More than 40 percent of Americans identify as independents, according to a Gallup poll — the biggest bloc in the country, outnumbering either party. That figure should shame both parties’ leaders into deep self-reflection.When I saw photos of Mr. Racicot and Ms. Bradley standing beside Mr. Buchanan for endorsement, my first reaction was relief that there might be a plausible home remedy to Representative Rosendale and his ilk. Last month, in Livingston, I noticed about a dozen Buchanan yard signs and zero for his major party opponents. I know hardcore liberals in Helena and the Shields Valley who plan to vote for him.While I wish I could reach a comforting conclusion about the improvised communities bucking up these western independents for the greater good, partisans putting aside heartfelt differences is not necessarily a sign of hope but a warning that the two-party system has failed them. Congress is supposed to compromise, not voters.Sarah Vowell is the author of, among other books, “Lafayette in the Somewhat United States” and the producer of an oral history of the Montana Constitutional Convention of 1972.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Brazil’s Election on Sunday Showed That “Bolsonarismo” Is Here to Stay

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      The stark rebuke to the reactionary government of Jair Bolsonaro, predicted by the polls and desired by millions, didn’t come to pass. Brazil is on edge.It wasn’t all bad. In Sunday’s presidential election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the center-left former union leader who governed Brazil ably from 2003 to 2011, took roughly 48 percent of the vote, a healthy performance within the final polls’ margin of error. But Mr. Bolsonaro exceeded his presumed ceiling, taking 43 percent — far above previous predictions — and setting up what will most likely be a closer than expected runoff on Oct. 30. What’s more, several of Mr. Bolsonaro’s former cabinet ministers and allies across the country rode his coattails to success in local elections.The results showed beyond any doubt that Mr. Bolsonaro is no accident of history. It might have been possible to dismiss his surprising election four years ago, when he rose to power on a wave of widespread anti-left sentiment, as a fluke. No longer. Underlying his vague appeals to “God, fatherland and family” is a bedrock of support, spread across the country and encompassing a wide cross-section of society. Irrespective of the result at the end of the month, the spirits Mr. Bolsonaro animated and the politics he cultivated are here to stay.Mr. Bolsonaro’s beginnings in Brazilian politics were ignominious. An army captain, he first came to national attention in the mid-1980s as the armed forces were beginning a tactical retreat from political life after two decades of military rule. A leading newsmagazine revealed that Mr. Bolsonaro, resentful about poor remuneration, was planning to bomb a barracks in Rio de Janeiro. The goal, he told the reporter with remarkable directness, was to embarrass the unpopular army minister.After a flurry of publicity and an internal investigation in which Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to threaten the journalist for testifying against him, the incident was largely forgotten. But the macho bluster was typical of Mr. Bolsonaro, a lackluster soldier whose outsize political ambitions often rubbed senior military figures the wrong way. Even so, his military background proved electorally useful. In 1988, after the restoration of Brazilian democracy, he began a political career as a representative of the interests and perspectives of the military Everyman.Over time, his appeals assumed a more general right-wing tenor, embracing the conservative thrust if not the theology of evangelical Christianity. Mr. Bolsonaro’s politics — a medley of bigotry, authoritarianism, religious moralism, neoliberalism and freewheeling conspiracy theorization — were largely sidelined in the wake of military rule. But 13 years of progressive Workers’ Party governments gave rise to discontent on the right. To figures there, the left’s repeated electoral victories smacked of foul play and discredited the very notion of democracy itself. At the head of this charge, possessed of inimitable ideological bombast, was Mr. Bolsonaro. In Latin America’s biggest democracy, he now speaks for tens of millions.Sunday underscored this sorry state of affairs. Mr. Bolsonaro’s endorsed candidates overperformed everywhere, claiming major victories against candidates backed by Mr. da Silva in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Indeed, the first round of voting suggests not only that the political project that prevailed in 2018 — in a word, “Bolsonarismo” — is alive and well but also that it has room to grow. Considering Mr. Bolsonaro’s disastrous handling of Covid-19, his consistent threats to Brazilian democracy and the rash of corruption scandals surrounding him and his family, this is a grim prospect.Yet not an inexplicable one. Though there’s a lot we don’t know — the census, delayed by the pandemic and institutional sabotage, is over a decade old — some things are clear. While Mr. Bolsonaro retained his overwhelming advantage in the western and northwestern parts of the country, the most striking aspect of the election was how cleanly it fell along established lines of regional support. In the southeast, a traditional bastion of conservative politics, Mr. Bolsonaro prospered. In the northeast, a redoubt for the Workers’ Party, Mr. da Silva excelled. Mr. Bolsonaro’s success has been to retain and extend the traditional conservative base of support, enthusing it with his bitter denunciations of progressives, the justice system, journalists and international institutions.Yet for all of Mr. Bolsonaro’s show of strength, the most likely outcome remains a victory for Mr. da Silva. After all, no runner-up in the first round of voting has ever won the second. The candidates who finished third and fourth — the center-right Simone Tebet and the center-left Ciro Gomes — will probably support Mr. da Silva, too. The former president’s relish for campaigning, evident in an upbeat message he wrote on Twitter once the results were clear, is another advantage. Four weeks in campaign mode should suit him well.But extending the campaign is a dangerous proposition. Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have already engaged in numerous acts of violence against Mr. da Silva’s supporters. It would not be surprising if “Bolsonarismo,” a movement rooted in violent rhetoric, claims more lives before Oct. 30. Meanwhile, President Bolsonaro, gifted time and greater credibility by his surprising success, can continue plotting against Brazilian democracy.Several hurdles remain in the way of a power grab by Mr. Bolsonaro. But he has just cleared a major one.Andre Pagliarini (@apagliar) is an assistant professor of history at Hampden-Sydney College, a fellow at the Washington Brazil Office and a columnist at The Brazilian Report.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Chess Champion’s Warning About Ukraine and U.S. Democracy

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      Seeing the Russian invasion as part of a war on democracy that poses a serious threat to the United States, Garry Kasparov is leading a push to keep Western countries engaged in the fight.It’s been 17 years since Garry Kasparov, a child of the Soviet Union who became a grandmaster at age 22, stepped down from the world of competitive chess.Bruce Pandolfini, who wrote a book on Kasparov’s showdown with Deep Blue, the IBM chess computer, described his play this way: “Even when he can’t calculate the end result conclusively, he can make sophisticated generalizations.”Kasparov, now an activist and author, sees a world rife with dangers to democracy — and he is determined to do something about it.And though he professes to dislike comparisons between his brand of chess and his brand of geopolitical analysis, Kasparov takes pride in seeing what he calls the “big picture” of rising authoritarianism and democratic malaise. In a prescient 2015 book that, as he reminded me, The New York Times dinged in a review at the time as “somewhat tedious,” he urged Americans to take Vladimir Putin’s threats seriously.“My strength in chess was the big picture,” Kasparov said in an interview on Tuesday. “I could look at the position and see how things connected to one side or the other.”Kasparov’s latest gambit is promoting what he views as two essential, connected ideas: that Putin’s war in Ukraine is a war for democracy itself, and that Western democracies are in peril unless their citizens fight for democratic values at home.“I grew up in the Soviet Union, so I experienced undemocratic rule,” Kasparov said. “And while I never thought America was even close to this kind of desperation, when you look at history, the real threat in democracy comes when you have polarization.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Trouble for Nevada Democrats: The state has long been vital to the party’s hold on the West. Now, Democrats are facing potential losses up and down the ballot.Democrats’ House Chances: Democrats are not favored to win the House, but the notion of retaining the chamber is not as far-fetched as it once was, ​​writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.Latino Voters: A recent Times/Siena poll found Democrats faring far worse than they have in the past with Hispanic voters. “The Daily” looks at what the poll reveals about this key voting bloc.Michigan Governor’s Race: Tudor Dixon, the G.O.P. nominee who has ground to make up in her contest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is pursuing a hazardous strategy in the narrowly divided swing state: embracing former President Donald J. Trump.With Russia’s war effort flagging in Ukraine, Kasparov senses “panic” among authoritarian leaders from North Korea to Venezuela, because, he said, they view Putin as a man with “almost mystical powers.”Here in the United States, Kasparov said, “It also could be a great moment for us to revise our commitment to democracy,” adding, “Because, let’s be honest, there was complacency.”His organization, the Renew Democracy Initiative, has already distributed about $4 million in humanitarian aid in Ukraine, and is in the early stages of a multimillion-dollar communications campaign to buck up support for the war in the United States and Europe. Western leaders should push to end the conflict as soon as possible, Kasparov argues, by giving Ukraine the heavy weapons its leaders say they need.“We’re fighting the devil right now,” said Hennadii Nadolenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs who has worked with Kasparov’s group to brief Americans on the war. “Without U.S. help, we couldn’t survive.”Last year, Renew Democracy teamed up with CNN on “Voices of Freedom,” an editorial series that involved dissidents from around the world telling their stories. The group also organized an open letter, signed by 52 dissidents from 28 countries, warning that “to win the global fight against authoritarianism, America must once again believe in and live up to its own values.”A green-card holder with a Croatian passport, Kasparov said that he and other dissidents had an “objective” vantage point on U.S. democracy that gave them the credibility to speak difficult truths.When we talked, Kasparov was feuding online with Elon Musk, the Tesla founder. On Monday, Musk floated a 280-character proposal to end the war in Ukraine that, to Kasparov, seemed too friendly to the Kremlin. He called Musk’s proposal “moral idiocy.”The exchange was typical of two Kasparov traits: A combative polemical style and a conviction in the righteousness of his own beliefs. His frank criticism of six U.S. presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump included, has at times alienated one side or another. But that, he said, had only reinforced his concerns about political polarization.Kasparov’s response to Americans of all stripes is that although their democracy may be teetering, it’s still a beacon of hope to millions around the world. And as the war in Ukraine shows, maintaining it requires constant vigilance.“You have to be an active member of society,” he said. “You have to be engaged. That is the message.”What to readRepublicans rallied behind Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia, after allegations that he had paid for an abortion, Shane Goldmacher, Maya King and Lisa Lerer report.House Majority PAC, a group allied with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said it had raised $134 million so far this year. But Democrats may still struggle to hold the lower chamber.Adam Liptak reports that the Supreme Court appeared to be leaning toward Alabama during oral arguments in a case with implications for Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      ‘Una contienda de infarto’: Bolsonaro, Lula da Silva y Brasil tienen 4 semanas trepidantes

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      El presidente Jair Bolsonaro parecía condenado al fracaso de cara a la primera ronda de las elecciones. Pero ahora, rumbo al balotaje, el mandatario de derecha tiene un camino a la reelección.RÍO DE JANEIRO — La madrugada del lunes, el presidente de Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, se fue a dormir reivindicado. Los resultados electorales de la noche habían demostrado, tal como él lo había afirmado, que las encuestas subestimaban enormemente la fuerza de su movimiento de derecha.Horas más tarde, despertó con un nuevo desafío: ¿cómo obtener millones de votos más en solo cuatro semanas?El 30 de octubre, Bolsonaro se enfrentará a un contrincante de izquierda, el expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, en una segunda vuelta electoral para liderar al país más grande de América Latina.Ahora la contienda —un enfrentamiento entre los dos mayores pesos pesados de la política brasileña— podría inclinarse hacia cualquiera de los dos lados y promete prolongar lo que ya ha sido una dura batalla que ha polarizado al país y puesto a prueba la fortaleza de su democracia.“Lula sigue siendo el favorito, pero uno se puede imaginar totalmente que esto se convierta en una victoria de Bolsonaro”, dijo Oliver Stuenkel, un politólogo brasileño. “Si se suman todos los números de los candidatos de partidos pequeños, hay suficientes votos por ahí”.Da Silva, conocido universalmente como Lula, terminó en primer lugar el domingo, con el 48,4 por ciento de los votos, frente al 43,2 por ciento de Bolsonaro. De este modo, Da Silva se quedó a 1,85 millones de votos del 50 por ciento que necesitaba para una victoria rotunda en la primera vuelta, mientras que Bolsonaro se quedó a ocho millones de votos.Lo que ahora hace que la contienda sea impredecible es que muchos otros votos parecen estar en juego. Casi 10 millones de personas votaron el domingo por candidatos que ahora están fuera de la pelea, con aproximadamente un tercio de esos votos para candidatos de centroderecha. Otros 38 millones de personas votaron en blanco o no votaron.El expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva terminó en primer lugar el domingo con el 48,4 por ciento de los votos, frente al 43,2 por ciento de Bolsonaro.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesA medida que la campaña entra en una segunda fase, ambas partes han expresado confianza. Da Silva dijo que agradecía la oportunidad de finalmente debatir cara a cara con Bolsonaro, mientras que Bolsonaro dijo que creía que su campaña tenía impulso y un plan para la victoria.El lunes, Bolsonaro ya estaba usando las herramientas de su cargo en su beneficio. Adelantó a la próxima semana la entrega de cheques de unos 115 dólares para brasileños de bajos ingresos, parte de un programa de bienestar mensual que recientemente amplió en un intento de última hora de atraer más apoyo. El domingo por la noche, Bolsonaro citó esa ayuda económica como una de las razones por las que superó las predicciones de las encuestas.Las encuestadoras habían pronosticado que Bolsonaro recibiría aproximadamente el 36 por ciento de los votos, más de siete puntos porcentuales por debajo de su resultado real. Sobreestimaron ligeramente el apoyo de Da Silva.La pregunta de por qué las encuestas habían subestimado el apoyo a Bolsonaro confundió a los círculos políticos brasileños el lunes. Los encuestadores especularon que los votantes fueron deshonestos porque se avergonzaban de admitir que iban a votar por el presidente, cuyas afirmaciones falsas sobre una variedad de temas lo han convertido en un paria en algunos círculos, o que simplemente mintieron para sabotear las previsiones. Bolsonaro ha arremetido contra la industria de las encuestas —el domingo por la noche las llamó mentirosas— y muchos de sus partidarios han seguido su ejemplo.Las cosas podrían complicarse aún más antes de la segunda vuelta. El jefe de gabinete de Bolsonaro, Ciro Nogueira, instó a los partidarios del presidente a rechazar a los encuestadores que quieran entrevistarlos.La votación del domingo trajo buenas noticias para los conservadores en la mayoría de las elecciones de gobernadores y diputados, incluyendo muchos candidatos estrechamente alineados con Bolsonaro.Dado Galdieri para The New York Times“De esta manera, se tendrá la certeza desde el principio de que cualquiera de sus resultados es fraudulento”, escribió en Twitter a sus 100.000 seguidores. Luego sugirió que los encuestadores se equivocaron a propósito. “Solo una investigación profunda lo dirá”, dijo.Antonio Lavareda, presidente de Ipespe, una de las principales empresas de sondeos, dijo que tenía que examinar el efecto de los votantes que se quedaron en casa; el 21 por ciento del electorado no votó, el porcentaje más alto desde 1998. También especuló con que muchas personas que dijeron que votarían a terceros candidatos se pasaron a Bolsonaro en el último momento.Pero a pesar de los pronósticos inexactos de su empresa para el presidente en la primera ronda, Lavareda hizo una predicción audaz: el 48,8 por ciento de apoyo a Da Silva el domingo significa que “es prácticamente imposible” que no gane el 30 de octubre.Sin embargo, el fracaso de las encuestas dejó un mal sabor de boca a muchos brasileños y expertos.“Renuncio a las encuestas durante las próximas cuatro semanas”, dijo Brian Winter, analista de América Latina de Americas Society/Council of the Americas, un grupo que impulsa el libre comercio enl a región. “Su metodología no funciona”.Los pronósticos de las encuestas y la falta de claridad en la contienda podrían llevar a una situación tensa cuando se revelen los resultados el 30 de octubre. Bolsonaro ha dicho durante meses a sus partidarios que sospechen de fraude electoral —a pesar de no ofrecer ninguna prueba— y ha sugerido que la única forma en que podría perder es si la elección es robada.Esas afirmaciones sin fundamento parecen haber persuadido a millones de votantes en Brasil.El domingo por la noche, muchos de los partidarios de Bolsonaro ya reclamaban juego sucio. “Es un fraude. Lula no puede estar por delante de Bolsonaro”, dijo Yasmin Simões, de 28 años, una empleada de comercio minorista que esperaba frente a la casa de Bolsonaro en un barrio junto a la playa en Río de Janeiro. “Si Lula es elegido —por fraude— definitivamente va a haber una revuelta y yo voy a estar ahí”.El éxito de los aliados de Bolsonaro y el apoyo que recibió, mayor a lo anticipado, también muestran que tiene un firme control del movimiento conservador en Brasil.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga para The New York TimesAlgunos comentaristas conservadores conocidos también empezaron a asegurar, sin dar pruebas, de que algo sospechoso había sucedido en la votación del domingo.“Creo que es MUY posible que hubo fraude”, tuiteó Rodrigo Constantino, comentarista de derecha afincado en Florida, para sus 1,3 millones de seguidores. “¡El ÚNICO OBJETIVO tiene que ser ganar tantos votos para Bolsonaro que ni siquiera un algoritmo raro pueda cambiarlos!”.La votación del domingo fue una buena noticia para los conservadores en la mayoría de las elecciones de gobernadores y congresistas, incluidos muchos de los candidatos más cercanos a la línea de Bolsonaro. Al menos ocho de sus exministros fueron votados al Congreso, entre ellos varios que se vieron envueltos en escándalos. En total, el partido de Bolsonaro ganó 29 curules en el Congreso, con lo que ahora ocupa 112 en total y se posiciona como el partido con más representación tanto en la cámara baja como en el Senado.En consecuencia, si se le elige para un segundo periodo, Bolsonaro podría estar empoderado por su control del Congreso y replantear de manera más significativa su visión para el país. Para Da Silva, un congreso conservador podría complicar sus esfuerzos por gobernar.El éxito de los aliados de Bolsonaro y el apoyo que recibió, mayor a lo anticipado, también muestran que tiene un firme control del movimiento conservador en Brasil.“La derecha moderada de Brasil es un basurero político”, dijo Stuenkel. “Parte de la polarización extrema en Brasil es que, en la derecha, Bolsonaro tiene el dominio absoluto”.En las próximas cuatro semanas, el equipo de Bolsonaro planea ir por el estado clave de Minas Gerais, donde cree que puede cosechar un millón de votos y buscará mejorar sus resultados en el bastión de Da Silva en el nordeste, dijo Fábio Faria, ministro de Comunicaciones de Brasil y alto asesor del presidente. “Estamos muy confiados”, dijo.La campaña de Lula da Silva planea subrayar la serie de afirmaciones falsas de Bolsonaro y mostrar que a la economía le fue mucho mejor durante los dos mandatos de Da Silva, de 2003 a 2010, que en el gobierno de Bolsonaro.Da Silva en un mitin el sábado. Los analistas pronostican que se moderará para atraer a los votantes más de centro.Victor Moriyama para The New York Times“Será la primera oportunidad que tendremos de un debate cara a cara con el presidente”, dijo a sus seguidores Da Silva el domingo por la noche. “¿Va a seguir mintiendo o, por una vez en su vida, va a decirle la verdad al pueblo brasileño?”.Da Silva había enfocado su campaña en aumentar los impuestos para los ricos y en ampliar los servicios para los pobres pero, luego de los resultados del domingo, los analistas dijeron que moderaría su discurso de campaña para atraer a más votantes centristas.“Hay que ir a los rincones bolsonaristas del país”, dijo el senador Jean-Paul Prates, un asesor de la campaña de Da Silva. “Hay que dar la cara, sonreír a la gente del sur, del medio oeste y hablar de las cosas que importan en sus vidas”.En las ocho elecciones presidenciales previas en la democracia moderna de Brasil, el candidato que ha liderado la primera vuelta nunca ha perdido en la segunda. Pero los cinco puntos porcentuales que separan a Bolsonaro y Da Silva también son el margen más reducido que se ha registrado entre dos candidatos en un balotaje.Como resultado, dijo Winter, “esta va a ser una contienda de infarto”.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Antes reportó de tecnología desde San Francisco y, antes de integrarse al Times en 2018, trabajó siete años en The Wall Street Journal. @jacknicas • Facebook More

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      Brazil Braces for ‘White-Knuckle Race’ Between Bolsonaro and Lula

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      President Jair Bolsonaro had once looked doomed in the country’s high-stakes election. But now, in a runoff, the right-wing incumbent has a path to re-election.RIO DE JANEIRO — In the early morning hours on Monday, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil went to bed vindicated. The night’s election results had shown, just as he had claimed, that the polls had severely underestimated the strength of his right-wing movement.Hours later, he awoke to a new challenge: How to obtain millions more votes in just four weeks?On Oct. 30, Mr. Bolsonaro will face a leftist challenger, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a runoff election to lead Latin America’s largest nation.Now the contest — a matchup between Brazil’s two biggest political heavyweights — could swing either way and promises to prolong what has already been a bruising battle that has polarized the nation and tested the strength of its democracy.“Lula is still the favorite, but you can totally imagine this becoming a Bolsonaro victory,” said Oliver Stuenkel, a Brazilian political scientist. “If you add up all the numbers of the third-party candidates, there are sufficient votes out there.”Mr. da Silva, known universally as Lula, finished first on Sunday with 48.4 percent of the vote, versus 43.2 percent for Mr. Bolsonaro. That put Mr. da Silva about 1.85 million votes shy of the 50 percent he needed for an outright victory in the first round, while Mr. Bolsonaro came up 8 million votes short.What now makes the race unpredictable is that so many other votes appear up for grabs. Nearly 10 million people cast ballots on Sunday for candidates who are now out of the contest, with roughly a third of those votes going to a center-left candidate and two-thirds to center-right candidates. An additional 38 million people cast blank ballots or did not vote.The former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva finished first on Sunday with 48.4 percent of the vote, versus 43.2 percent for Mr. Bolsonaro.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesAs the campaign enters a second phase, both sides have expressed confidence. Mr. da Silva said he welcomed the opportunity to finally debate Mr. Bolsonaro head-to-head, while Mr. Bolsonaro said he believed his campaign had the momentum and a plan for victory.On Monday, Mr. Bolsonaro was already using the tools of his office to his advantage. He moved up to next week the delivery of $115 checks for low-income Brazilians, part of a monthly welfare program that he recently expanded in a last-minute bid to lure more support. On Sunday night, Mr. Bolsonaro cited that assistance as one reason he outperformed predictions by polls.Pollsters had forecast that Mr. Bolsonaro would receive roughly 36 percent of the vote, more than 7 percentage points below his actual tally. They had overestimated Mr. da Silva’s support only slightly.The question of why the polls had underestimated Mr. Bolsonaro’s support confounded Brazilian political circles on Monday. Pollsters speculated that voters were dishonest because they were ashamed to admit they were voting for the president, whose false claims on a variety of issues have made him a pariah in some circles, or that they simply lied to sabotage the forecasts. Mr. Bolsonaro has railed against the polling industry — on Sunday night he called them liars — and many of his supporters have followed suit.Things could get even more complicated ahead of the runoff. Mr. Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Ciro Nogueira, urged the president’s supporters to reject any pollsters wanting to interview them.The vote on Sunday delivered good news for conservatives in most governor and congressional elections, including many candidates closely aligned with Mr. Bolsonaro. Dado Galdieri for The New York Times“That way, it’ll be certain from the start that any of their results are fraudulent,” he wrote on Twitter to his 100,000 followers. He then suggested the pollsters got it wrong on purpose. “Only a deep investigation will tell,” he said.Antonio Lavareda, the president of Ipespe, a top polling company, said he needed to examine the effect of voters staying home; 21 percent of the electorate did not vote, the highest share since 1998. He also speculated that many people who said they would vote for third-party candidates switched to Mr. Bolsonaro at the last minute.But despite his firm’s inaccurate forecasts for the president in the first round, Mr. Lavareda still made a bold prediction: Mr. da Silva’s 48.4 percent support on Sunday meant that “it’s practically impossible” he does not win on Oct. 30.Still, the fallout from the polls left a bad taste for many Brazilians and experts.“I’ve sworn off polls for the next four weeks,” said Brian Winter, a Latin America analyst with Americas Society/Council of the Americas, a group that pushes free trade in the Americas. “Their methodology is broken.”The survey forecasts and lack of clarity in the race could lead to a tense situation when the results are revealed on Oct. 30. Mr. Bolsonaro has for months told his supporters to suspect voter fraud — despite offering no evidence — and he has suggested that the only way he could lose is if the election is stolen.Those unsubstantiated claims appear to have persuaded millions of voters in Brazil. On Sunday night, many of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters were already claiming foul play. “It’s fraud. Lula can’t be ahead of Bolsonaro,” said Yasmin Simões, 28, a retail employee gathered with other supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro outside his home in a beachside neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. “If Lula is elected — by fraud — there’s definitely going to be a revolt, and I’m in.”The success of Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies and his stronger-than-expected support also shows that he maintains a firm grip on the conservative movement in Brazil.Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York TimesSome prominent conservative pundits also began pushing claims, without evidence, that something fishy had occurred in Sunday’s voting.“I think it’s VERY possible that there was fraud,” Rodrigo Constantino, a right-wing Brazilian pundit who lives in Florida, wrote to his 1.3 million followers on Twitter. “The ONLY GOAL has to be to win so many votes for Bolsonaro that not even a strange algorithm can change it!”The vote on Sunday delivered good news for conservatives in most governor and congressional elections, including many candidates closely aligned with Mr. Bolsonaro. At least eight of his former ministers were elected to Congress, including several who were once shrouded in scandal. Overall, Mr. Bolsonaro’s political party picked up 29 seats in Congress, giving it 112 in total, the biggest party in both the House and Senate.As a result, if elected to a second term, Mr. Bolsonaro could be emboldened by his effective control of Congress and more significantly remake Brazilian society in his vision. For Mr. da Silva, the conservative Congress could complicate his efforts to govern.The success of Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies and his stronger-than-expected support also shows that he maintains a firm grip on the conservative movement in Brazil.“Brazil’s moderate right is a political wasteland,” Mr. Stuenkel said. “Part of the extreme polarization in Brazil is that, on the right, Bolsonaro reigns supreme.”Over the next four weeks, Mr. Bolsonaro’s team plans to target the swing state of Minas Gerais, where it believes it can pick up one million votes, and looks to improve its results in Mr. da Silva’s stronghold in Brazil’s Northeast, said Fábio Faria, Brazil’s communications minister and a senior adviser to the president. “We are really confident,” he said.Mr. da Silva’s campaign plans to highlight Mr. Bolsonaro’s string of false statements and show that the economy performed far better during Mr. da Silva’s two terms, from 2003 through 2010, than during Mr. Bolsonaro’s tenure.Mr. da Silva during a rally on Saturday. Analysts predict that he will moderate his stump speech in order to attract more centrist voters.Victor Moriyama for The New York Times“It will be the first chance for us to have a tête-à-tête debate with the president,” Mr. da Silva told supporters Sunday night. “Is he going to keep telling lies or will he, at least once in his life, tell the truth to the Brazilian people?”Mr. da Silva had focused his campaign on raising taxes on the rich to expand services for the poor, but — after Sunday’s results — analysts predicted that he would moderate his stump speech in order to attract more centrists.“You have to go to the Bolsonaro corners of the country,” said Senator Jean-Paul Prates, a senior adviser to Mr. da Silva’s campaign. “You have to show your face, smile at these people in the south, the midwest, and talk about the things that concern their lives.”In the eight previous presidential elections in Brazil’s modern democracy, the candidate that has led in the first round has never lost in the second. But the 5 percentage points separating Mr. Bolsonaro and Mr. da Silva are also the slimmest margin between two candidates in a runoff.As a result, Mr. Winter said, “this is going to be a white-knuckle race.” More

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      They Legitimized the Myth of a Stolen Election — and Reaped the Rewards

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      A majority of House Republicans last year voted to challenge the Electoral College and upend the presidential election. A majority of House Republicans last year voted to challenge the Electoral College and upend the presidential election. That action, signaled ahead of the vote in signed petitions, would change the direction of the party. That action, […] More