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      Jan. 6 Hearings Underscore Hard Truths About Democracy

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      When political leaders face a constitutional crisis, like that of Jan. 6, the process of collectively deciding how to respond can be messy, arbitrary, and sometimes change the nature of the system itself.If you look for international parallels to the moment last year when Vice President Mike Pence refused to bow to pressure from President Donald J. Trump to help overturn their election defeat, something quickly becomes clear.Such crises, with democracy’s fate left to a handful of officials, rarely resolve purely on legal or constitutional principles, even if those might later be cited as justification.Rather, their outcome is usually determined by whichever political elites happen to form a quick critical mass in favor of one result. And those officials are left to follow whatever motivation — principle, partisan antipathy, self-interest — happens to move them.Taken together, the history of modern constitutional crises underscores some hard truths about democracy. Supposedly bedrock norms, like free elections or rule of law, though portrayed as irreversibly cemented into the national foundation, are in truth only as solid as the commitment of those in power. And while a crisis can be an opportunity for leaders to reinforce democratic norms, it can also be an opportunity to revise or outright revoke them.Amid Yugoslavia’s 2000 election, for example, the opposition declared it had won enough votes to unseat President Slobodan Milosevic, whose government falsely claimed the opposition had fallen short.Both sides appealed to constitutional principles, legal procedures and, with protests raging, public will. Ultimately, a critical mass of government and police officials, including some in positions necessary to certify the outcome, signaled that, for reasons that varied individual to individual, they would treat Mr. Milosevic as the election’s loser. The new government later extradited him to face war crimes charges at The Hague.Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, applauding during a passing-out ceremony of recruits at the military academy in Belgrade, in 2000. Mr. Milosevic was declared the loser of a disputed election, and later extradited to face war crimes charges at The Hague. Agence France-PresseAmericans may see more in common with Peru. There, President Alberto Fujimori in 1992 dissolved the opposition-held Congress, which had been moving to impeach him. Lawmakers across the spectrum quickly voted to replace Mr. Fujimori with his own vice president, who had opposed the presidential power grab.Both sides claimed to be defending democracy from the other. Both appealed to Peru’s military, which had traditionally played a role of ultimate arbiter, almost akin to that of a supreme court. The public, deeply polarized, split. The military was also split.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers in declaring victory prematurely and relentlessly pressing claims of fraud he was told were wrong.Day Three: Mr. Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing.At the critical moment, enough political and military elites signaled support for Mr. Fujimori that he prevailed. They came together informally, each reacting to events individually, and many appealing to different ends, such as Mr. Fujimori’s economic agenda, notions of stability, or a chance for their party to prevail under the new order.Peru fell into quasi-authoritarianism, with political rights curtailed and elections still held but under terms that favored Mr. Fujimori, until he was removed from office in 2000 over corruption allegations. Last year, his daughter ran for the presidency as a right-wing populist, losing by less than 50,000 votes.Modern Latin America has repeatedly faced such crises. This is due less to any shared cultural traits, many scholars argue, than to a history of Cold War meddling that weakened democratic norms. It also stems from American-style presidential systems, and deep social polarization that paves the way for extreme political combat.Presidential democracies, by dividing power among competing branches, create more opportunities for rival offices to clash, even to the point of usurping one another’s powers. Such systems also blur questions of who is in charge, forcing their branches to resolve disputes informally, on the fly and at times by force.Venezuela, once the region’s oldest democracy, endured a series of constitutional crises as President Hugo Chávez clashed with judges and other government bodies that blocked his agenda. Each time, Mr. Chávez, and later his successor, Nicolás Maduro, appealed to legal and democratic principles to justify weakening those institutions until, over time, the leaders’ actions, ostensibly to save democracy, had all but gutted it.Hugo Chavez, the former president of Venezuela, arriving at the National Assembly for his annual state of the union address in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2012. He and his successor appealed to legal and democratic principles to justify their weakening of democratic institutions.Ariana Cubillos/Associated PressPresidencies are rare in Western democracies. One of the few, in France, saw its own constitutional crisis in 1958, when an attempted military coup was diverted only when the wartime leader Charles de Gaulle handed himself emergency powers to establish a unity government that satisfied both civilian and military leaders.While other systems can fall into major crisis, it is often because, as in a presidential democracy, competing power centers clash to the point of trying to overrun one another.Still, some scholars argue that Americans hoping to understand their country’s trajectory should look not to Europe but to Latin America.Ecuador came near the brink in 2018 over then-President Rafael Correa’s effort to extend his own term limits. But when voters and the political elite alike opposed this, Mr. Correa left office voluntarily.In 2019, Bolivia fell into chaos amid a disputed election. Though the public split, political and military elites signaled that they believed that the incumbent, the left-wing firebrand Evo Morales, should step down, all but forcing him to do so.Still, when Mr. Morales’s right-wing replacement oversaw months of turmoil and then moved to postpone elections, many of those same elites pushed for a quick vote instead, which elevated Mr. Morales’s handpicked successor.Evo Morales, the former president of Bolivia, speaking to the press on election day in La Paz, Bolivia, in October 2019. The country fell into chaos after the election, which was disputed.Martin Alipaz/EPA, via ShutterstockThe phrase “political elites” can conjure images of cigar-chomping power-brokers, meeting in secret to pull society’s strings. In reality, scholars use the term to describe lawmakers, judges, bureaucrats, police and military officers, local officials, business chiefs and cultural figures, most of whom will never coordinate directly, much less agree on what is best for the country.Still, it is those elites who collectively uphold democracy day-to-day. Much as paper money only has value because we all treat it as valuable, elections and laws only have power because elites wake up every morning and treat them as paramount. It is a kind of compact, in which the powerful voluntarily bind themselves to a system that also constrains them.“A well-functioning, orderly democracy does not require us to actively think about what sustains it,” Tom Pepinsky, a Cornell University political scientist, told me shortly after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. “It’s an equilibrium; everybody is incentivized to participate as if it will continue.”But in a major constitutional crisis, when the norms and rules meant to guide democracy come under doubt, or fall by the wayside entirely, those elites suddenly face the question of how — or whether — to keep up their democratic compact.They will not always agree on what course is best for democracy, or for the country, or for themselves. Sometimes, the shock of seeing democracy’s vulnerability will lead them to redouble their commitment to it, and sometimes to jettison that system in part or whole.The result is often a scramble of elites pressuring one another directly, as many senior Republicans and White House aides did throughout Jan. 6, or through public statements aimed at the thousands of officials operating the machinery of government.Scholars call this a “coordination game,” with all those actors trying to understand and influence how the others will respond until a minimally viable consensus emerges. It can resemble less a well-defined plot than a herd of startled animals, which is why the outcome can be hard to predict.Before Jan. 6, there had been little reason to wonder over lawmakers’ commitment to democracy. “It had not been a question of whether or not they supported democracy in a real internal sense — that had never been the stakes,” Dr. Pepinsky said.Now, a crisis had forced them to decide whether to overturn the election, demonstrating that not all of those lawmakers, if given that choice, would vote to uphold democracy. “I’ve been floored by how much of this really does depend on 535 people,” Dr. Pepinsky said, referring to the number of lawmakers in Congress.. More

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      Who Is Financing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Caucus? Corporations You Know.

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      Immediately after the Jan. 6 attack, hundreds of corporations announced freezes on donating money to Republican lawmakers who had voted against certifying Joe Biden’s victory. “Given recent events and the horrific attack on the U.S. Capitol, we are assessing our future PAC criteria,” a spokesperson for Toyota said a week after the attack.For many corporations, that pause was short-lived.“By April 1, 2021, Toyota had donated $62,000 to 39 Republican objectors,” the journalist Judd Legum wrote in his newsletter, Popular Information. That included a donation of $1,000 that Toyota gave to Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona who is a close ally of Donald Trump and a fervent devotee of the “big lie.”In July 2021, Toyota reversed course and announced another hiatus from donating to lawmakers who voted to overturn the election results. Six months later, the money started to flow again. The company, in a statement to The Times, said it donates equally to both parties and “will not support those who, by their words and actions, create an atmosphere that incites violence.” (Corporations aren’t allowed to give directly to campaigns but instead form political action committees that donate in the name of the company.)Giving equally to both parties sounds good. But what if a growing faction of one political party isn’t committed to the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power?In the year and a half since the attack, rivers of cash from once skittish donors have resumed flowing to election deniers. Sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. Sometimes just a thousand. But it adds up. In the month of April alone, the last month for which data is available, Fortune 500 companies and trade organizations gave more than $1.4 million to members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results, according to an analysis by the transparency group Accountable.US. AT&T led the pack, giving $95,000 to election objectors.Of all the revelations so far from the hearings on the Jan. 6 attack, the most important is that the effort to undermine democratic elections in the United States is continuing. More than a dozen men and women who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection or the rallies leading up to it have run for elected office this year. Supporters of Mr. Trump have also run for public offices that oversee elections. And according to an investigation by The Times, at least 357 Republican legislators in nine states have used the power of their offices to attack the results of the 2020 election.This isn’t a hypothetical threat. On Tuesday, New Mexico’s secretary of state was forced to ask the State Supreme Court to compel a Republican-led county election commission to certify primary election results. The commission had refused to do so, citing its distrust of its own voting machines.There is also an active effort underway to frustrate the Jan. 6 committee’s work, including refusing to comply with subpoenas. Mr. Biggs, for instance, has refused to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify, as have other Republican members of Congress, including Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Mo Brooks and Scott Perry. (Mr. Perry, among other congressmen, asked for a presidential pardon for efforts to challenge and overturn the 2020 election, according to Representative Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee. He has denied that charge.) Representatives Barry Loudermilk and Ronny Jackson have yet to agree to interview requests from the committee. Six of these congressmen alone have brought in more than $826,000 from corporate donors since Jan. 6, according to Accountable.US. (Mr. Brooks didn’t receive any money from the Fortune 500 companies and trade groups tracked in the report.)We tend to think of the past and future threat to elections as coming from voters for Donald Trump and those whom they’d elect to office. But the success of these politicians also depends on money. And a lot of money from corporations like Boeing, Koch Industries, Home Depot, FedEx, UPS and General Dynamics has gone to politicians who reject the 2020 election results based on lies told by the former president, according to a tally kept by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, known as CREW.All told, as of this week, corporations and industry groups gave almost $32 million to the House and Senate members who voted to overturn the election and to the G.O.P. committees focused on the party’s congressional campaigns. The top 10 companies that gave money to those members, according to CREW’s analysis of campaign finance disclosures, are Koch Industries, Boeing, Home Depot, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, General Motors and FedEx. All of those companies, with the exception of Koch Industries and FedEx, once said they’d refrain from donating to politicians who voted to reject the election results.Of the 249 companies that promised not to fund the 147 senators and representatives who voted against any of the results, fewer than half have stuck to their promise, according to CREW.Kudos aplenty to the 85 corporations that stuck to their guns and still refuse to fund the seditious, including Nike, PepsiCo, Lyft, Cisco, Prudential, Marriott, Target and Zillow. That’s what responsible corporate citizenship looks like. It’s also patriotic.We’re going to need more patriotic companies for what’s coming. Not only are Republican lawmakers who refused to certify the election results still in office; their party is poised to make gains during the midterm elections. Their electoral fortunes represent not only an endorsement from voters who support their efforts to undermine our democracy; they also represent the explicit financial support of hundreds of corporations that pour money into their campaign coffers.Money in politics is the way of the world, especially in this country. But as the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation has made clear, Mr. Trump’s attempted coup was orders of magnitude different from the normal rough-and-tumble of politics. Returning to the status quo where corporate money flowed to nearly every politician elected to office isn’t just unseemly; it is helping to fund a continuing attack on our democracy.Many Americans say they’ve moved on from the attack on Jan. 6. For those who haven’t, a good place to focus their attention is on the continuing threat to the Republic posed by politicians who are actively undermining it, and the money that helps them do so.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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      in Elections

      Jair Bolsonaro plantea dudas sobre el proceso electoral de Brasil. El ejército lo respalda

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      Previo a las elecciones hay un escenario riesgoso: por un lado, el presidente y líderes militares sostienen que el voto se presta al fraude. Por otro, jueces, diplomáticos extranjeros y periodistas advierten que Bolsonaro prepara el terreno para intentar un golpe de Estado.RÍO DE JANEIRO — Durante meses, el presidente de Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, ha estado constantemente a la zaga en las encuestas previas a la crucial elección presidencial brasileña. Y durante meses ha cuestionado constantemente los sistemas de votación de su país, advirtiendo que si pierde las elecciones de octubre, probablemente se debería al robo de votos.Esas afirmaciones fueron consideradas en gran medida como habladurías. Pero ahora Bolsonaro ha conseguido un nuevo aliado en su lucha contra el proceso electoral: los militares del país.Los líderes de las fuerzas armadas de Brasil han comenzado repentinamente a plantear dudas similares sobre la integridad de las elecciones, a pesar de las escasas pruebas de fraude en el pasado, lo que ha aumentado la tensión, ya elevada, sobre la estabilidad de la mayor democracia de América Latina y ha sacudido a un país que sufrió una dictadura militar de 1964 a 1985.Los líderes militares han identificado para los funcionarios electorales lo que, según ellos, son algunas vulnerabilidades en los sistemas de votación. Se les dio un lugar en un comité de transparencia que los funcionarios electorales crearon para disminuir los temores que Bolsonaro había despertado sobre la votación. Y Bolsonaro, un capitán retirado del ejército que llenó su gabinete de generales, ha sugerido que el día de las elecciones, los militares deberían realizar su propio recuento paralelo de los votos.Bolsonaro, quien ha hablado bien de la dictadura militar, también ha querido dejar claro que los militares responden ante él.Los funcionarios electorales “invitaron a las fuerzas armadas a participar en el proceso electoral”, dijo Bolsonaro hace poco, en alusión al comité de transparencia. “¿Olvidaron que el jefe supremo de las fuerzas armadas se llama Jair Messias Bolsonaro?”.Almir Garnier Santos, el comandante de la Marina de Brasil, dijo a los periodistas el mes pasado que respaldaba la opinión de Bolsonaro. “El presidente de la república es mi jefe, es mi comandante, tiene derecho a decir lo que quiera”, dijo.A poco más de cuatro meses de una de las votaciones más importantes de América Latina en años, se está formando un conflicto muy riesgoso. Por un lado, el presidente, algunos líderes militares y muchos votantes de la derecha sostienen que las elecciones se prestan al fraude. Por otro, políticos, jueces, diplomáticos extranjeros y periodistas hacen sonar la alarma de que Bolsonaro está preparando el terreno para un intento de golpe de Estado.Bolsonaro ha aumentado la tensión, al decir que su preocupación por la integridad de las elecciones puede llevarlo a cuestionar el resultado. “Ha surgido una nueva clase de pillos que quieren robar nuestra libertad”, dijo en un discurso este mes. “Iremos a la guerra si es necesario”.Activistas con una manta que dice en portugués “Dictadura nunca más” en un mitin en Brasilia en marzo durante una protesta motivada por lo que los organizadores dijeron es un aumento de las violaciones a los derechos humanos en la presidencia de Jair Bolsonaro.Eraldo Peres/Associated PressEdson Fachin, un juez del Supremo Tribunal Federal y el principal funcionario electoral del país, dijo en una entrevista que las afirmaciones de que la elección sería insegura son infundadas y peligrosas. “Estos problemas son creados artificialmente por quienes quieren destruir la democracia brasileña”, dijo. “Lo que está en juego en Brasil no es solo una máquina de votación electrónica. Lo que está en juego es conservar la democracia”.Bolsonaro y los militares dicen que solamente intentan salvaguardar las elecciones. “Por el amor de Dios, nadie está realizando actos antidemocráticos”, dijo Bolsonaro recientemente. “Una elección limpia, transparente y segura es una cuestión de seguridad nacional. Nadie quiere tener dudas cuando las elecciones hayan terminado”.El Ministerio de Defensa de Brasil dijo en un comunicado que “las fuerzas armadas brasileñas actúan en estricta obediencia a la ley y la Constitución y se dirigen a defender la patria, garantizar los poderes constitucionales y, a través de cualquiera de ellos, de la ley y el orden”.Las tácticas de Bolsonaro parecen adaptadas del manual del expresidente Donald Trump, y tanto Trump como sus aliados han trabajado para apoyar las interpelaciones de fraude de Bolsonaro. Los dos hombres son reflejo de un retroceso democrático más amplio que se está produciendo en todo el mundo.Los disturbios del año pasado en el Capitolio de Estados Unidos han demostrado que los traspasos pacíficos de poder ya no están garantizados ni siquiera en las democracias maduras. En Brasil, donde las instituciones democráticas son mucho más jóvenes, las incursiones de los militares en las elecciones están agudizando los temores.Garnier Santos, el comandante de la Marina, declaró al periódico brasileño O Povo que “como comandante de la Marina, quiero que los brasileños estén seguros de que su voto contará”, y añadió: “Cuanta más transparencia, cuanta más auditoría, mejor para Brasil”.Un informe de la policía federal brasileña detalló cómo dos generales del gabinete de Bolsonaro, incluido su asesor de seguridad nacional, habían intentado durante años ayudar a Bolsonaro a descubrir pruebas de fraude electoral.Y el viernes, el ministro de Defensa de Brasil, Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, envió una misiva de 21 puntos a los funcionarios electorales, criticándolos por no tomar en serio las inquietudes de los militares sobre la seguridad electoral. “Las fuerzas armadas no se sienten debidamente reconocidas”, dijo.Hasta ahora, los comentarios de Bolsonaro han ido más allá que los de los militares. En abril, repitió la falsedad de que los funcionarios cuentan los votos en una “sala secreta”. Luego sugirió que los datos de las votaciones deberían suministrarse a una sala “donde las fuerzas armadas también tengan una computadora para contar los votos”. Los militares no han comentado públicamente esta idea.Dado que el apoyo de los militares podría ser crítico para un golpe de Estado, una pregunta popular en los círculos políticos es: si Bolsonaro cuestiona el resultado de las elecciones, ¿cómo reaccionarían los 340.000 miembros de las fuerzas armadas?Bolsonaro y Trump son aliados cercanos; ambos han cuestionado las elecciones de sus respectivos países. Cenaron en marzo de 2020 en Mar-a-Lago en Palm Beach, Florida.T.J. Kirkpatrick para The New York Times“En Estados Unidos, los militares y la policía respetaron la ley, defendieron la Constitución”, dijo Mauricio Santoro, profesor de relaciones internacionales en la Universidad Estatal de Río de Janeiro, refiriéndose a las afirmaciones de Trump de que le habían robado la elección. “No estoy seguro de que vaya a ocurrir lo mismo aquí”.Funcionarios militares y políticos refutan cualquier noción de que los militares respaldarían un golpe de Estado. “Caería. No tendría ningún apoyo”, dijo el general Maynard Santa Rosa, quien perteneció al ejército brasileño durante 49 años y sirvió en el gabinete de Bolsonaro. “Y creo que él lo sabe”.Sérgio Etchegoyen, un general retirado del ejército cercano a los actuales líderes militares, también calificó de alarmistas las preocupaciones sobre un golpe de Estado. “Podemos pensar que es malo que el presidente cuestione las boletas”, dijo. “Pero es mucho peor si cada cinco minutos pensamos que la democracia está en riesgo”.Algunos funcionarios estadounidenses están más preocupados por la reacción del aproximadamente medio millón de policías en todo Brasil porque generalmente son menos profesionales y apoyan más a Bolsonaro que los militares, según un funcionario estadounidense que habló con la condición de permanecer en el anonimato para discutir conversaciones privadas.Cualquier afirmación sobre una elección robada podría enfrentarse a un público escéptico, a menos de que la contienda se haga más competida. Una encuesta realizada a finales de mayo entre 2556 brasileños indicó que el 48 por ciento apoyaba al expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, frente al 27 por ciento de Bolsonaro. (Si ningún candidato obtiene la mitad de los votos, los dos primeros clasificados irán a una segunda vuelta el 30 de octubre).Esa misma encuesta mostró que el 24 por ciento de los encuestados no confía en las máquinas de votación de Brasil, frente al 17 por ciento en marzo. El 55 por ciento de los encuestados dijo que creía que la elección era vulnerable al fraude, incluyendo el 81 por ciento de los partidarios de Bolsonaro.En los 37 años de democracia moderna en Brasil, ningún presidente ha estado tan cerca de los militares como Bolsonaro, quien fue paracaidista del ejército.Como diputado, colgó en su despacho retratos de los líderes de la dictadura militar brasileña. Como presidente, triplicó el número de militares en puestos civiles en el gobierno federal hasta casi 1100. Su vicepresidente también es un general retirado.El año pasado, mientras intensificaba sus críticas al sistema electoral del país, destituyó al ministro de Defensa y a los tres principales comandantes militares, colocando a partidarios en su lugar.El nuevo ministro de Defensa no tardó en opinar sobre el proceso electoral, apoyando la propuesta de Bolsonaro de utilizar boletas impresas, además de máquinas de votación, lo que facilitaría los recuentos. Brasil es uno de los pocos países que depende totalmente en las máquinas de votación electrónicas: 577.125.Aunque Bolsonaro y sus aliados admiten que carecen de pruebas de fraude en el pasado, señalan una serie de problemas: algunas irregularidades percibidas en los resultados de la votación, un hackeo en 2018 de las computadoras del tribunal electoral, que no tiene conexión con las máquinas de votación, y la desestimación general de las preocupaciones por parte de los funcionarios electorales.Una urna electrónica en la sede del tribunal electoral de Brasil el mes pasado, mientras los analistas probaban el sistema. Eraldo Peres/Associated PressDiego Aranha, un experto en computación brasileño que ha intentado hackear las máquinas con fines de investigación, dijo que la falta de copias de seguridad en papel dificulta la verificación de los resultados, pero que el sistema en general era seguro.El Supremo Tribunal Federal de Brasil rechazó finalmente el uso de boletas impresas, alegando problemas de privacidad.El año pasado, cuando los funcionarios electorales crearon la “comisión de transparencia electoral”, invitaron a formar parte de ella a un almirante con un título en computación. En su lugar, el ministro de Defensa de Brasil envió a un general que dirige el comando de defensa cibernética del ejército.El representante del ejército envió entonces cuatro cartas a los funcionarios electorales con preguntas detalladas sobre el proceso de votación, así como algunos cambios recomendados.Preguntó sobre los sellos de seguridad de las máquinas, el código informático que las sustenta y la tecnología biométrica utilizada para verificar a los votantes. Los funcionarios electorales dijeron el sábado que aceptarían algunas de las pequeñas recomendaciones técnicas y estudiarían otras para las próximas elecciones, pero que otras sugerencias no entendían el sistema.En medio de las idas y venidas, el expresidente del Tribunal Superior Electoral, Luís Roberto Barroso, dijo a los periodistas que los líderes militares estaban “siendo guiados para atacar el proceso electoral brasileño”, una afirmación que Nogueira, el ministro de Defensa, calificó de “irresponsable”.El tribunal electoral también invitó a funcionarios europeos a observar la elección, pero rescindió la invitación después de que el gobierno de Bolsonaro se opusiera. En su lugar, el partido político de Bolsonaro está tratando de que una empresa externa audite los sistemas de votación antes de las elecciones.Bolsonaro y Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, el ministro de Defensa, en una ceremonia el pasado agosto en Brasilia.Andressa Anholete/Getty ImagesFachin, quien ahora preside el tribunal electoral, dijo que Bolsonaro era bienvenido a realizar su propia revisión, pero añadió que los funcionarios ya han probado las máquinas. “Esto es más o menos como forzar la cerradura de una puerta abierta”, dijo.El gobierno de Joe Biden ha advertido a Bolsonaro que debe respetar el proceso democrático. El jueves, en la Cumbre de las Américas en Los Ángeles, el presidente Biden se reunió con Bolsonaro por primera vez. Sentado junto a Biden, Bolsonaro dijo que eventualmente dejaría el cargo de “una manera democrática”, añadiendo que las elecciones de octubre deben ser “limpias, confiables y auditables”.Scott Hamilton, el principal diplomático de Estados Unidos en Río de Janeiro hasta el año pasado, escribió en el periódico brasileño O Globo que la “intención de Bolsonaro es clara y peligrosa: socavar la fe del público y preparar el terreno para negarse a aceptar los resultados”.Bolsonaro insiste en que no está tratando de erosionar los cimientos democráticos de su país, sino que simplemente está asegurando una votación precisa.“¿Cómo quiero un golpe si ya soy presidente?”, dijo este mes. “En las repúblicas bananeras, vemos a los líderes conspirando para mantenerse en el poder, cooptando partes del gobierno para defraudar las elecciones. Aquí es exactamente lo contrario”.André Spigariol More

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      Donald Trump, monstruo estadounidense

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      WASHINGTON D. C. — Los monstruos ya no son lo que solían ser.Estoy leyendo Frankenstein de Mary Shelley para una asignación de la escuela y el monstruo es magnífico. Al principio tiene una mente elegante y dulzura de temperamento, lee Las penas del joven Werther de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe y recoge leña para una familia pobre. Pero su creador, Victor Frankenstein, lo abandona y le niega una pareja para calmar su soledad. La criatura no encuentra a nadie que no retroceda con miedo y disgusto ante su apariencia, hecha de muchas piezas dispares, su piel y ojos amarillos y labios negros. Amargado, busca vengarse de su creador y del mundo.“Doquiera que mire, veo felicidad de la cual solo yo estoy irrevocablemente excluido”, se lamenta. “Yo era bueno y cariñoso; el sufrimiento me ha envilecido”.Al final del libro, antes de desaparecer en el Ártico, el monstruo reflexiona que alguna vez tuvo “grandes pensamientos honorables”, hasta que se acumuló su “espantoso catálogo” de hazañas malignas.El monstruo de Shelley, a diferencia del nuestro, tiene conciencia de sí mismo y una razón para causar estragos. Sabe cómo sentirse culpable y cuándo abandonar el escenario. La malignidad de nuestro monstruo se deriva de la psicopatía narcisista pura, y se niega a abandonar el escenario o cesar su vil mendacidad.Ni por un momento pasó por la mente de Donald Trump que un presidente estadounidense que comete sedición sería algo debilitante y corrosivo para el país. Era solo otra manera para que el Emperador del Caos puliera su título.Escuchamos el jueves por la noche el espantoso catálogo de las hazañas de Trump. Están tan fuera de lo común, son tan difíciles de entender que, de alguna manera, todavía estamos procesándolas en nuestras mentes.En un horario estelar, la audiencia del comité de la Cámara de Representantes encargado de investigar los hechos del 6 de enero, no trató de examinar el bufonesco y grandilocuente camino que tomó Trump para llegar a la presidencia. La audiencia trató de revelar a Trump como un monstruo insensible, y muchos saldrán convencidos de que debería ser acusado penalmente y encarcelado. ¡Enciérrenlo!La audiencia puso de manifiesto el hecho de que Trump hablaba muy en serio acerca de derrocar al gobierno. Si su otrora perro faldero, Mike Pence, hubiese sido colgado en la horca frente al Capitolio por negarse a ayudarlo a conservar su cargo de manera ilegítima, que así sea, dijo Trump. “Tal vez nuestros seguidores tengan razón”, comentó ese día, de manera escalofriante, al señalar que su vicepresidente “se lo merece”.Liz Cheney usó con inteligencia las palabras de los exasesores de Trump para mostrar que, a pesar de sus malévolas quejas, Trump sabía que no había fraude a un nivel que hubiera cambiado el resultado de las elecciones.“Dejé en claro que no estaba de acuerdo con la idea de decir que las elecciones fueron robadas, no estaba de acuerdo con decir eso públicamente por lo que le dije al presidente que esas eran tonterías”, declaró William Barr, fiscal general de Trump.En contraposición con su padre, Ivanka Trump, en una declaración grabada, dijo que aceptó la versión de la realidad de Barr: “Respeto al fiscal general Barr. Así que acepté lo que él decía”.(Su esposo, Jared Kushner, ganó el premio mayor al descaro en su declaración: estaba demasiado ocupado organizando indultos para cretinos como para prestar atención a si los asistentes de Trump amenazaban con renunciar por el cretino que estaba en el despacho oval).Los expertos en datos de Trump le dijeron sin rodeos que había perdido. “Así que allí no hay nada que contender”, comentó Mark Meadows.Trump simplemente no podía soportar ser etiquetado como un perdedor, algo que su padre detestaba particularmente. Trump subvirtió las elecciones con manía por puro egoísmo y maldad, al saber que es fácil manipular a las personas en las redes sociales con la Gran Mentira.A Trump le parecía bien que sus seguidores violaran la ley, atacaran a la policía y fueran a la cárcel, mientras él elogiaba su “amor” a la distancia. Es increíble que ningún legislador haya sido asesinado.Mires donde mires, hay algo que te hiela la sangre. El monstruo de Frankenstein no es el único que ha abandonado los “pensamientos de honor”.Rusia, también en las garras de un monstruo, invade y destruye a una democracia vecina sin ningún motivo, excepto los delirios de grandeza de Vladimir Putin.En Uvalde, Texas, se desarrolla la inimaginable historia de cómo la policía retrasó una hora el rescate de escolares porque a un comandante le preocupaba la seguridad de los oficiales.Íconos codiciosos del golf se unieron a una gira financiada por los saudíes, a pesar de que el príncipe heredero saudí ordenó desmembrar a un periodista. (Kushner está bajo investigación sobre si negoció su posición en el gobierno para asegurar una inversión de 2000 millones de dólares de los saudíes para su nueva firma de capital privado).Como lo señaló Bennie Thompson, presidente del comité, cuando el Capitolio fue atacado en 1814, fue por los británicos. Esta vez, fue por un enemigo interno, incitado por el hombre que estaba en el corazón de la democracia que había jurado proteger.“Lo hicieron alentados por el presidente de Estados Unidos”, declaró Thompson sobre la muchedumbre, “para tratar de detener la transferencia del poder, un precedente que se había respetado durante 220 años”.Es alucinante que tanta gente aún acepte a Trump cuando es tan claro que solo se preocupa por sí mismo. Se apresuró a desestimar a su hija Ivanka Trump el viernes, al indicar que su opinión no tenía validez ya que ella “no estaba involucrada en observar ni estudiar los resultados de las elecciones. Hacía tiempo que ella estaba fuera de la jugada”.Dejemos que algunos conservadores descarten las audiencias como “un festival de bostezos”. Dejemos que Fox News se niegue groseramente a transmitirlas.La sesión fue fascinante, al describir una historia de terror protagonizada por los Proud Boys rapaces y un monstruo que incluso Shelley podría haber apreciado. Los niveles de audiencia fueron un éxito, con casi 20 millones de espectadores.Caroline Edwards, la dura oficial de policía del Capitolio que sufrió una conmoción cerebral, y a la que le rociaron los ojos, y se levantó para volver a la pelea, describió el ataque como un paisaje infernal.“Estaba resbalando en sangre de otras personas”, recordó. “Saben, yo… estaba atrapando a la gente mientras caía. Yo, cómo decirlo, yo estaba… fue una carnicería”.En su discurso distópico inaugural, Trump prometió poner fin a la “carnicería estadounidense”. En cambio, ofreció esa misma carnicería. Ahora debe rendir cuentas por su intento de golpe de Estado, y no solo ante el tribunal de la opinión pública.Maureen Dowd, ganadora del Premio Pulitzer de 1999 en la categoría de comentario distinguido y autora de tres bestsellers del New York Times, es columnista de Opinión desde 1995. @MaureenDowd • Facebook More

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      How Bolsonaro Is Using the Military to Challenge Brazil’s Election

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      Despite little evidence of past fraud, President Jair Bolsonaro has long raised doubts about Brazil’s electoral process. Now the military is expressing similar concerns.RIO DE JANEIRO — President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has for months consistently trailed in the polls ahead of the country’s crucial presidential race. And for months, he has consistently questioned its voting systems, warning that if he loses October’s election, it will most likely be thanks to a stolen vote.Those claims were largely regarded as talk. But now, Mr. Bolsonaro has enlisted a new ally in his fight against the electoral process: the nation’s military.The leaders of Brazil’s armed forces have suddenly begun raising similar doubts about the integrity of the elections, despite little evidence of past fraud, ratcheting up already high tensions over the stability of Latin America’s largest democracy and rattling a nation that suffered under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.Military leaders have identified for election officials what they say are a number of vulnerabilities in the voting systems. They were given a spot on a transparency committee that election officials created to ease fears that Mr. Bolsonaro had stirred up about the vote. And Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army captain who filled his cabinet with generals, has suggested that on Election Day, the military should conduct its own parallel count.Mr. Bolsonaro, who has spoken fondly about the dictatorship, has also sought to make clear that the military answers to him.Election officials “invited the armed forces to participate in the electoral process,” Mr. Bolsonaro said recently, referring to the transparency committee. “Did they forget that the supreme chief of the armed forces is named Jair Messias Bolsonaro?”Almir Garnier Santos, the commander of the Brazilian Navy, told reporters last month that he backed Mr. Bolsonaro’s view. “The president of the republic is my boss, he is my commander, he has the right to say whatever he wants,” Mr. Garnier Santos said.With just over four months until one of the most consequential votes in Latin America in years, a high-stakes clash is forming. On one side, the president, some military leaders and many right-wing voters argue that the election is open to fraud. On the other, politicians, judges, foreign diplomats and journalists are ringing the alarm that Mr. Bolsonaro is setting the stage for an attempted coup.Mr. Bolsonaro has added to the tension, saying that his concerns about the election’s integrity may lead him to dispute the outcome. “A new class of thieves has emerged who want to steal our freedom,” he said in a speech this month. “If necessary, we will go to war.”Activists held a banner that read, “Dictatorship never again,” in Portuguese, during a rally in March in Brasília to protest what organizers said was an increase in human rights violations under Mr. Bolsonaro. Eraldo Peres/Associated PressEdson Fachin, a Supreme Court judge and Brazil’s top election official, said in an interview that claims of an unsafe election were unfounded and dangerous. “These problems are artificially created by those who want to destroy the Brazilian democracy,” he said. “What is at stake in Brazil is not just an electronic voting machine. What is at stake is maintaining democracy.”Mr. Bolsonaro and the military say they are only trying to safeguard the vote. “For the love of God, no one is engaging in undemocratic acts,” Mr. Bolsonaro said recently. “A clean, transparent, safe election is a matter of national security. No one wants to have doubts when the election is over.”Brazil’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that “the Brazilian armed forces act in strict obedience to the law and the Constitution, and are directed to defend the homeland, guarantee the constitutional powers and, through any of these, of law and order.”Mr. Bolsonaro’s tactics appear to be adopted from former President Donald J. Trump’s playbook, and Mr. Trump and his allies have worked to support Mr. Bolsonaro’s fraud claims. The two men reflect a broader democratic backsliding unfolding across the world.The riot last year at the U.S. Capitol has shown that peaceful transfers of power are no longer guaranteed even in mature democracies. In Brazil, where democratic institutions are far younger, the military’s involvement in the election is heightening fears.Mr. Garnier Santos told the Brazilian newspaper O Povo that “as a navy commander, I want Brazilians to be sure that their vote will count,” adding, “The more auditing, the better for Brazil.”A Brazilian federal police report detailed how two generals in Mr. Bolsonaro’s cabinet, including his national security adviser, had tried for years to help him uncover evidence of election fraud.And on Friday, Brazil’s defense minister, Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, sent a 21-point missive to election officials, criticizing them as not taking the military’s points about election safety seriously. “The armed forces don’t feel properly acknowledged,” he said.So far, Mr. Bolsonaro’s comments have gone further. In April, he repeated a falsehood that officials count votes in a “secret room.” He then suggested that voting data should be fed to a room “where the armed forces also have a computer to count the votes.” The military has not publicly commented on this idea.Since the military’s support could be critical for a coup, a popular question in political circles has become: If Mr. Bolsonaro disputed the election, how would the 340,000 members of the armed forces react?Mr. Bolsonaro and President Donald J. Trump in 2020 at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. The men are close allies who have both questioned their country’s elections.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times“In the U.S., the military and the police respected the law, they defended the Constitution,” said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, referring to Mr. Trump’s claims of a stolen election. “I’m not sure the same thing will happen here.”Military officials and many politicians dispute any notion that the military would back a coup. “He would fall. He wouldn’t have any support,” said Maynard Santa Rosa, a Brazilian Army general for 49 years who served in Mr. Bolsonaro’s cabinet. “And I think he knows it.”Sérgio Etchegoyen, a retired army general close to the military’s current leaders, called concerns about a coup alarmist. “We might think it’s bad that the president questions the ballots,” he said. “But it’s much worse if every five minutes we think the democracy is at risk.”Some American officials are more concerned about the roughly half-million police officers across Brazil because they are generally less professional and more supportive of Mr. Bolsonaro than the military, according to a State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.Any claim of a stolen election could face a skeptical public unless the race tightens. A survey of 2,556 Brazilians in late May showed that 48 percent supported former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, compared with 27 percent for Mr. Bolsonaro. (If no candidate captures half of the vote, the top two finishers will go to a runoff on Oct. 30.)That same poll showed that 24 percent of respondents did not trust Brazil’s voting machines, up from 17 percent in March. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they believed the election was vulnerable to fraud, including 81 percent of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters.In the 37 years of Brazil’s modern democracy, no president has been as close to the military as Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army paratrooper.As a congressman, he hung portraits of the leaders of the military dictatorship in his office. As president, he has tripled the number of military personnel in civilian posts in the federal government to nearly 1,100. His vice president is also a former general.Last year, as he intensified his critiques of the electoral system, he dismissed the defense minister and the top three military commanders, installing loyalists in their places.The new defense minister quickly weighed in on the electoral process, backing Mr. Bolsonaro’s push to use printed ballots in addition to voting machines, which would make recounts easier. Brazil is one of the few countries to rely entirely on electronic voting machines — 577,125 of them.While Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies admit that they lack proof of past fraud, they point to a number of problems: some perceived irregularities in voting returns; a 2018 hack of the electoral court’s computers, which do not connect to the voting machines; and election officials’ general dismissal of concerns.An electronic voting machine at the headquarters of Brazil’s electoral court last month as analysts tested the system.Eraldo Peres/Associated PressDiego Aranha, a Brazilian computer scientist who has tried to hack the machines for research, said that the lack of paper backups makes it harder to verify results, but that the system overall was safe.Brazil’s Supreme Court ultimately rejected the use of printed ballots, citing privacy concerns.Last year, when election officials created the “election transparency commission,” they invited an admiral with a computer science degree to join. Brazil’s defense minister instead sent a general who directs the army cybercommand.The army representative sent four letters to election officials with detailed questions about the voting process, as well as some recommended changes.He asked about the machines’ tamper-proof seals, the computer code that underpins them and the biometric technology used to verify voters. Election officials said on Saturday that they would accept some of the small technical recommendations and study others for the next election but that other suggestions misunderstood the system.Amid the back-and-forth, the former head of the electoral court, Luís Roberto Barroso, told reporters that military leaders were “being guided to attack the Brazilian electoral process,” an assertion that Mr. Nogueira, the defense minister, called “irresponsible.” The electoral court also invited European officials to observe the election, but rescinded the invitation after the Bolsonaro administration objected. Instead, Mr. Bolsonaro’s political party is trying to have an outside company audit the voting systems before the election.Mr. Bolsonaro and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, the defense minister and the commander of the Brazilian Army, at a ceremony last August in Brasília.Andressa Anholete/Getty ImagesMr. Fachin, who now runs the electoral court, said Mr. Bolsonaro was welcome to conduct his own review but added that officials already test the machines. “This is more or less like picking the lock on an open door,” he said.The Biden administration has warned Mr. Bolsonaro to respect the democratic process. On Thursday, at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, President Biden met with Mr. Bolsonaro for the first time. Sitting next to Mr. Biden, Mr. Bolsonaro said he would eventually leave office in “a democratic way,” adding that October’s election must be “clean, reliable and auditable.”Scott Hamilton, the United States’ top diplomat in Rio de Janeiro until last year, wrote in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that Mr. Bolsonaro’s “intent is clear and dangerous: undermine the public’s faith and set the stage for refusing to accept the results.”Mr. Bolsonaro insists that he is simply trying to ensure an accurate vote.“How do I want a coup if I’m already president?” he asked last month. “In Banana Republics, we see leaders conspiring to stay in power, co-opting parts of the government to defraud elections. Here it’s exactly the opposite.”André Spigariol More

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      Donald Trump, American Monster

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      WASHINGTON — Monsters are not what they used to be.I’m reading “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley for school and the monster is magnificent. He starts out with an elegance of mind and sweetness of temperament, reading Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther” and gathering firewood for a poor family. But his creator, Victor Frankenstein, abandons him and refuses him a mate to calm his loneliness. The creature finds no one who does not recoil in fear and disgust from his stitched-together appearance, his yellow skin and eyes, and black lips. Embittered, he seeks revenge on his creator and the world.“Every where I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded,” he laments. “I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.”Before he disappears into the Arctic at the end of the book, he muses that once he had “high thoughts of honour,” until his “frightful catalogue” of malignant deeds piled up.Shelley’s monster, unlike ours, has self-awareness, and a reason to wreak havoc. He knows how to feel guilty and when to leave the stage. Our monster’s malignity stems from pure narcissistic psychopathy — and he refuses to leave the stage or cease his vile mendacity.It never for a moment crossed Donald Trump’s mind that an American president committing sedition would be a debilitating, corrosive thing for the country. It was just another way for the Emperor of Chaos to burnish his title.We listened Thursday night to the frightful catalogue of Trump’s deeds. They are so beyond the pale, so hard to fathom, that in some ways, it’s all still sinking in.The House Jan. 6 committee’s prime-time hearing was not about Trump as a bloviating buffoon who stumbled into the presidency. It was about Trump as a callous monster, and many will come away convinced that he should be criminally charged and put in jail. Lock him up!The hearing drove home the fact that Trump was deadly serious about overthrowing the government. If his onetime lap dog Mike Pence was strung up on the gallows outside the Capitol for refusing to help Trump hold onto his office illegitimately, Trump said, so be it. “Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” he remarked that day, chillingly, noting that his vice president “deserves it.”Liz Cheney cleverly used the words of former Trump aides to show that, despite his malevolent bleating, Trump knew there was no fraud on a level that would have changed the election results.“I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit,” William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, said.Breaking from her father, Ivanka Trump — in a taped deposition — said she embraced Barr’s version of reality: “I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying.”(Her husband, Jared Kushner, won the prize for gall in his deposition: He was too busy arranging pardons for sleazeballs to pay attention to whether Trump aides were threatening to quit over the sleazeball in the Oval.)Trump’s data experts told him bluntly that he had lost. “So there’s no there there,” Mark Meadows commented.Trump just couldn’t stand being labeled a loser — his father’s bête noire. He maniacally subverted the election out of pure selfishness and wickedness, knowing it is easy to manipulate people on social media with the Big Lie.It was fine with him if his followers broke the law and attacked the police and went to jail, while he praised their “love” from afar. It’s amazing that no lawmakers were killed.Everywhere you look, there’s something that makes your blood run cold. The monster in “Frankenstein” is not the only one who has forsaken “thoughts of honour.”Russia, also in the grip of a monster, is invading and destroying a neighboring democracy for no reason, except Vladimir Putin’s delusions of grandeur.In Uvalde, the unfathomable story unspools about how the police delayed rescuing schoolchildren for an hour because a commander was worried about the officers’ safety.Greedy golf icons joined a tour underwritten by the Saudis, even though the Saudi crown prince ordered a journalist dismembered. (Kushner is under investigation about whether he traded on his government position to secure a $2 billion investment from the Saudis for his new private equity firm.)As Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the committee, noted, when the Capitol was attacked in 1814, it was by the British. This time it was by an enemy within, egged on by the man at the heart of the democracy he swore to protect.“They did so at the encouragement of the president of the United States,” Thompson said of the mob, “trying to stop the transfer of power, a precedent that had stood for 220 years.”It’s mind-boggling that so many people still embrace Trump when it’s so plain that he cares only about himself. He was quick to throw Ivanka off the sled on Friday, indicating her opinion did not count since she “was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out.”Let some conservatives dismiss the hearings as “A Snooze Fest.” Let Fox News churlishly refuse to run them.The hearing was mesmerizing, describing a horror story with predatory Proud Boys and a monster at its center that even Mary Shelley could have appreciated. The ratings were boffo, with nearly 20 million viewers.Caroline Edwards, the tough Capitol Police officer who suffered a concussion, was sprayed in her eyes and got back up to return to the fight, described a hellscape.“I was slipping in people’s blood,” she recalled. “You know, I — I was catching people as they fell. I — you know, I was — it was carnage.”In his dystopian Inaugural speech, Trump promised to end “American carnage.” Instead, he delivered it. Now he needs to be held accountable for his attempted coup — and not just in the court of public opinion.Trump supporters trying to break through a police barrier at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.John Minchillo/Associated PressThe 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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      Why Canada Races on Gun Policy When America Crawls

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      As Congress once more struggles through acrimonious and so far fruitless negotiations over gun reforms in the wake of a mass shooting, Americans may find themselves looking north in befuddlement.Canada’s government has begun moving to ban handgun sales and buy back military-style rifles — dramatic changes in a country with one of the world’s highest gun ownership rates outside of the United States, expected to pass easily and with little fuss.Ask Americans why Canada’s government seems to cut through issues that mire their own in bitterness and frustration, and you might hear them cite cultural differences, gentler politics, even easygoing Canadian temperaments.But ask a political scientist, and you’ll get a more straightforward answer.Differences in national culture and issues, while meaningful, do not on their own explain things. After all, Canada also has two parties that mostly dominate national politics, an urban-rural divide, deepening culture wars and a rising far-right. And guns have been a contentious issue there for decades, one long contested by activist groups.Rather, much of the gap in how these two countries handle contentious policy questions comes down to something that can feel invisible amid day-to-day politicking, but may be just as important as the issues themselves: the structures of their political systems.Canada’s is a parliamentary system. Its head of government, Justin Trudeau, is elevated to that job by the legislature, of which he is also a member, and which his party, in collaboration with another, controls.If Mr. Trudeau wants to pass a new law, he must merely ask his subordinates in his party and their allies to do it. There is no such thing as divided government and less cross-party horse-trading and legislative gridlock.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada with government officials and gun-control activists, during a news conference about firearm-control legislation in Ottawa, Ontario, on Monday.Blair Gable/ReutersCanada is similar to what the United States would be if it had only a House of Representatives, whose speaker also oversaw federal agencies and foreign policy.What America has instead is a system whose structure simultaneously requires cooperation across competing parties and discourages them from working together.The result is an American system that not only moves slower and passes fewer laws than those of parliamentary models like Canada’s, research has found, but stalls for years even on measures that enjoy widespread support among voters in both parties, such as universal background checks for gun purchases.Many political scientists argue that the United States’ long-worsening gridlock runs much deeper than any one issue or the interest groups engaged with it, to the basic setup of its political system.The Perils of PresidentsThe scholar Juan Linz warned in a much-discussed 1990 essay, as much of the developing and formerly Soviet worlds moved to democracy, that those countries not follow what he called one of the foundational flaws of the United States: its presidency.“The vast majority of the stable democracies in the world today are parliamentary regimes,” Dr. Linz wrote.Presidential systems, on the other hand, tended to collapse in coups or other violence, with only the United States having persisted since its origin.It’s telling that when American diplomats and technocrats help to set up new democracies abroad, they almost always model them on European-style parliaments.Subsequent research has found that parliamentary systems also perform better at managing the economy and advancing rule of law than presidencies, if only for the comparative ease with which they can implement policy — witnessed in Canada’s rapid response to gun violence or other crises.Gun control activists during a rally in Washington last week.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesAmerica’s legislative hurdles, requiring cooperation across the president, Senate and House to pass laws, are raised further by the fact that all three are elected under different rules.None represents a straight national majority. Presidential elections favor some states over others. The Senate tilts especially toward rural voters. All three are elected on different schedules. As a result, single-party control is rare. Because competing parties typically control at least one of those three veto points on legislation, legislation is frequently vetoed.Americans have come to accept, even embrace, divided government. But it is exceedingly uncommon. While Americans may see Canada’s legislative efficiency as unusual, to the rest of the world it is American-style gridlock that looks odd.Still, America’s presidential system does not, on its own, explain what makes it function so differently from a country like Canada.“As long as things are moderate, a presidential system is not so bad,” said Lee Drutman, a political scientist who studies political reform.Rather, he cited that America is nearly alone in combining a presidency with winner-take-all elections.Zero-Sum ContestsProportional votes, common in most of the world, award seats to each party based on its share of the vote.Under American-style elections, the party that wins 51 percent of a race controls 100 percent of the office it elects, while the party with 49 percent ends up with nothing.This all but ensured that politics would coalesce between two parties because third-ranked parties rarely win office. And as those two parties came to represent geographically distinct electorates struggling for national control, their contests took on, for voters, a sensation of us-versus-them.Canada, too, has winner-take-all elections, a practice inherited from Britain. Still, neither of those countries hold presidential contests, which pit one half of the nation against the other.And in neither country do the executive and legislative branches share power, which, in times of divided government, extends the zero-sum nature of American elections into lawmaking, too. And not only on issues where the parties’ supporters disagree.Mourners gathered at Newtown High School in Connecticut in 2012 for a service for those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesIn 2013, shortly after a gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., polls found that 81 percent of Republicans supported background checks for gun purchases. But when asked whether the Senate should pass such a bill — which would have required Republicans to side with the then-Democratic majority — support dropped to 57 percent. The measure never passed.The episode was one of many suggesting that Americans often privilege partisan victory, or at least denying victory to the other side, over their own policy preferences, the scholar Lilliana Mason wrote in a book on partisanship.“Even when policy debates crack open and an opportunity for compromise appears,” Dr. Mason wrote, “partisans are psychologically motivated to look away.”Unstable MajoritiesStill, there is something unusual to Canada’s model, too.Most parliamentary systems, as in Europe, elect lawmakers proportionally. Voters select a party, which takes seats in the legislature proportional to their overall vote share. As a result, many different parties end up in office, and must join in a coalition to secure a governing majority. Lawmaking is less prone to gridlock than in America but it’s not seamless, either: the prime minister must negotiate among the parties of their coalition.Canada, like Britain, combines American-style elections, which produce what is not quite a two-party system in those countries but is close, with European-style parliaments.As a result, Canada’s prime minister usually oversees a legislative majority, allowing him or her to breeze through legislation even more easily than in European-style parliaments.Handguns on display in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.Jennifer Gauthier/ReutersThis moment is an exception: Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party controls slightly less than half of the House of Commons. Still, his party dominates a legislative alliance in which he has only one partner. Canada also includes a Senate, though its members are appointed and rarely rock the boat.But the Canadian system produces what Dr. Drutman called “unstable majorities,” prone to whiplashing on policy.“If you have a 52 percent margin for one party, and then you throw the bums out because four percent of the vote went the other way, now you’ve moved completely in the other direction,” he said.Gun laws are a case in point. After a 1989 mass shooting, Canadian lawmakers passed registration rules, but phased them in over several years because they were unpopular among rural communities.Those rules were later abolished under a Conservative government. Though Mr. Trudeau has not reimposed the registry, he has tightened gun laws in other ways.In a European-style system, by contrast, a four-point shift to the right or left might change only one party in the country’s governing coalition, prompting a slighter policy change more proportional to the electorate’s mood.American liberals may thrill at the seeming ease with which Canada’s often-left-leaning government can implement policy, much as conservatives may envy Britain’s more right-wing, but similarly rapid, lawmaking under a similar system.But it is the slow-and-steady European model, with its frustratingly incremental advances, that, over the long run, research finds, tend to prove the most stable and effective. More

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      Warning Signs of a Future Mass Killer

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      More from our inbox:The Republican Checklist After Another ShootingNew York Mayor’s Rejection of Covid MandatesVoters, Defend DemocracyEstonia’s Tough Voice Against Russian AggressionAbortion Funds Already ExistA crowd gathered Sunday outside Tops Market for a vigil the day after the shooting in Buffalo.Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Before Attack, Solitary Teen Caused Alarm” (front page, May 16):In the days after the mass shooting in Buffalo we have witnessed a heightened focus on the mental health of adolescents. A few months ago, after the Michigan school shooting, we heard a similar concern.In each case the youths, when confronted with their potentially homicidal “behaviors,” denied them. They offered explanations that were accepted by school authorities and mental health professionals.Having worked in an emergency room where individuals were brought by the police for “behavioral issues,” I needed after assessing each of them to decide whether they should be hospitalized or discharged. These assessments frequently occurred in the middle of the night. In all cases the individuals I assessed assured me that they were fine and would harm no one. Some I hospitalized and some I allowed to leave the emergency room.One morning when my rotation was completed, I was afraid to turn on my car radio for fear I would hear of a shooting by two young men I let leave. I did not.Mass shootings are not simply a mental health problem that mental health workers can fix. They are also societal problems fueled by the availability of guns and the ubiquity of prejudice.Sidney WeissmanChicagoThe writer is a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.To the Editor:Re “Others Joined Chat Room With Suspect Before Attack” (news article, May 18):I’m a 70-year-old tech dinosaur. I don’t understand what an algorithm is, but I do know that we have a significant problem if a racist openly discussed in chat rooms his plans to carry out an atrocity and no one did anything to stop it.Robert SalzmanNew YorkTo the Editor:Pages and pages about the recent tragic shooting in Buffalo. And in newspapers across the country, other incidents of gun violence involving young people as shooters. In schools, churches and places where people shop. The beat goes on, and the conversation remains the same. Hate. Gun control. Political bickering. And inaction.What’s missing in all too many of these gun tragedies are parent controls. Parents asleep at the wheel or parents being complicit or enabling seems to be a common thread. But not much discussion about that, by either journalists or political leaders. Maybe there should be.George PeternelArlington Heights, Ill.The Republican Checklist After Another ShootingTo the Editor:The Republican checklist after a mass shooting:Thoughts and prayers: Check.This is not the time: Check.Let’s not politicize: Check.Guns are not the problem: Check.Just enforce the laws we have: Check.More mental health care: Check.(Repeat.)Jon MerrittLos AngelesNew York Mayor’s Rejection of Covid MandatesSuzette Burgess, 79, of Morris Heights in the Bronx, gave out free masks on Thursday as part of her own personal campaign to fight the virus.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Adams Resists New Mandates as Covid Rises” (front page, May 20):We just don’t get it. Every time we “open up” and remove protective measures, Covid soars. Over a million Americans have died from the virus, depriving their loved ones of their presence. And needless hospitalization costs more than prevention and taxes the health system, already enormously overwhelmed.As physicians, we aim to prevent disease. New York City’s mayor thinks that it is better to treat Covid (with expensive drugs that don’t always work and can cause serious side effects) than to take the necessary steps to avoid it. And it may be more than just the mayor’s “tickle in my throat” if you wind up in the I.C.U. or get long Covid.Yes, the economy is vital, but more disease makes fewer people able to shop or eat out or go to work. And we don’t yet know the long-term effects on the brain and body. So prevention is key, and we need to follow the advice of public health experts who should be in control of this, not politicians.It is not a burden to get vaccinated and boosted and wear a good-quality mask. It is a responsibility to our fellow citizens and ourselves. We used to care about each other. Taking these steps would help us finally emerge from this scourge.Stephen DanzigerBrooklynThe writer, a physician, is a member of the Covid-19 Task Force of the Medical Society of the County of Kings (Brooklyn).Voters, Defend Democracy Jason Andrew for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “In Primaries, G.O.P. Voters Reward a Lie” (news analysis, front page, May 19):In November, voters must decide to cast their ballots either for congressional candidates who view fidelity to the rule of law as sacrosanct or for those who consider the oath to “support and defend the Constitution” a hollow pledge. The outcome may determine whether or not our constitutional republic survives.John Adams pessimistically asserted: “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.” If, as Adams suggested, our form of government is on a path toward suicide, then we must look to the electorate for intervention.To prove Adams wrong, the electorate must once again rise to the occasion as it did in the 2020 presidential election when it ousted Donald Trump for undermining democratic governance.Jane LarkinTampa, Fla.Estonia’s Tough Voice Against Russian AggressionPrime Minister Kaja Kallas of Estonia in Brussels just after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.Pool photo by John ThysTo the Editor:Re “Estonian Leader Warns Against Deal With Putin” (news article, May 17):As an American living in Estonia, I have watched with great admiration Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s leadership on all issues related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She has been a firm and unyielding voice urging tough measures against Russian aggression.Estonia is a small country, but it punches well above its weight in terms of its commitment to NATO, its commitment to helping Ukraine, including taking in a huge number of refugees relative to its population, and its commitment to freedom and democracy.Ms. Kallas has advocated a 21st-century strategy of “smart containment,” appropriately building on the 20th-century Cold War “containment” policy first advocated by George F. Kennan. She has insisted on Western resolve to stop Russia before Vladimir Putin’s desire to re-form the Soviet Union through war is realized.The West should heed Ms. Kallas, especially her forceful argument that Russia must lose this war, and any result short of that is unacceptable. Tragically, if her policy of “smart containment” had been largely implemented before the Russian invasion, Mr. Putin would have never invaded.It’s not as if the war in Ukraine was a surprise — certainly not to those in the Baltics who through history and proximity know Russia well.Michael G. BrautigamTallinn, EstoniaAbortion Funds Already ExistTo the Editor:Re “An Abortion Fund” (letter, May 16):We appreciate Jack Funt’s interest in a national fund that would support people traveling for abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson. Mr. Funt will be delighted to learn that a network of more than 80 abortion funds already exists.Legal abortion has never meant accessible abortion. The cost of a first-trimester abortion averages $575, but can exceed $1,000. Three-quarters of abortion patients are low income. Even with Roe in effect, many Americans struggle to pay for their abortions and travel to clinics. Since before 1973, abortion funds have helped people access care that would otherwise have been out of reach.We encourage people to learn about and support the work already being done to ensure abortion access. Readers can find their local abortion fund by visiting the website of the National Network of Abortion Funds.Rhian LewisAriella MessingThe writers direct the Online Abortion Resource Squad, which connects people to high-quality information about abortion. More