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      Would a 3-Way Arizona Senate Race Help Kari Lake? Her Party Isn’t So Sure.

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      Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent, has not announced whether she will run for re-election. But as both parties in Arizona prepare for that outcome, Republicans are worried.Republicans are growing anxious that their chances of capturing a Senate seat in Arizona would be diminished in a potential three-way race that included Kyrsten Sinema, the independent incumbent.While Ms. Sinema hasn’t announced whether she will run for re-election, the race already includes Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat, and Kari Lake, a Republican scheduled to host her first campaign rally on Tuesday.Many political strategists had figured that a re-election bid from Ms. Sinema, who dropped her Democratic affiliation last year, would split votes in her former party and increase the odds that Ms. Lake, the controversial front-runner for the Republican nomination, would be sworn in to the Senate. Arizona, along with West Virginia, Montana and Ohio, has been seen as among the best opportunities for Republicans to pick up Senate seats next year and win back a majority.But private and public polling has suggested that Ms. Sinema is viewed much more favorably by Republican voters than by Democrats. Those surveys indicated that Mr. Gallego would benefit in a three-way race.“Some of the early conventional wisdom about this race assumed there would be more Democratic defections,” said Austin Stumpf, a Democratic consultant in Arizona. “But party unity among Democrats is hard to overstate. It’s a real phenomenon right now.”Republicans expressed their concerns as Ms. Lake, a TV-anchor-turned-conservative-firebrand, made an otherwise amicable visit to Washington last week. While she met with a half-dozen Republican senators, many of whom offered campaign assistance or asked to have their photos taken with her, conversations among aides revealed worries about current polling. One Lake adviser described being surprised by the level of “freaking out” by Washington Republicans.In response, Ms. Lake’s campaign has produced a nine-page internal memo aimed at reassuring the party that she stands to benefit the most from a three-way race. She was also expected to take aim at Ms. Sinema with some of her most withering attacks during her opening campaign event on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the planning, in an attempt to address the concerns that an independent bid by the senator could siphon off a significant share of Republican votes.The previously unreported memo relies largely on recent turnout trends in Arizona to point to built-in advantages for Republicans.While Republicans account for roughly 35 percent of registered voters in the state, they typically make up about 40 percent of turnout, according to the memo. Arizona’s unusually large bloc of independent voters accounts for 34 percent of the voter rolls, but makes up a smaller share of turnout, typically between 26 percent and 29 percent, according to the memo.That means that Ms. Lake — who struggled to unite Republicans during her unsuccessful bid for governor last year as she attacked fellow Republicans, falsely insisted that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election and later refused to accept her own defeat — should have “significantly more elasticity in shedding Republican voters” than Democrats, according to the memo. (First, Ms. Lake will have to win the Republican primary race; her early rivals include Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and fellow Trump ally.)Kari Lake, who lost the Arizona governor’s race last year and has continued to dispute the results, is running for Senate. Mario Tama/Getty ImagesThe memo also calculates that if Mr. Trump captures another Republican presidential nomination — and wins roughly the same number of votes in Arizona next year as he did in 2020 — then Ms. Sinema’s best path to victory would require more than 600,000 Arizonans to split their ballots between him and the incumbent senator. That total would be about 35 percent of Mr. Trump’s votes.“This is incredibly unlikely in the Trump era of American politics,” the memo says, noting that split-ticket voting is “near all-time lows.”One of the private polls that showed Mr. Gallego leading the race, in part because Ms. Lake appeared to be losing Republican votes to Ms. Sinema, was from Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Arizona operative, according to people briefed on the survey. Mr. Coughlin declined to comment on specific findings in his poll, but said that while Ms. Sinema would be a significant underdog if she sought re-election, it would also be foolish to count her out.“Kyrsten is a monstrously strong campaigner, a very effective fund-raiser and has shown a lot of personal strength to do what she’s done in politics, and I don’t want to underestimate that,” Mr. Coughlin said. “All of that is going to be necessary and a lot more for her to be successful.”The ambiguity about Ms. Sinema’s plans for re-election has confounded political professionals across three time zones separating Arizona and Washington.Some of those who anticipate she will retire point to fund-raising numbers showing that Mr. Gallego has consistently out-raised her this year. Ms. Sinema is sitting on a considerable war chest of nearly $11 million, but the Arizona Senate race last year drew more than $230 million in spending from the two major-party candidates and multiple outside groups.Some of those convinced she will seek a second term pointed to a fund-raiser she hosted this year at the Phoenix Open. The annual golf outing attracts a mix of rowdy partygoers and avid golfers, far from the typical Sinema crowd. “That’s like nails on the chalkboard for Sinema,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican operative in Arizona.Others were encouraged about her prospects after an internal fund-raising prospectus surfaced last month that signaled she and her team were actively charting a path to a second term, telling donors she could win a competitive three-way race as an independent, which is practically unheard-of in modern American politics.“Kyrsten promised Arizonans she’d be an independent voice who wouldn’t answer to party bosses and would deliver real, lasting solutions to the challenges Arizonans face,” said Hannah Hurley, an aide to Ms. Sinema. “Instead of engaging in name-calling and stupid political insults, Kyrsten has worked with anyone to make Arizonans’ lives better and then get government out of the way — and that’s exactly what she’s done and will continue to do as Arizona’s senior senator.”Ms. Sinema’s path relies on an unusual coalition of voters, according to the document, which was first reported by NBC News: winning between 10 percent and 20 percent of Democrats, 25 percent to 35 percent of Republicans and 60 percent to 70 percent of independent voters in the state.The most difficult benchmark may be the projection among independents. Even Senator John McCain — who was famously popular among independent voters — won just 50 percent of that group in his sixth and final victory in the state in 2016, according to exit polls.Independents also figure to be a top target for Mr. Gallego, an engaging politician with an inspiring personal story who is running to be the state’s first Latino senator. His campaign projects that Latinos account for about 30 percent of unaffiliated voters in Arizona, and he was ahead of both Ms. Sinema and Ms. Lake in the one public poll that has tested all three candidates this year.Some public and private polling has shown that Representative Ruben Gallego, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, would benefit in a three-way race.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“Ruben is in a good spot and he knows it,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona pollster. He noted that early polls showed that people who had heard of Mr. Gallego generally liked him, while Arizonans tended to have negative views of both Ms. Lake and Ms. Sinema.Still, Mr. Gallego is running his first statewide campaign since first being elected to the state’s most liberal House district in 2014.He has collected a handful of endorsements from local officials and public encouragement from Yolanda Bejarano, the chairwoman of the Arizona Democratic Party, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Senate Majority PAC — which combined to spend nearly $40 million in the Arizona Senate race last year — have both remained silent on the prospect of a three-way race.Stan Barnes, a Republican consultant and former Arizona state legislator, said a potential three-way race offered a unique opportunity for voters because the top candidates would rely on compelling personalities as they pursued their own silos of voters.“It is about the most exciting thing I have seen in terms of politics in Arizona in the three decades I have seen,” Mr. Barnes said. 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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Run for President as Independent, Leaving Democratic Primary

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      The political scion told supporters he would end his campaign as a Democratic candidate and run as an independent, potentially upsetting the dynamics of the 2024 election.In a move that could alter the dynamics of the 2024 election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that he would continue his presidential run as an independent candidate, ending his long-shot pursuit of the Democratic nomination against an incumbent president.Speaking to a crowd of supporters outside the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Mr. Kennedy, a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories, said he represented “a populist movement that defies left-right division.”“The Democrats are frightened that I’m going to spoil the election for President Biden, and the Republicans are frightened that I’m going to spoil it for Trump,” he said. “The truth is, they’re both right. My intention is to spoil it for both of them.”Since announcing his candidacy in April, Mr. Kennedy, 69, has been a sharp critic of Democratic leadership, which he has accused of “hijacking the party machinery” to stifle his challenge to Mr. Biden. He has also said, in interviews and in public appearances, that the party has abandoned its principles and become corrupted.Running as an independent will entail an expensive, uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states. Last week, Cornel West, a liberal academic and presidential candidate, said he would run as an independent, abandoning his efforts to secure the Green Party’s nomination.In a 45-minute speech on Monday, Mr. Kennedy described encounters across America with people he called the “ranks of the dispossessed,” interspersed with angry barbs about “the surveillance state” and the “tyranny of corruption.” He quoted the Old Testament, John Adams, Martin Luther King Jr., Tennyson and his own father.But Mr. Kennedy, the scion of a liberal political dynasty, has alienated his own family members and many Democrats with his promotion of conspiracy theories, his rejection of scientific orthodoxies and his embrace of far-right political figures.“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” four of Mr. Kennedy’s siblings — Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy II and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend — said in a statement on Monday. “We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.”Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has been lionized by a movement that has expanded beyond anti-vaccine sentiments, including opposition to the mandatory vaccination of children, to push back more broadly against state public health measures. In recent years, his open suspicions about the government’s handling of the coronavirus and his criticism of lockdowns and vaccine policies gave him a new platform and earned him popularity among many Americans who had wearied of the pandemic.“Our campaign has ignited a movement that has been smoldering for years,” Mr. Kennedy said.To roars of applause, Mr. Kennedy told his supporters they were “declaring independence” from a lengthy list of perceived adversaries: “Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Pharma”; the “military industrial complex”; “the mercenary media”; “the cynical elites”; both of the major political parties and “the entire rigged system.”He has built a base of support made up of disaffected voters across the political spectrum, but some Democrats have worried that he poses the biggest threat to their party, fearing that any independent or third-party candidacy could peel off voters from Mr. Biden.Shortly after Mr. Kennedy entered the race, some polls showed him with up to 20 percent of Democratic support — which was in large part a measure of the desire among some for an alternative to Mr. Biden. Mr. Kennedy’s numbers have sagged in recent months, though his campaign, which dwells as much on nostalgia for his political lineage as it does on skepticism about the scientific and political establishment — continues to appeal to a particular cross-section of skeptical Democrats, political conservatives and independents.The Republican National Committee, in a reflection of its own concerns about Mr. Kennedy, sent out an email on Monday titled “23 Reasons to Oppose RFK Jr.,” listing ways in which he has been aligned with Democrats in the past, including his record of opposing fossil fuel extraction.Monday’s event drew supporters from across the political spectrum.Sean Gleason, a retired state police officer from New Jersey, said he was a registered Republican and a two-time Trump voter who planned to leave the party and vote for Mr. Kennedy. “I’m done with the duopoly,” Mr. Gleason said. He is supporting Mr. Kennedy, he said, because “I think he’s telling the truth, even the truth people don’t really want to hear.”Michael Schroth, a 69-year-old former teacher from Haverhill, Mass., said he was an undeclared voter who had previously voted for Ralph Nader, Barack Obama and Jill Stein. He has been a fan of Mr. Kennedy’s since he heard him speak two years ago. “He is intelligent,” he said. “He thinks through problems.”Rebecca Briggs, 60, a health coach and nutritionist from Rhode Island, said she was a registered Democrat and had voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, “because I didn’t want Trump — but I actually didn’t want either of them.” She said she was ready to leave the party with Mr. Kennedy.“I was afraid to tell people — afraid of the reaction,” she said of supporting him. “I have to move forward with courage.”Mr. Kennedy has raised two main complaints about the Democratic National Committee, which is supporting Mr. Biden’s re-election effort. First, he said, Mr. Biden and the party pushed to change the first primary state from New Hampshire — where Mr. Kennedy, who has New England roots, enjoys a base of support — to South Carolina, the state that rescued Mr. Biden’s primary campaign in 2020.Second, the party has refused to arrange for debates between Mr. Biden and Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Biden’s campaign and the D.N.C. have also essentially refused to acknowledge Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy and have avoided saying his name.Mr. Kennedy had teased Monday’s announcement in a video last week, though his campaign held off on confirming that he was changing parties. But in the hours before he went onstage in Philadelphia, there was a subtle change on Mr. Kennedy’s campaign website. Where it had once read “I am a Kennedy Democrat,” with the family name in italics, it was changed to: “I am a Kennedy American.” More

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      What We Can Do to Make the House Less Dysfunctional

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      The disarray engulfing the House of Representatives has been unprecedented, yet somehow it has also felt inevitable. No sitting speaker has ever been removed before, but the process that brought about Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow was the culmination of several related trends that have amounted to a repudiation of coalition building in American politics.That process has been overdetermined in an era of partisan polarization and geographic sorting (Americans increasingly live in communities full of like-minded partisans), but that doesn’t mean we are powerless against it. The rules of our politics should be designed to counteract our worst vices, not to reinforce them. That means we particularly need to rethink party primaries — which give our politicians all the wrong incentives.The upheaval in the House is rooted in the dynamics of an era of deadlock. American politics isn’t just polarized but nearly tied, and it has been that way for much of the past 30 years. The average House majority since 1995 has been just over 30 seats. The average over the previous century was more than 80 seats. The current Congress and the previous one, with their incredibly slim House majorities (first Democratic and then Republican), are rare in historical perspective.Such narrow majorities empower the fringes of our politics. Only eight Republican members voted to remove their speaker, but when the majority’s margin is so small (and the minority party can be relied on to play its lock-step part), a tiny tail can wag the dog. Razor-thin majorities are inherently unstable, yet neither party seems capable of broadening its appeal and therefore its coalition.Mr. McCarthy’s ouster was also a function of the centralization of power in Congress. The toppling of the speaker might suggest that House leaders are too weak, but partisan dissatisfaction with Mr. McCarthy had to do with the effectively impossible expectations members now have of party leaders. The members who rebelled against him claimed to want regular order in the House, but they also insisted that legislative outcomes must conform to strict partisan goals.These are plainly contradictory demands: Regular order involves cross-partisan negotiation and bargaining and so would result in legislative outcomes that are more durable but less ideologically satisfying. In the end, the rebels revealed their real priorities. They kicked out the speaker for passing a continuing resolution with Democratic votes, putting their weight behind the notion that party leaders must tightly control the House and prevent cross-partisan coalitions from forming. The Democrats’ unanimity in supporting the speaker’s removal evinced the same view.But perhaps above all, the tumult in the House is a function of deformed expectations of Congress itself. Members are increasingly pulled in different directions by the imperatives of legislative work and those of electoral politics.A legislature is an arena for negotiation, where differences are worked out through bargains. But our polarized political culture treats deals with the other party as betrayals of principle and failures of nerve. Traditionally, winning an election to Congress has meant winning a seat at the negotiating table, where you can represent the interests and priorities of your voters. Increasingly, it has come instead to mean winning a prominent platform for performative outrage, where you can articulate your voters’ frustrations with elite power and show them that you are working to disrupt the uses of that power.These expectations coexist, sometimes within individual members. But they point in very different directions, because the latter view does not involve traditional legislative objectives and so is not subject to the incentives that have generally facilitated Congress’s work. Instead, some members respond to the incentives of political theater, which is often at least as well served by legislative failure as success. This impulse is evident in both parties, though it is clearly most intense among a portion of congressional Republicans.Most members still have a more traditional view of their job, and most voters do too, and yet today’s most powerful electoral incentives nonetheless militate toward the more populist, performative view. That’s because electoral incentives for most members of the House now have to do with winning party primaries.This is not only because geographic sorting has made more seats safe in general elections but also because the parties have grown institutionally weak and so have little say over who runs under their banners. Whether justifiably or not, even established incumbents and swing-seat members often worry most about primary challenges and therefore about voters who do not want them to give ground or compromise. This effectively means they find it politically dangerous to do the job Congress exists to do.This is a perverse misalignment of incentives. And it contributes to the dynamics that shaped the drama in the House, because it ultimately undermines the imperative for coalition building. Our parties are deadlocked in part because neither really strives to significantly broaden its coalition — doing so would involve playing down some priorities that most energize primary voters. Power is centralized in Congress to avert unpredictable cross-partisan coalitions and more effectively stage-manage a partisan Kabuki theater.But more than anything, party primaries now leave both voters and members confused about the purpose of Congress and so disable the institution.While there are some reforms of Congress’s procedures that could help it work better — like a budget process that did not culminate in needlessly dramatic crisis moments and a committee system with more genuine legislative power — it is also increasingly clear that nominee selection reforms are in order.Primaries did not create our polarized culture war. They have been widely used to select congressional candidates in most of the country for over a century, and since the 1970s they have also dominated presidential candidate selection in both parties. But party primaries have come to interact with our embittered political culture in destructive ways. As Nick Troiano argues in a forthcoming book, primaries are bad for voters, bad for parties and bad for the country.We can’t go back to the preprimary system in which party professionals deliberated about candidate selection. No politician wants to tell his or her most intensely devoted voters that they are the problem, and in any case that older approach had its own grave deficiencies. So reformers have to look for ways forward within the primary system. They should structure primary elections in ways that incentivize actual legislative work and draw into politics a type of officeseeker inclined to appeal to a broader range of voters and to build coalitions.Ranked-choice voting in primaries could be particularly promising. A ranked-choice election allows voters to select multiple candidates in order of preference and then have their vote count on behalf of their second or third choice if their first or second choice is not among the top vote getters. In most forms, it is essentially an automatic runoff. From the point of view of candidates, such a system creates a strong reason to be many voters’ second choice, as well as the first choice of some. That naturally invites a coalition-building mind-set and could do a better job of attracting candidates capable of broad appeal both on the campaign trail and in office. It would compel politicians to feel accountable to a broader swath of voters, even in safe districts where only the primary matters.This was the experience of the Virginia Republican Party, which turned to a ranked-choice process to select its gubernatorial nominee in 2021 and through it landed on a candidate, Glenn Youngkin, capable of winning in a purple state. Similar reforms at the primary stage could plausibly help both parties, though there is reason to think that Republicans would have more to gain from deploying them, because at this point they appear to suffer more from the tendency of primaries to yield candidates who turn off winnable but uncommitted voters in the general election and who have little interest in the jobs they are elected to perform.Republicans tend to be more staunchly opposed to such proposals and to assume they would only benefit the left. The evidence so far does not support that assumption. As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Kevin Kosar argued in a recent paper, Republicans have particularly strong reasons to consider such reforms — at least in primaries.Deploying ranked-choice methods in general elections could tend to further weaken the parties, which is not the right way to take on our broken political culture. The two parties as institutions are actually moderating forces, because each has an interest in making its tent as broad as possible. But ranked-choice primaries would strengthen the parties by reinforcing their ability to nominate candidates with broad appeal and better aligning primary, general election and governing incentivesRanked-choice methods would be particularly valuable in congressional primaries because, as we have seen, Congress particularly suffers from the tendency of members to neglect coalition building and deplore negotiation. The dysfunction of the national legislature is also the source from which most other constitutional dysfunctions now radiate. But if they prove effective, similar reforms might ultimately be of use in presidential primaries as well and in primaries for state and local offices.There is no silver bullet for what ails our politics. And ideas like these should be pursued as experiments, state by state. There is always a risk that they could make things worse. But the risks we run by doing nothing are plainly mounting.Yuval Levin, a contributing Opinion writer, is the editor of National Affairs and the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.”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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      The Republican Meltdown Shows No Sign of Cooling Off

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      Gail Collins: Bret, when we started our conversations, you generously agreed to stick to domestic issues. I’ve always steered away from commenting on foreign affairs because I have so very many colleagues who know so very much more about them than I do.But I know you’re weighed down by the situation in the Middle East. I’m gonna hand off to you here so you can share your thoughts.Bret Stephens: Thanks for raising the subject, Gail. And since I’ve written a column about it, I promise to keep it brief so we can talk about marginally less depressing things, like the increasingly plausible prospect of a second Trump term.Israel occupies such a big place in the public imagination that people often forget what a small country it is. When an estimated 700 Israelis (a number that is sure to grow, out of a total population of a little over nine million) are killed in terrorist attacks, as they have been since Hamas’s rampage began Saturday morning, that’s the proportional equivalent of around 25,000 Americans. In other words, eight 9/11s.I know some of our readers have strong feelings about Israeli policies or despise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But what we witnessed on Saturday was pure evil. Habitual critics of Israel should at least pause to mourn the hundreds of young Israelis murdered at a music festival, the mothers and young children kidnapped to Gaza to be used as human shields, the Israeli captives brutalized, the thousands of wounded and maimed civilians who were just going about their morning on sovereign Israeli territory. And the critics should also ask whether the version of Palestine embodied by Hamas, which tyrannizes its own people even as it terrorizes its neighbor, is one they can stomach.Gail: Horrific stories like the music festival massacre make it flat-out clear how this was an abomination that has to be decried around the globe, no matter what your particular position on Palestine is.Now I will follow my own rule and dip back into domestic politics.Bret: OK, and I will have lots more to say about this in my regular column this week. I also know you’re raring to talk about those charming House Republicans who ended Kevin McCarthy’s speakership last week. But first I have to ask: How do you feel about Build the Wall Biden?Gail: I knew you were going to head for the wall! Couple of thoughts here, the first being that the money was appropriated by Congress during the Trump administration for his favorite barrier and President Biden was right when he asked for it to be reallocated to a general migration-control program.Which, of course, didn’t happen. I still hate, hate, hate the wall and all it symbolizes. But also understand why Biden didn’t want to give Republicans ammunition to claim he wasn’t trying to control the immigration problem.Now feel free to tell me that you differ.Bret: It ought to be axiomatic that you can’t have a gate without a wall. If we want more legal immigration, which we both do, we need to do more to prevent illegal immigration. It’s also a shame Biden didn’t do this two years ago when he could have traded wall building for something truly constructive, like citizenship for Dreamers and a higher annual ceiling for the number of political refugees allowed into the United States. Now he just looks desperate and reactive and late to address a crisis he kept trying to pretend wasn’t real.Not to mention the political gift this whole fiasco is to Donald Trump, who now has a slight lead over Biden in the polls. Aren’t you a wee bit nervous?Gail: Impossible not to be a wee bit nervous when Trump’s one of the options. But I still think when we really get into all the multitudinous criminal and civil trials, it’s going to be very hard for the middle-of-the-road, don’t-ask-me-yet voters to pick the Trump option.Bret: I wouldn’t get my hopes up on that front. For so many Americans, Trump’s indictments have gone from being the scandal of the century to just so much white noise on cable TV, like all of Trump’s other scandals. The only thing millions of Americans care about is whether they are better off in 2023 than they were in 2019, the last full year under Trump that wasn’t affected by the pandemic. And the sad truth is: Many believe that they aren’t.Gail: I will refrain from veering off into a discussion of how the Trump tax cuts caused the deficit to surge. Or mentioning the latest jobs report, which was really good.Bret: Shame about the high gas prices, rising mortgage rates, urban decay, a border crisis and all the other stuff my liberal friends keep thinking is just some sort of American hypochondria.Gail: It’s settled — we disagree. Time for us to get on to those embattled House Republicans. Anybody in contention for speaker of the House you actually like?Bret: You’re asking me to pick my poison. I’d say Steve Scalise, the majority leader who once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage,” is still better than Jim Jordan, but that’s because almost everyone is better than Jim Jordan, the former wrestling coach. Republicans don’t have particularly good experiences with former wrestling coaches who become speakers of the House.Admit it: You’re sorta enjoying this G.O.P. meltdown, right?Gail: At the moment, absolutely. Once again, this is a Trump creation. He was the one who engineered the nomination of so many awful House candidates that the Republicans couldn’t get the usual postpresidential election surge in the out-party’s seats. They’re not even a majority if you subtract the total loons, like our friend Matt Gaetz.But I’m not looking forward to a government shutdown, and I doubt these guys will be able to get the votes together to avoid one next month.Bret: We are in agreement. All the clichés about lunatics running the asylum, letting the foxes in the henhouse, picking the wrong week to stop sniffing glue and really futile and stupid gestures apply. A government shutdown will accomplish exactly nothing for Republicans except make them seem like the party of total dysfunction — which, of course, is what they are. Not exactly a winning political slogan.Gail: Can you make dysfunction a slogan? Maybe: Vote for this — total dys!Bret: Our colleague Michelle Goldberg got it right last week when she said that centrist Republicans would have been smart to team up with Democrats to elect a unity candidate as speaker, someone like Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican. But of course, that would have meant putting country over party, a slogan that John McCain ran for president on but hardly exists today as a meaningful concept.Gail: You know, my first real covering of a presidential race was the one in 2000, and McCain was my focus. I followed him around on his early trips to New Hampshire. He’d drive to a town and talk to some small veterans’ gathering or student club or anybody who’d ask him. And his obsession was campaign finance reform.It was pretty wonderful to watch up close. Later, he got a bill passed that improved the regulations. Can’t think of a current Republican candidate who is superfocused on driving out big-money donors.Bret: I thought McCain was wrong about campaign finance reform; he would often be the first to admit that he was wrong about a lot of stuff. But politics was more fun, more functional, more humane and more honorable when his way of doing business ruled Congress than it is with the current gang of ideological gangsters.Gail: So true.Bret: Speaking of our political malfunctions, our colleague Alex Kingsbury had a really thoughtful Opinion audio short talking about how violent Trump’s rhetoric has become. Trump had suggested that Gen. Mark Milley had behaved treasonously and said shoplifters deserved to be executed. One point Alex makes is that a second Trump term would very likely be much worse than the first. Do you agree, or do you think it will be the same Spiro Agnew-Inspector Clouseau mash-up we had last time?Gail: You know, a basic rule of Trumpism is that he always gets worse. Alex’s piece is smart, and his prediction is deeply depressing.Bret: The scary scenario is that Trump 2.0 makes no concessions to the normal conservatives who populated the first administration: people like Gary Cohn and H.R. McMaster and Scott Gottlieb. So imagine Stephen Miller as secretary of homeland security, Tucker Carlson as secretary of state, Sean Hannity as director of national intelligence and Vivek Ramaswamy as vice president. This could be an administration that would pull the United States out of NATO, defund Ukraine, invade Mexico and invite Vladimir Putin for skeet shooting at Camp David.Gail: As I’ve pointed out before, this is one reason people watch football.Bret: Just wait until Steve Bannon somehow becomes N.F.L. commissioner during the second Trump term.Gail: One last issue: I know you’re not in favor of bringing up global warming when it’s time to admire the leaves, but whenever the weather gets bad now, I worry that it’s a hint of more dire things to come. This winter, if it’s colder than usual, I’ll be miserable because it’s … cold. But now I can’t really feel totally chipper if it’s warm, either.Bret: I really am concerned with the climate. But, hey, we may as well enjoy some nice fall weather while we still can.Gail: You totally win that thought. Look for the good moments whenever you can.Here at the end, you generally conclude with a poem or a nod to a great piece you read. Particularly eager to hear it this week.Bret: Did you know that one of Shakespeare’s sonnets touches on climate change? Here is another gem my dad had the good sense to make me memorize:When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’dThe rich proud cost of outworn buried age;When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras’dAnd brass eternal slave to mortal rage;When I have seen the hungry ocean gainAdvantage on the kingdom of the shore,And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main,Increasing store with loss and loss with store;When I have seen such interchange of state,Or state itself confounded to decay;Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,That Time will come and take my love away.This thought is as a death, which cannot chooseBut weep to have that which it fears to lose.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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      Closing the Political Divide: Compromise, Don’t Demonize

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      More from our inbox:Defending GiulianiAntidepressants on Shirts: Don’t Trivialize Mental Illness Illustration by The New York Times. Photographs by Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “My Fellow Republicans Need to Grow Up,” by Bob Inglis (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 3):We are divided not by ideology but by a deep lack of willingness to consider ideas before party alliances.I wasn’t paying attention to politics until 2015. But Donald Trump was so outrageous I was shocked into political activism. I speak out often because silence is not an option.The MAGA followers I encounter on internet political sites call me Communist, Marxist, treasonous and fascist. I find their attitudes loathsome. I blame Mr. Trump’s constant attacks on anyone who speaks out against him — his most virulent and nasty attacks being against Democrats. We have become deeply divided because Mr. Trump models divisive behavior. I fear for our Republic.But, if I am honest, it is Mr. Trump who has taught me something vital. I must be careful of rejecting someone just because they are on the other side. At least I must be able to define our differences and find our similarities. As a result I may expand my point of view to be richer, more inclusive and balanced. And that is what our system of debate and compromise demands.Jo TraffordPortland, MaineTo the Editor:I appreciate Bob Inglis’s call for Republicans to stop with the mindless vilifying of their Democratic colleagues (and with them the millions of Americans who voted for them), and start engaging on substantive issues that really matter.Elected Republicans prioritize demonizing and scapegoating and temper tantrums over concern for the challenges of the lived lives of their constituents. Those challenges are shared, to varying degrees, by most Americans. Look for legislative common ground there.When elected Republicans at all levels of government start noticing the specifics of their constituents’ suffering, and then start using their offices to do something about it — that’s when we’ll know they’ve really grown up.Jeri ZederLexington, Mass.Defending GiulianiRudolph W. Giuliani’s drinking was long whispered about by former City Hall aides, White House advisers and political socialites. Now it has become a factor in one of the federal cases against former President Donald J. Trump. Erin Schaff for The New York TimesTo the Editor:In “Giuliani’s Drinking Is Subplot in Trump Inquiry” (front page, Oct. 5), I was quoted as saying:“It’s no secret, nor do I do him any favors if I don’t mention that problem, because he has it. … It’s actually one of the saddest things I can think about in politics.”While I don’t deny the quote — Rudy Giuliani had a drinking problem that he has dealt with, and I believe he is no longer drinking — I also said a lot of good things about Rudy.He was one of our greatest mayors. He cleaned New York City up and made it livable. He was a national hero during 9/11, when the country needed leadership. He was “America’s Mayor” and beloved by many.We should also not forget that he was a great U.S. attorney for the Southern District and prosecuted many people who committed heinous crimes.I have the greatest respect and empathy for this man, who did so much good.Andrew SteinNew YorkThe writer is a former president of the New York City Council.Antidepressants on Shirts: Don’t Trivialize Mental IllnessTo the Editor:Re “Prozac Nation, Meet Lexapro Sweatshirts” (Style, nytimes.com, Oct. 2):I cringed when I read this article about using the names of antidepressants on shirts. I personally think it trivializes the seriousness of depression. Having suffered from manic depression for 50 years now, I don’t see that as reducing the stigma of mental illness. It reflects privilege if anything.Too many moan about being depressed or anxious, but some of us are battling a chronic illness. And we see no point in publicizing our conditions. We are too busy taking care of ourselves.Nancy C. Langwiser-KearWellesley, Mass. More

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      Biden Allies Try to Squash Third-Party Candidates

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      With Democrats worried that a third-party bid could throw a tight race to Donald Trump, President Biden’s top aides have blessed a broad offensive to starve such efforts of cash and ballot access.Powerful allies of President Biden are aggressively working to stop third-party and independent presidential candidacies, fearing that an outside bid could cost Democrats an election that many believe will again come down to a few percentage points in key battleground states.As attempts to mount outside campaigns multiply, a broad coalition has accelerated a multipronged assault to starve such efforts of financial and political support and warn fellow Democrats that supporting outsider candidacies, including the centrist organization No Labels, could throw the election to former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Biden’s top aides have blessed the multimillion-dollar offensive, which cuts across the party, tapping the resources of the Democratic National Committee, labor unions, abortion rights groups, top donors and advocacy groups backing moderate and liberal Democrats. Even the president has helped spread the word: Mr. Biden, in an interview with ProPublica, said a No Labels candidacy would “help the other guy.”The endeavor is far-reaching. In Washington, Democratic allies are working alongside top party strategists to spread negative information about possible outsider candidates. Across the country, lawyers have begun researching moves to limit ballot access — or at least make it more costly to qualify.At expensive resorts and closed-door conferences, Democratic donors are urging their friends not to fund potential spoiler candidates. And in key swing states, lone-wolf operators, including a librarian from Arizona, are trying their own tactics to make life difficult for third-party contenders.The anxiety over candidates and parties traditionally consigned to the fringes of American politics reflects voters’ deep dissatisfaction with both men who are likely to become the major parties’ nominees. No third-party candidate has risen out of the single digits in three decades, since Ross Perot captured nearly a fifth of the vote in 1992. Given the devotion of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters, Democrats fear that most of the attrition would come from Mr. Biden’s fragile coalition.“They’ve got to understand the risk that they are exposing the country to by doing this,” said Richard A. Gephardt, a former House majority leader and a Democratic Party graybeard who has formed a super PAC to attack outsider campaigns. “This is too dangerous of an idea to put in play in this context, in this year. These are not normal times.”Mr. Gephardt warned that third-party candidates threatened not only Mr. Biden’s chances of victory but also the stability of American democracy. Internal polling conducted by his group found that an independent centrist candidate could attract more than 20 percent of the vote in competitive states, helping Mr. Trump in all but one of them.Richard A. Gephardt, a Democratic former House majority leader, has warned that third-party candidates threaten not only President Biden’s chances of victory but also the stability of American democracy.Steve Jennings/Getty Images for Square RootsIn recent days, two candidates have taken steps toward mounting independent bids. Cornel West, the left-wing Harvard professor, announced on Thursday that he would run as an independent candidate. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has hinted that he may announce on Monday that he is leaving the Democratic presidential primary race to run as an independent. Already, a super PAC backing his bid has raised $17 million, according to Tony Lyons, the group’s treasurer.Still, most of the Biden allies’ attention is directed at No Labels, the best-funded outsider organization, which after years of sponsoring bipartisan congressional caucuses is working to gain ballot access for a presidential candidate for the first time.The group’s chief executive, Nancy Jacobson, has told potential donors and allies that the No Labels candidate will be a moderate Republican, according to three people familiar with the conversations. That decision would rule out Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a Democrat whose flirtation with the idea has prompted a wave of angst within his party.No Labels has already raised $60 million, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, and has qualified for the ballot in 11 states, including the presidential battlegrounds of Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina. The group plans to spend about half of the money on securing ballot access across all 50 states.Ms. Jacobson said her organization was devoted to presenting voters with an option beyond Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. No Labels is in the process of vetting potential candidates now and will announce its delegate selection process in the coming weeks, she said. The plan is to hold a nominating convention in April in Dallas and anoint a presidential ticket if it is clear the country is heading toward a 2020 rematch.Ms. Jacobson and her chief strategist, Ryan Clancy, insist that their effort is in good faith and is not a secret plot to help Mr. Trump win.“We’re never going to be a party to something that would spoil it for Trump,” Mr. Clancy said.No Labels has focused its recent polling on eight states that are expected to be competitive in a Biden-Trump contest, though Mr. Clancy said he believed a No Labels ticket would be viable in 25 states. If a third-party or independent candidate were to gain serious traction, it could reshuffle the entire presidential map, potentially turning states like New York or Texas into true battlegrounds.Mr. Kennedy has also been a source of concern for Democrats, who worry that his anti-corporate politics and famous last name could pull some of their voters away from Mr. Biden. But some of Mr. Biden’s top allies also believe that Mr. Kennedy, who has increasingly pushed right-wing ideas, would hurt Mr. Trump.The broad Democratic unease is rooted in a core belief that Mr. Trump has both a low ceiling and a high floor of general-election support — meaning that his voters are less likely to be swayed by a third-party or independent candidate. Mr. Biden has wider appeal, but his supporters are not as loyal, and polling has suggested that they could be persuaded to back someone else if given more options.Cornel West, the left-wing Harvard professor, announced on Thursday that he would run as an independent candidate.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has hinted that he may leave the Democratic presidential primary race to run for the White House as an independent.Public and private surveys point to increased interest in alternatives this election. In polling released this week by Monmouth University, majorities of voters said that they were not enthusiastic about Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden being at the top of their party’s ticket and that they would not back either man if the race became a rematch.Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the center-left group Third Way who is serving as a clearinghouse for Democrats’ effort to block third-party and independent candidates, is working with the progressive organization MoveOn and a host of like-minded Biden allies to dissuade anyone from having any association with No Labels. Those efforts are bankrolled by more than $1 million from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire Democratic megadonor.Mr. Bennett is using Third Way’s connections with centrist donors to try to block No Labels’ access to money, while Rahna Epting, the executive director of MoveOn, has been briefing other progressive groups and labor unions about the dangers of their members’ supporting third-party candidates instead of Mr. Biden.“Anything that divides the anti-Trump coalition is bad,” Mr. Bennett said.Marc Elias, one of the party’s most dogged and litigious election lawyers, has been retained by American Bridge, the Democratic Party’s primary opposition research organization, to vet ballot-qualification efforts by No Labels and other third-party efforts.And the Democratic National Committee has instructed state and county party leaders to say nothing in public about No Labels, according to an email the Utah Democratic Party sent to county leaders in the state.“We need to do everything we can to stop this effort NOW, and not wait until they name a ticket and this becomes a runaway train,” Thom DeSirant, the executive director of the Utah Democratic Party, wrote in a missive that included links to Third Way’s talking points about how to speak about No Labels.The efforts resemble hand-to-hand political combat in both public and private. The abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All wrote on social media that Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a Republican former governor of Utah who has been linked to the No Labels bid, is an “abortion extremist,” based on anti-abortion views he articulated during his 2012 presidential campaign.And Michael Steele, who served as a lieutenant governor of Maryland and as Republican National Committee chairman, has assumed the portfolio of persuading former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a moderate Republican who has publicly toyed with accepting the No Labels nomination, to end his association with the group.“I’ve told the governor what I think he should do,” Mr. Steele said.Perhaps nowhere has No Labels run into as many real-world roadblocks as in Arizona.After the group successfully qualified for the presidential ballot, the Arizona Democratic Party sued to remove it. That legal effort failed, but the attention led two people to submit candidate statements to run for down-ballot offices on the No Labels ticket — something the group had tried to block so as to avoid being categorized as a political party, which could trigger requirements to disclose No Labels donors, who have so far been kept secret.For different reasons, the Arizona candidates who are seeking the No Labels line could prove awkward for the movement.One of them, Tyson Draper, a high school coach from Thatcher, Ariz., is seeking the group’s line to run for the Senate. In an interview last week, he called himself a centrist political newcomer who had never sought public office before. A day later, he filed papers to begin a movement to recall Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat.The other would-be No Labeler is Richard Grayson, an assistant librarian at a community college south of Phoenix.Richard Grayson, a librarian from Arizona, is trying his own tactics to make life difficult for No Labels.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesMr. Grayson, 72, is seeking the No Labels nomination for the state’s Corporation Commission, which regulates public utilities. He has appeared as a candidate for office dozens of times since 1982, and said he was a Biden supporter.“I’m a perennial candidate whose goal is to torture No Labels,” he said. “I’m enjoying it immensely. I’m tormenting them.”Rebecca Davis O’Brien More

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      How Biden’s Promises to Reverse Trump’s Immigration Policies Crumbled

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      President Biden has tried to contain a surge of migration by embracing, or at least tolerating, some of his predecessor’s approaches.Immigration was dead simple when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was campaigning for president: It was an easy way to attack Donald J. Trump as a racist, and it helped to rally Democrats with the promise of a more humane border policy.Nothing worked better than Mr. Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” that he was building along the southern border. Its existence was as much a metaphor for the polarization inside America as it was a largely ineffective barrier against foreigners fleeing to the United States from Central America.“There will not be,” Mr. Biden proclaimed as he campaigned against Mr. Trump in the summer of 2020, “another foot of wall constructed.”But a massive surge of migration in the Western Hemisphere has scrambled the dynamics of an issue that has vexed presidents for decades, and radically reshaped the political pressures on Mr. Biden and his administration. Instead of becoming the president who quickly reversed his predecessor’s policies, Mr. Biden has repeatedly tried to curtail the migration of a record number of people — and the political fallout that has created — by embracing, or at least tolerating, some of Mr. Trump’s anti-immigrant approaches.Even, it turns out, the wall.On Thursday, Biden administration officials formally sought to waive environmental regulations to allow construction of up to 20 additional miles of border wall in a part of Texas that is inundated by illegal migration. The move was a stunning reversal on a political and moral issue that had once galvanized Mr. Biden and Democrats like no other.The funds for the wall had been approved by Congress during Mr. Trump’s tenure, and on Friday, the president said he had no power to block their use.Hundreds of those seeking asylum in the United States wait to be processed near the border wall in El Paso, Texas.Justin Hamel for The New York Times“The wall thing?” Mr. Biden asked reporters on Friday. “Yeah. Well, I was told that I had no choice — that I, you know, Congress passes legislation to build something, whether it’s an aircraft carrier wall or provide for a tax cut. I can’t say, ‘I don’t like it. I’m not going to do it.’”White House officials said that they tried for years, without success, to get Congress to redirect the wall money to other border priorities. And they said Mr. Biden’s lawyers had advised that the only way to get around the Impoundment Control Act, which requires the president to spend money as Congress directs, was to file a lawsuit. The administration chose not to do so. The money had to be spent by the end of December, the officials said.Asked on Thursday whether he thought a border wall works, Mr. Biden — who has long said a wall would not be effective — said simply: “No.”Still, human rights groups are furious, accusing the president of abandoning the principles on which he campaigned. They praise him for opening new, legal opportunities for some migrants, including thousands from Venezuela, but question his recent reversals on enforcement policy.“It doesn’t help this administration politically, to continue policies that they were very clear they were against,” said Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of America’s Voice, an immigrant rights organization. “That muddles the message and undermines the contrast that they’re trying to make when it comes to Republicans.”“This president came into office with a lot of moral clarity about where the lines were,” she added, noting that he and his aides “need to sort of decide who they are on this issue.”Mr. Biden had previously adopted some of his predecessor’s policies, including the pandemic-era Title 42 restrictions that blocked most migrants at the border until they were lifted earlier this year. Those have still failed to slow illegal immigration, and the issue has become incendiary inside his own party, driving wedges between Mr. Biden and some of the country’s most prominent Democratic governors and mayors, whose communities are being taxed by the cost of providing for the new arrivals.Eric Adams, the Democratic mayor of New York, has blamed the administration for a situation that he says could destroy his city. J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois and an ally of Mr. Biden, wrote this week in a letter to the president that a “lack of intervention and coordination” by Mr. Biden’s government at the border “has created an untenable situation for Illinois.”Bedding for asylum seekers temporarily housed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesIn comments to reporters at an event opposing book banning, Mr. Pritzker said that he had recently “spoken with the White House” on the matter “to make sure that they heard us.”The moment underscores the new reality for the president as he prepares to campaign for a second term. His handling of immigration has become one of his biggest potential liabilities, with polls showing deep dissatisfaction among voters about how he deals with the new arrivals. With record numbers of migrants streaming across the border, he can no longer portray it in the simple terms he did a few years ago.Since taking office, Mr. Biden has tried to balance his stated desire for a more humane approach with strict enforcement that aides believe is critical to ensure that migrants do not believe the border is open to anyone.This spring, the president announced new legal options for some migrants from several countries — Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti. He also has expanded protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants already in the United States, allowing more of them to work while they are in the country temporarily.But the more welcoming policies have been balanced by tougher ones.Earlier this year, Mr. Biden approved a new policy that had the effect of denying most immigrants the ability to seek asylum in the United States, a move that human rights groups noted was very similar to an approach that Mr. Trump hailed as a way to “close the border” to immigrants he wanted to keep out.The president and his aides have responded to the increased number of migrants by calling for more border patrol agents. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, bragged on Wednesday about the surge in border enforcement that Mr. Biden has pushed for.“Let’s not forget,” she said. “The president got 25,000 Border Patrol, additional Border Patrol law enforcement, at the border.”In a budget request to Congress, the Biden administration has asked for an additional $4 billion for border enforcement, including 4,000 more troops, 1,500 more border patrol agents, overtime pay for federal border personnel and new technology to detect drug trafficking.And on Thursday, the administration announced that it would resume deporting Venezuelans who arrive illegally, essentially conceding that the policy of creating legal immigration options from that country had failed to stem the tide of new arrivals like they had expected.Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, said Mr. Biden proposed an immigration overhaul on his first day in office that he noted has been blocked by Republican lawmakers.“He has used every available lever — enforcement, deterrence and diplomacy — to address historic migration across the Western Hemisphere,” Mr. LaBolt said, adding that the administration is “legally compelled” to spend the wall money. “President Biden has consistently made clear that this is not the most effective approach to securing our border.”Despite early reports that the number of migrants had dropped this summer, crossings have soared again this fall. Border Patrol agents arrested about 200,000 migrants in September, the highest number this year, according to an administration official who spoke anonymously to confirm the preliminary data.Still, the administration’s announcement about new construction of a wall was a surprise to many of the president’s allies, who had repeatedly heard Mr. Biden join them in condemning Mr. Trump for trying to seal the country off from immigrants.On Friday, the president, who has long insisted a wall would be ineffective, said he has no power to block the use of funds already approved during Mr. Trump’s tenure.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesIn a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said that easing environmental and other laws was necessary to expedite construction of sections of a border wall in South Texas, where thousands of migrants have been crossing the Rio Grande daily to reach U.S. soil.“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” Mr. Mayorkas said.In a statement later, Mr. Mayorkas made clear the administration would prefer to spend the money on other areas, “including state-of the-art border surveillance technology and modernized ports of entry.”There have always been barriers at the border, and Democrats have voted for funding to construct them. But before Mr. Trump arrived on the scene, they were placed in high-traffic locations and were often short fences or barriers designed to prevent cars from crossing.Mr. Trump changed that. He pushed for construction of a wall across the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico, eventually building or reinforcing barriers along roughly 450 miles. And he insisted on a 30-foot tall wall made of steel bollards, painted black to be more intimidating. At various points, Mr. Trump said he wanted to install sharp, pointed spikes at the top of the wall to skewer migrants who tried to climb over it.The walls being constructed by Mr. Biden’s administration will be different, border officials said. They will be 18 feet tall, not 30. And they will be movable, not permanent, to allow more flexibility and less environmental damage.But the image of an ominous and even dangerous barrier — designed to send a message of “keep out” to anyone who approached — underscored the yearslong opposition from Democrats, including Mr. Biden, to its construction. At the end of 2018, the federal government shut down for 35 days — the longest in its history — over Democratic refusal to meet Mr. Trump’s demands for $5.7 billion to build the wall.For Mr. Biden, the politics of immigration have changed significantly since then.Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York put it bluntly in a letter to the president at the end of August, as New York City struggled to deal with tens of thousands of new migrants.“The challenges we face demand a much more vigorous federal response,” she wrote. “It is the federal government’s direct responsibility to manage and control the nation’s borders. Without any capacity or responsibility to address the cause of the migrant influx, New Yorkers cannot then shoulder these costs.” More

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      Chaos in Washington Feeds Americans’ Dismal View of Politics

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      Whitney Smith’s phone buzzed with a text from her mother, alerting her to the latest can-you-believe-it mess in Washington: “Far right ousted the House speaker. Total chaos now.”Ms. Smith, 35, a bookkeeper and registered independent in suburban Phoenix, wanted no part of it. She tries to stay engaged in civic life by voting, volunteering in local campaigns and going to city meetings. But over the past week, the pandemonium of a narrowly averted government shutdown and leadership coup in the Republican-controlled House confirmed many Americans’ most cynical feelings about the federal government.“It was just like, Oh God, what now?” she said. Griping about politics is a time-honored American pastime but lately the country’s political mood has plunged to some of the worst levels on record.After weathering the tumult of the Trump presidency, a pandemic, the Capitol insurrection, inflation, multiple presidential impeachments and far-right Republicans’ pervasive lies about fraud in the 2020 election, voters say they feel tired and angry. In dozens of recent interviews across the country, voters young and old expressed a broad pessimism about the next presidential election that transcends party lines, and a teetering faith in political institutions.The White House and Congress have pumped out billions of dollars to fix and improve the nation’s roads, ports, pipelines and internet. They have approved hundreds of billions to combat climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs. President Biden has canceled billions more in student debt. Yet those accomplishments have not fully registered with voters.A small group of hard-right Republicans drove the country to the brink of a government shutdown, then plunged Congress into chaos when they instigated the vote that, with Democratic support, removed Mr. McCarthy. Democrats are betting that voters will blame Republicans for the trouble. Many voters interviewed this week said they viewed the whole episode as evidence of broad dysfunction in Washington, and blamed political leaders for being consumed by workplace drama at the expense of the people they are meant to serve.Rep. Kevin McCarthy leaving the House floor after being ousted as Speaker of the House.Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times“They seem so disconnected from us,” said Kevin Bass, 57, a bank executive who lives in New Home, a rural West Texas town. He serves on the local school board and has two children in public school, and another in college. He describes himself as conservative who voted for former President Donald J. Trump both times. “I don’t really look at either party as benefiting our country,” he said.Voters said that Washington infighting and the Republicans’ flirtation with debt default and government shutdowns recklessly put people’s paychecks, health care and benefits at risk at a moment when they are preoccupied with how to pay rising health care and grocery bills, or to cope with a fast-warming climate unleashing natural disasters in nearly every corner of the nation.“Disgust isn’t a strong enough word,” said Bianca Vara, a Democrat and grandmother of five in the Atlanta area who runs a stall at a flea market that crackles with discussions of politics.She said she wanted leaders in Washington to address gun violence, or maybe just meaningfully crack down on the robocalls she gets. Instead, she watched with dismay as the Republican-controlled House was convulsed with an internecine melee.“It’s worse than in elementary school,” she said, “Like a playground, like dodge ball: ‘You’re out! You’re not the speaker anymore! Hit him in the head with a red ball!’”Several people said they purposely tune out political news, focusing instead on details like the price of cream cheese ($6.99), or matters wholly unconnected to politics — the Chicago Bears are 1 and 4, and Taylor Swift is showing up at Kansas City Chiefs games.When Ms. Smith’s mother texted the news of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as House speaker to the family text message chain, nobody responded. Eventually, Ms. Smith replied with a photo of new shelves she had just put up at home.“Who’s McCarthy? I don’t even know,” said Rosemary Watson, 38, a registered independent in Mesa, Ariz., a battleground state that has narrowly elected Democrats over Trump-style Republicans in the past two elections. “I’ve purposely made that choice for my own health and well-being.”Ms. Watson, a member of the Cherokee Nation, voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 and said she did not feel politically moved by actions President Biden has taken to conserve land sacred to Native Americans or to provide billions of dollars in new tribal funding. She said she would support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the 2024 presidential race as a jolt to the two-party system.Whitney Smith, a bookkeeper in Gilbert, Ariz., said she did not want any part of the political turmoil in Washington. Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesCynthia Taylor, 58, a Republican paralegal in the Houston area whose husband works for a rifle manufacturer, was aghast at the ouster of Mr. McCarthy and the latest near-shutdown, calling the brinkmanship a symptom of growing lawlessness in American society.“We seem to be starting to go down the line of, if I don’t agree with you, I’m going to kick you out,” she said. “Everybody is out for themselves. Everybody is out for their 15 minutes of fame.”A survey that the Pew Research Center conducted in July found a country united by a discontent with their political leaders that crosses race, age and partisan divides. Sixty-five percent of Americans polled said they felt exhausted when they thought about politics.Only 16 percent of American adults said they trusted the federal government, close to the lowest levels in seven decades of polling. Nearly 30 percent of people said they disliked both the Democratic and Republican parties, a record high. Yet in recent years, Americans have turned out to vote in record numbers — mostly to re-elect incumbents.House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaking at a news conference before Congress narrowly averted a shutdown.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“I never thought I’d live in times like this,” said Cindy Swasey, a 66-year-old widow in Dover, N.H. Ms. Swasey, who voted twice for President Trump but thinks of herself as an independent, said she used to like Representative Matt Gaetz and the infusion of newer, younger energy he had brought to Congress — before he played a central role in the turmoil this week.She has recently decided to skip watching future presidential debates.Working-class and middle-class Americans have seen their wages rise lately, but many say the gains pale in comparison with the rising cost of living. Thousands of union workers, from the automotive industry to health care to Hollywood, have voted with their feet by striking for better contracts.“Right now, it’s just been about getting back to work — figuring out how to put food on my plate and keep a roof over my head and put gas in my car,” said McKinley Bundick, a writer’s assistant for the CBS program “SEAL Team” who was out of work for five months while the Writers Guild of America was on strike.Several Democratic voters said their revulsion with the state of American politics was rooted in Mr. Trump’s brand of angry grievance and the election lies that stoked the Jan. 6 rioters. At the same time, several said they were dreading the prospect of another contest between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, and would rather fast-forward through the next presidential cycle and find someone — anyone — new.“This is the best you can give us from both parties? Are you kidding me?” said Joseph Albanese, a 49-year-old technology product specialist in Chicago who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but is considering skipping next year’s election altogether.For people living on an entirely different coast from the Capitol — especially younger voters — Washington’s dysfunction can seem like sensational infighting in a distant world.“It’s overwhelming, it’s a lot going on,” said Dionna Beamon, 28, who lives in the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles. “So really, ignorance is bliss.”Ms. Beamon, a hair stylist, said she and her friends were more concerned about issues like mental health. Her mother died of a heart attack less than two years ago and she has grappled with how to address her grief.“I feel like a lot of people are depressed now,” she said. “That’s a huge topic for my age group. The world hasn’t been the same after Covid, and when it started, we were in our early 20s. ”Howard University senior Vivian Santos-Smith wants to be a political scientist, but is dismayed by political infighting. “It seems as if ‘House of Cards’ is reality now,” she said.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesVivian Santos-Smith, 21, a senior at Howard University, said her biggest concern was the $10,000 of student debt she would have to start repaying after graduation. President Biden canceled $9 billion in student loan debt this week, but his wider efforts to cancel some $400 billion more were scuttled by the Supreme Court.She wants to be a political scientist, and one of her first challenges is trying to make sense of this moment.“It seems as if ‘House of Cards’ is reality now,” she said. “The outlook is just bleak.”Corina Knoll More