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      Israel’s New Hard-Line Government Raises Hackles Ahead of Inauguration

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      The country’s president warned the far-right incoming minister of national security that he was raising alarms at home and abroad over racism, discrimination and undermining democracy.JERUSALEM — Israel’s incoming prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, concluded coalition agreements on Wednesday to form the most right-wing and religiously conservative government in the country’s history, a day ahead of an expected vote in Parliament to install the new leaders.The coalition pledged to expand Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that will deepen the conflict with the Palestinians. And its members agreed to prioritize potentially far-reaching changes that would curb the power and influence of the independent judiciary, one of a number of measures that critics warn risk damaging Israel’s democratic system and paving the way for racism and discrimination against minorities.Even before the swearing-in ceremony on Thursday, a broad public backlash against the government prompted an unusual intervention by Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, who reflected the alarm in some constituencies at home and abroad over the most contentious clauses in the coalition agreements.Mr. Herzog summoned Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of Jewish Power, an ultranationalist party, and the incoming minister of national security, for a meeting and conveyed “voices from large sections of the nation and the Jewish world concerned about the incoming government,” the president’s office said. He urged Mr. Ben-Gvir “to calm the stormy winds.”The president is a largely ceremonial figurehead who has no legal authority to influence the new government, but his voice carries moral weight and is supposed to unify Israelis.Mr. Ben-Gvir told Mr. Herzog that he and the new government “will pursue a broad national policy for the sake of all parts of Israeli society,” according to the statement from the president’s office.The meeting came the same morning that the coalition agreements reached between the partners of the incoming government were presented to Parliament on Wednesday, a final step required a day before the vote in Parliament to approve the new coalition.What to Know About Israel’s New GovernmentNetanyahu’s Return: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is set to return to power at the helm of the most right-wing administration in Israeli history.The Far Right’s Rise: To win election, Mr. Netanyahu and his far-right allies harnessed perceived threats to Israel’s Jewish identity after ethnic unrest and the subsequent inclusion of Arab lawmakers in the government.Arab Allies: Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right allies have a history of making anti-Arab statements. Three Arab countries that normalized relations with Israel in 2020 appear unconcerned.Worries Among Palestinians: To some Palestinians, the rise of Israel’s far right can scarcely make things worse. But many fear a surge of violence.The government’s guidelines began with a declaration of the Jewish people’s “exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel” and pledged to bolster Jewish settlement in all areas, including the occupied West Bank — a statement that reflected this government’s abandonment of the internationally recognized formula for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.“We have achieved the goal,” Mr. Netanyahu told his Likud party lawmakers on Wednesday as the intense coalition negotiations came to an end nearly two months after the Nov. 1 election.“A huge public in Israel — more than two million Israelis — voted for the national camp led by us,” he said. “We will establish a stable government that will last its full term and serve all the citizens of Israel.”Israel’s incoming prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of the Likud party, campaigning in the city of Sderot in October. Mr. Netanyahu is set to return to office 18 months after he was ousted.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesBut the agreements were already causing strains with the Jewish diaspora, and particularly with the largely non-Orthodox community in North America, and are raising concerns regarding Israel’s international standing.More than a hundred retired Israeli ambassadors and senior Foreign Ministry officials signed a letter to Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday expressing their “profound concern” at the potential harm to Israel’s strategic relations, first and foremost with the United States, arising from the apparent policies of the incoming government.In an interview with CNN, King Abdullah II of Jordan said he was “prepared to get into a conflict” if Israel crossed red lines and tried to change the status of a Jerusalem holy site revered by Muslims and Jews, and over which Jordan has custodianship. Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994, but relations between King Abdullah and Mr. Netanyahu have long been tense.Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, is set to return to office 18 months after he was ousted. On trial for corruption, he has grown ever more dependent on his hard-line allies because the more liberal parties refuse to sit in a government led by a premier under criminal indictment.One of the most controversial elements of the new government’s plans is the prioritization of changes to the judiciary, including legislation that will allow Parliament to override Supreme Court rulings. This would limit the influence of the independent judiciary, which has played an important role in preserving minority rights in a country that lacks a formal constitution, and would give more unchecked power to the political majority.But coalition agreements are not binding, and many of their clauses remain on paper, never materializing. The clauses about the judiciary are vague and provide little detail about what will be changed, how or by when. The proposal to allow Parliament to override Supreme Court rulings, for example, does not specify whether a simple Parliamentary majority of 61 of the 120 lawmakers will be enough to strike down a Supreme Court decision or if a special majority will be required.Mr. Ben-Gvir was convicted in the past on charges of inciting racism and of support for a terrorist group and ran in the election on a bullish ticket of fighting organized crime and increasing governance, particularly in areas heavily populated by members of Israel’s Arab minority.This week, Parliament passed legislation expanding ministerial powers over the police in a way that critics say will allow Mr. Ben-Gvir to politicize the force’s operations. The coalition agreement states that he will have the authority to change open-fire regulations, potentially allowing the police a freer hand that could fuel tensions with Arab citizens of Israel.Mr. Ben-Gvir and his allies have insisted that the coalition agreements include promises to amend the current anti-discrimination law, which applies to businesses and service providers, to allow them to refuse to provide a service that is contrary to their religious beliefs and to hold gender-segregated events.Israelis demonstrating against the new government of Mr. Netanyahu this month in Jerusalem.Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency, via Getty ImagesFar-right lawmakers suggested this week that meant that doctors could refuse to provide treatments that go against their religious conscience — for example, providing fertility treatment to a person in a same-sex relationship — or that hoteliers could turn away certain customers.Their statements set off a public uproar and forced Mr. Netanyahu to issue clarifications saying that no discrimination will be tolerated against the L.G.B.T.Q. community or any other sections of Israeli society, even though his conservative Likud party is a signatory to the coalition agreements.Israeli banks, insurance companies, medical professionals, legal experts and business leaders have denounced the proposed amendments and stated that they will not cooperate with any discriminatory conduct in their fields.Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel. 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      Walker, Trump’s Celebrity Pick, Underscores Trump’s Fall

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      Donald Trump loved Herschel Walker.He told him so when he “fired” him from “Celebrity Apprentice.” As Trump put it: “You know how much I like you. I love you. I love you. I am not a gay man, and I love you, Herschel. Herschel, you’re fired.”As Walker said in an interview years ago, “I’ve known Donald before he became the Donald. I started out with Donald Trump. I tell everyone that little Donald and little Ivanka lived with me during the summer.” He took them to Disney World, Sea World, the Bronx Zoo, “any place.”Walker’s son Christian referred to Trump as Uncle Don.The men were clearly close. Trump believed in Black exceptionalism — but only for athletes and entertainers.When New York’s elite shunned Trump, he found a home in pop culture. He came to understand the currency in it and the power of it. Unlike high society, which thrived on exclusion, entertainment fed on the possibility of inclusion and economic ascendance.Trump learned early the lucrative industry of dream selling. He learned early the power of celebrity as the embodiment of those dreams.To him, celebrities were a class unto themselves, people who could transcend race and wealth, crossing over into the golden plane of the hero. You can admire a Black celebrity, cheer for him, be thoroughly entertained by him and never relinquish your animus for or prejudices against other Black people.As long as those entertainers avoided any mention or invocation of race — other than to discuss their upbringing or praise a parent — even people hostile to Black people could be fans of theirs.This is why Trump could argue that he was not racist — he could always say he had known and been friendly with so many Black entertainers. But he was friendly with them even as he was hostile to other Black and Brown people. Walker has said his warm relationship with Trump dates back to 1982, but it was only a few years later, in 1989, that Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York, so that the Central Park Five, who were just boys at the time, would “be afraid.”The boys implicated in the attack have since been exonerated, but Trump has refused to apologize for his ad.Trump, like many people, is able to compartmentalize on the issue of race, segregating the masses whom he abhorred from the few he idolized.And so, when there was a need for a Republican to run for the Senate seat in Georgia against Raphael Warnock — a man who, with the support of Black voters as well as others, shocked the political establishment in that state when he won his first Senate race nearly two years ago — Trump did a simplistic racial calculation: he knew a conservative Black acolyte who could run against the liberal Black intellectual.He called on his old friend Walker. It didn’t matter that Walker was not a political figure or even a politically engaged person. It didn’t matter that he was wholly unsuited for any form of public office. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t live in Georgia.Trump drafted him, and he agreed. Celebrity, Trump thought, would cover all flaws.In the end, it did not. Trump’s brand, his celebrity worship and promulgation, was not enough to push Walker over the edge. But while Walker failed, Trump failed even worse. Unlike some races this cycle in which Trump simply endorsed a candidate, Walker was one Trump personally chose.And even before Tuesday night, Georgia had rejected Trumpism, choosing some Republicans in November who had defied Trump’s pressure campaign to steal the 2020 election and incurred his wrath because of it.Yes, Walker was a historically horrific candidate, but the Trump brand has also begun to sour in Georgia. This is in no way to excuse the Georgia Republicans who went along with the Walker charade, even after seeing up close that he was not only unqualified to be a senator, but likely incapable of performing the duties. They saw up close his incompetence, intellectual deficiencies and glaring defects, but they still hewed more to their partisanship than to their principles.They twisted themselves into knots to excuse Walker, using a roundabout racism to do so. Some said that what we saw as a lack of intelligence was in fact a regional affectation: Walker speaks the way many Black people in Georgia speak.In their construction of things, deficiency was endemic to Blackness and ubiquitous among Black people. The best that could be hoped for was a Black person who was willing to fall in line and vote with the party. Walker had proven that he would do that. He would be a willing puppet for their ventriloquism.And he came dangerously close to winning.This will remain a stain on the Republican Party. But Walker didn’t win. Cynicism didn’t win. Trump didn’t win.Competence and common sense prevailed.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      A Battle Between Gay Rights and Religious Expression

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      More from our inbox:Why No Gun Control Laws?Gains for DemocracyA National Primary DayThe Supreme Court heard a case concerning a Christian graphic designer who intends to limit her wedding-related services to celebrations of heterosexual unions.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “When Gay and Religious Freedoms Clash,” by Tish Harrison Warren (Opinion, Dec. 5), about the Supreme Court case involving a web designer who does not want to design websites for same-sex weddings because of her religious convictions:Ms. Warren states that there a distinction to be made between general discrimination against a group and declining to participate in an act one finds immoral.The designer states that she would not refuse to create a website for a gay individual; she simply does not want her services to be used for an event to which she is morally opposed.But where do we draw the line? Can a dry cleaner accept an L.G.B.T.Q. person’s business, but refuse to clean a tuxedo that they will wear to a “gay” wedding? Will your hairdresser choose not to style your hair when you are preparing for a “gay” event?Peggy ThomsonNew YorkTo the Editor:As a heterosexually married former Catholic priest, I have had the joy — under other auspices — to officiate at dozens of same-sex weddings. Some of my clerical colleagues have chided me, some supported me and some even clandestinely cooperated in the ceremony.Yet I find it difficult to insist that a web designer must accept any request to create a website for something that is against his or her conscience. Certainly, if she were asked to create one for a white supremacist group or to support some kind of questionable political stance, most of us liberals would have no problem saying she should not have to do so. I don’t see how this is different, even though I disagree with her beliefs.Surely, there are many competent business owners who support or are at least respectful of any given customer’s choices. It does not seem that all service providers have to accept whatever request comes their way.I would say to my friends who face any such objection to shake the dust from their feet and choose another web designer who respects their choices and loving commitments!Dave PasinskiFayetteville, N.Y.To the Editor:Tish Harrison Warren’s defense of the website designer who wants to discriminate against same-sex couples is distasteful.Although Colorado’s public accommodations law includes both race and sexual orientation as protected classes, Ms. Warren insists that discrimination against same-sex couples must be allowed under religious liberty because Scripture condemns homosexuality.Yes, the Bible declares same-sex sexual contact to be “an abomination,” instructing, “They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them” (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13). Paul blithely reiterates that people with a same-sex orientation are “worthy of death” (Romans 1:26-32). This is nothing for Ms. Warren to brag about.But then Ms. Warren claims that antiracism civil rights laws are OK because they do not violate religious laws. Yet both the Old and New Testaments promote and countenance slavery, including allowing the rape, beating and torture of slaves. Such passages were touted incessantly to sanctify chattel slavery in this nation. Although Ms. Warren denies the Bible’s role in slavery, by her logic, slavery would be a religious right.Instead of condemning her Bible’s barbaric homophobia, Ms. Warren misguidedly argues that U.S. civil law and citizens should be subject to her cherry-picked Bronze Age morality.Annie Laurie GaylorMadison, Wis.The writer is the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.To the Editor:Tish Harrison Warren’s advocacy for allowing business owners to refuse to provide services based on their professed religious beliefs is an invitation to invidious discrimination carried out behind a veneer of “pluralism.”A relatively small percentage of Christians continue to oppose interracial marriages, relying on vague biblical language and interpretive texts. The Talmud and resulting Jewish laws for many centuries declare marriages between Jews and non-Jews to be both prohibited and void under Jewish laws.Should we permit business owners to refuse to provide services not only to gay couples, but also to interracial and interreligious couples? Should the owner of a bed-and-breakfast operating out of the owner’s home be permitted to prohibit such couples from staying under their roof, based on religious objections?And what if the claimed religious beliefs are just a pretext for discrimination, and who would make such a determination?Thomas F. WiederAnn Arbor, Mich.To the Editor:Re “Justices Weigh Religion Rights vs. Bias Laws” (front page, Dec. 6):If the Colorado web designer had refused to create sites for divorced people, on the grounds that Jesus specifically condemned divorce in Matthew 5:31-32, would the Supreme Court even hear this case?David CastronuovoRomeTo the Editor:The Supreme Court arguments on Monday were supposed to be about speech, not religion. Nonsense. At a telling point, Justice Samuel Alito asked counsel, “Do you think it’s fair to equate opposition to same-sex marriage with opposition to interracial marriage?” From the colloquy, his own answer emerged clearly: Religious objections to same-sex marriage are “honorable,” while objections to interracial marriage are not.In the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that African Americans “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Fast forward 165 years, and Justice Alito’s message is plain: L.G.B.T.Q. people have no rights that conservative religious people are bound to respect.James H. StarkHartford, Conn.The writer is a professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut School of Law.Why No Gun Control Laws? Kenny Holston for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As Shootings Continue, ‘the Votes Aren’t There’ for a Gun Control Law” (news article, Dec. 4) and the disheartening subheadline, “Any new limits will likely have to wait two years for Congress”:Are we truly helpless to stop the incessant mass shootings in America? Why aren’t the votes there for gun control? Who exactly is voting against the will of the American people? Should not these members of Congress be called out for their intransigence in the face of such wholesale slaughter?The mass killings will continue until the country at least minimizes the firepower available for these tragedies, but nothing can change until either the minds or the members of Congress who continually block gun control measures change.With each mass killing, newspapers should begin publishing the voting record on gun control by the politicians in the state affected by that day’s massacre. Would such an act really be journalistically too political for the sake of our children?David SimpsonRindge, N.H.Gains for DemocracyA demonstration in Beijing last month against strict coronavirus measures. The recent unrest has been the boldest and most widespread in China since the pro-democracy movement of 1989.Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:The demonstrations for democracy and against Covid restrictions in China, and the huge protests for women’s rights and democratic freedoms in Iran, indicate that democratic values are trending.The victory of democratic forces in the Brazilian elections and the better-than-expected showing of Democrats in our own point to the same conclusion: The appeal of democratic values remains robust and is a powerful antidote to authoritarianism.Resistance to authoritarianism takes many forms: Voters vote, citizens demand rights in the face of brutal crackdowns, and in Ukraine people stand against invasion. But it is all part of the pro-democracy movement, worldwide.Edmund McWilliamsWhite Oaks, N.M.The writer is a retired Foreign Service officer.A National Primary DayThe crowd cheers before Joe Biden takes the stage after being declared the winner of the South Carolina primary in Columbia, S.C., in February 2020.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Reordered Primaries Create New Gambits for the Political Chessboard” (news article, Dec. 4):Asking which state(s) should go first in primary voting is the wrong question. We should instead ask: Why aren’t all state primaries on the same day? That would avoid the farce of candidates pandering to local interests, only to reverse their positions (or “pivot”) when they move on to the next state. To have honest candidates, we should have an honest process.These are candidates for national office. There should be national election rules and a national primary day.Michael T. FerroEndwell, N.Y. More

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      When Law Schools Snub the Rankings

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      More from our inbox:Libraries Changed Our Lives. Let’s Support Them.The Black-Jewish RelationshipChristine McVie’s MagicElection Liars, Not Deniers Vanessa Leroy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “In Growing Movement, More Top Law Schools Will Boycott Rankings” (news article, Nov. 19):​As a law professor for more than 25 years, I applaud the recent boycott of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The rankings serve only the periodical itself and deans adept at prioritizing favored metrics, especially test scores.More insidiously, the rankings harm students. In addition to motivating deans to award scholarships to students with the highest test scores instead of students with true financial need, and discouraging public interest work, at best the rankings provide students a one-dimensional picture.Law school is a significant investment. Especially below the Top 10, a student choosing among law schools should consider many factors, including the cultural nuances of the institution, which only old-fashioned due diligence can unearth. It breaks my heart when students, lured by rankings, later discover they could have chosen a better fit.I hope the remaining Top 10 deans quickly follow suit and embolden the top 25 law schools to call out the U.S. News rankings as the sham they truly are.Susan Pace HamillTuscaloosa, Ala.The writer is a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law.To the Editor:“In Growing Movement, More Top Law Schools Will Boycott Rankings” describes the scramble to enter the vaunted “T14” — the top 14 law schools as ranked by U.S. News.“At No. 15,” the article declares, “U.C.L.A. is tantalizingly close to the T14.” The difference between ranking 14th and 15th is presented as clear-cut and consequential, illustrating the absurdity of reducing the many facets of legal education to a single number.The article cites a study that found graduates from the T14 to have higher salaries and more “prestigious careers” — on average. Yes, the law schools in the T14 are excellent, but there is no magic to the number 14, and the U.S. News algorithm includes as much “noise” as “signal.”Moreover, the remaining 185 law schools reflect a wide range of approaches and cannot be lumped together. As the dean of an outstanding law school with strong placement in the kind of prestigious jobs the article refers to, I know that many schools provide superb student outcomes, a fact erased by the cited study and obscured by U.S. News’s opaque numbers.Prospective students miss out when they substitute reliance on U.S. News rankings for their own research into which law schools are a good fit for them, given their academic records, interests, career goals and financial situations.Matthew DillerNew YorkThe writer is dean of Fordham Law School.Libraries Changed Our Lives. Let’s Support Them. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Thankful for Libraries,” by Charles M. Blow (column, Nov. 26):Thanks to Mr. Blow for his column about the importance of libraries in his life. His experience touched me personally.I grew up in a home lacking books. The public library was an oasis for me. Little did I know that when I later attended college and supported myself partly by working in a public library system that I would become a librarian.The recent attacks on public and school libraries are so misguided. Libraries have always done their very best to serve their communities by representing many points of view. They deserve our support.Sam SimonNyack, N.Y.To the Editor:Like many people, I have had a lifelong love affair with libraries — from the time my dad took me to our local library to get my first library card when I was 6.The librarian at my elementary school was Mrs. Moreland, mother of my good friend Stevie. She introduced me to wonderful books as a third grader that led to my becoming a reader for life.As a somewhat nerdy high school student, I would head after school to our local library, part of the Houston Public Library system, spending half my time on the children’s side of the library and the other half on the adult side. My parents never tried to restrict what I could read. When I came to New York, one of the first things I did was to get my library card.Libraries and the devoted librarians who work in them have been my friends for these many years. It pains me to read about the harassment that many librarians have had to endure at the encouragement from certain politicians.Reading is empowering. No wonder that those who want to tell the rest of us what to do fear libraries and books.Jacqueline LowryNew YorkThe writer is a retired teacher of reading, math and science in an elementary-school gifted and talented program.The Black-Jewish Relationship Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times; photograph by Ronald Martinez, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Blacks and Jews, Again,” by Michael Eric Dyson (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 27):Professor Dyson’s illuminating and refreshingly honest essay about the historically fraught, ambivalent relationship between African American and Jewish communities is a gift for both of them. If they are to transcend this relationship and unequivocally condemn antisemitism or racism when it arises in their respective communities, they need to learn each other’s histories.Both groups are survivors of institutionalized terror and traumatic violence of historic proportions, perpetrated by bigots. Thus, both groups know prejudicial hatred when they see it, and both know how dangerous it is.As Mr. Dyson implies, knowing each other’s histories will allow African Americans and Jews to identify with each other, to understand, for example, how the suffering of the Jewish people “inspired the sorrow songs” of African Americans (e.g., “Go Down, Moses”) more than a century ago.African Americans and Jews should also remember who benefits from promulgating antisemitic or racist tropes. It must be incredibly gratifying for white supremacist organizations when African Americans and Jews channel the same antisemitism and racism, respectively, as those who would banish them from the country. ​Paul SiegelNew York​​​The writer is a professor of psychology at Purchase College and Westchester Community College, SUNY.Christine McVie’s MagicChristine McVie of Fleetwood Mac in performance at Madison Square Garden in 2014. Her commercial potency was on full display on Fleetwood Mac’s “Greatest Hits” anthology: She either wrote or co-wrote half of its 16 tracks.Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Christine McVie, Wellspring of Soulful Hits for Fleetwood Mac, Dies at 79” (obituary, Dec. 1):I mourned the death of Christine McVie this week. What a loss. As I listened at bedtime to Fleetwood Mac’s hits, I reflected on the sadness that arose.When we mourn our fallen generational culture icons, especially musicians (because music and memory are entwined), we are mourning the loss of our youth, with its exuberance, dreams and open promises for the future. We are mourning ourselves.Steve GellmanGrosse Pointe Park, Mich.Election Liars, Not DeniersTo the Editor:I do wish the media would stop calling certain politicians election deniers.None of them are likely to really believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.They are not deniers; they are election liars. Cold, cynical, opportunistic, sociopathic liars.They lie solely to gather their base’s votes, and the heck with democracy.Charlie PhillipsPortland, Ore. More

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      Extremism Is on the Rise … Again

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      After all this country has been through — from Donald Trump and his election denial, to the insurrection, to what prosecutors call the “politically motivated” attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband — it still appears poised to elect candidates next Tuesday who deny the results of the 2020 election. There are 291 election deniers on the ballot. And Trump — the greatest threat to democracy — may make a comeback in 2024.It’s hard to believe even though it’s happening right in front of our eyes.In a major speech Wednesday night, President Biden described election denial as “the path to chaos in America.” “It’s unprecedented,” he said. “It’s unlawful. And it’s un-American.” But in truth, the extremism, racism and white nationalism are neither un-American nor unfamiliar.I am personally fascinated by precedents and historical corollaries, the ways that events find a way of repeating themselves, not because of some strange glitch in the cosmos but because human beings are fundamentally the same, unchanged, stuck in rotation of our failings and frailties.The presidential election of 1912 offers a few lessons for our current political moment.William Howard Taft had been elected president in 1908, succeeding the gregarious Theodore Roosevelt, the undisputed leader of the progressive movement of the age, who endorsed Taft’s presidential bid. But Taft was no Teddy. Taft was, as University of Notre Dame professor Peri E. Arnold has written, “a warmhearted and kind man who wanted to be loved as a person and to be respected for his judicial temperament.”I hear echoes there of the differences between Presidents Barack Obama and Biden.Progressives at first seemed satisfied with Taft’s election, as they expected him to simply carry Roosevelt’s legacy forward. But they soon grew disaffected, as did Roosevelt.It wasn’t that Taft was ineffective; he just didn’t do all of what those progressives wanted, much like Biden hasn’t checked the box on all progressive priorities. Riding a wave of progressive anger, Roosevelt challenged Taft in 1912, and when Roosevelt didn’t secure the nomination, he ran as a third-party candidate, taking many of the progressives with him.That split all but guaranteed that their opponent, Woodrow Wilson, would win, becoming the first president from the South since the Civil War.Wilson had not been a favorite to win the nomination of his own party — he only secured it on the 46th ballot after quite a bit of deal-making. But once he reached the general election, he sailed to victory over the quarreling liberals. He would go on to campaign on an “America First” platform, which for him was primarily about maintaining America’s neutrality in World War I. But as Sarah Churchwell, author of “Behold, America,” told Vox in 2018, it soon became associated not just with isolationism, but also with the Ku Klux Klan, xenophobia and fascism.In Wilson’s case, extremists took his language and twisted its meaning into something more sinister. When Trump glommed onto that language over a century later, he started with the sinister and tried to pass it off as benign.Of course, Wilson was no Trump. Trump is one of the worst presidents — if not the worst — that this country has ever had. Wilson at least, as the University of Virginia’s Miller Center points out, supported “limits on corporate campaign contributions, tariff reductions, new and stronger antitrust laws, banking and currency reform, a federal income tax, direct election of senators, a single term presidency.” He was a progressive Southern Democrat. The newly formed N.A.A.C.P. actually endorsed him.But there are eerie similarities between him and Trump. Wilson was a racist. He brought the segregationist sensibility of the South, where he had grown up and where Jim Crow was ascendant, into the White House. He allowed segregation to flourish in the federal government on his watch.And while Wilson didn’t support shutting down all immigration, as long as the immigrants were from Europe, he did embrace ardently xenophobic beliefs. In 1912, he released a statement, saying:“In the matter of Chinese and Japanese coolie immigration I stand for the national policy of exclusion (or restricted immigration). The whole question is one of assimilation of diverse races. We cannot make a homogeneous population out of people who do not blend with the Caucasian race.”It was Wilson who screened “The Birth of a Nation” at the White House, a film that pushed the “Lost Cause” narrative and fueled the rebirth of the Klan.Trump hosted a screening of “2,000 Mules” — a fact-checker-debunked documentary that purported to show widespread voter fraud carried out by “mules” who stuffed ballot boxes with harvested ballots during the last presidential election — at Mar-a-Lago, which Trump has called the Southern White House. That film has helped boost his followers’ belief in his lie about the 2020 election.Allow me a quick aside to dissect the dehumanizing language of the “mule.” Mules were synonymous with captivity and servitude, and as such, a comparison between them and the enslaved — and later, oppressed — Black people was routine. In fact, in “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Neale Hurston famously wrote that the Black woman is the mule of the world.Then came the invention of the “drug mule,” a phrase that first appeared in this newspaper in 1993. Later, the media would often use it to describe Hispanic women.Now we have ballot mules, an extensive cabal of liberal actors bent on stealing elections.Once you animalize people, you have, by definition, dehumanized them, and that person is no longer worthy of being treated humanely.I say all this to demonstrate that we have been here before. We have seen extremism rise before in this country, multiple times, and it often follows a familiar pattern: One party loses steam, focus and cohesion; liberals become exhausted, disillusioned or fractured, allowing racists and nativist conservatives to rise. Those leaders then tap into a darkness in the public, one that periodically goes dormant until it erupts once more.I fear that too many liberals are once again caught up in the cycle, embracing apathy. My message to all of them going into Election Day: Wake up!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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Inflammatory Radio Ads From 2 Trump-Aligned Groups Are Airing in Battleground States

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      One of the biggest radio ad blitzes in the final stretch of the midterm elections is a provocative package of advertisements aimed at deepening cultural divides over transgender care for children and racial tensions.Financed by two groups run by former Trump administration officials, the ads have been placed with Black and Hispanic radio stations, along with conservative talk radio stations.But the inflammatory radio spots contrast with a more standard-issue ad campaign this month from former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s TV spots, created by his super PAC, MAGA Inc., have promoted messages on inflation and crime that generally align in both issue and tone with those of many Republican candidates seeking federal office.The radio spots strike a more visceral chord.One ad from America First Legal, a group started by Stephen Miller, who was a top policy adviser in the Trump White House, accuses the Biden administration of “anti-white bigotry” while claiming that corporations, airlines and universities “all openly discriminate against white Americans.” “When did racism against white people become OK?” the narrator asks.Another radio ad from the group says that the Biden administration wants to pave the way for children “to remove breasts and genitals.” “Not long ago, everyone knew that you’re either born a boy or a girl,” the narrator says. “Not anymore.”A similar spot that aired in Tennessee during a radio broadcast of the Tennessee Titans game, according to WPLN-FM, claimed, “They push girls to take testosterone so they grow facial hair.”Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, called the spots “racist, divisive and false.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.A Pivotal Test in Pennsylvania: A battle for blue-collar white voters is raging in President Biden’s birthplace, where Democrats have the furthest to fall and the most to gain.Governor’s Races: Democrats and Republicans are heading into the final stretch of more than a dozen competitive contests for governor. Some battleground races could also determine who controls the Senate.Biden’s Agenda at Risk: If Republicans capture one or both chambers of Congress, the president’s opportunities on several issues will shrink. Here are some major areas where the two sides would clash.Ohio Senate Race: Polls show Representative Tim Ryan competing within the margin of error against his G.O.P. opponent, J.D. Vance. Mr. Ryan said the race would be “the upset of the night,” but there is still a cold reality tilting against Democrats.“It’s disgusting and Democrats will stay laser-focused on not only combating these lies, but ensuring voters have the information they need to see right through these inflammatory ads,” Mr. Moussa said.Another radio spot that targets transgender issues is from Citizens for Sanity, a group whose board includes Gene Hamilton, Ian Prior and John Zadrozny, all former Trump administration officials who have also worked for Mr. Miller’s America First Legal group, according to documents first reported by Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.The Citizens for Sanity ad warns that “so-called health organizations are promoting experimental, dangerous and irreversible drugs and surgeries” that “leave young children sterile, infertile and sexually undeveloped for life.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“Stop the woke war on our children,” the narrator says. “Stop the far-left assault on our youth. Stop the madness. Stop the insanity.”The two groups are registered as nonprofits and, by law, aren’t supposed to participate in political activity that supports or opposes specific candidates. The only politicians mentioned in the ads are President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who aren’t candidates for political office this year.The groups have also promoted their messages in English- and Spanish-language mailers, according to The Colorado Sun. And Citizens for Sanity has spent about $20 million on TV ads in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania that focus on illegal immigration, crime and other issues.In a statement, Mr. Hamilton described the spots as “educational.”Justin Unga, the director of strategic initiatives for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization, said that the ads were intended to “animate the most extreme and dangerous elements” of the conservative base with misrepresentations of transgender care and warned that there were “real-life consequences” for such heated language. Mr. Unga pointed to statistics signaling a rise in deadly violence aimed at transgender women of color.Airing the radio spots on Black and Hispanic radio stations, Mr. Unga said, was an attempt to fuel frustration among traditionally Democratic voters and “get them so fed up that they stay home and decide that there’s no good choice.”He added, “It’s a cynical ploy to dissuade people from participating in our democracy.”Voto Latino, a national organization focused on registering Latino voters and engaging them in the political process, has responded with its own spot that will start airing Tuesday on Spanish-language stations in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, a spokesman for the group said.The Voto Latino spot opens with audio of Mr. Trump falsely claiming he won the 2020 election and a narrator telling listeners that “the same people who brought us the big lie of election fraud now bring us this tale.”“We have seen these attacks before,” the narrator says, according to a transcript of the spot. “They are lies fabricated to distract us from their real agenda: to take away our right to vote and control what our children learn in school.”Mr. Hamilton defended his group’s ads, saying that the spots inform people “about something they all know to be true in 2022, but that major news outlets fail to report on.” Several of the claims in the ad accusing the Biden administration of discriminating against white people have been previously discussed in the conservative news media and found by independent fact-checkers to be either misleading or taken out of context. The spot was first reported by Politico.“Our advertisements make the point that racism is always wrong, regardless of who it is targeted against,” Mr. Hamilton said.The radio spots from the two groups have aired in 24 markets across several states in the past month before Election Day, according to data from AdImpact, an ad-tracking firm. The two groups have aired radio ads in the same markets in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas. America First Legal has also run ads in Colorado, Michigan and Nevada.In total, America First Legal has spent more than $5 million on its radio ads. Only the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, has spent more on ads in the final month of the election. The fund has collected more than $250 million this campaign cycle.America First Legal’s total radio budget, when combined with the $1.6 million that Citizens for Sanity has also spent on the radio since Oct. 7, accounts for 15 percent of the $44.5 million that all Republican groups are spending during that same time, according to AdImpact. More

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      Palestinian Voters Debate Staying Home for Israeli Election

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      As Israel prepares to go to the polls again, some of the voters who helped propel an Arab party into the governing coalition for the first time are worried about a lack of results.KHASHAM ZANA, Israel — A new school in portable buildings, a paved road that reaches only halfway into the village and a sign in Arabic, English and Hebrew are the only indications of recent improvement in the Bedouin village of Khasham Zana in southern Israel.Like many other Palestinian Bedouin villages in Israel, it has existed for decades without state recognition of land ownership claims, leaving residents at constant risk of home demolitions and without basic services and infrastructure.Last year, when an independent Arab party, Raam, made history as the first to join an Israeli governing coalition, it pledged to address the plight of these villages.But when the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett collapsed in June, precipitating Israel’s fifth national election in less than four years on Tuesday, Raam and its leader, Mansour Abbas, had delivered on few of their electoral promises. And in places like Khasam Zana, the impact has been minimal.Raam’s inclusion in the government was welcomed by many Palestinian citizens of Israel who saw it as an important step in securing their rights. But now, many Palestinian-Israeli voters say they are disillusioned. Some are questioning how much they can realistically benefit from political engagement in a parliament that, four years ago, passed a controversial law that enshrined the right of national self-determination as “unique to the Jewish people” rather than all Israeli citizens.Palestinians as well as Israeli centrists and leftists condemned the law as racist and anti-democratic, and it was criticized by the European Union and rights groups including Human Rights Watch. Mansour Abbas, the leader of Raam, which last year became the first independent Arab party to enter an Israeli governing coalition.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesTuesday’s elections for the 120-seat Parliament, or Knesset, could see record low turnout among Israel’s one million Palestinian voters who hold Israeli citizenship. They account for about 17 percent of the country’s possible voters, but a public opinion poll in early October for Israeli public television’s Arabic-language Makan channel found that less than 40 percent of Arab voters planned to take part in the election.“The frustration is at its highest, maybe because we tried to enter the government and nothing changed,” said Mirvat Abu Hadoba-Freh, 33, a former high school civics teacher now earning a doctorate on political awareness among minority communities, including Palestinians.“This election, I hear educated people say they have gotten fed up. They don’t feel like there is anything encouraging them to vote,” she said.Though the majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel are in favor of integration and greater involvement in government, voter turnout has largely been on a downward trend over the past decade, said Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a polling organization in Ramallah.“More and more people say what is the point in participating if nothing changes, essentially,” he said. “Obviously, it’s not fair to judge what Mansour Abbas and his party have done in a single year, but that’s what people have to go by and people’s assessment is it wasn’t worth it,” he added, referring to the leader of Raam.Raam’s green campaign banners hang along the entrance of Khasham Zana village, with different slogans playing off its campaign theme of being closer to the pulse of the street.“Closer to be effective,” reads one. “Closer to combating racism,” reads another.Palestinian Bedouin villages in the Negev Desert. Many such villages have gone unrecognized by the state for decades, leaving them without basic services. Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesThe largely conservative Palestinian communities in Israel’s Negev constitute a Raam stronghold and helped put the party into office last year.But Ms. Abu Hadoba-Freh says Raam’s brief time in office has helped put into perspective for Palestinian voters what can realistically be accomplished.“We as Arab voters, we may be able to send our leaders to the Knesset, but we don’t know if it will have much of an impact,” she said. “It may affect local budgets and services, but things like the discrimination against Arabs, this is impossible to change unless the country changes.”Raam promised to secure the official recognition of Khasham Zana and two other villages — homes to Bedouin, Palestinian communities that were once seminomadic — and said it also intended to prepare a plan to deal with dozens of other unrecognized villages in Israel’s Negev Desert.But that has not happened, and few other improvements have taken place in a village where, besides the school and half-finished road, there is no other infrastructure. Though power lines run alongside the edges of Khasham Zana, there is no state-supplied electricity, and residents must rely on solar power. There are no sewers or garbage collection. Running water comes from water tanks and pipes that residents installed themselves.Ms. Abu Hadoba-Freh comes from another unrecognized village, Wadi Samara, where residents face home demolitions and must rely on themselves for almost all services, including setting up solar panels for electricity.She voted in the past four elections. But she is questioning whether she will vote again this time.Even before Raam, more Palestinian voters were beginning to question their involvement in the Parliament, said Mansour Nasasra, a professor of politics at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, especially as there has been no progress on other key issues of importance to the Palestinians, including rising violence within the Arab community and increased attacks and police raids on holy sites.Those reservations have only increased with an Arab party in government, he said.When the government of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, center, collapsed in June, few of Raam’s promises had been fulfilled.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesMr. Bennett’s governing coalition needed Mr. Abbas and his party to form a coalition, hailed at the time as a sign of national unity. But some Palestinians say they don’t feel they got enough in return for one of their parties’ joining the government.“The number of Palestinians killed has increased. The number of home demolitions increased in Abbas’s presence. The number of raids and closures of Al Aqsa increased in Abbas’s presence,” Mr. Nasasra said, referring to Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third-holiest site in Islam. “And Abbas couldn’t say one word about it.”Dr. Kayed al-Athamen, a hematologist and community leader from Khasham Zana who supports Raam, acknowledges that the past year’s accomplishments have been minimal. But he still encourages his fellow villagers to vote. He said he explains to them that political engagement is a long game and that they cannot be discouraged because the first Arab party in government was not as successful as they may have hoped.“We’re not going to solve the Palestinian cause in the Knesset,” he said. “But if we have four or five parliamentarians, we can make progress in terms of getting services.”Mr. al-Athamen, 43, is also banking on the idea that even if some Palestinians might not be motivated by progress, they might vote anyway because of the potential negative consequences of staying away from the polls.A campaign rally for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this month. A comeback for him could bring more right-wing figures into government.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesThis election could lead to a political comeback for Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing prime minister who left office last year amid corruption charges, and to his bringing even more radical figures into government, namely Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right lawmaker.If Arab voter turnout surpasses 50 percent, they would constitute an important voting bloc that could help decide what the future government looks like, Mr. al-Athamen said he tells people. That might include keeping Mr. Ben-Gvir out of government, he said.“If not, then it will be a government for Netanyahu, and the situation for Arabs will be even worse,” he said. More