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      Censorship Is the Refuge of the Weak

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      Some threats to freedom of expression in America, like online harassment and disinformation, are amorphous or hard to pin down; others are alarmingly overt. Consider these recent examples of censorship in practice: A student newspaper and journalism program in Nebraska shut down for writing about L.G.B.T.Q. issues and pride month. Oklahoma’s top education official seeking to revoke the teaching certificate of an English teacher who shared a QR code that directed students to the Brooklyn Public Library’s online collection of banned books. Lawmakers in Missouri passing a law that makes school librarians vulnerable to prosecution for the content in their collections.In Florida today it may be illegal for teachers to even talk about whom they love or marry thanks to the state’s so-called Don’t Say Gay law. Of course, it goes far beyond sex: The Sunshine State’s Republican commissioner of education rejected 28 math textbooks this year for including verboten content.This year alone, 137 gag order bills, which would restrict the discussions of topics such as race, gender, sexuality and American history in kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education, have been introduced in 36 state legislatures, according to a report released last month by PEN America, a free speech organization. That’s a sharp increase from 2021, when 54 bills were introduced in 22 states. Only seven of those bills became law in 2022, but they are some of the strictest to date, and the sheer number of bills introduced reflects a growing enthusiasm on the right for censorship as a political weapon and instrument of social control.These new measures are far more punitive than past efforts, with heavy fines or loss of state funding for institutions that dare to offer courses covering the forbidden content. Teachers can be fired and even face criminal charges. Lawsuits have already started to trickle through the courts asking for broad interpretations of the new statutes. For the first time, the PEN report noted, some bills have also targeted nonpublic schools and universities in addition to public schools.It wasn’t all that long ago that Republican lawmakers around the country were introducing legislation they said would protect free speech on college campuses. Now, they’re using the coercive power of the state to restrict what people can talk about, learn about or discuss in public, and exposing them to lawsuits and other repercussions for doing so. That’s a clear threat to the ideals of a pluralistic political culture, in which challenging ideas are welcomed and discussed.How and what to teach American students has been contested ground since the earliest days of public education, and the content of that instruction is something about which Americans can respectfully disagree. But the Supreme Court has limited the government’s power to censor school libraries, if not curriculums. “Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion,’” Justice William Brennan wrote in a 1982 decision.There may not even be wide disagreement over what American students are being taught. Despite the moral panic over teaching about gender and race, American parents overwhelmingly say they are satisfied with the instruction their children receive. A poll from National Public Radio and Ipsos earlier this year found that just 18 percent of parents said their child’s school “taught about gender and sexuality in a way that clashed with their family’s values,” while 19 percent said the same about race and racism. Only 14 percent felt that way about American history.And yet, some Republican candidates are using the threat of censorship as a show of strength, evidence of their power to muzzle political opponents. Last year in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won the governorship after a campaign in which he demagogued the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Beloved” by the Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison. Other candidates are looking to make issues around censorship a centerpiece of their pitch to voters in the midterm elections in races from Texas to New Jersey.Some want to extend censorship far beyond the classroom. In Virginia, a Republican state representative tried to get a court to declare as obscene two young adult books that are frequently banned in schools, “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe, and “A Court of Mist and Fury,” by Sarah Maas. The case was dismissed on Aug. 30, but if it had been successful, it could have made it illegal for bookstores to sell the books to children without parental consent.Right-wing lawmakers are also looking to restrict what Americans can say about abortion. Model legislation from the National Right to Life Committee, which is circulating in state legislatures, aims to forbid Americans to give “instructions over the telephone, the internet or any other medium of communication regarding self-administered abortions or means to obtain an illegal abortion.” That prohibition would extend to hosting websites that contain such information.Even when such bills fail, these efforts to censor create a climate of fear. Across the country, libraries in small towns are being threatened with closure and library staff members are being harassed and intimidated. The Times reports that librarians “have been labeled pedophiles on social media, called out by local politicians and reported to law enforcement officials. Some librarians have quit after being harassed online. Others have been fired for refusing to remove books from circulation.” The American Library Association has documented nearly 1,600 books in more than 700 libraries or library systems that have faced attempted censorship.There are factions on both the left and the right that are insecure enough in their ideas that they’ve tried to ban discussion of certain facts or topics out of discomfort, or simply to score political points. But only right-wing legislators are currently trying to write censorship into law. This is not only deeply undemocratic; it is an act of weakness masquerading as strength. A political project convinced of the superiority of its ideas doesn’t need the power of the state to shield itself from competition. Free expression isn’t just a feature of democracy; it is a necessary prerequisite.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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      Was Biden’s Democracy Speech Too Harsh?

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      More from our inbox:The Reasons Behind the Teacher ExodusThe Reusable Bag Glut Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “With Malice Toward Quite a Few,” by Bret Stephens (column, Sept. 7):While declaring Donald Trump to be the “gravest threat American democracy faces” out of one side of his mouth, out of the other Mr. Stephens decries President Biden’s harsh words for the MAGA Republicans fervently supporting Mr. Trump.He can’t have it both ways.Many Republicans in Congress to this day refuse to admit that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Until these Republicans can bring themselves (and convince the majority of their party) to acknowledge that the presidency was not stolen from Mr. Trump, sharp words to save our democracy are warranted.Lincoln’s “malice toward none” address was given after the insurgents seeking to destroy the Union were defeated, making Mr. Biden’s identification of threats to democracy timely and vital.Carl MezoffStamford, Conn.To the Editor:Bret Stephens nailed it. The threat to democracy is not Republicans or even just MAGA Republicans. It is the sinister and buffoonish Donald Trump, plus his inner circle that pushed his lies in the aftermath of the 2020 election.Even the Jan. 6 riot was not a threat to democracy. Nor was it an insurrection. It was a violent venting that petered out on its own that same afternoon.But what caused that violent venting? Part of it was Mr. Trump’s lies. But a bigger part of it was the left’s actual attempts to steal the 2016 and 2020 elections, not by miscounting votes, but first by the claims of collusion with Russia (a hoax, as I and many others believe) and later by suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. In between, the Democrats and media did everything possible to evict Mr. Trump from office. If all that was “democracy,” then Watergate wasn’t a crime.Donald Trump is one of the worst sore losers of all time, totally unfit for office. But he was also endlessly pushed and goaded, just as Republicans have been pushed, goaded, demeaned and vilified for decades by the arrogant, condescending left. That’s what brought Mr. Trump to the fore to begin with.Mark GodburnNorfolk, Conn.To the Editor:While I acknowledge the validity of some of Bret Stephens’s criticism of President Biden’s speech in Philadelphia, I take issue with his conclusion: “The gravest threat American democracy faces today isn’t the Republican Party, MAGA or otherwise. It’s Trump.”This overlooks the fact that Trumpism has metastasized and infected the entire Republican Party. And getting rid of Donald Trump won’t eliminate the damage to our politics and electoral system that he leaves in his wake.John J. ConiglioEast Meadow, N.Y.To the Editor:I agree with much of what Bret Stephens says about President Biden’s speech. I was a registered Republican from 1970 to 2016. I left the party the day Donald Trump got the nomination.I think there is one simple litmus test that separates the MAGA deplorables from the regular or moderate Republicans. If you deny that Joe Biden won the election, if you insist that it had to be rigged, if you attended the Jan. 6 riot and acted violently, then yes, you are a MAGA extremist bent on the destruction of our democracy. It’s that simple.Steven SchwartzWest Orange, N.J.To the Editor:Re “Does Biden Truly Think Democracy Is in Crisis?,” by Ross Douthat (column, Sept. 5):Since democracy means that the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner, how could anyone, including Mr. Douthat, not believe that we are in a crisis of democracy, when the other major party candidate and his minions refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden was the winner?Ross ZuckerCastine, MaineThe writer is a retired professor of political science at Touro University.To the Editor:Ross Douthat questions whether President Biden and the Democrats really believe that Donald Trump and his followers are a threat to democracy, because Republicans are not a majority party. But with the Electoral College, voting restrictions, gerrymandering, a Senate biased toward rural states and a Supreme Court tilted way to the right, our system is quite vulnerable to rule by a minority party.If that party becomes authoritarian, it can indeed be a threat to democracy. Those who don’t take such a threat seriously espouse a dangerous complacency.Chris MillerEl Cerrito, Calif.The Reasons Behind the Teacher ExodusHallsville Intermediate School in Hallsville, Mo. The superintendent of the school district there said the pool of qualified teaching applicants has all but dried up in recent years.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “How Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? It Depends on Where You Live” (news article, Aug. 30):Low pay, as the article indicates, is a major reason that young people are not becoming teachers and that older, experienced teachers are leaving the profession.Consider some other reasons:Parents who harass, verbally abuse and even assault teachers in school parking lots and even outside their homes.Schools so inadequately funded that teachers often have to use their own meager paychecks to pay for classroom supplies.Schools so badly in need of repairs that they are dangerous to the health and well-being of everyone who works in them.The prospect of a gunman with an AR-15 rifle walking into a classroom, forcing teachers to put their own bodies between themselves and their students.Threats that teachers can be fired or even jailed for uttering a perfectly legitimate word or phrase that some politicians deem offensive.Politicians have done more than anyone else to create the teacher shortage — and they will have to fix it.Dennis M. ClausenEscondido, Calif.The writer is a professor of American literature and creative writing at the University of San Diego.To the Editor:Today there is a mass exodus from the classroom by many educators, and I can’t blame them. I was a teacher for 31 years. They can make more money at a different job with less stress.Some of my nonteaching friends have asked, “What can we do to support teachers so they stay in the classroom?”You can volunteer in the classroom, donate classroom supplies, speak up for better teacher pay and smaller class sizes, appreciate the demands and constraints of a teacher’s job, and speak highly of teachers in front of your children.According to the National Education Association, 55 percent of teachers are thinking of leaving the profession. We can’t let this happen.To all of the educators staying in the profession, we can’t thank you enough. Teachers can’t do this alone. They need your support. Thank you to all of the supportive, understanding parents out there. We need you.Deborah EngenSugar Land, TexasThe Reusable Bag GlutExperts calculate that a typical reusable plastic bag has to be reused 10 times to account for the additional energy and material used to make it. For cotton tote bags, it’s much higher.Jeenah Moon/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “New Jersey Bag Ban’s Unforeseen Consequence: Too Many Bags” (front page, Sept. 2):Perhaps the New Jersey supermarkets and online food delivery services could take back the previous delivery’s reusable bags — and reuse them.Marianne VaheyWoodbridge, Conn.To the Editor:I also accumulated many reusable bags while grocery shopping online during the pandemic. I’m giving mine to an organization that provides meals for the homeless. Food banks and nonprofit thrift shops can also probably use them.Betsy FeistNew YorkTo the Editor:My local C-Town supermarket packs groceries for delivery or curbside pickup in the corrugated cardboard shipping boxes that they get food in. They are very efficient in their arrangements, so I generally only need two boxes when I might need six bags.Anne BarschallTarrytown, N.Y. More

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      Most DeSantis-Endorsed Candidates for Florida’s School Board Won

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      MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida was not on the ballot in Tuesday’s primary. Neither was any other big-name Republican. But Republican voters appear to have gone to the polls anyway, in part to weigh in on an unusual new political battleground: school board races.Mr. DeSantis, like other Republicans across the country, has centered his political brand on education issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and to what is taught in schools. Before the primary, he did something that no previous Florida governor had ever done: He took sides in nonpartisan school board races.It worked.Almost all of the candidates Mr. DeSantis endorsed won, unofficial county election results showed. The candidates’ victories are expected to inject conservative priorities into county-level boards that have drawn heightened public scrutiny in recent years, beginning with school closures and mask mandates and extending to how educators handle matters of gender identity and race.“Florida has led with purpose and conviction that our school system is about education, not indoctrination,” Mr. DeSantis posted on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, along with an image of his slate of 30 “pro-parent” candidates. At least 20 won on Tuesday, and five went to runoffs.Some were incumbents seeking re-election. Others were challenging sitting board members or running for open seats. After Mr. DeSantis became involved in the races, so did the Florida Democratic Party, backing its own slate.Republicans had poured money into school board campaigns, turning previously sleepy contests into pitched races. On Sunday, Mr. DeSantis and several candidates held events together in three counties — the “DeSantis Education Agenda Tour,” they called it.“Florida is the state where woke goes to die!” Mr. DeSantis said at a stop at a firefighters’ union hall in Doral, Fla., west of Miami.At the event, Monica Colucci, a nonpartisan candidate for the Miami-Dade County School Board, denounced “dangerous, radical ideologies that have been creeping into our classrooms.” She vowed, “We take back our school boards!”Ms. Colucci won, ousting a longtime incumbent. More

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      Your Tuesday Briefing: Political Turmoil in Pakistan

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      Plus the Philippines reopens schools and China raises interest rates.Good morning. We’re covering political turmoil in Pakistan and schools reopening in the Philippines.An expert on Pakistani politics said Imran Khan was “clearly an order of magnitude stronger” than when he was ousted as prime minister. Sohail Shahzad/EPA, via ShutterstockPolitical tensions swell in PakistanImran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, was charged under the country’s antiterrorism act on Sunday. He is trying to stage a political comeback after he was ousted from power in April following a no-confidence vote.The charges followed a rally in Islamabad, the capital, where Khan condemned the recent arrest of one of his top aides and vowed to file legal cases against police officers and a judge involved in the case. Police said the comments amounted to an illegal attempt at intimidation.The charges represent a drastic escalation of the power struggle between Pakistan’s current government and its former leader and could set off a fresh round of public unrest and violent street protests.Analysis: Khan’s rallies have drawn tens of thousands, and his party has scored recent victories in the most populous province, Punjab, and the economic hub, Karachi. But experts say he and his supporters face a mounting crackdown aimed at curtailing their electoral successes.Details: Pakistan’s media regulatory authority imposed a ban on the live broadcast of Khan’s speeches on news television channels. Several journalists and talk show hosts, who are sympathetic to Khan, say they have been threatened by the state authorities.Classes opened across the Philippines yesterday.Aaron Favila/Associated PressThe Philippines reopens schoolsMillions of children in the Philippines returned to in-person classes yesterday, ending one of the world’s longest pandemic-related shutdowns.“We could no longer afford to delay the education of young Filipinos,” said Vice President Sara Duterte, who is also the education secretary.The lost time will be hard to make up: Even before the pandemic, the Philippines had among the world’s largest education gaps, with more than 90 percent of students unable to read and comprehend simple texts by age 10, according to the World Bank.Read More on the Coronavirus PandemicNew Guidelines: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened its Covid-19 guidance, saying those exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine.A Sweeping Rebuke: Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that her agency had failed to respond quickly enough to the coronavirus pandemic and needed to be overhauled.Back to School: New York City’s Education Department has rolled back most Covid restrictions ahead of the start of school on Sept. 8, reflecting a wider shift toward learning how to live with the virus.A Century-Old Vaccine: The results of clinical trials, launched in the early days of the pandemic, involving an old tuberculosis vaccine offered hope that it could provide a measure of universal protection against infectious diseases.Covid-19 may have only worsened divides. Even though the country offered online instruction during the pandemic, many students lacked access to computers or the internet.Pandemic: As other countries sent students back to classrooms, government officials and parents hesitated. They feared that schoolchildren could bring the virus to homes crowded with multiple generations of family members, potentially overtaxing a creaky health care system.Details: Schools in the Philippines have long suffered from teacher shortages, and only some schools are currently in-person five days a week. The country plans to fully reopen all of its roughly 47,000 schools by November.A dried-out riverbed of the Jialing River, a major tributary of the Yangtze River.EPA, via ShutterstockDrought roils China’s economyChina’s central bank announced that it would cut its five-year interest rate yesterday, an effort to bring a little relief to the country’s huge construction and real estate sector.The rate cut comes as record-high temperatures and a severe drought have crippled hydropower and prompted the shutdown of many factories in west-central China, an industrial base.Sichuan Province, for instance, normally generates more than three-quarters of its electricity from huge dams. The summer rainy season usually brings so much water that Sichuan sends much of its hydropower to cities and provinces as far away as Shanghai.But an almost complete failure of summer rains this year has meant that many dams now cannot generate enough electricity even for Sichuan’s own needs, forcing factories there to close for up to a week at a time and triggering rolling blackouts in some commercial and residential districts.Fallout: Sichuan’s three main rivers feed the Yangtze River, so hydropower cutbacks have also started to affect downstream areas, like the city of Chongqing and adjacent Hubei Province.Details: The central bank cut the rate by 0.15 percentage points yesterday, to 4.3 percent, and said that it was reducing a one-year interest rate by 0.05 percentage points, to 3.65 percent.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificSouth Korean howitzers took positions near the border with North Korea yesterday.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressThe U.S. and South Korea began their largest joint military drills in years yesterday, The Associated Press reports.More than 5,000 farmers protested in New Delhi, Reuters reports. They are pushing for minimum price guarantees and government accountability.Today, Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, plans to release a report on Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial roles, Reuters reports.A woman in South Korea may be the relative of two children whose remains were found in suitcases in New Zealand, The Independent reports.Bangladesh is closing schools for another day during the week and taking other measures to save energy, Reuters reports. The country shut down its diesel-run power plants after the war in Ukraine drove up fuel prices.Chinese censors changed the end of the new “Minions” film before releasing it, Reuters reports. In this version, police catch a rebel, and Gru, a main character, promotes family values.The War in UkraineHere are live updates.Daria Dugina, a Russian nationalist commentator.Tsargrad.Tv, via ReutersRussia blamed Ukraine for the killing of Daria Dugina, 29, an ultranationalist commentator. The allegation could not be verified. Kyiv denied involvement.Dugina’s father, who is a prominent supporter of the invasion, called for revenge.Moscow said that Dugina, not her father, was the target of the car bomb and said a suspect had fled to Estonia. The brazen attack recalled historical assassinations.What’s next: Tomorrow is Ukraine’s Independence Day — and the six-month mark of the war.What Else is HappeningDr. Anthony Fauci has advised seven presidents and spent more than half a century at the National Institutes of Health.Doug Mills/The New York TimesDr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser, plans to step down in December.Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, has suggested that he would dispute election results if he lost in October. But the political establishment believes he lacks support to stage a coup.Eric Adams vowed to bolster nightlife around New York City. But the mayor mostly visits one pricey restaurant, run by friends with troubled pasts.A Morning ReadCarmen Abd Ali for The New York TimesAs more looted art returns to Africa, countries have wrestled with the right way to display it.Benin may have found an answer: More than 200,000 people have come to a free exhibition of pieces that were plundered by French colonial forces in the 19th century and returned last year.ARTS AND IDEASWill New Zealand change its name?New Zealand, known by some as Aotearoa.Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesIn the 1600s, the Dutch named the land now known as New Zealand for Zeeland, a western province of the Netherlands. It was intended as a companion name for “Hollandia Nova” or “New Holland,” as Australia was then known.Nearly four centuries later, a petition before Parliament asks that the country be called “Aotearoa,” which loosely translates from Maori as the “land of the long white cloud.” The Maori have used Aotearoa to refer to the country for decades, if not centuries. It is widely believed to be the name bestowed by Kupe, a Polynesian navigator — and is, increasingly, what New Zealanders and their lawmakers call their home.For now, a wholesale change seems unlikely: Polls suggest voters prefer “New Zealand” or a hybrid “Aotearoa New Zealand.” But the debate speaks to a changing climate: Amid culture war debates, Maori names are gaining traction. In 2009, New Zealand’s politicians voted against creating a holiday for Matariki, the Maori New Year. In June, it was observed nationally for the first time.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookTanveer Badal for The New York TimesKimjang, the act of making kimchi, connects Koreans across the diaspora. Eric Kim offers a recipe.What to ReadFour new books re-examine World War II.ArtMichael Heizer’s “City,” a mysterious land art megasculpture, was revealed after 50 years.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Guacamole ingredient” (five letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Chang Che is joining The Times from SupChina to cover technology in Asia.The latest episode of “The Daily” is about a U.S. coal miner on strike.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      A Campaign Tactic by Democrats: Smart? Risky? Unethical?

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      More from our inbox:Covid Priorities, in the Schools and BeyondThe Needs of Ukraine’s StudentsThe Kansas Abortion Vote Trent Bozeman for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Cynical Low for the Democratic Party” (editorial, Aug. 4):Cynical, indeed! As a moderate Democrat, I find it appalling that Democratic campaign organizations are contributing money to finance the primary campaigns of ultra-right, pro-Trump supporters and election deniers.Money contributed to these Democratic organizations should go to candidates promoting free and fair elections, and who work to combat lies, racism and antisemitism. I want campaign dollars to support and guarantee that women have the right to make decisions about their own health and welfare.To learn now that our campaign dollars are going to promote extreme right-wingers and Trumpers makes me wonder: Why would I ever consider making contributions again to Democratic groups if they give money to the campaigns of the very people I wish to see defeated?Robert D. GreenbergBethesda, Md.To the Editor:I would beg to differ with the editorial board’s view that the Democratic Party’s support for Trump Republican proponents of the Big Lie is a “cynical low.” Your argument is that Democrats, who claim to stand up for the truth, should not be supporting the deniers of truth, and, furthermore, that theirs is a “repugnant and risky strategy.”But can it also be considered a deft political strategy and worth the risk? It is not an illegal action, and it is probably not immoral, but just plain smart politics.Raymond ComeauBelmont, Mass.To the Editor:While Democrats’ efforts to promote far-right candidates, whom they perceive to be easier targets in the general election, may succeed in swaying a few Republican primary voters, they pose the greater risk of alienating large swaths of independent voters like me who simply want politicians to act with a modicum of honesty and integrity.Especially in battleground states like Michigan, where independents have the power to decide races with far-reaching consequences, Democrats would be wise to build the moral high ground on election integrity rather than actively undermining it.John ZaineaAnn Arbor, Mich.To the Editor:Let’s be cleareyed. There no longer is such a thing as a moderate Republican politician. I, too, detest Democratic donations going to nominate election deniers. But Republicans who didn’t get Donald Trump’s endorsement by and large deny climate change, support abortion bans and favor a tax system that tilts toward corporations and the wealthy.Don’t shift the political landscape even farther in that direction by describing those right-wing Republicans as “moderate.” They aren’t.Ken EudyRaleigh, N.C.The writer is a retired senior adviser to Gov. Roy Cooper.Covid Priorities, in the Schools and Beyond Jonathan Kirn/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “A Proposal for School Covid Policies This Year,” by Joseph G. Allen (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 6):While I appreciate the critical thought and expertise that Dr. Allen brought to the discourse on Covid policies in our education system, I’m concerned that the scope too frequently narrowed on children’s resilience.Children may be far less likely to be hospitalized or experience severe symptoms, but they are just as likely to pass symptoms to adult family members who could be at high risk.The guidelines from Britain’s education system referred to in the article suggest that children go to school unmasked if symptoms are only minor (a runny nose, a slight cough, etc). Those children may easily pass those minor symptoms to their classmates, who may just as easily pass them to an adult (a family member or staff at the school) who experiences Covid more seriously.Yes, the alternative is damaging: children missing school. But our educators and families could pay a larger price if we let children pass it among themselves and to adults.Alexandra DavisBrooklynTo the Editor:Joseph G. Allen says he is writing in these capacities: “As a public health scientist. As someone who has spent nearly 20 years doing risk assessments of indoor environmental hazards. As a dad of three school-age kids, and an uncle to 15.”But Covid policy in schools affects people schoolchildren interact with outside school. This includes the old and immunocomromised adults who cannot take Paxlovid because it interacts with their other medicines.Writing as an old person, a liberal and a bioethicist, I wonder why a public health expert thinks “the overriding goal for the next school year should be to maximize time in the classroom and make school look and feel much like it did before the pandemic started,” rather than recognizing that the overriding goal of any Covid policy should be to save lives.Felicia Nimue AckermanProvidence, R.I.The Needs of Ukraine’s Students Emile Ducke for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “For Children of War, a Time for Play” (news article and photo essay, Aug. 8):As children, their families and teachers get excited about the new school year throughout the world, it is imperative to continue to publicize the dire education needs of Ukrainian children.In addition to the physical destruction of school infrastructure, there are shortages of supplies from laptops to textbooks. Some teachers have had to physically defend their schools as Russian invaders entered.Professors have been giving lectures from the front lines. Others have been teaching in person from shelters, where air-raid sirens wail. The dedication of the teachers in wartime is heroic.Students are the future of any country. The education of students in Ukraine, as had been taking place before the invasion in February, is essential to the rebuilding of the country. They deserve our support. As do their teachers.Anna NagurneyAmherst, Mass.The writer is the Eugene M. Isenberg chair in integrative studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and co-chair of the board of directors of the Kyiv School of Economics.The Kansas Abortion VoteIn its most recent term, in addition to overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court expanded gun rights, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to address climate change and expanded the role of religion in public life.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Defying the Supreme Court,” by David Leonhardt (The Morning newsletter, Aug. 4):Those, like me, rejoicing over the overwhelming rejection in Kansas of a measure to allow banning abortion there ought to curb their enthusiasm. The outcome of that referendum could exemplify the adage “Be careful what you ask for; you might get it.”That Kansas voters refused to permit their legislature to roll back women’s reproductive rights plays into the narrative of the Supreme Court’s rationale in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, in which the justices reasoned that decisions on women’s control over their own bodies should be left to each of the states.By demonstrating that this tenet can work to protect individual rights, the Kansas vote could bolster the states’ rights argument underlying the Dobbs decision. It may be invoked to justify the inclination of the supermajority radicals on the court to reconsider decisions involving contraception and same-sex marriage, among other matters, as advocated in the Dobbs case by Justice Clarence Thomas.Marshall H. TanickMinneapolisThe writer is a lawyer. More

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      The Tennessee Law Making School Board Culture Wars Even Worse

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      FRANKLIN, Tenn. — “What happens when a child sounds out the word ‘lesbian’ and turns to their teacher and asks, ‘What is a lesbian?’”Trisha Lucente, the mom of a local kindergartner, has come before the Williamson County school board to voice her distress over the district’s continued use of Epic, a digital library app containing more than 40,000 children’s books and videos. Ms. Lucente and like-minded parents have complained about several titles that they consider inappropriate. Anything touching on race, gender or sexuality can set off alarms in conservative circles here. (A book on sea horses came under fire recently. The fact that male sea horses get pregnant was seen as promoting the idea of gender fluidity.)In response, the school system temporarily shut down access to the library to conduct a review — prompting an outcry from supporters of the app — then reinstated it while allowing parents to opt out their kids.Ms. Lucente finds the compromise unacceptable. What happens when a child who has been opted out overhears the lesbian question, she demands. “What position does that put our teachers in? What are they supposed to say to that?” The Epic situation, she contends, is just another example of how the board and administration are dividing the community and “failing our children and our teachers.”Ms. Lucente is not the only one with strong feelings on the matter. Multiple parents and teachers at the meeting rise to praise Epic. One teenager, a junior at Franklin High School, asserts that “censorship is stupid” and scolds adults who would “shield” students from learning about racism, antisemitism and other uncomfortable aspects of history and humanity.Welcome to Williamson County, a hot spot in the ongoing culture war engulfing America’s public schools. An affluent, highly educated, politically conservative enclave just south of Nashville, Williamson has seen its share of school-related drama over the years. In 2015, for instance, conservatives here were fired up about a seventh-grade social studies unit that some viewed as Islamic indoctrination.The trauma of the Covid pandemic has driven tensions to a new level. Last August, the district drew national attention after a mob of parents, protesting the board’s vote to impose a temporary mask mandate, turned feral. One pro-mask dad was swarmed, cursed at and threatened as he made his way from the meeting back to his car. “You can leave freely, but we will find you!” a protester raged in a video that went viral.The district has since sought to curtail the hostilities. The 25 residents who signed up to speak at this month’s meeting were allowed precisely one minute each, with a timer keeping everyone on track. Officials warned at the outset that disruptive speakers would have their remarks terminated and that those who felt unsafe could have a sheriff’s deputy escort them to their vehicles.Williamson County is obviously not the only community dealing with such frictions. School boards across the nation are being dragged onto the front lines of partisan battles. Vaccination requirements, diversity and inclusion efforts, books that make certain people feel icky — these issues and more have prompted ugly, overheated confrontations, some of them violent. Outside groups are fanning the flames, as are cynical politicians looking to juice their careers. (See: DeSantis, Ron, governor of Florida.) The day-to-day concerns of running a school district (boring stuff like budgeting and approving contracts for vendors) are increasingly being overshadowed by partisan agendas.Many people would look at the spiraling circus and think: This is bad. Low-level, nonpartisan school boards are not where these radioactive political issues should be hashed out. Someone should find a way to reduce the heat on these public servants.Instead, Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature went the other way: passing a law last fall that allows for partisan school board elections, setting up a system that not only codifies the existing toxicity but also promises to exacerbate it. So much for putting students first.The overwhelming majority of school board races around the country are nonpartisan. This was the case in Tennessee until Republican lawmakers, during an emergency session called to deal with Covid-related issues, rammed through legislation permitting county parties to hold primary elections to select school board nominees, who can then list their party affiliations on the general election ballots. It was a controversial move, and the opposition included state Democrats, droves of educators and school board officials and even some Republicans.The law’s supporters insist that partisan contests will give voters a clearer sense of school board candidates and their values and, more broadly, that they will increase involvement and public interest in what are typically low-profile races.Critics of the new system counter that the law will change the fundamental nature of the position — and not in a good way. Among their biggest fears: To win their party’s primaries, candidates will need to focus more on hot-button issues that appeal to base voters, leading to more and fiercer culture clashes. Campaigns will require more money and more partisan brawling, discouraging many people from running. Those who skip the primaries and run in general elections as independents will be at a disadvantage. (America’s two-party system is not kind to independent candidates at any political level.) And as time goes on, the pool of people who choose to run will be composed less of civic-minded parents than of partisan warriors and careerist politicians.Not all of the county parties opted to hold school board primaries this cycle, and many voters are likely not yet aware of the change. But even at this early stage, there are signs that the new law’s supporters and its detractors are both right.Pretty much everyone plugged into this drama acknowledges that the newly partisan contests have increased interest and participation in school board races.Jim Garrett is the chair of the Davidson County Republican Party, which is holding primaries for its candidates running for the Metropolitan Nashville school board. Nashville is among Tennessee’s bluer regions, where Democrats have an electoral edge. Even so, with the new system, he says, more Republicans are running, and they are raising more money. “It looks like the cost of a campaign is going to be about double what it used to be,” he estimates.The local G.O.P. is also investing more in these races. For the first time, Davidson Republicans are arranging training sessions for school board candidates. These races weren’t a focus in previous elections, says Mr. Garrett. “They are a focus now.”There hasn’t yet been special training on the Democratic side. But the county party is happy to connect candidates to campaign vendors and other resources, says its chairwoman, Tara Houston. The party has also tasked a special committee to come up with a platform outlining its basic values on public education, which Democratic school board hopefuls will be expected to support.In Williamson County, where having a D next to one’s name is a scarlet letter of sorts, most of the primary action has been on the Republican side. In multiple districts, more conventional conservatives are facing off against contenders from the party’s Trumpier wing. Outside groups have lined up behind their champions, providing financial and other support. The most prominent of these is Williamson Families, a political action committee dedicated to protecting the county’s “conservative roots” and “Judeo-Christian values.” The PAC is led by Robin Steenman, who also heads the local branch of Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit based in Florida that champions parental rights and “liberty-minded” leaders nationwide. Williamson Families has endorsed a slate of superconservatives — after weeding out the RINOs, of course.Multiple parents and teachers in Williamson complain that, as predicted, some of the campaigns and contenders seem focused less on concrete education issues than on culture-war talking points. One middle-school teacher vents to me that some candidates are bragging about their love of Donald Trump and decrying the decline of traditional families and the godlessness of today’s youth.Meagan Gillis, whose two young daughters attend county schools, says the whole situation has turned to “chaos.” She points to a social media post by a conservative candidate promoting the child furries myth: the wacky online claim that teachers are being forced to cater to students who identify as cats, to the point of putting litter boxes in classrooms and meowing at the children. “I’m like, are you kidding me?” Ms. Gillis marvels. Things are getting so absurd, she says, that her family is seriously considering moving out of the area.Similar concerns and complaints can be heard from other corners of the state. Virginia Babb has loved her time on the Knox County school board and was planning to run for re-election — until the shift to partisan races. Now she will step down at the end of her term rather than get sucked into the slime. She initially ran for the board as “a very involved parent” without strong partisan leanings, she tells me, noting: “I don’t like either party. They are too much controlled by their extremes.”So down the partisan rabbit hole Tennessee school boards are being nudged — with other states possibly to follow. Missouri, Arizona, Florida and South Carolina are among the states where lawmakers toyed less successfully with similar legislation this year. Some bills made it farther than others, and the idea is likely to keep popping up. The conservative American Enterprise Institute favors listing school board candidates’ party affiliations on ballots. A collection of conservative leaders has been exploring other ways to bring school board races more into line with other types of elections, according to Politico.All of which would indeed most likely earn school board campaigns more attention and resources and make candidates easier to ideologically sort. But at what cost to America’s children?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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      Who’s Unhappy With Schools? People Without School-Age Kids.

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      Tucked into a New Yorker article by Jill Lepore about the spate of school board fights over just about everything was a statistic that caught my eye. Despite all the ink spilled lately about clashes over masking, critical race theory and which books to assign (or ban), American parents are happy overall with their children’s education. Lepore explains:In “Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice Is Really About,” the education scholars Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Michael C. Johanek point out that about nine in 10 children in the United States attend public school, and the overwhelming majority of parents — about eight in 10 — are happy with their kids’ schools.Though I am quite happy with my children’s public school, am surrounded by parents who are mostly happy with their kids’ public schools and, when I was a kid, attended a public school that my parents were basically happy with, I was still surprised the number was that high.I would have thought that the latest numbers about parental satisfaction might be lower because of all the pandemic-related chaos. But according to Gallup, which has tracked school satisfaction annually since 1999, in 2021, “73 percent of parents of school-aged children say they are satisfied with the quality of education their oldest child is receiving.” More parents were satisfied in 2021 than they were in 2013 and 2002, when satisfaction dipped into the 60s, and in 2019, we were at a high point in satisfaction — 82 percent — before the Covid pandemic dealt schools a major blow.Digging deeper into the Gallup numbers revealed that the people who seem to be driving the negative feelings toward American schools do not have children attending them: Overall, only 46 percent of Americans are satisfied with schools. Democrats, “women, older adults and lower-income Americans are more likely than their counterparts to say they are satisfied with K-12 education,” Gallup found. My hypothesis is that it’s a bit like the adage about Congress: People tend to like their own representatives (that’s why they keep sending them back year after year) but tend to have a dim view of Congress overall.Polling done by the Charles Butt Foundation shows a similar dynamic playing out in Texas, a state where book bans have been well publicized and an anti-critical race theory bill was signed into law in December. The third annual poll, which was of 1,154 Texas adults, found:The share of public school parents giving their local public schools an A or B grade is up 12 percentage points in two years to 68 percent in the latest statewide survey on public education by the Charles Butt Foundation. In contrast with the increase among parents, there’s a decline in school ratings among those without a child currently enrolled in K-12 schools. Forty-eight percent of nonparents now give their local public schools A’s and B’s, versus 56 percent a year ago.This isn’t to say that our education system, broadly speaking, is humming along perfectly. There are so many ways it can improve, particularly in serving students in schools with higher poverty rates and those with physical disabilities and learning differences. But it does mean that we should take stories with a grain of salt when they present the American education system as a fact-free zone, no longer focused on teaching the basics, that parents are or should be fleeing from in any significant or sustained way. As the Gallup polling also showed, home-schooling is back to its prepandemic rate of 4 percent, and data from the National Center for Education Statistics found that by far the steepest drops in public school enrollment during the 2020-21 school year were among children in pre-K or kindergarten. These kids likely will not be away from public schools permanently; their start was merely delayed. It should also make us a bit more reflective about election results that are framed as a result of displeasure with schools. TargetSmart, which bills itself as a Democratic political data and data services firm, analyzed records showing who voted in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election, which has been touted as a win for the Republican, Glenn Youngkin, that was based on unhappiness over the way the previously Democratic-led state handled the pandemic in schools.TargetSmart found:Turnout among voters age 75 or older increased by 59 percent, relative to 2017, while turnout among voters under age 30 only increased by just 18 percent. Notably, turnout of all other age groups combined (18-74), which would likely include parents of school-aged children, only increased by 9 percent compared to 2017 … This “silver surge” is an untold story that fundamentally undermines the conventional wisdom that Covid-19 protocols in schools and fears about critical race theory in curriculum determined the outcome of the election.All of this at least raises the question of whether some of the people driving the outrage, even animus, against schools might not have much skin in the game and might not have any recent experience with teachers or curriculum. As we head into the midterms, at the very least we should resist easy conclusions about who is angry about what’s happening in our public schools and whether it has anything to do with the reality of what’s going on day to day for millions of children and their families.Tiny VictoriesParenting can be a grind. Let’s celebrate the tiny victories.My autistic 3-year-old grabbed my hand, led me to her bubble maker and left me there while she went to get her communication cue card. She placed my hand on the bubble machine and pointed to the word “want.” I hugged the breath out of her before I went in my closet and cried tears of joy.— Danielle Jernigan, IndianaIf you want a chance to get your Tiny Victory published, find us on Instagram @NYTparenting and use the hashtag #tinyvictories; email us; or enter your Tiny Victory at the bottom of this page. Include your full name and location. Tiny Victories may be edited for clarity and style. Your name, location and comments may be published, but your contact information will not. By submitting to us, you agree that you have read, understand and accept the Reader Submission Terms in relation to all of the content and other information you send to us. More

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      Ron DeSantis Is Gambling on Out-Trumping Trump

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      Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, is giving Donald Trump a run for his money as the most divisive politician in America.“We want people that are going to fight the left, and that’s what we need to do in this country,” DeSantis declared in an interview with Fox News on Feb. 8. “That’s what we’re doing in Florida, standing up for people’s freedoms. We’re opposing wokeness. We’re opposing all these things.”In a Nov. 5, 2021 article on the liberal Daily Beast website, “Desperate, Deranged DeSantis Devolves Into Dumb Troll,” Ruben Navarrette Jr. wrote that DeSantis “is a terrible governor who is failing his leadership course with flying colors. Driven only by politics and naked ambition, he pursues reckless policies that divide Floridians and may even put them in danger.”The governor routinely succumbs to right-wing pressure groups, Navarrette continued, “because he apparently has no core beliefs other than the unshakable conviction that he should sit in the Oval Office.”On Jan. 17, 2022, The Guardian followed up from the left:In a red-meat-for-the-base address at the opening of Florida’s legislature last week, themed around the concept of “freedom” but described by critics as a fanfare of authoritarianism, DeSantis gave a clear indication of the issues he believes are on voters’ minds. They include fighting the White House over Covid-19, ballot box fraud, critical race theory in schools and defunding law enforcement.The view from the right is starkly different.On March 14, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review, heaped praise on DeSantis as “the voice of the new Republican Party,” a politician who “opens up a vista offering an important element of Trumpism without the baggage or selfishness of Trump.”Lowry argues that DeSantis has strategically positioned himself on the cutting edge of a political movement with the potential to have “broad appeal to GOP voters of all stripes without the distracting obsessions of the former president.” This “could be one of the most persuasive arguments to Republican voters for Trump not running again — not that he needs to go away so the old party can be restored, but that he’s unnecessary because a new party has emerged.”DeSantis’s political strength among conservative voters — and the reason for the unanimous hostility toward him on the left — lies in his capacity to stay relentlessly on message.His dealings with the press result in headlines that are red meat to his conservative loyalists: “Ron DeSantis Berates Reporter Over Question About Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill,” “AP urges DeSantis to end bullying aimed at reporter,” and “DeSantis and the Media: (Not) a Love Story.”“If the corporate press nationally isn’t attacking me, then I’m probably not doing my job. So, the fact that they are attacking me is a good indication that I’m tackling the big issues,” DeSantis tweeted on Jan. 7.A Yale graduate with a law degree from Harvard, DeSantis served as an attorney in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps at Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq as a senior legal adviser to SEAL Team One. He is smart and disciplined and runs his political career like a military campaign. Lacking Trump’s impulsiveness and preference for chaos, a President DeSantis, with his attention to detail and command of the legislative process, might well match or exceed Trump as liberals’ worst nightmare.Susie Wiles, a Republican consultant who helped guide the last month of DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor, described the candidate as a “workhorse.”“It’s like watching an actor who can film the whole scene in one take,” Wiles told the Miami Herald. “He can gobble up a whole issue in one briefing, and when I saw that on my second day, I thought, ‘This is a whole different kind of thing.’ ” Wiles added, “If he doesn’t have a photographic memory, it’s close.”I asked a number of Democratic strategists which 2024 Republican nominee worried them most, Trump, DeSantis or Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.Paul Begala, a national Democratic strategist, argued by email thatDeSantis seems to be the furthest down the track on replicating Trump’s politics of grievance and bullying. For a great many Republicans, politics is no longer about allocating resources in the wisest, most equitable way. It is instead about “owning the libs.”Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, compares DeSantis to Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and finds both men disturbing. “DeSantis and Cotton are dangerous because they are both true-believer ideologues who would be smarter and more disciplined than Trump about using the levers of power to push their right-wing agendas,” Garin wrote by email, before adding:Each of them are lacking in personal charm and I don’t think voters would find either one to be particularly likable or relatable over the course of a long presidential campaign. DeSantis’s meanness in particular could come back to haunt him in a national campaign.DeSantis relishes using the state to enforce his aggressive social agenda and has consistently plotted a hard right course on issues from critical race theory to transgender rights.For example, DeSantis sponsored and pushed through the legislature the “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act” — or the Stop Woke Act for short — which now awaits his signature.The measure not only bans teaching what is known as critical race theory but also gives parents the right to sue public schools accused of teaching the theory and cuts off public funds to schools that hire critical race theory “consultants.”Among the new state guidelines:An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex. An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.A second bill, the Parental Rights in Education Act, is also on DeSantis’s desk for signature. The measure declares thatClassroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3” and that “A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate.At a March 4 news conference, DeSantis told reporters: “Clearly, right now, we see a lot of focus on transgenderism, telling kids that they may be able to pick genders and all that. I don’t think parents want that for these young kids,” before adding, “I think it’s inappropriate to be injecting those matters, like transgenderism, into a kindergarten classroom.”On April 10, 2021, DeSantis signed the “Combating Public Disorder Act,” a conservative response to Black Lives Matter and other protests that turn violent or destructive. On Sept. 9, 2021, however, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blocked enforcement of the law because a person of “ordinary intelligence” could not be sure if he or she broke the law while participating nonviolently in a protest that turned violent:The vagueness of this definition forces would-be protesters to make a choice between declining to jointly express their views with others or risk being arrested and spending time behind bars, with the associated collateral risks to employment and financial well-being.DeSantis has capitalized on Florida’s outdoor culture to become the nation’s leading opponent of mask mandates and lockdowns of schools and businesses, including a May 3, 2021, executive order declaring:In order to protect the rights and liberties of individuals in this State and to accelerate the State’s recovery from the Covid-19 emergency, any emergency order issued by a political subdivision due to the Covid-19 emergency which restricts the rights or liberties of individuals or their businesses is invalidated.For DeSantis, the pandemic offered the opportunity to distinguish himself from Trump. In January, Jonathan Chait described his strategy in New York Magazine:Where Trump was tiptoeing around vaccine skepticism, DeSantis jumped in with both feet, banning private companies like cruise lines from requiring vaccination, appointing a vaccine skeptic to his state’s highest office, and refusing to say if he’s gotten his booster dose.DeSantis “may or may not actually be more delusional on Covid than Donald Trump,” Chait wrote, “but it is a revealing commentary on the state of their party that he sees his best chance to supplant Trump as positioning himself as even crazier.”Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, has a similar take on the Trump-DeSantis Covid feud, writing on Jan. 18:What’s suddenly intriguing is that DeSantis has decided to try to outflank Trump, to out-Trump Trump, in terms of his hard-trolling of the libs on the vaccine question. And it’s Trump —Donald Trump! — who is playing the role of civilizing, normalizing truth teller.Politically speaking, however, DeSantis’s stance on Covid policy, together with his culture war agenda, has been a success. His favorability ratings have soared and in the third quarter of 2021, the most recent data available, Florida’s gross domestic product grew by 3.8 percent, third fastest in the nation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, behind Hawaii and Delaware.DeSantis’s aggressive posture and threats to bring legal action have created anxiety about retribution in some quarters. In January, for example, Dr. Raul Pino, the administrator for the Florida Department of Health’s office in Orange County, wrote his staff to say that only 77 of 558 staff members had received a Covid-19 booster, 219 had two doses of the vaccine and 34 had only one dose, according to reporting by my colleague Patricia Mazzei in The Times. “I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” Dr. Pino added. He went on: “We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50 percent. Pathetic.”Shortly afterward, Pino was put on administrative leave for a month. Jeremy T. Redfern, the press secretary for the Department of Health, said when the leave of absence was announced that the department was “conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case.” Redfern said in a statement that the decision to get vaccinated “is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers.”This and other similar developments have certainly not hurt DeSantis’s poll numbers. The latest survey released Feb. 24 by Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida not only found that “of the elected officials on this survey, Governor Ron DeSantis had the highest job approval rating at 58 percent, with 37 percent disapproval,” but also that Florida Republicans preferred DeSantis over Trump 44-41 as their presidential nominee.John Feehery, a Republican lobbyist who previously worked for the party’s House leaders, argues that DeSantis isattuned to the libertarian impulses of an electorate that simply doesn’t trust the conventional wisdom coming out of Washington. DeSantis also seems willing to court cultural conservatives in ways that most Washington politicians don’t, like with the sex education bill that he signed. DeSantis also seems willing to take on big corporations for their wokeness, a potent issue among the G.O.P. base.Feehery described DeSantis as “a wild-card,” noting “he was also right on Covid, which took an incredible amount of courage.”As governor, DeSantis is wary when he senses the potential for blowback, waiting days before commenting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When he finally did so, his comments were largely focused on domestic politics.At a Feb. 28 news conference, DeSantis placed blame for the invasion on the “weakness” of the Biden administration while lavishing praise on Trump: “When Obama was president, Putin took Crimea. When Trump was president, they didn’t take anything. And now Biden’s president and they’re rolling into Ukraine,” DeSantis said, arguing that Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was a “total catastrophe” that emboldened Putin.Along with supporters, DeSantis has many harsh critics.Nancy Isenberg, a historian at L.S.U. and the author of “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America,” wrote by email that “DeSantis is yet another Ivy League graduate of Yale and Harvard, pretending to be one of the people,” adding thatDeSantis represents a tried and true feature of American politics: You pretend to care about the “common man,” speaking his language, and while his gaze is captivated by the dazzling show, as Lyndon Johnson remarked of poor white rage, “he won’t notice you’re picking his pockets.”Anthony Brunello, a professor of political science at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., wrote in an email that “Ron DeSantis is like Trump in that he is a creature of power.” Brunello posed the question, “Who believes in their ideology more — Trump or DeSantis?” DeSantis, he answered:His conservative values lean against responding to climate change, dealing with environmental problems, providing health care, establishing disaster insurance on a statewide basis, improving social services, rebuilding infrastructure, improving public education, improving the foster care system, protecting the ocean and coastline and fisheries, moving on prison reform, protecting the right to vote and so on. DeSantis has no plans to do any of those things in a state that needs them all. Instead, he is deep into culture wars, battling against critical race theory — and backing anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation — because it will win votes and hold that conservative core. He calculates Trump will fade in the months to come and he will pick up the pieces.DeSantis is running for re-election this year and is clearly favored to win a second term. He has raised more than $86 million, dwarfing the seven-figure totals collected by the two leading Democratic contenders, former governor Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried, the Florida commissioner of agriculture.Campaign finance in Florida is a major deregulated industry in itself.Large donors to DeSantis, according to the website Florida Politics, include:$200,000 from a single source, West Palm Beach-based company Kane Financial. Two political committees also wrote six-figure checks. The Strong Communities of Southwest Florida PC and The Committee for Justice, Transportation and Business, both chaired by lobbyist David Ramba, each donated $150,000. Floridians for Positive Change and Focused on Florida’s Future PC, two other Ramba-headed political committees, also wrote $75,000 checks to Friends of Ron DeSantis this month.DeSantis has dismissed speculation that he will run for president in 2024 as “nonsense,” but Trump does not believe him. How do we know this? Because Trump has issued a series of direct and indirect hostile comments targeting DeSantis, but often without naming him.On Jan. 12, Trump criticized “politicians” who refuse to say whether they have been vaccinated: “The answer is ‘Yes,’ but they don’t want to say it, because they’re gutless.”Axios reported on Jan. 16 that Trump was telling associates that DeSantis is “an ingrate with a ‘dull personality’ and no realistic chance of beating him in a potential 2024 showdown.”Trump, whose own interest in running for president grew after Barack Obama baited him at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ dinner, should know better than to toss insults at a politician like DeSantis — a bulldog who does not back down from a fight.As Rich Lowry, whose admiration for DeSantis I discussed earlier, wrote in Politico on Jan. 20, 2022:The Trump-DeSantis story line is inherently alluring, considering the chances of a collision between two men who have been allies and the possibility of the subordinate in the relationship, DeSantis, eclipsing the figure who helped to elevate him into what he is today.Some version of what DeSantis represents, Lowry continued, “has the greatest odds of coaxing the party away from Trump and forging a new political synthesis that bears the unmistakable stamp of Trump while jettisoning his flaws.”Lowry even suggested a line of attack: that Trump “elevated Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, early in the pandemic and listened to his advice for too long”; that “despite all his talk of building a border wall, Trump didn’t get it done and left a desperately flawed immigration system intact, even though he had two years of a Republican Congress”; that Trump “rattled China’s cage but didn’t make fundamental changes”; and that Trump “lost to Joe Biden, a desperately flawed candidate who only made it into the White House because Trump made himself so unpopular.”For DeSantis, there is nothing to gain by declaring now what he will do in 2024. Instead, he continues to gain national stature as his builds a powerful fund-raising base, stressing themes that draw support from conservatives in Florida and from across the nation.In one fund-raising solicitation, DeSantis warns of “cultural Marxism,” according to the website Florida Politics, telling prospective donors: “We delivered on a promise to the people of Florida by banning critical race theory. This ‘curriculum’ of hate and divisiveness has no place in society, let alone our schools. Critical race theory indoctrinates our children and teaches them to judge each other as ‘oppressors,’ ‘inherent racists’ and ‘victims.’”A second DeSantis fund-raising letter reads: “Joe Biden might want Governor DeSantis to get out of the way so he can impose his radical agenda, but Governor DeSantis will not kowtow to authoritarian bullying from Joe Biden or anyone else.”Not only do these themes stand ready for use in a presidential bid, but their very pugnacity suggests that Trump may want to reconsider his provocative bullying strategy when it comes to DeSantis.DeSantis has a wide range of options. He has positioned himself as a leading 2024 presidential candidate, if Trump falters. If Trump does run and looks unbeatable in the race for the nomination, DeSantis can hold back and wait until 2028, when he will be 50 — the prime of life for a presidential candidate.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