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      United Auto Workers Usher In New Era of Leadership

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      Shawn Fain, who ousted the incumbent president, is presiding over a convention to chart the union’s approach in contract talks this year.The United Auto Workers union has opened a new chapter in its storied history, and it may end up looking a lot like its combative past.Over the weekend, the 88-year-old union confirmed that an outsider, Shawn Fain, had prevailed in a hotly contested election for president, ousting the incumbent. An electrician whose father and grandfathers were also U.A.W. members, Mr. Fain has promised to take a tough negotiating line for increased wages in contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.“It is a new day for the U.A.W.,” Mr. Fain said on Monday at the start of a three-day convention, where hundreds of delegates will hammer out priorities and strategies for the contract talks that will formally open this summer.“We are here to come together for the war against our one and only true enemy — the multibillion-dollar corporations and employers who refuse to give our members their fair share,” Mr. Fain said.He opened his address by shouting, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” — drawing out the final word in the style of the famed boxing ring announcer Michael Buffer.Mr. Fain, 54, won by a razor-thin margin after prolonged vote-counting and more than two weeks of wrangling over some 1,600 challenged ballots. With the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes — 483 more than the incumbent, Ray Curry. Mr. Fain was declared the victor, and Mr. Curry conceded, when the margin exceeded the number of ballots still under challenge.The election was the first in the U.A.W.’s history in which the president and the union’s other senior executives were chosen through direct balloting of members. In the past, the leadership was chosen by delegates, a system in which favors and favoritism played a heavy role.T-shirts on display at the convention showed support for the union faction led by Mr. Fain. Rebecca Cook/ReutersThe democratic election had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the U.A.W.’s efforts to carry out anti-corruption reforms. The monitor was appointed as part of a 2021 settlement of a federal investigation that found that top union officials had embezzled more than $1.5 million from membership dues and $3.5 million from training centers, and had spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials, including two former presidents, pleaded guilty.Mr. Curry was not a target of the corruption investigation but many members saw him as linked to the establishment that had been running the union for years.Mr. Fain takes office along with several other outsiders running on his slate who were elected to senior posts by convincing margins. They won support from members who were angered over the corruption scandals and wanted an executive team that would push harder for higher wages and other demands in contract talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the automaker formed through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A.Decades ago, the U.A.W. had more than 1.5 million members and the power to influence presidential elections and demand steady increases in wages and benefits. When the manufacturers resisted, it called strikes that shut down a large part of the industry. Over the years, the U.A.W.’s gains helped lift wages and living standards for a broad swath of manufacturing workers across the United States.But its influence declined as the Detroit automakers struggled. When G.M. and Chrysler were reorganized in bankruptcy court in 2009, the union made concessions on wages and benefits that it has not won back, and it has had to weather the closing of dozens of plants. It now has about 400,000 members.The contract talks come after years in which G.M., Ford and Stellantis have been reporting record results and have paid significant sums to workers in profit-sharing bonuses. In 2022, for example, G.M. made a profit of $9.9 billion and paid a bonus of $12,750 to each of its U.A.W. workers.Members want Mr. Fain to fight for wage increases to offset inflation, an end to a two-tier wage system that pays newer workers significantly less than veterans and assurances that new plants will be built in the United States rather than abroad.At the convention, the rank and file appeared to back Mr. Fain, despite his narrow margin of victory.“I’m ready to strike,” said Romaine McKinney III, an electrician at a Stellantis stamping plant in Warren, Mich. “We have to show these companies that we are ready to walk out.”Jamonty Washington, a worker at a Detroit plant where Stellantis makes Jeeps, said he started his job 12 years ago making just under $16 an hour — working next to a colleague making $31 an hour. He has worked his way up to $30 an hour, he said, but thinks the union has to fight to eliminate such differences in pay.“Equal pay for equal work,” he said. “It’s time for this union to get back to being militant — not asking but demanding.” More

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      Trump ya no controla a su movimiento

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      El intercambio más revelador en el mitin de Donald Trump en Waco, Texas, el sábado, no vino del propio Trump. Ocurrió al principio, cuando Ted Nugent, una vieja estrella del rock, animaba a la multitud. “Quiero que me devuelvan mi dinero”, gritó. “No autoricé ningún dinero a Ucrania, a un tipo raro y homosexual”.Momentos después, en Real America’s Voice, un canal de televisión de extrema derecha, el excorresponsal de Fox News Ed Henry calificó de “asombrosas” las palabras de Nugent “sobre Zelenski” y sobre el financiamiento a Ucrania. Luego resumió la carrera hacia el fondo del movimiento trumpista en una frase sucinta: “Está canalizando el sentir de muchos estadounidenses”.En efecto. Y también todos los oradores del maratónico mitin de Trump. Uno tras otro, miraron a una multitud enardecida y adepta a las conspiraciones y consintieron, alimentaron y avivaron cada elemento de su furiosa visión del mundo. No vi a ningún verdadero líder en el escenario de Trump, ni siquiera al propio Trump. Vi una colección de seguidores, cada uno compitiendo por el afecto del verdadero poder en Waco, la turba populista adulada.Para entender la dinámica social y política de la derecha moderna, hay que comprender cómo es que millones de estadounidenses se inocularon contra la verdad. Durante las primarias republicanas de 2016 no faltaron líderes ni comentaristas republicanos dispuestos a poner en evidencia a Trump. John McCain y Mitt Romney, los dos candidatos presidenciales anteriores del partido, incluso dieron el extraordinario paso de condenar a su sucesor en términos inequívocos.Sin embargo, cada vez que Trump se enfrentaba a la oposición, él y sus aliados llamaban a los críticos “elitistas”, “noticias falsas”, “débiles” o “cobardes”. Era mucho más fácil decir que los detractores de Trump tenían el “síndrome de enajenación de Trump”, o que eran “simples títeres de la clase dominante”, que comprometerse con una crítica sustancial. Así comenzó la adulación a la mente populista (irónico para un movimiento que se deleitaba llamando “copos de nieve” —que no aguantan nada— a los estudiantes progresistas).El desacuerdo en la derecha se convirtió de inmediato en sinónimo de falta de respeto. Si “nosotros, el pueblo” (el término que los partidarios de Trump aplican a lo que ellos llaman el “Estados Unidos de verdad”) creemos algo, entonces el pueblo merece que sus políticos y expertos reflejen esa opinión.Lo vemos en los documentos internos de Fox News que salieron a la luz en el litigio por difamación de Dominion, en el que Dominion Voting Systems demandó a Fox News por difundir afirmaciones falsas sobre las máquinas de votación después de las elecciones de 2020. En repetidas ocasiones, los líderes y personalidades de Fox que no parecían creer que las elecciones de 2020 fueron robadas se refirieron a la necesidad de “respetar” a su audiencia al decirles lo contrario. Para estos empleados de Fox, respetar a la audiencia no significaba transmitir la verdad (un verdadero acto de respeto). Por el contrario, significaba alimentar el hambre insaciable de los espectadores por confirmar sus teorías conspirativas.Fui testigo directo de este fenómeno al principio de la era Trump. Conversaba con un pequeño grupo de pastores evangélicos sobre cómo los evangélicos blancos ya no valoraban la buena reputación de los políticos. En comparación con otros grupos cristianos y estadounidenses no afiliados, los evangélicos blancos pasaron de ser el grupo menos propenso en 2011 a creer que “un funcionario electo que comete un acto inmoral en su vida personal puede, a pesar de ello, comportarse con ética y cumplir su deber” al grupo más propenso a excusar a los políticos inmorales en 2016, según una encuesta del Public Religion Research Institute/Bookings Institution.En esa conversación hablé de la Resolución de la Convención Bautista del Sur de 1998 sobre la moralidad de los funcionarios públicos. Aprobada durante el punto álgido del escándalo en torno a la aventura de Bill Clinton con Monica Lewinsky, declaraba un compromiso cristiano con la integridad política en términos inequívocos. “La tolerancia de las faltas graves por parte de los líderes”, decía, “cauteriza la conciencia de la cultura, engendra inmoralidad desenfrenada y anarquía en la sociedad, y sin duda resulta en el juicio de Dios”.Cuando le recordé esas palabras al grupo, un pastor de Alabama planteó una objeción: “Eso les va a parecer elitista a muchos miembros de mi congregación”. Yo estaba confundido. Un pastor bautista me estaba diciendo que a su congregación le parecería “elitista” una declaración reciente de creencia bautista. Quedó claro que muchos bautistas creían en su propia resolución cuando se refería a Clinton, pero no cuando se refería a Trump.Los políticos siempre tienen la tentación de ser complacientes, pero rara vez se ve una abdicación tan completa de cualquier cosa que se acerque a un verdadero liderazgo moral o político como lo que ocurrió en el mitin de Waco. Comenzó con esa ridícula e irrelevante declaración sobre Volodímir Zelenski (¿qué tiene que ver su orientación sexual con la rectitud de la causa ucraniana?); continuó con Mike Lindell, de MyPillow, quien repitió aseveraciones electorales totalmente falsas y terminó con un airado, aunque repetitivo, discurso de Trump, también plagado de falsedades.Y si se piensa por un momento que hay algún arrepentimiento en el mundo de Trump por la insurrección del 6 de enero de 2021, el mitin ofreció una respuesta contundente. Antes de su discurso, Trump se puso de pie —con la mano sobre el corazón— mientras escuchaba una canción llamada “Justicia para todos”, que grabó con algo llamado el “Coro de la Prisión J6”, un grupo de hombres encarcelados por asaltar el Capitolio. La canción consiste en que el coro canta el himno nacional mientras Trump recita el juramento a la bandera.Es habitual criticar el movimiento trumpista como un culto a Donald Trump, pero eso ya no es del todo correcto. Sigue teniendo una influencia enorme, pero ¿acaso los verdaderos sectarios abuchean a su líder cuando se desvía del guion aprobado? Sin embargo, eso es lo que ocurrió en diciembre de 2021, pues una parte de la multitud de un mitin en Dallas abucheó a Trump cuando dijo que se había puesto un refuerzo de la vacuna contra la covid. ¿Y alguien cree que Trump es aficionado a QAnon? Sin embargo, en 2022 impulsó contenido explícito de Q en Truth Social, su plataforma de redes sociales preferida.Quizá haya habido un momento en el que Trump de verdad dirigiera su movimiento. Ese tiempo ya pasó. Ahora es su movimiento el que manda. Alimentado por teorías de la conspiración, está hambriento de confrontación, y mítines como el de Waco demuestran su dominio. Como el pirata que se planta frente al personaje de Tom Hanks en la popular película de 2013 Capitán Phillips, la derecha populista se planta frente al Partido Republicano, los medios conservadores e incluso los republicanos de base reticentes y lanza un único y sencillo mensaje: “Ahora yo soy el capitán”.David French es columnista de opinión del New York Times. Es abogado, escritor y veterano de la Operación Libertad Iraquí. Es un exlitigante constitucional y su libro más reciente es Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. @DavidAFrench More

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      Scotland’s National Party Picks Humza Yousaf to Succeed Sturgeon

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      Humza Yousaf is on course to become the first Muslim to lead a democratic western European nation, and when that happens, he will confront several daunting obstacles.The pro-independence Scottish National Party on Monday elected Humza Yousaf, the country’s health secretary, as its top official, putting the 37-year-old minister on track to become the first Muslim to lead a democratic western European nation.Mr. Yousaf emerged with a narrow victory in a bruising leadership race that followed the surprise resignation last month of Nicola Sturgeon, who had dominated Scottish politics for almost a decade as the country’s first minister and leader of the S.N.P.In choosing Mr. Yousaf, members of his party opted for the candidate thought most likely to stick with Ms. Sturgeon’s progressive agenda, rejecting a more socially conservative contender, Kate Forbes.“We will be the generation that delivers independence for Scotland,” said Mr. Yousaf after the result was announced, and before a vote on Tuesday in the Scottish Parliament to confirm him as the country’s first minister.As the new leader of the S.N.P. — the largest party in Scotland’s Parliament — that should be a formality. But, referring to some of the wider problems he faces, Mr. Yousaf appealed for unity after a divisive leadership contest that fractured a party previously renowned for its discipline.“Where there are divisions to heal we must do so and do so quickly because we have a job to do, and as a party we are at our strongest when we are united,” he said.In a sometimes emotional victory speech, Mr. Yousaf thanked his family, including his deceased grandparents, who emigrated to Scotland.“I am forever thankful that my grandparents made the trip from the Punjab to Scotland over 60 years ago,” he told the audience at Murrayfield, Scotland’s national rugby stadium, where the leadership results were announced. “As immigrants to this country, who knew barely a word of English, they could not have imagined their grandson would one day be on the cusp of being the next first minister of Scotland.”Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a research institute that focuses on identity issues, described Mr. Yousaf as “the first Muslim to be elected as a national leader in any western democracy,” writing that it was “a breakthrough moment that should resonate well beyond Scotland.”That in part reflects a growing diversity in the higher reaches of British politics. Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish opposition Labour Party, is also Muslim, while Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak, follows the Hindu faith.Though Mr. Yousaf was on top after the first ballot, he failed to win more than half of the votes cast by party members in the initial round of voting, as required to win the race. But once the third-place candidate, Ash Regan, was eliminated and her votes were redistributed, Mr. Yousaf won 52.1 percent, to 47.9 percent for Ms. Forbes.Scotland’s outgoing first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, center, at an heatlh center in Fife. She had dominated Scottish politics for almost a decadePeter Summers/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHaving served as transport minister, justice secretary and health secretary, Mr. Yousaf was seen as the preferred candidate of the party’s establishment, but his record in government was questioned by his opponents.“You were transport minister and the trains were never on time, when you were justice secretary the police were stretched to breaking point, and now as health minister we’ve got record high waiting times,” said Ms. Forbes, his main challenger, during a televised leadership debate.The social conservatism and strong religious beliefs of Ms. Forbes, who was on maternity leave from her position of finance secretary when Ms. Sturgeon quit, featured prominently in the leadership contest.A member of the evangelical Free Church of Scotland, Ms. Forbes said she would have voted against single-sex marriage had she been in the Scottish Parliament when it was approved in 2014, and that she believed that having children outside of marriage is “wrong” according to her faith.Another social question — gender recognition — became a political battleground just before Ms. Sturgeon’s resignation, when Britain’s government rejected legislation from Scotland’s Parliament making it easier for people to change their gender. Mr. Yousaf said on Monday that he would seek to challenge the British government’s decision.Had Ms. Forbes been elected, the Scottish Greens might have withdrawn their support for the S.N.P.-led government in Edinburgh, reducing it to a minority administration.The new leader faces numerous challenges both in replacing Ms. Sturgeon, who was a popular leader and skilled communicator, and in charting a course to independence.Ms. Sturgeon took over the leadership after Scots voted by 55 percent to 45 percent against independence in a referendum in 2014. Since then, sentiment on the issue has not shifted significantly.Ms. Sturgeon’s resignation came after the British Supreme Court ruled that a second referendum could not be held without the agreement of Britain’s government in London, which opposes such a move. Mr. Yousaf’s task will be to try build support for independence to such a level — perhaps around 60 percent in opinion polls — that it would be politically impossible for London to ignore calls for another vote.His leadership victory also has implications for the rest of Britain, where a general election must take place by January 2025. If the result is close, the S.N.P.’s performance could play a decisive role in determining the next prime minister.Given the divisions within the S.N.P. and the difficulties replacing Ms. Sturgeon, Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, which once dominated Scottish politics but has seen its influence dwindle as the S.N.P. gathered strength, now senses an opportunity to claw back some of its old seats in Scotland. More

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      Taiwan’s Ex-President, Ma Ying-yeou, Heads to China in a Historic Visit

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      Though his visit is not official, it is nonetheless significant and may offer clues to political calculations on both sides of the increasingly tense Taiwan Strait.TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s former president, Ma Ying-jeou, landed in China on Monday in the first visit to the country by any sitting or former Taiwanese leader since China’s civil war ended with the Nationalist government retreating to the island from the mainland in 1949.Though the 12-day visit by Mr. Ma, who was president from 2008 to 2016, is unofficial, it is likely to be watched closely at home and abroad for clues on how Beijing might seek to influence Taiwan, its democratic neighbor, ahead of a presidential election in January. The timing of Mr. Ma’s trip is also noteworthy because he departed just days before Taiwan’s current leader, President Tsai Ing-wen, visits the United States, a trip that has been met with objections by China, which claims Taiwan as its territory.The contrasting destinations highlight what each politician’s party sees as its advantage. Ms. Tsai, of the Democratic Progressive Party, has strengthened U.S.-Taiwan ties during her eight years in office, while the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, to which Mr. Ma belongs, bills itself as better able to deal with Beijing.President Tsai Ing-wen, right, and Mr. Ma, in 2016 when she was sworn in. Mr. Ma’s efforts to bring Taiwan closer to China had brought citizens out into the streets in protest.Pool photo by Taipei Photojournalists AssociationPresident Tsai will leave Taiwan on Wednesday for a trip to Central America, with what officials have described as transit stops in the United States planned in New York and Los Angeles. Beijing has said it “strongly opposed” Ms. Tsai’s planned U.S. trip and any form of contact between the United States and Taiwan’s authorities. On Saturday, in a blow to Taipei’s international standing shortly before Ms. Tsai’s overseas trip, Honduras announced it was severing diplomatic ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing.In China, news of Mr. Ma’s pending arrival drew praise from the Taiwan Affairs Office. When he landed in Shanghai on Monday, he was welcomed at the airport by officials from that office and the city government. The former president is leading a delegation of Taiwanese students to promote cross-strait educational exchanges, which took off during his presidency, but dwindled in recent years, both because of the pandemic and because of Beijing’s disapproval of Ms. Tsai. Mr. Ma, who declined to comment for this article, will also visit the graves of his ancestors in Hunan Province.“Ma underlining his familial roots in China at the precise moment when Tsai is highlighting U.S.-Taiwan ties will provide very contrasting visuals, and influence Taiwanese voters’ perception of where Taiwan’s two main political parties stand on U.S.-China relations,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University’s Taiwan Studies Program. “Having served as Taiwan’s president for eight years, his every move will carry political significance, whether he likes it or not.”Beijing’s cultivation of Mr. Ma and the Kuomintang, once the mortal enemy of Mao Zedong’s Communists, is a concession that China must make to Taiwan’s democracy, Mr. Sung said.“Beijing has learned from past experience that whenever it uses fire-and-fury rhetoric against Taiwan, that usually backfires, and helps to elect the very Taiwanese nationalist politicians who are unfavorable to Beijing,” Mr. Sung said. “So, instead, recently Beijing has been seeking to extend an olive branch towards Taiwan, and where possible to lend a hand to what it sees as the relatively Beijing-friendlier voices in Taiwan.”Mr. Ma’s trip to China is the most recent high-profile interaction between China and Kuomintang officials.In February, the newly elected mayor of Taipei, Chiang Wan-an, welcomed a delegation from the Shanghai branch of the Taiwan Affairs Office. Andrew Hsia, a Kuomintang vice chairman, went to China and met with Wang Huning and Song Tao, two key figures in Beijing’s Taiwan strategy.The Kuomintang and its leader, Chiang Kai-shek, were driven off the mainland and to Taiwan in 1949 by the Communists in the war for control of China. In Taiwan, the Kuomintang imposed authoritarian rule and a Chinese identity on the island until 1987, when the government ended 38 years of martial law, opening the way for democracy and the re-emergence of Taiwanese identity.The United States ambassador to China, Patrick J. Hurley, with China’s Nationalist president, Chiang Kai-shek, and his Communist rival Mao Zedong, in 1945, in a photo provided by Taiwan’s Central News Agency.Central News Agency, via Associated PressSince then, relations between the Kuomintang in Taiwan and the Communists in China have warmed, with Mr. Ma at the forefront of the push for closer cross-strait ties.In 2014, his efforts to bring Taiwan closer to China brought citizens out into the streets in protest, and a subsequent election swept Ms. Tsai and her D.P.P. into power in the executive and legislative branches. In 2015, Mr. Ma faced criticism at home for his decision to meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Singapore in the first-ever encounter between leaders of the two sides.Roughly half of Taiwan’s voters are unaffiliated with either the Kuomintang or the D.P.P., forcing both parties toward the center of the political spectrum to win votes. For Mr. Ma and the Kuomintang, this means appearing to be in favor of Taiwan’s continued sovereignty, while also having good relations with a Communist Party that claims Taiwan and has not ruled out taking it by force.“I see Ma’s visit as a form of performative politics for Kuomintang voters and potential voters,” said James Lin, a historian of Taiwan at the University of Washington. “This reflects a core Kuomintang foreign policy — they are able to deal with Beijing pragmatically and maintain friendly relations to secure peace for Taiwan.”Amy Chang Chien More

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      At the Waco Rally and Beyond, Trump’s Movement Now Commands Him

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      The most telling exchange in Donald Trump’s Waco, Texas, rally on Saturday didn’t come from Trump himself. It came at the beginning, when the aging rock star Ted Nugent was warming up the crowd. “I want my money back,” he yelled. “I didn’t authorize any money to Ukraine, to some homosexual weirdo.”Moments later, speaking on Real America’s Voice, a far-right television channel, the former Fox News correspondent Ed Henry called Nugent’s words “about Zelensky” and about funding for Ukraine, “amazing.” He then summed up the Trumpist movement’s race to the bottom in one succinct line: “He is channeling what a lot of Americans feel.”Yes, he is. And so did virtually every speaker at Trump’s marathon rally. One after another, they looked at a seething, conspiracy-addled crowd and indulged, fed, and stoked every element of their furious worldview. I didn’t see a single true leader on Trump’s stage, not even Trump himself. I saw a collection of followers, each vying for the affection of the real power in Waco, the coddled populist mob.To understand the social and political dynamic on the modern right, you have to understand how millions of Americans became inoculated against the truth. Throughout the 2016 Republican primaries, there was no shortage of Republican leaders and commentators who were willing to call out Trump. John McCain and Mitt Romney, the party’s two previous presidential nominees, even took the extraordinary step of condemning their successor in no uncertain terms.Yet every time Trump faced pushback, he and his allies called critics “elitist” or “fake news” or “weak” or “cowards.” It was much easier to say the Trump skeptics had “Trump derangement syndrome,” or were “just establishment stooges,” than to engage with substantive critique. Thus began the coddling of the populist mind (ironic for a movement that delighted in calling progressive students “snowflakes”).Disagreement on the right quickly came to be seen as synonymous with disrespect. If “we the people” (the term Trump partisans apply to what they call the “real America”) believe something, then the people deserve to have that view reflected right back to them by their politicians and pundits.We see this in the internal Fox News documents that surfaced in the Dominion defamation litigation, in which Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for broadcasting false claims about its voting machines after the 2020 election. Repeatedly, Fox leaders and personalities who did not seem to believe the 2020 election was stolen referred to the need to “respect” their audience by telling them otherwise. For these Fox staffers, respecting the audience didn’t mean relaying the truth (a true act of respect). Instead, it meant feeding viewers’ insatiable hunger for confirmation of their conspiracy theories.I saw this phenomenon firsthand early in the Trump era. I was speaking to a small group of Evangelical pastors about how white Evangelicals no longer valued good character in politicians. Compared to other Christian groups and unaffiliated Americans, white Evangelicals went from the group least likely to believe that “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties” in 2011 to the group most likely to excuse immoral politicians in 2016.In that conversation I discussed the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention Resolution On Moral Character Of Public Officials. Passed during the height of the scandal around Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, it declared a Christian commitment to political integrity in no uncertain terms. “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders,” it said, “sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”When I reminded the group of that language, a pastor from Alabama raised an objection. “That’s going to sound elitist to lots of folks in my congregation,” he said. I was confused. Here was a Baptist pastor telling me that his congregation would find a recent statement of Baptist belief “elitist.” It became clear that many Baptists believed their own resolution when it applied to Clinton, but not when it applied to Trump.Politicians are always tempted to pander, but rarely do you see such a complete abdication of anything approaching true moral or political leadership as what transpired at the Waco rally. It began with that ridiculous and irrelevant statement about Zelensky (what does his sexual orientation have to do with the rightness of Ukraine’s cause?); continued with MyPillow’s Mike Lindell repeating wildly false election claims; and ended with an angry, albeit boilerplate Trump stump speech that was also littered with falsehoods.And if you think for a moment that there’s any Trumpworld regret over the Jan. 6 insurrection, the rally provided a decisive response. At the beginning of Trump’s speech, he stood — hand over his heart — while he listened to a song called “Justice for All,” which he recorded with something called the “J6 Prison Choir,” a group of men imprisoned for storming the Capitol. The song consists of the choir singing the national anthem while Trump recites the Pledge of Allegiance.It’s common to critique the Trumpist movement as a Donald Trump cult, but that’s not quite right anymore. He’s still immensely influential, but do true cultists boo their leader when he deviates from the approved script? Yet that’s what happened in December 2021, when parts of a Dallas rally crowd booed Trump when he said he’d received a Covid vaccine booster. And does anyone think that Trump is a QAnon aficionado? Yet in 2022 he boosted explicit Q content on Truth Social, his social media platform of choice.There may have been a time when Trump truly commanded his movement. That time is past. His movement now commands him. Fed by conspiracies, it is hungry for confrontation, and rallies like Waco demonstrate its dominance. Like the pirate standing in front of Tom Hanks in the popular 2013 film “Captain Phillips,” the populist right stands in front of the G.O.P., conservative media, and even reluctant rank-and-file Republicans and delivers a single, simple message: “I’m the captain now.”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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      President Is Ousted in United Auto Workers Election

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      Shawn Fain, an insurgent, edged Ray Curry after calling for a harder line in contract talks. The union has been dogged by corruption scandals.An insurgent candidate has won the presidency of the United Auto Workers union, potentially setting the organization on a more confrontational path as it heads into contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.Shawn Fain, a 54-year-old electrician who has been a member of the union for almost three decades, defeated the incumbent, Ray Curry, after a monthslong election battle in which Mr. Fain’s allies won seats across the union’s executive board.Mr. Fain claimed victory on Saturday, and Mr. Curry conceded, as a court-appointed election monitor neared the end of the vote count.Mr. Curry, a 57-year-old former assembly line worker with a master’s degree in business administration, was appointed president in 2021 after a broad federal investigation into a series of corruption scandals. He had carried out a number of reforms but ultimately was seen by many members as not enough of a break with previous presidents and executives linked to wrongdoing.Ray Curry was appointed president of the United Auto Workers in 2021.Carlos Osorio/Associated PressWith the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes, or 50.2 percent, and Mr. Curry had 68,976, according to an unofficial tally. The count had gone on for weeks, prolonged by the inspection of challenged ballots.Mr. Curry said Mr. Fain would be sworn in on Sunday and would preside over a convention to hammer out plans for the contract talks.The vote was a runoff after a contest in November in which Mr. Curry collected about 600 more votes than Mr. Fain but neither man reached the 50 percent threshold to be declared the winner.“The winds of change run strongly through this election,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It defines the direction of the U.A.W. going forward.”Mr. Fain said he intended to be more confrontational in contract negotiations, a position that appealed to members after years of concessions on wages and benefits and following corruption scandals that ended with two former presidents serving time in prison.“This is the end of company unionism, where the companies and the union work together in a friendly way, because it hasn’t been good for our members,” he said in an interview as the vote count neared completion. “These companies have enjoyed record profits for a decade, and our workers are still regressing and struggling to get by.”Insurgents aligned with him won a majority of offices on the union’s international executive board — an outcome widely seen as reflecting the members’ desire for significant change at the top of the union.But Mr. Fain and the new administration have little experience in running the union’s operations.It was the first election open to all members of the union, and had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the union’s efforts to wipe out corruption. Previously, the union’s presidents and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, in which the result was often determined by favors and favoritism and did not always reflect the sentiments of rank-and-file workers.“I knew our members were fed up,” Mr. Fain said. “It was just a matter of whether they were willing to vote for change, because they’ve never been able to do that before.”The shake-up comes as the U.A.W. is about to start talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis on four-year labor contracts. The talks come as the automakers are again earning significant profits. G.M. reported profits of $9.9 billion for 2022. Ford reported a loss, but its North American operation remains its main profit generator. Stellantis, which was formed by a merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA in 2021, made 17 billion euros, with a large share coming from North America.It also occurs as the automakers are making the transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric ones, which have fewer moving parts and require less labor.“The union is in the midst of a most important transition since the introduction of the assembly line with the move toward electric vehicles, and that could result in the loss of a lot of automotive jobs,” Professor Shaiken said. “How the new leadership navigates that will impact the U.A.W. and the labor movement.”For decades after its founding in 1935, the U.A.W. had the power to influence presidential elections and consistently won middle-class wages and benefits that set the standard for workers in many industries across the country. At its peak, in 1979, it had 1.5 million members.But the U.A.W.’s membership and influence steadily declined as the Detroit automakers faced increasing competition from Toyota and other foreign automakers that were building nonunion plants across the South. As those rivals gained a greater foothold, the American companies reduced their payrolls and shut factories.The 2009 bankruptcy filings by G.M. and Chrysler — which is now part of Stellantis — forced the union into major concessions, including a wage system that left newcomers earning substantially less than veteran workers.While diminished, the U.A.W. still has influence. “The union can still turn out voters in critical states like Michigan and Ohio and other states that can determine a presidential election,” Professor Shaiken said.The U.A.W. now has about 400,000 active members, including college teaching assistants and casino workers as well as auto manufacturing workers. Both active members and the union’s 600,000 retirees were eligible to vote in the elections. For the last several years the U.A.W. has been reeling from a federal corruption investigation that eventually found a number of schemes in which senior officials embezzled millions of dollars from union coffers. They spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.In total, federal investigators found that $1.5 million had been siphoned from membership dues, and $3.5 million from union training centers. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty, and two former presidents, Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, were sentenced to prison. Each was released after serving nine months.As part of a consent decree settling the investigation, the U.S. District Court in Detroit appointed an outside monitor to oversee the implementation of democratic and transparency reforms. One of the mandated reforms was a one-person-one-vote election. More

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      Donald Trump, and the Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises

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      Secretive talks in the waning days of a campaign. Furtive phone calls. Ardent public denials.American history is full of October surprises — late revelations, sometimes engineered by an opponent, that shock the trajectory of a presidential election and that candidates dread. In 1880, a forged letter ostensibly written by James A. Garfield claimed he wanted more immigration from China, a position so unpopular it nearly cost him the election. Weeks before the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s press secretary kneed a Black police officer in the groin, just as the president was trying to woo skeptical Black voters. (Roosevelt’s response made history: He appointed the first Black general and created the Tuskegee Airmen.)But the scandal that has ensnared Donald J. Trump, the paying of hush money to a pornographic film star in 2016, is in a rare class: an attempt not to bring to light an election-altering event, but to suppress one.The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a Manhattan grand jury weighing criminal charges against Mr. Trump can trace its lineage to at least two other episodes foiling an October surprise. The first was in 1968, when aides to Richard M. Nixon pressed the South Vietnamese government to thwart peace talks in the closing days of that election. The second was in 1980. Fresh revelations have emerged that allies of Ronald Reagan may well have labored to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the defeat of Jimmy Carter.Richard M. Nixon at the end of his presidential campaign in 1968.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe tortured debate over precisely which election law might have been violated in 2016 is missing the broader point — all three events might have changed the course of history.“There have been three cases at a minimum,” said Gary Sick, a former national security aide to President Carter who for more than two decades has been pursuing his case that the Reagan campaign in 1980 delayed the release of the hostages from Iran. “And if you had the stomach for it, you’d have to say it worked.”The potential criminal charges against Mr. Trump for his role in the passing of hush money to Ms. Daniels — falsifying business records to cover up the payment and a possible election law violation — may seem trivial when compared to the prior efforts to fend off a history-altering October surprise.This month, a former lieutenant governor of Texas came forward to say that he accompanied a Reagan ally to the Middle East to try to delay the release of American hostages from Iran until after the 1980 election. And notes discovered in 2016 appeared to confirm that senior aides to Mr. Nixon worked through back channels in 1968 to hinder the commencement of peace talks to end the war in Vietnam — and secure Mr. Nixon’s victory over Hubert H. Humphrey.“Hold on,” Anna Chennault, Mr. Nixon’s emissary to the South Vietnamese, told Saigon government officials, as she pressed them to boycott the Paris peace talks. “We are gonna win.”But the chicaneries of 1968 and 1980 were left to historians and partisans to sort out and debate decades later. What separates the allegations against Mr. Trump is that they could make him the first former president to be indicted by a grand jury, forcing him to answer for charges in a court of law.President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam shortly before the presidential election in 1968.Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe concept of an October surprise has been around American politics since at least 1838, when federal prosecutors announced plans to charge top Whig Party officials with “most stupendous and atrocious fraud” for paying Pennsylvanians to vote in New York for their candidates.Two weeks before the 1888 election, Republicans published a letter from the British ambassador to the United States suggesting that the English favored Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate. It galvanized Irish American voters, and Mr. Cleveland lost the presidency to Benjamin Harrison.Just days before the 2000 election, Thomas J. Connolly, a defense lawyer and former Democratic candidate for governor in Maine, confirmed that George W. Bush had been arrested for driving while intoxicated in the state in 1976. Some have said it cost Mr. Bush just enough votes to turn a narrow popular-vote victory into one of the most contested presidential elections in American history.What links the allegations of 1968, 1980 and 2016 is the fear that such a surprise would happen. In all three cases, those accused of perpetrating the skulduggery palpably worried that it would..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.“It is probably as old as campaigning itself,” said John Dean, the Nixon White House lawyer whose testimony before the congressional Watergate committees helped bring to light perhaps the most famous campaign dirty trick of all time. “I’m sure that when campaigns learn of negative stories, they do all they can to suppress them.”The accusations against Mr. Trump are of a different scale than 1968 or 1980. No Americans were left to languish in captivity. No armies remained on the battlefield longer than necessary. No civilians died in napalm conflagrations. Indeed, the passing of hush money to Ms. Daniels is hardly the worst accusation leveled against a president who was impeached for withholding military aid to Ukraine to extract a political favor, and impeached again for inciting a riot designed to overturn a lawful election that he lost.But because the 2016 election was so close, the suppression of a late-breaking sex scandal just may have delivered the White House to one of American history’s most divisive leaders. Mr. Trump lost the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points, and won the presidency by securing victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by a combined 78,652 votes, a smaller total than a sellout crowd at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.The plane carrying freed American hostages arriving at the Frankfurt airport. The hostages had been held in Iran for 444 days.Jean-Louis Atlan/Sygma, via Getty ImagesMr. Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, suffered her own surprise when just days before the 2016 election, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, reopened a closed investigation into emails she sent on a private server when she was secretary of state. Given the margin, that alone may have cost Mrs. Clinton the White House.Ms. Daniels’s claim that she had sex with Mr. Trump in 2006 while his wife, Melania, was nursing their only baby had been floating around since 2011, seemingly raising few fears in Trump world. But in early October 2016, that changed when The Washington Post published the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Mr. Trump described in lewd terms how he groped women.Amid the ensuing furor and defections from some Republican leaders, the effort to buy Ms. Daniels’s silence went into overdrive. Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, and others feared that a second punch, landing just after the “Access Hollywood” outrage was dissipating, could knock their pugilistic boss out of the presidential race and expose them to legal action.“It could look awfully bad for everyone,” Dylan Howard, the editor of The National Enquirer, wrote in a text to Mr. Cohen, noting that if Ms. Daniels went public, their work to cover up her account of a sexual encounter might also become known.The 1980 election is remembered as a landslide victory, hardly one that seemed vulnerable to a late-breaking course change. But in fact, aides and allies of Mr. Reagan openly feared the release of the hostages in the campaign’s final weeks could re-elect Mr. Carter, so much so that the term “October surprise” is often attributed to the Reagan camp’s trepidations.“All I know is there’s concern, not just with us but I think generally amongst the electorate, well, this Carter’s a politically tough fellow, he’ll do anything to get re-elected, and let’s be prepared for some October surprise,” Mr. Reagan’s running mate, George H.W. Bush, said at the time.Ronald Reagan and his campaign feared an October surprise from President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesGerald Rafshoon, who was Mr. Carter’s White House communications director and campaign media adviser, said in an interview that he was confident the release of the hostages would have secured the president’s re-election. The polls had been tightening that fall amid rising optimism about the captives’ release. Then Mr. Carter’s position collapsed.“If the little farmer can’t handle a two-bit ayatollah,” Mr. Rafshoon recalled one woman telling him, “I’ll take my chances on the cowboy.”He added: “It’s not that I hold any grudges about those sons of bitches. I’ve gotten on with my life, and so has Jimmy.”Mr. Sick is not so sure a hostage release would have had much impact. “It would certainly have changed some votes, but would Carter have won? He only won one state,” he said. “People who run campaigns get very paranoid and talk themselves into these things.”The election of 1968 is a closer call.Ken Hughes, a researcher at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia, whose book “Chasing Shadows” chronicled the Nixon campaign’s efforts to impede peace talks, said Mr. Nixon had a strong lead in the polls over Mr. Humphrey in mid-September. By mid-October, Mr. Nixon’s lead was down to eight percentage points. Then, days before the election, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, and the news media began reporting chatter of looming talks to end the war.Again, the candidate who went on to win showed his fears, which were based on Mr. Nixon’s conviction that Democratic dirty tricks in 1960 had denied him the presidency. “Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” or South Vietnam, Mr. Nixon implored, according to the notes of a top aide, H.R. Haldeman.On the eve of the election, The Christian Science Monitor was preparing an article on the efforts of the Nixon campaign to thwart the peace talks. Mr. Johnson convened a conference call with his security cabinet to seek advice on whether to confirm the story, which he knew to be true from F.B.I. and C.I.A. wiretaps.“Some elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I’m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have a certain individual elected,” his secretary of defense, Clark Clifford, said of Mr. Nixon on a recorded call. “It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I would think it would be inimical to our country’s interests.”White House officials said nothing. More

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      Rahul Gandhi, Leader of India’s Opposition to Modi, Disqualified From Parliament

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      The expulsion of Rahul Gandhi is a devastating blow to the once-powerful Indian National Congress party. He and several other politicians are now in jeopardy through India’s legal system.NEW DELHI — Rahul Gandhi, one of the last national figures standing in political opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, was disqualified as a member of Parliament on Friday, sending shock waves across the country’s political scene and devastating the once-powerful Indian National Congress party Mr. Gandhi leads.Mr. Gandhi was expelled from the lower house the day after a court in Gujarat, Mr. Modi’s home state, convicted him on a charge of criminal defamation. The charge stemmed from a comment he made on the campaign trail in 2019, characterizing Mr. Modi as one of a group of “thieves” named Modi — referring to two prominent fugitives with the same last name. Mr. Gandhi received a two-year prison sentence, the maximum. He is out on 30 days’ bail.Any jail sentence of two years or more is supposed to result in automatic expulsion, but legal experts had expected Mr. Gandhi to have the chance to challenge his conviction. A notification signed by a parliamentary bureaucrat appointed by Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday stated that Mr. Gandhi had been disqualified automatically by the conviction itself, per the Constitution of India.“They are destroying the constitution, killing it,” said Srinivas B.V., president of the Indian National Congress Party’s youth wing. “The court gave Mr. Gandhi 30 days to appeal against the order, and hardly 24 hours have passed since.”Mr. Gandhi said in a Twitter post on Friday, “I am fighting for the voice of this country. I am ready to pay any price.”Lawmakers from the Congress Party and other opposition parties protesting outside of India’s parliament in New Delhi on Friday.Altaf Qadri/Associated PressMr. Srinivas said the party will fight the expulsion, politically and legally. One of the party’s most prominent members, Shashi Tharoor, who like Mr. Gandhi is a member of the lower house in the state of Kerala, said on Twitter that the action ending his tenure in Parliament was “politics with the gloves off, and it bodes ill for our democracy.”Mr. Gandhi, a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather served as prime minister, has taken pains to improve his national profile in recent months. He led an unexpectedly popular march late last year across swaths of India, rallying crowds to “unite India” against the Hindu-first nationalism espoused by Mr. Modi. And since the fortunes of Gautam Adani, a tycoon long associated with Mr. Modi, collapsed under pressure from a short-seller’s report in January, Mr. Gandhi has been using his platform in Parliament to call for an investigation of his business empire.The Congress Party is not alone in worrying about the implications for India’s democracy that Mr. Gandhi’s disqualification poses. With parliamentary elections coming next year, the government’s attempts to clamp down on dissent seem to be gaining momentum, other opposition leaders pointed out.Last month, Manish Sisodia, the second in command of the Aam Aadmi Party, was arrested on charges related to fraud. Earlier this month Kavitha K., a leader from a regional party that recently turned to national politics, was questioned by federal investigators in connection with the same case.The string of criminal cases against politicians — though none have been brought against high-profile members of Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. — contrasts awkwardly with Mr. Modi’s presentation of India as “the Mother of Democracy” during a global publicity blitz to accompany its hosting the Group of 20 summit meeting this year.Police raids against the BBC’s office in India and some of the country’s leading think tanks have intensified doubts about the strength of India’s democracy. Eliminating the opposition from parliament through the courts might heighten those misgivings dramatically. More