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      Kidnappings in Nigeria and Other Security Crises Concern Voters Ahead of Election

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      Nigerian voters say that insecurity is the most important issue in this week’s presidential election. One man who was kidnapped said, “You can only survive on your own in Nigeria.”A 61-year-old civil engineer was supervising a digging project on a farm in southern Nigeria when five young men carrying AK-47s stormed the place and dragged him into the bush.For five days, the kidnappers held the engineer, Olusola Olaniyi, and beat him severely. Only after his family and employer agreed to pay a ransom was he released, in the middle of the night, on a road a few miles away from where he had been kidnapped.Nigeria has faced an outbreak of kidnappings in recent years, affecting people of all ages and classes: groups of schoolchildren, commuters traveling on trains and in cars through Nigeria’s largest cities, and villagers in the northern countryside. With youth gangs and armed bandits finding that kidnapping for ransom produces big payoffs, such crimes have only multiplied.As Nigerians go to the polls on Saturday to choose a new president, insecurity is the top issue facing the country, according to a survey by SBM Intelligence, a Nigerian risk consultancy. Between July 2021 and June 2022, more than 3,400 people were abducted across the country, and 564 others were killed in kidnapping-related violence.“Insecurity has become a function of Nigeria’s economy,” said Mr. Olaniyi, whose family paid about $3,500 in ransom after he was kidnapped in 2021. “Many young men see kidnappings as a job.”This epidemic of kidnappings is just one of multiple security crises that are creating levels of violence unseen for decades in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, with nearly 220 million people.Relatives of the Kaduna train kidnapping victims holding a protest in Abuja, Nigeria, last July, following a threat from bandits to kill the victims if the ransom was not paid.Afolabi Sotunde/ReutersIn the northeast, militants with the extremist groups Boko Haram and local affiliates of the Islamic State have killed at least 10,000 people in the past five years, and displaced 2.5 million people.In the northwest and northern center of the country, armed gangs known as bandits have stolen cattle, kidnapped thousands of people and forced schools to close for months to keep students safe.In the southeast, separatist movements have attacked dozens of police stations, prisons and courthouses.And in July, in the country’s capital, Abuja, militants from the Islamic State West Africa Province broke into one of the country’s most secure prisons and freed hundreds of detainees.“In the past, Boko Haram was Nigeria’s main security problem,” said Nnamdi Obasi, a researcher with the International Crisis Group, based in Abuja. “Now we have three or four of those major crises.”Muhammadu Buhari, the departing president and a former general, was elected in 2015 in part on promises that he could get the violence under control. He has now served the maximum of two terms, and claims to have scored some successes in the northeast against Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province.But violence has grown more widespread. In the last year alone, armed groups killed more than 10,000 people, according to a tally by the International Crisis Group.Now election officials must secure more than 176,000 polling stations for the vote on Saturday. Threats to polling stations could discourage voters from showing up. Fifty electoral commission offices were attacked between 2019 and 2022. A senate candidate was killed on Wednesday in the south of the country, according to news reports.In Kaduna, in northwestern Nigeria on Thursday. Kidnappings have been especially frequent there.Yagazie Emezi for The New York TimesThe three leading candidates have all pledged to tackle insecurity, whether by recruiting more security personnel or upgrading the military. But many analysts argue that these promises remain vague and fail to address the root causes of the insecurity, such as poverty and unemployment.The kidnappings have stymied Nigeria’s development — displacing families and disrupting farming (leading to hunger), slowing infrastructure projects, and limiting trade and employment, since travel has become risky throughout the country.Last year, Nigerian lawmakers made kidnapping punishable by death if the victims die, and made paying ransom illegal. Yet in practice, little has changed. Between July 2021 and June 2022, more than $1.1 million was paid in ransom, according to SBM Intelligence. The ransoms, even small ones, are painful in a country where more than 60 percent of the population lives in poverty.“It’s taking people’s entire savings,” Idayat Hassan, the director of the Abuja-based Center for Democracy and Development, said about the ransoms.The kidnappings have been especially frequent in the northern state of Kaduna, where last March, gunmen attacked a train connecting Abuja to the city of Kaduna. Officials had boasted that the train route was safe.Regina Ngorngor, a 47-year-old librarian, was in a first-class coach and hid under a seat when the gunmen ordered passengers to get out. She was later rescued by the Nigerian military, but at least eight people were killed and 26 injured in the attack. Dozens of kidnapped passengers were released months later.Ms. Ngorngor took the risk of hiding under the seat because she said she knew what would have awaited her. Eight months earlier, her 17-year-old son Emmanuel was studying for a chemistry exam at his boarding school, when gunmen stormed the building and kidnapped him, along with dozens of classmates.Regina Ngorngor and her 17-year-old son, Emmanuel. Both were victims of kidnapping attempts. Emmanuel was held for three months after he and his schoolmates were abducted.Yagazie Emezi for The New York TimesFor three months, Ms. Ngorngor said, she waited for news while Emmanuel was detained in a camp run by bandits who would only negotiate with the school’s principal.Only after paying 1.5 million naira, about $3,280, was she able to free him.Emmanuel, now back home in Kaduna, said he hopes to study medicine in college. He said he struggles to fall asleep at night and often wakes up from nightmares.Ms. Ngorngor said that after the train attack, she stayed at home for a month, too afraid to go out. She has since traveled back to Abuja, but by road — even though, because of kidnappings, the roads are more dangerous than the train.Abductions in Ms. Ngorngor’s state of Kaduna and in neighboring Zamfara are still happening daily, so many that “you lose track,” said Malik Samuel, an Abuja-based analyst with the Institute for Security Studies. In the last quarter of 2022, there were 1,640 abductions nationwide, according to Beacon Consulting, a security firm.Mr. Olaniyi, the civil engineer in Ibadan, said he would vote on Saturday, but he wasn’t sure yet for whom or whether it was worth it. No candidate cared about people’s security, he said, turning his wrists up to show the scars left on his arms by his kidnappers’ beatings.“You can only survive on your own in Nigeria,” he said.Shoes left behind by kidnapped students from Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Nigeria, in December, 2020.Sunday Alamba/Associated PressOladeinde Olawoyin contributed reporting. More

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      Let’s All Do the DeSantis Shimmy!

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      I suppose all contemporary young politicians dream of meeting their moment. At the enthusiastic dawn of their politico careers, they entertain a fantasy that some day, as a great historical challenge looms into view, their future selves will rise to the occasion — and masterfully dodge it!They envision themselves bobbing and weaving, triangulating and feinting — filling the air with meaningless clichés so that no one knows where they stand and no one can hold them accountable. Their political career sails on, soaring upward, their electoral viability unbruised and glorious!Ron DeSantis is now trying to live out that dream.There are two dominant views on Ukraine within the Republican Party. The first one, embraced by, say, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, holds that Russia’s assault on Ukraine threatens the liberal world order. Helping the Ukrainians push back is in America’s vital national interest.The second view, embraced by the populist wing, is that the United States has no vital national interests in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson has said he doesn’t really care what Vladimir Putin does in Ukraine. Donald Trump has suggested that the war will last longer if the United States continues to send aid.DeSantis has magically cast himself in between these two positions. In the past, DeSantis was tougher on Russia than Trump. In 2017, he noted that Putin “wants to reconstitute the Russian Empire,” and chided Trump for being too soft on Putin, saying that “you’re better off dealing with Putin by being strong.” If Putin thinks he can gain an inch, DeSantis argued, “he’s apt to take a mile.”But this week DeSantis went on “Fox & Friends,” where great statesmen have always gone to unfurl their foreign policy doctrines, and he feinted in a Trump-like direction.He said the war wouldn’t have happened if Joe Biden weren’t so weak. He said he didn’t want to give the Ukrainians a “blank check” (as if anyone does). He said Biden should be more concerned with securing the border at home and less concerned with borders far away. He minimized the threat Putin poses to the West, adding, “I don’t think it’s in our interests to be getting into a proxy war with China, getting involved over things like the borderlands or over Crimea.”It was like that Richard Gere character in the musical “Chicago” — giving them the old razzle-dazzle, even if his dance steps are more plodding. It’s not clear if DeSantis is for more Ukraine aid or not. No one can quite pin him down. Tippity tap. Tappity tip.This has been DeSantis’s general approach to Trump. He doesn’t want to take on Trump directly, so he shimmies. This month, Trump insinuated that DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher. Instead of slamming Trump, DeSantis shimmied. Trump calls DeSantis “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Meatball Ron.” DeSantis glides blithely by.The problem with running a campaign in which you are trying to be Trumpy-but-not-Trump is that you’re never your own man. You have to compete with the king without crossing him. You’re always trying to find that magic sweet spot between just-MAGA and plain-crazy.If he were more of a strategic thinker and less a tactician, I think DeSantis would realize that he’s either going to have to fight Trump directly on some issue or copy him right down the line. And I think he’d realize that he’s already locked himself into a position in which he’s going to have to copy him.On Ukraine policy, for example, I suspect that DeSantis will soon be enthusiastically parroting the Trump position. I say that for two interrelated reasons.First, DeSantis, for better or worse, has hitched his wagon to the populist movement. This movement is now broad and deep in the Republican Party and has deep roots running back through American history. This movement has long been opposed to the cosmopolitan East Coast elites, has long adopted the posture that we need to pull inward and take care of our own, and is now allergic to talk about America being actively involved in preserving a liberal world order. This is where populist voters are, and this is where DeSantis, running as a populist, needs to be.Then there is Tucker Carlson. The DeSantis campaign won’t be able to survive if Carlson and the rest of the right-wing media sphere start blasting him for being a “globalist,” the way Trump already is.“Globalist” is to foreign policy what “C.R.T.” is to education. No one knows precisely what it means but everybody in MAGA-world knows it’s really bad. DeSantis has to take whatever position will get that label off his back.This week’s dancing makes me realize DeSantis is in a weaker position than I thought. The G.O.P. is evenly split on foreign policy and significantly split on whether the party should be fiery populist or more conventionally conservative. According to a Pew survey, 40 percent of Republicans think the United States is giving too much aid to Ukraine, while 41 percent believe America is giving Ukraine the right amount of aid or not enough. This data illustrates something also evident in the 2022 election results — that while there are a lot of populists in the party, there are still a lot of normie Republicans who are not.As the campaign wears on, and the debate on Ukraine continues, DeSantis will be condemned to playing Mini-Me to Trump in trying to win that populist 40 percent. Meanwhile, he’ll be cutting ties to many in the nonpopulist 41 percent. That will leave room for some normie Republican in the Brian Kemp/Tim Scott mold to rise.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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      Your Friday Briefing: A Year of War

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      Also, Nigeria’s upcoming election and healthcare protests in China.Workers reinforced a checkpoint in Kyiv with sandbags.Emile Ducke for The New York TimesOne year of warUkraine is bracing for potential Russian attacks timed to the anniversary of the war today. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has warned of a symbolic “revenge” assault from Russia around the one-year mark of Moscow’s invasion. Schools across Ukraine are holding classes remotely, people have been advised to avoid large gatherings and additional security measures are being put in place. We have updates here.One year on, virtually no one in Ukraine has avoided the violence, destruction and bloodshed of the war, which has killed tens of thousands, left millions homeless and turned entire cities into ruins. But the foreboding that gripped Ukraine in the days before the invasion has long faded.Now, many people in Ukraine said that they had found strength in the shared sacrifice and the collective struggle for survival. Some have become accustomed to the air-raid sirens and warnings. One 30-year-old Ukrainian said those things had become a part of everyday life, “like brushing my teeth.”A global look: The U.S. tried to isolate Russia by imposing sweeping sanctions along with its Western partners. But the rest of the world has taken a more neutral approach to the war, including India and China, as our graphic shows.The latest on weapons: Poland said that it was close to finalizing a deal worth $10 billion to buy additional U.S.-made HIMARS rocket launchers and related equipment, as part of a rapid military buildup. As the West scrambles to find munitions for Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons, it is turning to arms factories across Eastern Europe.China: Janet Yellen, the U.S. treasury secretary, warned Beijing against helping Russia evade sanctions, at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in India. She also said that the U.S. planned to unveil additional sanctions on Russia.Officials sorted voter cards in Lagos last month, ahead of the election.Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNigeria votesNigerians head to the polls tomorrow to choose a new president in the most wide-open race in years. The presidential candidates for the two major parties, which have alternated power for over two decades, are facing a surprise, third-party challenger.In the lead-up to voting day, a decision by Nigeria’s government to replace its currency caused chaos. Voters are furious at the governing party over a shortage of new bank notes, and protests could disrupt voting in parts of the country.Lynsey Chutel, our Briefing writer based in Johannesburg, spoke with our West Africa bureau chief, Ruth Maclean, who is in Abuja to cover the election. Here’s what Ruth said about what’s at stake.“When I interviewed Peter Obi, one of the three main candidates, the other day, he described this as an ‘existential election.’ I think that’s how many Nigerians feel, particularly young Nigerians who were involved in the EndSARS movement a couple of years ago, protesting against police violence, but also against everything they saw going wrong in Nigeria. Many of them have left or are trying to leave the country. If their chosen candidate wins, maybe some will stay, or come back,” Ruth said.As populations in wealthy countries grow older, Africa’s median age is getting younger. In Nigeria, half of the population of more than 200 million is 18 and under.“If Nigeria is safe and prosperous, it brightens life for a whole generation of Africans,” Ruth said.A protest against health care cuts in Wuhan last week.Keith Bradsher/The New York TimesHealth care protests in ChinaThousands of seniors in China are protesting abrupt cuts to their health insurance. The changes were enacted by local governments, and highlight their struggle to recover from the costs of implementing the central government’s expensive “zero Covid” policies for nearly three years.One of the most immediate problems is that municipal insurance funds are running out of money. To free up cash, municipalities have started contributing much less to personal health accounts, the insurance that middle-class people use to pay for medicine and outpatient care. Seniors are most vulnerable to the changes, which include higher costs and reduced benefits.Protests have taken place in the northeastern city of Dalian, in Guangzhou, and in Wuhan in central China, where the Covid pandemic began at the end of 2019. Wuhan’s hospitals responded with an effective but expensive effort to contain the outbreak, and are now implementing some of the sharpest cuts to personal health accounts.Context: The cuts are a symptom of China’s overlapping economic struggles. The country is aging rapidly, and more retirees mean more health care needs. Yet the main source of municipal revenue has shriveled as real estate developers buy less public land because of a housing shakeout.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificRescuers at the site of the mine collapse in northern China’s Inner Mongolia.CCTV, via Associated PressRescuers are working to save 53 coal miners who are missing after a mine collapsed in northern China.The European Commission banned TikTok from most of its employees’ phones, citing security concerns.The temporary suspension of Peter Bol, an Australian Olympic runner, over doping allegations has opened a national debate over testing procedures.Around the WorldLawmakers in Mexico gutted the country’s election watchdog, a change that comes ahead of next year’s presidential contest.Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump.The U.S. nominated Ajay Banga, the former chief executive of Mastercard, to lead the World Bank.Other Big StoriesMaternal mortality rates have fallen in many countries across Asia, but have increased in the U.S. and Europe, the W.H.O. reported.Turkey is scrutinizing Turkish builders after the recent earthquake that killed more than 43,000 people in the country.A British pilot program of a four-day workweek won converts: 92 percent of participating companies plan to continue with the approach.The Week in CultureHarvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison for sex crimes in Los Angeles.Alec Baldwin pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter for the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a film set.The singer R. Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison for child sex crimes.A Morning ReadThe new drinks are branded Oleato, which can mean oiled or greaseproof in Italian.Valentina Za/ReutersStarbucks is testing out a new ingredient that it believes will draw the Italian masses to its coffee: olive oil. A golden foam espresso martini is one of five oily options.ARTS AND IDEASChatGPT’s scary banalityWhen the movies imagined A.I., they pictured the wrong disaster, our critic A.O. Scott writes. Instead of the chilling rationality of HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” we got the drearier, very human awfulness of Microsoft’s Sydney. Because when real chatbots finally came about, they learned from what humans have expressed online, which can often be deceitful, irrational and plain old mean.“We’re more or less reconciled to the reality that machines are, in some ways, smarter than we are,” Scott writes. “We also enjoy the fantasy that they might turn out to be more sensitive. We’re therefore not prepared for the possibility that they might be chaotic, unstable and resentful — as messy as we are, or maybe more so.”In China: Tech companies making chatbots are facing hurdles from the government.And in the arts: Science fiction magazines are being flooded with stories written by chatbots. They’re “bad in spectacular ways,” one editor said.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookColin Clark for The New York TimesFor a weekend project, make Swedish cardamom buns.What to Read“Win Every Argument” and “Say the Right Thing” offer different approaches to talking to others.What to WatchIn “Yanagawa,” by the Chinese filmmaker Zhang Lu, two brothers reconnect over a lost love.HealthLearn about the wild world inside your gut.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Bashful (three letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a lovely weekend! — Amelia and LynseyP.S. Will Shortz, our puzzle editor, talked to The New Yorker about his life in crosswords.“The Daily” is on a U.S. Supreme Court case about social media.If you ever want to reach me, I’m available at briefing@nytimes.com. Thanks!  More

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      The Wisdom and Prophecy of Jimmy Carter’s ‘Malaise’ Speech

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      On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter emerged from days of isolation to deliver the most important and memorable address of his life. Carter had canceled vacation plans and spent more than a week cloistered at Camp David, where he met with a “steady stream of visitors” who shared their hopes and fears about a nation in distress, most immediately thanks to another in a series of energy crises.Carter, however, discerned a deeper problem. America had a wounded heart. The president believed it suffered from a “crisis of the spirit.” The speech was among the most unusual in presidential history. The word that has clung to it, “malaise,” was a word that didn’t even appear in the text. It was offered by his critics and has since become something close to official history. Everyone above a certain age knows immediately and precisely the meaning of the phrase “the malaise speech.”I believe, by contrast, the best word to describe the speech would have been “pastoral.” A faithful Christian president applied the lessons he’d so plainly learned from years of Bible study and countless hours in church. Don’t look at the surface of a problem. Don’t be afraid to tell hard truths. Be humble, but also call the people to a higher purpose.The resulting address was heartfelt. It was eloquent. Yet it helped sink his presidency.Read the speech now, and you’ll see its truth and its depth. But, ironically, it’s an address better suited to our time than to its own. Jimmy Carter’s greatest speech was delivered four decades too soon.The ostensible purpose of the speech was to address the energy crisis. Anyone who remembers the 1970s remembers gas lines and the helpless feeling that our nation’s prosperity was dependent on foreign oil. Yet that was but one of a seemingly endless parade of American problems.By 1979, this country had experienced a recent string of traumatic political assassinations, urban riots that dwarfed the summer riots of 2020 in scale and intensity, campus unrest that makes the current controversies over “wokeness” look civil and quaint, the defeat in Vietnam, and the deep political corruption of Richard Nixon. At the same time, inflation rates dwarfed what we experience today.When he addressed the nation, Carter took a step back. With his trademark understated warmth, he described his own period of reflection. He’d taken the time to listen to others, he shared what he heard, and then he spoke words that resonate today. “The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us,” he said, and he described symptoms that mirror our current reality.“For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years,” Carter said. (Meanwhile, last year a record 58 percent of Americans told NBC News pollsters that our nation’s best years are behind it.)There was more. “As you know,” he told viewers, “there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions.” He was right, but compared to now, Americans were far more respectful of virtually every major institution, from the government, to the news media, to the private sector. Only the military fares better now in the eyes of the public.Then there was this gut-punch paragraph:We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.When we read these words after the contemporary onslaught of mass shootings, the anguish of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and the turmoil of two Trump impeachments, you can again see the parallels today.We’re familiar with political speeches that recite the litany of American challenges, but we’re not familiar with speeches that ask the American people to reflect on their own role in a national crisis. Carter called for his audience to look in the mirror:In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.There is a tremendous amount of truth packed into those words. But there was a problem: Carter correctly described a country of mutual, interlocking responsibilities between the government and the people. Yet he was ultimately unable to deliver the results that matched his pastoral message.For all the scorn heaped on Carter later, the speech was successful, at first. His approval rating shot up a remarkable 11 points. Then came chaos — some of it Carter’s fault, some of it not. Days after the speech, he demanded the resignation of his entire cabinet. (He ultimately fired five.) It was a move that communicated confusion more than conviction.Then the world erupted. In November, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy and took dozens of Americans hostage. In December, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and at least appeared to secure the country quickly and easily. Contrary to popular remembrance, Carter did not respond with weakness. The defense buildup for which Ronald Reagan is remembered actually began under Carter. And in April 1980, he greenlit a daring attempt to fly into the heart of Iran and rescue American hostages by force.It was not to be. Mechanical problems scrubbed the mission far from Tehran, and in the confusion of the withdrawal, two aircraft collided, and eight American servicemembers died. American gloom deepened. The nation seemed to be moving from defeat to defeat.The failed rescue was a hinge moment in history. It’s hard to imagine the morale boost had it succeeded, and we know the crushing disappointment when it failed. Had the Army’s Delta Force paraded down New York’s “Canyon of Heroes” with the liberated hostages, it would have probably transformed the public’s perception of the president. But just as presidents own military victories, they also own defeats. Carter’s fate was sealed. Reagan carried 44 states, and on Inauguration Day — in a final insult by Tehran — the hostages came home.The story of the next 10 years, moreover, cast Carter’s address in a different light. The nation went from defeat to victory: Inflation broke, the economy roared, and in 1991 the same military that was humiliated in the sands of Iran triumphed, with assistance from its allies, over an immense Iraqi Army in a 100-hour land war that astonished the world.The history was written. Carter was wrong. There wasn’t a crisis of confidence. There was no malaise. There was instead a failure of leadership. Better, or at least luckier, leaders revived a broken nation.Yet with every passing year, the deeper truths of Carter’s speech become more apparent. His insights become more salient. A speech that couldn’t precisely diagnose the maladies of 1979 more accurately describes the challenges of 2023. The trends he saw emerging two generations ago now bear their poisonous fruit in our body politic.Carter’s central insight was that even if the country’s political branches could deliver peace and prosperity, they could not deliver community and belonging. Our nation depends on pre-political commitments to each other, and in the absence of those pre-political commitments, the American experiment is ultimately in jeopardy.In 1979, Carter spoke of our civil liberties as secure. They’re more secure now. A generation of Supreme Court case law has expanded our rights to free speech and religious liberty beyond the bounds of precedent. In 1979, Carter said that the United States possessed “unmatched economic power and military might.” That assertion may have rung hollow to a nation facing a Soviet Union that seemed to be at the peak of its power. But it’s unquestionably true today.We’re free, prosperous and strong to a degree we couldn’t imagine then. Yet we’re tearing each other apart now. The words that didn’t quite capture the moment in 1979 land quite differently today:We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility.With these words, Carter raised the question, what is our freedom for, exactly? While we want to better ourselves and our families, we cannot become self-regarding. We have obligations to each other. We have obligations to our community. The best exercise of freedom is in service to others.Yet one of the stories of our time is the abuse of liberty, including the use of our freedoms — whether it’s to boycott, condemn or shame — to try to narrow the marketplace of ideas, to deprive dissenters of their reputations and their livelihoods. A porn-saturated culture luxuriates in its own decadence and exploitation, and then wonders why hearts break and families fail. And as Carter noted, our huge wealth cannot heal the holes in our hearts, because “consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.”At the start of this piece, I used the word “pastoral” to describe Carter’s speech. But there’s another word: prophetic. His words were not the clarion call necessary for his time, but they are words for this time. As Jimmy Carter spends his last days on this earth, we should remember his call for community, and thank a very good man for living his values, serving his neighbors, and reminding us of the true source of strength for the nation he loved. More

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      A Guide to the 2024 Republican Presidential Campaign

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      We offer a field guide to the 2024 Republican presidential campaign.Officially, the 2024 Republican presidential campaign has barely begun, with only two major candidates — Donald Trump and Nikki Haley — having entered the race.In reality, the campaign is well underway. Looking at the historical evidence, Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, argues that a typical nomination campaign is already about halfway done by this stage. “The notion that the campaign is already at halftime is a little mind-bending,” Nate writes, “but if you reimagine a presidential campaign as everything a candidate will do to amass the support needed to win, it starts to make a little more sense.”Consider that Joe Biden won the 2020 Democratic nomination largely on the strength of work that he did — especially as Barack Obama’s vice president — years earlier. Or that Trump probably could not have won in 2016 without his reality television fame. Most modern nominees have had the support of at least 20 percent of their party’s voters at this stage in the campaign, Nate notes. Rising from obscurity is rare, partly because campaign donors and staff members have begun to pick their candidates by now.For these reasons, there are two distinct categories of 2024 Republican candidates. The first includes only Trump and Ron DeSantis — by far the early polling leaders — and the second category includes everybody else.When we asked our colleague Maggie Haberman to imagine a scenario in which the nominee is not DeSantis or Trump, she told us, “It’s possible, but it’s just very hard to see.” One way it could happen, she added, would be if DeSantis took a commanding lead and Trump then tried to destroy him. “If it looks like DeSantis is going to be the nominee, Trump is likely to do whatever he can to tear him down before that happens,” Maggie said.Today, we spin out the possibilities in our inaugural field guide to the 2024 Republican race.The former presidentTrump leads in most early primary polls, typically with more than 40 percent of Republicans’ support nationwide. He could win the nomination simply by retaining that support while remaining voters splinter, as happened in 2016.In polls from Jan. 19 to Feb. 16. | Source: RealClearPoliticsBut Trump’s weaknesses are real. His support tends to be lower in higher-quality polls. Criminal investigations hang over him (as this new Times story explains). He has already lost once to Biden. And his preferred candidates underperformed other Republicans last year by about five percentage points on average.Republican politics often have little to do with policy proposals these days. Still, there are potential policy debates between Trump and DeSantis. Trump has started making a populist critique of DeSantis for his past support of proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare. DeSantis could criticize Trump for supporting Dr. Anthony Fauci and for enacting federal spending that caused inflation.The Florida governorDeSantis has ascended to national prominence for two main reasons.First, Florida is thriving during his governorship by some metrics. Many more people are moving there than leaving, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board pointed out. Florida’s unemployment rate is among the nation’s lowest, at 2.5 percent. During the pandemic, DeSantis lifted restrictions relatively early, and many experts predicted disaster. But Florida’s overall Covid death rate is only modestly higher than the national average, and its age-adjusted death rate is lower. Last year, DeSantis won re-election by 19 percentage points.Second, DeSantis delights in confronting liberals, and not just about Covid. He has flown migrants to Massachusetts to protest President Biden’s immigration policy. “Florida is where woke goes to die,” DeSantis has said, summarizing the fights he has picked on medical care for transgender youth and on racial issues. “DeSantis’s appeal right now is that he is perceived as both a fighter for conservative causes and a winner,” says our colleague Michael Bender, who’s covering the Republican field.How might Trump attack him? “Trumpworld sees DeSantis less through the lens of specific policies than how they can paint him generally either as a phony or as someone partial to old-school establishment thinking,” Maggie said. “Mostly, they anticipate that Trump will try to smear him repeatedly and they think or hope that DeSantis will ultimately have to respond, which so far he’s mostly avoided.”It remains unclear how well DeSantis, who is not a particularly charismatic politician, will fare in the rigors of a national campaign.Nikki Haley in Iowa this week.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesThe potential fieldHaley, a former South Carolina governor, is running as a Reaganesque optimist who believes in small government and foreign policy hawkishness. She served in Trump’s cabinet and describes him as a friend — while she offers a sunnier vision of America than he does.Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, a former private-equity executive, also takes a Reaganesque approach. He is comfortable with business executives and evangelicals, two big Republican constituencies.“I don’t like losers,” Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s governor, recently said. “I’m not anti-Trump, I’m not pro-Trump. We’re just moving on.” Sununu also calls himself a conservative who’s not an extremist. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s former governor, would also like to find space in this lane.Mike Pence is a longtime favorite of evangelicals. But Trump supporters distrust him for not trying to overturn the 2020 election result, while many Trump critics would rather not select his former vice president.Mike Pompeo has a sterling résumé: He graduated first in his class at West Point, was elected to Congress and served as Trump’s secretary of state. He has remained mostly loyal to Trump. “How does he differentiate himself?” Michael Bender asks.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota also seem to be considering a run, as are a few others.Here’s how one of these candidates might defy the odds: Maybe Trump is as wounded as some people think, or DeSantis will struggle on the national stage. Space might then open for an alternative, and one of the second-tier candidates could shine during the early debates and campaign appearances.In past campaigns, early poll leaders have sometimes faded (like Rudy Giuliani in 2008) and long shots have won nominations (like Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992). Upsets do happen, but they’re called upsets for a reason.To make sense of the campaign, Times subscribers can sign up for Nate Cohn’s newsletter.More on politicsThe special counsel investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election subpoenaed Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailment spewed toxic chemicals this month, and criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the disaster.By giving Tucker Carlson exclusive access to Jan. 6 security footage, Speaker Kevin McCarthy essentially outsourced re-litigation of the attack to a purveyor of conspiracy theories.Since Jimmy Carter entered hospice care, residents in his hometown in Georgia have been keeping vigil.THE LATEST NEWSSevere WeatherA snowstorm in Minneapolis yesterday.Craig Lassig/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHundreds of thousands of people are without power in the Midwest because of a winter storm.A blizzard could hit Southern California. See the snow forecast for where you live.War in UkraineUkraine managed to hit Russian-held territory with explosions deep behind enemy lines.Biden wrapped up a trip to Europe yesterday, promising American commitment to its allies. In Moscow, Vladimir Putin welcomed China’s top diplomat.Other Big StoriesLawmakers in Mexico gutted the country’s election watchdog, the body that helped end one-party rule, ahead of next year’s presidential contest.An Israeli operation to arrest Palestinian fighters in the West Bank led to a gunfight that killed at least 10 Palestinians.A gunman in Florida killed three people, including a child and a reporter.The man who killed the rapper Nipsey Hussle in 2019 was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison.OpinionsPolitical leaders blunder into wars because they downplay the costs of war and the benefits of peace, Farah Stockman writes.Covid mask mandates didn’t work, Bret Stephens argues.MORNING READSNew menu item: Starbucks in Italy is offering olive oil-infused coffee.“Enablers of our boredom”: The banality of ChatGPT is more eerie than any A.I. movie, the critic A.O. Scott writes.Unwanted connection: Who really controls your smart home?The coldest case in Laramie: Listen to the story of a long unsolved murder.Well: Learn about the wild world inside your gut.Advice from Wirecutter: Get your weekends back with a laundry sorter.Lives Lived: During her more than five decades as a television journalist in Brazil, Glória Maria toppled barriers for Black women at a time when the country’s anchor chairs were mostly filled by white men. She died at 73.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICA return to N.B.A. action: Kevin Durant could play his first game as a Phoenix Sun next week.En route to the World Cup: The U.S. women’s national soccer team beat Brazil, 2-1, winning the SheBelieves Cup title. ARTS AND IDEAS Blundstone’s Chelsea boots.Courtesy of BlundstoneThese boots are everywhereEvery so often, a boot becomes characteristic of a moment in time. In the early 1990s, there were Timberlands; in the early 2000s, Uggs. For our current era, Max Berlinger writes, fashion historians may point to Blundstone’s Chelsea boots.The boots have elastic side bands instead of laces or buckles. Their ease and comfort is a key part of the appeal. “I can stand in them for hours,” Woldy Reyes, a chef in New York, said. “I know so many other chefs who wear them in the kitchen.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York TimesFind comfort in this bacon, egg and cheese fried rice.What to Read“Win Every Argument,” by Mehdi Hasan, and “Say the Right Thing,” by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, offer approaches to talking to others. TravelThe celebrated violinist Joshua Bell recommends these five places in London.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was pityingly. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Bashful (three letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.P.S. After more than 2,200 movie reviews, the Times film critic A.O. Scott is moving to the Book Review.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about a Supreme Court ruling about social media.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses and Tom Wright-Piersanti contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Joe Biden’s Greatest Strength Is Also His Greatest Vulnerability

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      In February 2020, just before the world shut down, I was waiting for Joe Biden to speak on a Friday night in Henderson, Nev. The next morning I watched Bernie Sanders rally a fairly young, largely Latino crowd in a packed Las Vegas high school cafeteria. The Biden event, held when it looked as if he would not win the nomination, was smaller and more subdued. On the other side of a rope separating media from attendees, a group of Biden supporters were talking about how stressful it would be to be president at their and Mr. Biden’s age. As I remember it, one of them said, “But he feels he has to do it.”Not much has changed about the substance of their conversation since then, other than three long years: Mr. Biden, at 80, is the oldest U.S. president ever. If and when he announces a re-election campaign, he will put into play the idea of an even older president, eventually 86 years old. “Is age a positive thing for him? No,” Nancy Pelosi recently told Maureen Dowd, before adding that age is “a relative thing.” For reasons ultimately only Mr. Biden can know, it seems he feels he has to do it.There’s a straightforward dimension to the problem: The effects of age can get beyond your control, and it’d be a safer bet to leave office before the risk probability elevates to a danger zone. Barney Frank decided well in advance that he would retire from Congress at 75, then did so in his early 70s. You could feel that would be the right choice for Mr. Biden or any other leader over a certain age threshold, and be done with this topic. But age and health knot together different contradictions in America. Everything’s so weird now. Tech types, athletes and people of means are spending millions to keep their bodies youthful, and to defeat decline, if not death. We live in this society where people frequently talk about their resentment of older leadership — and elect and re-elect older leaders.Donald Trump would also, were he to win and serve out a second term, turn 82, and you could view the final days of the first Trump White House through this prism. Nearly a quarter of the Congress was over 70 last year, Insider found, up from 8 percent in 2002. Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican and Iowa’s senior senator, won re-election at age 89 last fall. Two of the most powerful and defining congressional leaders of most of our lives — Mitch McConnell and Ms. Pelosi — are in their 80s, and until the recent hockey line change in House leadership, much of the Democratic congressional leadership was over 70. The Treasury secretary is 76. Two Supreme Court justices are in their 70s; in the last decade, death changed the ideological balance of the court.If he runs for this second term, squarely in this space of all these contradictions, Mr. Biden is making the same ask as he did during the 2020 election — to trust him, to trust that he will be proven right about himself. Qualitatively, Mr. Biden represents familiarity and stability, which both derive from his age and sit in uneasy tension with it.Mr. Biden premised his 2020 campaign on his singular ability to win the presidency, when a good number of people in politics and media didn’t think he could win even the nomination. He predicted a level of congressional function that many people found nostalgic to the point of exotic. This skepticism was, on a deep level, about his age and whether his time had passed and whether he was too distant from the political realities of the 2020s. The thing is: Mr. Biden was right before. He did win the nomination. He did win against Donald Trump. The first two years of the Biden presidency did involve a productive and occasionally bipartisan U.S. Congress. On some level, people like me were wrong. This whole presidency originated with Mr. Biden being right about himself, and therefore his age.And maybe he will be right again! That’s a real possibility, under-discussed in these conversations. Age is relative, as Ms. Pelosi said. Medical science keeps improving, and people keep living longer, healthier lives. Presidents can focus on the big picture and delegate the rest. Mr. Biden’s own parents lived to 86 and 92. Having purpose, professional or otherwise, can rejuvenate all our lives. He looked pretty lively during that State of the Union earlier this month, and certainly in Ukraine and Poland.A generation of old men, from Clement Attlee to Konrad Adenauer, rebuilt Europe after the catastrophic 1930s and 1940s, back when people lived much shorter lives. Mr. Adenauer, the first leader of West Germany, actually served until age 87. We haven’t lived through anything like World War II, but as we convulse through two decades of staggering technological change, that might explain the resurgence of some older and familiar leaders over the last decade. Maybe rather than resenting this generational hold on power that Mr. Biden represents, some segment of people is relieved by the continuity that he offers, and by his distance from our daily lives.It’s complicated to leave office when you have real power. If you were Mr. Sanders (81) or Mitt Romney (75), why would you walk away? Mr. Sanders and Mr. Romney retain their essential selves as public figures — they don’t seem especially changed by age. Neither has said whether he’s going to run again. But if they still feel vital and able, and they are in a position of actual agency and responsibility, then it’s hard to see why they should leave public life.The risk, though, registers at a different pitch with the presidency. Even if we’re not expecting the president to catch a bullet in his teeth or something, we have 100 senators and one president. Hundreds of federal judges, and nine Supreme Court justices. Some stuff matters more than others.This was a problem even at the very beginning of the country’s history. During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal arose about how to proceed if the president were unable to serve. According to James Madison’s notes, the delegate John Dickinson asked “What is the extent of the term ‘disability’ & who is to be the judge of it?” Nobody’s ever precisely resolved this dilemma, even with the 25th Amendment.Mr. Biden could be wrong. He could lose the election because of the way voters perceive his age, or he could make it to a second term only to suffer a serious illness in office. Would the country default to a discomfort with visible age and slant one way on Mr. Biden, or take a more nuanced view?In the fall, while thinking over some of these concerns, I saw Senator John Fetterman speak to a large Saturday afternoon crowd in an indoor sports complex in Scranton, Pa. Mr. Fetterman isn’t old — he’s 53 — but he did suffer a stroke and begin recovery while campaigning for office.That day in Scranton, though he moved fluidly and alertly, he struggled some with the cadence of his speech, which was mostly one-liners about Dr. Mehmet Oz. But the event opened up into a gentler moment when he asked, “How many one [sic] of you in your own life have had a serious health challenge? Hands. Personally. Any of you?” Tons of hands went silently up from the synthetic grass. “How many of your parents?” Nearly all the remaining hands went up and stayed up while he ticked off a few other close relations. Though this eventually segued into another joke about Mr. Oz, the silent, serious quality of this call-response was not how the campaign often played online and in the media, where Mr. Fetterman’s condition became a weapon to be bashed over him. The politics of health and age can be brutal.Last week, Mr. Fetterman entered Walter Reed medical center to treat depression. Annie Karni reported that Mr. Fetterman’s recovery has continued to be challenging as he adjusts to new accommodations and limitations. Though he initially faced criticism for not disclosing enough about his condition, over the last several months he has been public about the changes he has gone through and the accommodations he requires, and about depression, something millions of people face but politicians have rarely disclosed.Aging is different than depression or stroke recovery; but like those experiences, there is no shame in aging, and there’s also no suggesting that everything’s easy about it. The choice for Mr. Biden is only an elevated version of the one many people deal with: When will you know it’s time to retire or step back, and when to keep going? All of us are aging, gaining and losing capacities in ways we may not even be aware of.There’s no automatic test that will prove someone is “too old,” and even if there were, nobody would want to take it.You can drive yourself crazy with war games about the ways an election could go. What if Mr. Biden were to run and face a much younger candidate, instead of Mr. Trump? What if he stepped aside in favor of a younger potential successor who then lost to Mr. Trump, invalidating the entire premise of Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign?All that there is, in the end, is Mr. Biden’s request — to trust that he is right about himself. He’s been right before, and may well be right again. But the reason this question lingers is the unstable ground of the answer: The source of what makes people worry about the president is also the source of his power and appeal.Ms. Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.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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      Mexico Hobbles Election Agency That Helped End One-Party Rule

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      The changes come ahead of a presidential election next year and are part of a pattern of challenges to democratic institutions across the Western Hemisphere.Mexican lawmakers passed sweeping measures overhauling the nation’s electoral agency on Wednesday, dealing a blow to the institution that oversees voting and that helped push the country away from one-party rule two decades ago.The changes, which will cut the electoral agency’s staff, diminish its autonomy and limit its ability to punish politicians for breaking electoral laws, are the most significant in a series of moves by the Mexican president to undermine the country’s fragile institutions — part of a pattern of challenges to democratic norms across the Western Hemisphere.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose party and its allies control Congress, argues that the measures will save millions of dollars and make voting more efficient. The new rules also seek to make it easier for Mexicans who live abroad to cast online ballots.But critics — including some who have worked alongside the president — say the overhaul is an attempt to weaken a key pillar of Mexico’s democracy. The leader of the president’s party in the Senate has called it unconstitutional.Now, another test looms: The Supreme Court, which has increasingly become a target of the president’s ire, is expected to hear a challenge to the measures in the coming months.If the changes stand, electoral officials say it will become difficult to carry out free and fair elections — including in a crucial presidential contest next year.“What’s at play is whether we’re going to have a country with democratic institutions and the rule of law,” said Jorge Alcocer Villanueva, who served in the interior ministry under Mr. López Obrador. “What’s at risk is whether the vote will be respected.”The watchdog, called the National Electoral Institute, earned international acclaim for facilitating clean elections in Mexico, paving the way for the opposition to win the presidency in 2000 after decades of rule by a single party.Demonstrators marching against the electoral changes proposed by Mr. López Obrador in November.Luis Cortes/ReutersYet since losing a presidential election in 2006 by less than 1 percent of the vote, Mr. López Obrador has repeatedly argued, without evidence, that the watchdog actually perpetrated electoral fraud — a claim that resembles voter-fraud conspiracy theories in the United States and Brazil.The Mexican leader’s skepticism about the 2006 election was even echoed last year by the American ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, who told The New York Times that he, too, had questions about the results’ legitimacy.President Biden’s top Latin America adviser later clarified that the administration recognized the outcome of that contest. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico has been sending reports to Washington assessing potential threats to democracy in the country, according to three U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.But while some lawmakers have expressed concern about the electoral changes, the Biden administration has said little about the issue in public.The American government sees little advantage in provoking Mr. López Obrador, and has faith that Mexican institutions are capable of defending themselves, several U.S. officials said.The Mexican president remains extremely popular, and his Morena party is ahead in 2024 presidential election polls. One of Mr. López Obrador’s political protégés is likely to be the party’s candidate.That dynamic has many in Mexico wondering: Why push for changes that could raise doubts about the legitimacy of an election his party is favored to win?“We were looking to save money, without affecting the work of the I.N.E.,” Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, the president’s spokesman, said in an interview, using an acronym for the watchdog. The president has a “zero deficit” policy of austerity, he said, and would prefer to spend public money on “social investments, in health, education, and infrastructure.”Indigenous vendors selling handicrafts during Mr. López Obrador’s rally in Mexico City last year.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. López Obrador has said he wants to make a bloated bureaucracy leaner.“The electoral system will be improved,” Mr. López Obrador said in December. “They are going to shrink some areas so that more can be done with less.”Many agree that spending could be trimmed, but say the changes adopted on Wednesday strike at the heart of the watchdog’s most fundamental role: overseeing the vote.Electoral officials say the overhaul will force them to eliminate thousands of jobs — including the vast majority of workers who organize elections at the local level and install polling stations across the country. The changes also limit the agency’s control over its own spending and prevent it from disqualifying candidates for campaign spending violations.Uuc Kib Espadas, a member of the watchdog’s governing council, said the changes could result in “the failure to install a significant number of polling stations, depriving thousands or hundreds of thousands of people of the right to vote.”Mr. Ramírez Cuevas called those concerns “an exaggeration” and said “there won’t be massive layoffs” at the watchdog.But the Mexican president has not hidden his disdain for the institution his party is now targeting.After electoral officials confirmed his defeat in 2006, Mr. López Obrador led thousands of supporters in protests that paralyzed the capital for weeks. He eventually led his followers off the streets, but never stopped talking about what he calls “the fraud” of 2006.Mr. López Obrador surrounded by supporters during his rally last year.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times“He’s resentful of the electoral authority,” said Mr. Alcocer Villanueva, the former interior ministry official. “That resentment makes him act irrationally on this issue.”Mr. López Obrador did not always seem determined to pare down the electoral body.Mr. Alcocer Villanueva said that when he was chief of staff to the interior minister, from 2018 to 2021, he and his team proposed studying possible electoral changes, but the president said it was not one of his priorities.Then the electoral watchdog started to get in the way of the president’s agenda.In 2021, the agency disqualified two candidates from his party from running for office for failing to declare relatively small campaign contributions — decisions that some within the institution questioned.“It was a disproportionate sanction,” said Mr. Espadas Ancona.Soon, the president began spending a lot more time talking about the watchdog — usually negatively. In 2022, he mentioned it in daily news conferences more than twice as often as he did in 2019, according to the agency.He has denounced the agency as “rotten” and “undemocratic” and made a punching bag out of its leader — a lawyer named Lorenzo Córdova — calling him “a fraud without principles.”Mr. López Obrador has railed against Mexican electoral authorities since his failed presidential bid in 2006, when he lost by less than 1 percent of the vote.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. Córdova, who was appointed by Mexico’s Congress, has taken center stage in his own defense, responding directly to the president in a torrent of media interviews and news conferences. “It is a very clear political strategy, to sell the I.N.E. as a biased, partial authority,” Mr. Córdova said in an interview, referring to the agency by its initials. “What is our dilemma as an authority? How do we handle it? If we say nothing, publicly, we are validating the president’s statements.”The president’s critics have cheered Mr. Córdova’s willingness to take him on. But some in Mexico question whether Mr. Córdova has struck the right balance.“He shouldn’t respond to the president so viscerally and with so much anger,” said Luis Carlos Ugalde, who led the agency from 2003 to 2007, adding: “It generates a stronger desire from the other side, from Morena, to attack and destroy the institute.”Mr. Córdova stood by his approach.“It’s very easy to judge from the outside,” Mr. Córdova said. “It’s been me who’s had to lead this institution in the worst moment.”Mr. Córdova’s term will expire in April. Congress, controlled by the president’s party, will elect four new members of the watchdog’s governing body.Oscar Lopez More

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      México restringe a su instituto electoral

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      Los cambios suceden en la antesala de los comicios presidenciales de 2024 y son parte de un patrón de desafíos a las instituciones democráticas en el hemisferio occidental.Los legisladores mexicanos modificaron el miércoles el sistema electoral del país, dando un golpe a la institución que supervisa las votaciones y que hace dos décadas ayudó a sacar al país de un régimen unipartidista.Los cambios, que reducirán el personal del organismo electoral, disminuirán su autonomía y limitarán su capacidad de descalificar a los candidatos que quebranten leyes electorales,son los más significativos de una serie de medidas adoptadas por el presidente de México que socavan las frágiles instituciones independientes, y forman parte de un patrón de desafíos a las normas democráticas en todo el hemisferio occidental.El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador, cuyo partido controla el Congreso junto con sus aliados, argumenta que las medidas ahorrarán millones de dólares y harán que las votaciones sean más eficientes. Las nuevas reglas también buscan facilitar que los mexicanos que viven en el extranjero emitan su voto en línea.Pero los críticos —entre ellos algunas personas que han trabajado con el presidente— dicen que los cambios son un intento de debilitar un pilar clave de la democracia de México. El líder del partido del presidente en el Senado ha calificado de inconstitucional la medida.Ahora se avecina otra prueba: se espera que en los próximos meses la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, que se ha convertido en el blanco frecuente de la ira del presidente, evalúe una impugnación a las medidas.Si los cambios se mantienen, las autoridades electorales mexicanas afirman que podría dificultarse la realización de elecciones libres y justas, incluida la contienda presidencial clave del próximo año.“Lo que está en juego es si vamos a tener un Estado de derecho y una división de poderes”, dijo Jorge Alcocer Villanueva, quien trabajó anteriormente en la Secretaría de Gobernación durante el gobierno de López Obrador. “Eso es lo que quedaría en riesgo, la certeza de que el voto va a ser respetado”.El organismo de supervisión, llamado Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE), ganó reconocimiento internacional por facilitar elecciones limpias en México, allanando el camino para que la oposición ganara la presidencia en el año 2000 tras décadas de un gobierno dominado por un solo partido.Manifestantes marcharon en distintas ciudades del país contra los cambios electorales propuestos por López Obrador.Luis Cortes/ReutersSin embargo, desde que perdió unas elecciones presidenciales en 2006 por menos del 1 por ciento de los votos, López Obrador ha sostenido en repetidas ocasiones, sin aportar pruebas, que el instituto ha perpetrado en realidad fraude electoral, una afirmación que se asemeja a las teorías de conspiración de fraude electoral propagadas en Estados Unidos y Brasil.El escepticismo del líder mexicano sobre las elecciones de 2006 fue incluso retomado el año pasado por el embajador estadounidense en México, Ken Salazar, quien declaró a The New York Times que él también dudaba de la legitimidad de los resultados.El principal asesor para América Latina del presidente Joe Biden aclaró posteriormente que el gobierno reconocía el resultado de aquella contienda. La embajada de Estados Unidos en México ha estado enviando informes a Washington en los que se evalúan las posibles amenazas a la democracia en el país, según tres funcionarios estadounidenses que no estaban autorizados a hablar públicamente.Pero si bien algunos legisladores han expresado su preocupación por los cambios en materia electoral, el gobierno de Biden ha dicho poco sobre el tema en público.El gobierno estadounidense considera poco ventajoso provocar a López Obrador y confía en que las instituciones mexicanas sean capaces de defenderse, dijeron varios funcionarios estadounidenses.El presidente mexicano sigue siendo extremadamente popular, y Morena, su partido, va a la cabeza en las encuestas de las elecciones presidenciales de 2024. Es muy probable que uno de los protegidos políticos de López Obrador quede al frente de la candidatura presidencial del partido.Esa dinámica ha ocasionado que muchos en México se pregunten: ¿por qué impulsar cambios que podrían suscitar dudas sobre la legitimidad de las elecciones que se espera que favorezcan a su partido?“Lo que se buscaba era ahorros”, dijo el vocero del gobierno, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, en una entrevista, “sin afectar el funcionamiento del INE” . El presidente tiene una política de austeridad de “cero déficit”, comentó, y preferiría gastar los fondos públicos en “inversión social, la salud, educación, infraestructura”.Venta de artesanías en la marcha a favor de López Obrador en Ciudad de México en noviembreLuis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesLópez Obrador ha dicho que quiere agilizar una burocracia inflada.“Se va a mejorar el sistema de elecciones”, dijo López Obrador en diciembre. “Se logran compactar algunas áreas para que se haga más con menos”.Muchos coinciden en que el gasto podría recortarse, pero argumentan que los cambios adoptados el miércoles afectan la base de la función más elemental del organismo electoral: supervisar el voto.Los funcionarios electorales argumentan que las modificaciones los obligarán a eliminar miles de puestos de trabajo, incluida buena parte de las personas que organizan las elecciones y gestionan la instalación de casillas electorales a nivel local en todo el país. Los cambios también limitan el control de la agencia sobre sus propios gastos y la capacidad del instituto para inhabilitar a candidatos por infracciones de gastos de campaña.Uuc Kib Espadas, consejo del INE, dijo que las modificaciones podrían tener como resultado “que no se instale un número significativo de casillas privando de su derecho al voto a miles o cientos de miles de personas”.Ramírez Cuevas calificó dichas inquietudes como “una exageración” y dijo que “no va haber despido masivo” en el INE.Pero el presidente mexicano no ha disimulado su desdén hacia la institución que su partido ahora tiene en la mira.Luego de que las autoridades electorales confirmaron su derrota en 2006, López Obrador impulsó a miles de sus seguidores a manifestarse en protestas que paralizaron la capital durante semanas.Al final pidió a sus seguidores salir de las calles, pero nunca dejó de hablar de lo que él llama “el fraude” de 2006.López Obrador rodeado de seguidores en un mitin en noviembre.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York Times“El presidente de México tiene una especie de resentimiento contra la autoridad electoral”, dijo Alcocer Villanueva, el exfuncionario de la Secretaría de Gobernación. “Ese resentimiento lo hace actuar de una manera irracional en este terreno”.López Obrador no siempre pareció decidido a reducir al órgano electoral.Alcocer Villanueva contó que cuando fue coordinador de asesores del secretario de Gobernación, de 2018 a 2021, él y su equipo propusieron analizar posibles cambios electorales, pero el presidente decía que no estaba entre sus prioridades.Luego, el organismo de control electoral empezó a ser un obstáculo para la agenda del presidente.En 2021, el INE inhabilitó a dos candidatos del partido gobernante por no declarar aportes de campaña relativamente pequeños, decisiones que algunas personas al interior de la institución cuestionaron.“Era una sanción desproporcionada”, dijo Espadas Ancona.Pronto, el presidente empezó a dedicar mucho más tiempo a hablar del organismo electoral, por lo general de forma negativa. Para 2022 mencionaba a la institución en sus conferencias matutinas más del doble de veces que en 2019, según el instituto.Ha señalado al organismo como “podrido” y “antidemocrático” y convirtió en blanco de sus ataques al líder del instituto —un abogado llamado Lorenzo Córdova— a quien el presidente ha calificado como alguien “sin principios, sin ideales, un farsante”.Desde que no logró llegar a la presidencia en 2006, por una diferencia de menos del 1 por ciento de los votos, López Obrador ha atacado a las autoridades electorales.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesCórdova, quien fue nombrado por el Congreso de México, ha tomado protagonismo en su propia defensa, al responder directamente al presidente en un torrente de entrevistas en medios de comunicación y conferencias de prensa. “Es una estrategia política muy clara y evidente: vender al INE como una autoridad parcial, sesgada”, dijo Córdova en una entrevista, utilizando las siglas de la institución. “¿Cuál es nuestro dilema como autoridad?, ¿cómo manejamos esto? Si no decimos nada, públicamente, estamos convalidando el dicho del presidente”.Los críticos del presidente han aplaudido la disposición de Córdova a enfrentarlo. Pero algunos en México se preguntan si Córdova ha encontrado el equilibrio adecuado.“El tono del presidente del INE debe ser con más discreción y de no responder con tanta víscera y con tanto coraje”, dijo Luis Carlos Ugalde, quien dirigió la agencia de 2003 a 2007 , y añadió: “Genera que del otro lado, del lado de Morena, haya más ganas, más ganas de atacar, de destruir al instituto”.Córdova se mantuvo firme en su enfoque.“Es muy fácil juzgar desde fuera”, dijo Córdova. “Al que le ha tocado conducir esta institución en el peor momento he sido yo”.El mandato de Córdova termina en abril. El Congreso, controlado por el partido del presidente, elegirá a cuatro nuevos consejeros para el organismo electoral.Oscar Lopez More