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      This Is Not How Pete Buttigieg Wanted to Visit Ohio

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      Gail Collins: Bret, Democratic strategists are worried about hanging on to support in the working class. The good news, from my perspective, is that it looks like the big problem is economic concerns, not cultural ones.Saying that’s good news because the Biden administration can respond to those worries by pointing to a ton of effort to create jobs and fight inflation.Guessing you may, um, disagree?Bret Stephens: In the immortal words of the “Airplane” sequel: “Just a tad.”The big problem for Democrats is that their economic message — that happy times are here again — isn’t landing in the places where they need to win, particularly factory towns where elections in states like Wisconsin or Ohio are sometimes decided. Inflation is still too high and probably means the Fed will continue to raise interest rates. Unemployment is low in part because so many people have dropped out of the labor force. Years of lax border control creates a perception that cheap immigrant labor will further undercut working-class wages. And a lot of the projects that President Biden’s spending bills are supposed to fund will take years to get off the ground because there’s rarely such a thing as a “shovel-ready” project.Gail: Yeah, gearing up for a big construction effort does take time. But people who’ve suffered with terrible transportation problems for years do know the shovels are coming. Like the bridge project over the Ohio River that Democrats in Cincinnati have joined hands with Mitch McConnell to celebrate.Bret: The other problem for Democrats is that if they aren’t winning the messaging battle when it comes to the economy, they are losing it badly when it comes to cultural issues. You and I often rue the collapse of the moderate wing of the G.O.P. that was occasionally willing to break with right-wing orthodoxies, but Democrats could also do more to embrace candidates who depart from progressive orthodoxies on issues like guns, immigration, school choice, trans issues and so on.Gail: “Depart from progressive orthodoxies” is a nice way of saying “embrace the bad.” I appreciate that it would be strategic for some purple-state Democrats to take moderate positions on guns, immigration, etc. But I’m not gonna be applauding somebody who, for instance, votes against an assault weapon ban.Bret: You’re reminding me of the story, probably apocryphal, of the supporter who told Adlai Stevenson, during one of his presidential runs in the 1950s, that “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.”“I’m afraid that won’t do,” he supposedly replied. “I need a majority.”Gail: Let’s go back to infrastructure for a minute. Big story about that train wreck in Ohio. Do you agree with me that the whole thing is the fault of Republicans caving in to pressure from the rail industry to loosen regulations?Bret: Er, no. I read recently that there were more than 1,000 train derailments last year, which averages out to more than two a day, and that there’s been a 60 percent decline in railroad safety incidents since 1990. Accidents happen. When they do, they shouldn’t become a partisan issue.Gail: When major accidents happen in an industry that’s both necessarily regulated and greatly lobbied over, it should be a call for investigation.And while we’re on this subject, please let’s talk about our transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg ….Bret: So, to illustrate my point, I’m not going to raise an accusing finger at him. Not even remotely his fault, even if Republicans are trying hard to pin him with the blame. Although, for someone with presidential aspirations, he didn’t exactly help himself by showing up a day after Donald Trump did.Gail: Sort of embarrassed that while I was trying to ponder rail regulation, my thoughts kept drifting off to Buttigieg the possible presidential candidate.He’s one of the guys we always mention when we talk about who might be nominated if Biden doesn’t go for a second term. But Buttigieg’s performance in Ohio was definitely not the work of a guy who knows how to run for that job.Steve McCurry/Magnum PhotosBret: Switching subjects again, we should talk about the legacy of President Jimmy Carter. I was a 7-year-old child living in Mexico City when he left office, so your recollections of him are much more valuable and interesting than mine.Gail: I distinctly remember bemoaning the energy shortage that left drivers waiting in long lines at the gas stations, but that’s hardly an insider’s story.Bret: Those lines put last year’s spike in gas prices in perspective.Gail: And every Democrat worried about Carter’s minimal talent for communication. He made a big TV appearance to promote energy conservation, wearing a sweater and sitting next to a fire, looking more silly than inspiring.Now, when I recall some of the stuff he did — environmental protection, promoting diversity, negotiating a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt — I appreciate him a lot more.Bret: Airline deregulation, too. Made air travel affordable to middle-class America for the first time. And he had the guts to nominate Paul Volcker to the Federal Reserve in 1979 to jack up interest rates and finally tame inflation, even though it would help cost him his presidency the next year.Gail: But the biggest thing he’s leaving us, Bret, is the story of his post-presidency. Campaigning endlessly for human rights, fair voting around the world and housing for the poor. Rather than holding press conferences to make his point, he’d swing a hammer with the crew at low-income housing construction sites.If high-ranking politicians see retirement from their top jobs as just a path to giving big-money speeches and writing the occasional memoir, they set a bad example for every older American. Carter showed how the later stages of life can actually be the richest and most rewarding.Bret: There’s a lot about Carter’s policy views that didn’t square with my own, and his persona sometimes struck me as … immodestly modest. But he was a unique figure in American political life, and he single-handedly disproved F. Scott Fitzgerald’s contention about there being no second acts in American lives.Gail: Not to mention third acts!Bret: He also showed how much more valuable a purpose- and values-driven life can be than one consumed by the culture of celebrity, wealth and pleasure — something that seriously tarnished the post-presidential legacy of a certain Southern Democrat who succeeded him, to say nothing of an even more saturnalian Republican president.Totally different topic, Gail, but I want to recommend our colleague Michelle Goldberg’s terrific column on the terrible mental-health effects of social media, particularly for teenagers. She mentions a proposal by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to totally ban social media for kids under 16. It’s one to which, as a father of three teenagers, I’m pretty sympathetic. Your thoughts?Gail: I read Michelle’s great piece and remembered how paranoid I was as a teenager when I thought two of my friends might be talking about me on the phone after school. Can’t imagine how I’d have felt if they had the capacity to do it as a group, while they were supposed to be studying after dinner. With a transcript available to the entire class later in the evening.Bret: Not only frequently abusive but also addictive. Someone once said that there are only two industries that speak of their customers as “users” — drug dealers and social-media companies.Gail: Just saying that kids can’t use social media sounds very attractive. But somehow I have my doubts it’ll work. Wonder if the more likely outcome might be a system the more sophisticated kids could use while the poorer, or less technologically cool ones, got sidelined.Am I being overly paranoid?Bret: No ban works perfectly. But if we were able to more or less end teenage cigarette smoking over the last 20 years, it shouldn’t be out of the question to try to do the same with social-media use. I can’t imagine that it’s beyond the technological reach of a company like Apple to write some code that stops social-media apps from being downloaded to phones whose primary users they know are under the age of 16.Gail: Well, happy to insist they do that. Even if they don’t know how, it’d increase pressure for them to find a way.Bret: I would welcome it, and I suspect most teenagers would, too. It’s hard enough being 14 or 15 without needing to panic about some embarrassing Instagram pic or discovering too late that something stupid or awful you wrote on Facebook or Twitter at 16 comes back to haunt you at 20.Gail: Hey, it’s traumatic enough being haunted by what I said last month.Bret: Or last week.As columnists, we volunteered to have a paper trail for our critics to pick through. We owe it to the kids to shield them from creating public records of their own indiscretions and idiocies. Life will come roaring at them soon enough. I say no social media till they’re old enough to vote, smoke and maybe even buy a drink. Full-frontal stupidity should be left to the grown-ups — like us!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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      Nikki Haley Hits the Campaign Trail

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      John Tully for The New York TimesIn New Hampshire, where she also leaned into her age, calling for “new generational leadership,” she was endorsed by Don Bolduc, a Trump ally and on-again, off-again election denier who was the state’s G.O.P. Senate nominee last year. More

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      Más de 100.000 personas marchan en México contra el Plan B

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      Se registraron manifestaciones en más de un centenar de ciudades del país contra una serie de medidas que van a limitar a la autoridad electoral y que, según sus funcionarios, dificultará garantizar elecciones libres y justas.Demonstrators gathered in Mexico City’s main square to protest new measures diminishing the nation’s electoral watchdog, changes they see as a threat to democracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesCIUDAD DE MÉXICO — Más de 100.000 personas salieron a las calles de México el domingo para protestar las leyes recién aprobadas que restringen al instituto electoral del país, en lo que los manifestantes dijeron era un repudio a los esfuerzos del presidente de debilitar a un pilar de la democracia.Vestidos en varios tonos de rosa, el color oficial del órgano de supervisión electoral que ayudó a terminar con el régimen de partido único hace dos décadas, los manifestantes llenaron el Zócalo de la capital y gritaron: “¡El voto no se toca!”.Los asistentes dijeron que buscaban enviar un mensaje al presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, quien respaldó las medidas y reside en el Palacio Nacional, frente a la principal plaza de la capital.Pero también se dirigían directamente a la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, que se espera que atienda las impugnaciones a las modificaciones al instituto electoral en los próximos meses. Muchos consideran que se trata de un momento que plantea un desafío crucial a la corte, que ha sido objeto de críticas por parte del presidente.La mañana del domingo, los manifestantes también gritaron: “¡Yo confío en la corte!”.Horas antes del inicio oficial de la protesta, los asistentes, algunos vistiendo camisas de botones bien planchadas y sombreros de paja, se reunían en cafeterías y tomaban desayuno en una terraza con vista a la sede de gobierno.Los manifestantes dijeron que los cambios ponen en riesgo a un pilar clave de la democracia del país.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesPero en la calle, el ambiente era de ansiedad.“Yo pagué mis propios gastos y mi estancia, pero no me pesa: haría eso y más por mi país”, dijo Marta Ofelia González, de 75 años, quien voló de Mazatlán, en el estado costero de Sinaloa, y llevaba una visera de paja para cubrirse de un sol intenso.Acudió, dijo, porque teme “perder la democracia y que nos convirtamos en una dictadura”.El presidente argumenta que los cambios van a ahorrar millones de dólares y mejorarán el sistema de votación. Pero los funcionarios electorales comentan que la modificación va a dificultar que se garanticen elecciones libres y justas, incluida la contienda presidencial del próximo año.“Es la última esperanza”, dijo Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, un exdiputado de izquierda y uno de los organizadores de la protesta. “Queremos generar un respaldo”, dijo, “para fortalecer la idea de que la Suprema Corte debe declarar inconstitucionales estas leyes”. De otro modo, agregó Acosta Naranjo, “tendríamos que ir a la elección con un árbitro parcial y un árbitro disminuido”.No se sabía con certeza de inmediato cuántas personas protestaron en todo el país —se organizaron manifestaciones en más de 100 ciudades— a pesar de que las cifras solo en Ciudad de México superaron los 100.000 asistentes, según organizadores y autoridades locales.Sobre las protestas se cernía la condena reciente en un tribunal de Brooklyn de Genaro García Luna, un exalto funcionario de seguridad mexicano, quien fue declarado culpable de recibir sobornos de los cárteles del narcotráfico: en México, el veredicto se percibe ampliamente como dañino a uno de los partidos de la oposición que ayudaron a organizar la protesta del domingo.José Ramón Cossío Díaz, un ministro retirado de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, habló el domingo frente al edificio del tribunal.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesGarcía Luna fungió como un funcionario de seguridad de alto rango durante más de una década con dos presidentes del Partido Acción Nacional —Vicente Fox y Felipe Calderón— que hicieron llamados públicos para que los ciudadanos se unieran a la protesta.En las calles que recorrieron los manifestantes el domingo había afiches con el rostro de García Luna y la palabra “culpable”.El presidente ha insinuado que a los manifestantes los motiva el deseo de devolver el país a manos de los líderes corruptos del pasado.“Van a venir porque hay un grupo de intereses creados, de corruptos, que quiere regresar al poder para seguir robando”, dijo López Obrador en una conferencia de prensa reciente refiriéndose a los manifestantes del domingo. “No vengan aquí a decir: ‘Es que nos importa la democracia, es que se afecta la democracia’”.Era la segunda vez en alrededor de cuatro meses que los mexicanos se habían manifestado en apoyo del instituto de vigilancia electoral, que el presidente y sus seguidores aseguran que se ha convertido en una burocracia inflada cooptada por intereses políticos.“Tiene un poder desmesurado y desviado”, dijo Pedro Miguel, un periodista de La Jornada, un diario de izquierda, quien se describió como “militante” del proyecto político del presidente. Miguel criticó al INE por pagarle demasiado a sus integrantes, incluido un bono al retirarse.“Esa marcha parece más bien en defensa de ese bono y de esos sueldos miserables”, dijo de la protesta del domingo.Fue la segunda vez en unos cuatro meses que los mexicanos mostraron apoyo público al Instituto Nacional Electoral, que el presidente y sus seguidores aseguran se ha convertido en un organismo con burocracia inflada.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesLas medidas, aprobadas la semana pasada por la legislatura, van a recortar el personal del instituto, socavar su autonomía y limitar su capacidad para sancionar a los políticos que quebranten la ley electoral. Los funcionarios electorales indican que la modificación también eliminará a la mayoría de trabajadores que supervisan directamente el voto e instalan las casillas de votación en todo el país.“Pone en riesgo incluso la validez de las propias elecciones”, dijo en una entrevista Lorenzo Córdova, el presidente saliente del INE.Las manifestaciones suceden cuando el país se prepara para el inicio de la campaña presidencial de 2024, en medio de serias dudas sobre si una oposición maltrecha e incipiente cuenta con los medios para ganarse a los votantes desencantados.“Es una prueba muy importante de qué tanto van a poder movilizar a su base social”, dijo Blanca Heredia, profesora en el Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, refiriéndose a los partidos que se oponen al presidente, conocido por sus iniciales, AMLO.La multitud del domingo, según algunos analistas, era suficientemente grande para señalar que muchos mexicanos están ansiosos de apoyar a sus instituciones y también de expresar su descontento con el presidente.González, la manifestante de Mazatlán, dijo que no había votado por López Obrador, “porque todavía me sube el agua al tinaco”.Está por verse si la oposición puede sacar provecho electoral de ese desencanto.“Nada más tienen el sentimiento anti-AMLO”, dijo Heredia de los partidos que se enfrentan a López Obrador. “Si quieren captar a más votantes, distintos a los que son anti-AMLO, necesitan un proyecto en positivo, algún plan que proponer al país”.Los manifestantes que marcharon contra las medidas impulsadas por el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador, quien ha insinuado que los que protestan buscan volver a poner el país en manos de líderes corruptos.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesElda Cantú More

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      James Abourezk, the First Arab American Senator, Dies at 92

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      A Democrat from South Dakota, he found the freedom to act on principle in the House and Senate by choosing not to seek re-election.James Abourezk, who was elected by South Dakotans as the first Arab American senator, and who used his prominence to support the causes of Palestinians and Native Americans while also pushing for friendlier relations with Cuba and Iran, died on Friday, his 92nd birthday, at his home in Sioux Falls, S.D. His daughter Alya James Abourezk confirmed the death.Mr. Abourezk (pronounced AB-ur-esk) was a double novelty for a senator. He was a left winger from a generally conservative rural state and a politician who gave up the chance for re-election to focus on pursuing the political objectives he believed in, rather than those supported by his party, his constituents or even, in some cases, most Americans.In 1970, when Mr. Abourezk won a race for South Dakota’s second district seat in the House, the state’s newly elected governor was a fellow Democrat, Richard F. Kneip, and its other senator was the progressive standard-bearer George McGovern. Mr. Abourezk’s victory came as a surprise nevertheless: A Democrat had not occupied that House seat since the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s dominance in the 1930s.He was elected to the Senate in 1972. After he stepped down, Larry Pressler, a Republican, succeeded him and served for nearly 20 years.Mr. Abourezk attributed his success to his reputation as “more populist than liberal or leftist, a brand of politician that resonates with people from South Dakota,” he told The Capital Journal, a South Dakota newspaper, in 2013. “One comment I constantly heard from people was that, ‘I don’t agree much with Abourezk, but by God, he’s honest.’”Mr. Abourezk in his Sioux Falls, S.D., office in 2004. After leaving the Senate, he served as counsel for the Iranian Embassy and founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.Lloyd B. Cunningham/The Argus Leader, via Associated PressHis biggest achievements as a senator concerned support for Native Americans. He proposed the establishment of the American Indian Policy Review Commission, which studied legislative possibilities to address problems in that community. The laws that resulted included the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which granted tribes more autonomy in administering government programs, and the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which established controls on the adoption of Indigenous children by white families. That measure continues to draw praise, even from tribal representatives and legal advocates who say it did not go far enough.On some issues, Mr. Abourezk was content to oppose most other senators — or even the entire rest of the chamber. In 1977, he was a lone dissenter in an 85-to-1 vote on an amendment concerning child pornography. He questioned the legality of a ban on selling or distributing material that might not be considered obscene.The same year, he organized an almost comically unusual good-will trip to Cuba for a delegation of South Dakota college basketball players to compete against the Cuban national team. “Sports is noncontroversial, and this should do a lot for normalization of relations,” Mr. Abourezk told The New York Times in Havana. “It’s fitting South Dakota should be involved because we’re famous for pioneers of all kinds.”Traveling from 25-degree Sioux Falls to 85-degree Havana and being served frozen daiquiris upon arrival, the South Dakotans reacted to the trip with wonderment. “I’ve never even seen the sea before,” Bob Ashley, a 6‐foot‐10 center from the Sioux tribe, told The Times.Mr. Abourezk brought his dissident sensibility most vocally to issues involving the Middle East, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a 1975 article for The Times, he argued, “No settlement can come about and no peace can endure unless the Palestinians have been settled in a homeland of their own.”The next year provided another occasion for him to vote against the rest of the Senate. The issue was a measure to cut off foreign aid to nations that harbored international terrorists. Mr. Abourezk said that the amendment was aimed at Arab terrorists but had no provisions for what he termed terrorist acts by the Israeli military.Some opposed his appearance at a 1977 Democratic dinner in Denver on the grounds that he was too critical of Israel. He replied, “Just as we have seen U.S. Presidents wrap themselves in the American flag in efforts to stifle criticism of their policies, so do we see a foreign country wrapping itself in its state religion, so that criticism of the state or its policies is perceived as a form of racism.”After leaving the Senate, he became “Iran’s Man in Washington,” as The Times labeled him in 1979, serving as counsel for the Iranian Embassy and seeking to recoup money that the Islamic Republic said had been stolen by the Shah. He also founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which drew attention to prejudicial treatment of Arabs by the government and in everyday life.James George Abourezk was born on Feb. 24, 1931, in Wood, S.D. He grew up there and in Mission, two tiny towns that were on the Rosebud Indian Reservation of southern South Dakota. His father, Charles, had moved to the United States from Lebanon as a peddler in 1898 and managed to open general stores in Wood and Mission. His mother, Lena (Mickel) Abourezk, a Lebanese Greek Orthodox immigrant like her husband, ran the family store in Wood, while Charles managed the one in Mission.Mr. Abourezk served for four years in the Navy. He got a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and in 1966 he earned a law degree from the University of South Dakota School of Law. Before entering politics, Mr. Abourezk worked as a farmhand, wholesale grocery salesman, car salesman, bartender and bar owner. He became passionate about politics after a family doctor lent him copies of I.F. Stone’s Weekly, The Nation and The New Republic.Mr. Abourezk’s marriages to Mary Ann Houlton and Margaret Bethea ended in divorce. He married Sanaa Dieb in 1991. She survives him, along with Alya, their daughter; two sons, Charlie and Paul, and a daughter, Nikki Pipe On Head, from his first marriage; a stepdaughter, Chesley Machado; more than 30 grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.Mr. Abourezk’s wife runs Sanaa’s Gourmet Mediterranean, a restaurant in Sioux Falls that The Times credited in 2014 with kicking off “an epicurean trend” in the city. In 2019, when he was 89, The Aberdeen News reported that Mr. Abourezk enjoyed holding court at the restaurant, telling stories of his colorful life and sharing his views on politics.He suggested to The Capital Journal a way to ensure more independent-minded legislators such as himself: term limits. “If a member of Congress is not worried about getting re-elected, he or she will more often than not vote in the public interest rather than in his or her own electoral interest, which is now what happens,” he said. More

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      Large Crowds Across Mexico Protest Overhaul of Election Watchdog

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      Demonstrations took place in over 100 cities against the recent overhaul of the country’s electoral watchdog, which officials say could make fair and free elections difficult.More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Mexico on Sunday to protest new laws hobbling the nation’s election agency, in what demonstrators said was a repudiation of the president’s efforts to weaken a pillar of democracy.Wearing shades of pink, the official color of the electoral watchdog that helped end one-party rule two decades ago, protesters filled the central square of the capital, Mexico City, and chanted, “Don’t touch my vote.”The protesters said they were trying to send a message to the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who backed the measures and lives in the national palace on the square’s edge.They were also speaking directly to the nation’s Supreme Court, which is expected to hear a challenge to the overhaul in the coming months. Many see the moment as a critical test for the court, which has been a target of criticism by the president.Protesters also chanted on Sunday morning, “I trust in the court.”Hours before the demonstration officially began, attendants, many wearing crisp collared shirts and Panama hats, lined up outside upscale cafes and sat for breakfast on a terrace overlooking the seat of government.Protesters said the changes imperiled a key pillar of the nation’s democracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesBut on the streets, the mood was anxious.“I paid my own expenses and my stay, but it doesn’t bother me, I’d do that and more for my country,” said Marta Ofelia González, 75, who flew in from Mazatlán, on the coast of Sinaloa State, and wore a straw visor to block the punishing sun.She came, she said, because she fears “we will lose democracy and become a dictatorship.”The president argues the changes will save millions of dollars and improve the voting system. Electoral officials, though, say the overhaul will make it difficult to guarantee free and fair elections — including in a crucial presidential election next year.“This is our last hope,” said Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, a former leftist congressman and one of the demonstration’s organizers. “We want to defend the court’s autonomy so it can declare these laws unconstitutional.” Otherwise, Mr. Acosta Naranjo said, “we will have to hold an election with a partial and diminished arbiter.”It was not immediately clear how many people protested across the country — demonstrations had been organized in more than 100 cities — though the numbers in Mexico City alone were above 100,000, organizers and local officials said.Looming over the protests was the recent conviction in a Brooklyn courtroom of Genaro García Luna, a former top Mexican law enforcement official, who was found guilty of taking bribes from cartels — a verdict widely viewed in Mexico as damaging to one of the opposition parties associated with the demonstration on Sunday.José Ramón Cossío Díaz, a retired minister of the Supreme Court, spoke in front of the court building on Sunday.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. García Luna served in high-profile security roles for more than a decade under two conservative National Action Party presidents — Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón — both of whom publicly called for citizens to attend the protest.The streets where protesters roamed on Sunday were lined with posters bearing Mr. García Luna’s face and the word “guilty.”The president has suggested that the protesters are motivated by the desire to put the country back in the hands of the corrupt leaders of the past.“They’re going to show up because there are vested, corrupt interests that want to return to power to continue stealing,” Mr. López Obrador said at a recent news conference. “So don’t try to say ‘it’s that we care about democracy, it’s that democracy is being damaged.”It was the second time in about four months that Mexicans had demonstrated in support of the election watchdog, which the president and his supporters say has become a bloated bureaucracy captured by political interests. “It has too much power, perverted power,” said Pedro Miguel, a journalist at La Jornada, a leftist newspaper, who describes himself as a “militant” of the president’s political project. Mr. Miguel criticized the agency for paying its governing members too much, including a bonus after stepping down.“This is a march in defense of that bonus and those miserable salaries,” he said of the demonstration on Sunday.It was the second time in about four months that Mexicans had rallied in support of the election watchdog, which the president and his supporters say has become a bloated bureaucracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesThe measures, passed by the legislature last week, will cut the agency’s staff, undermine its autonomy and limit its capacity to punish politicians who break electoral law. Electoral officials say the overhaul will also eliminate the majority of workers who directly oversee the vote and install polling stations across the country.“It threatens the validity of elections themselves,” said Lorenzo Córdova, the departing president of the agency, in an interview.The protest comes as the country gears up for the start of the 2024 presidential campaign, amid serious questions about whether a battered and inchoate opposition has the wherewithal to win over disenchanted voters.“It’s an important test of how much they’re able to mobilize their base,” said Blanca Heredia, a professor at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, referring to the parties opposing Mr. López Obrador, known by his initials, AMLO.The crowd was big enough on Sunday, analysts said, to suggest that many Mexicans are eager to support their institutions — and vent their anger at the president.Ms. González, of Mazatlán, said she had not voted for Mr. López Obrador “because my brain still works.”It remains unclear whether the opposition can use that bitterness to its electoral advantage.“All they have is that anti-AMLO sentiment,” Professor Heredia said of the parties opposing Mr. López Obrador. “If they want to gain more voters that aren’t just anti-AMLO, they’re going to need a positive project — a plan for the country.”Demonstrators marching against the measures pushed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has suggested that protesters want to place the country back in the hands of corrupt leaders.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesElda Cantú More

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      Why Fox News Lied to the Viewers It ‘Respects’

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      There are some stories that are important enough to pause the news cycle and linger on them, to explore not just what happened, but why. And so it is with Fox News’s role in the events leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. Thanks to a recent filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuit against Fox, there is now compelling evidence that America’s most-watched cable news network presented information it knew to be false as part of an effort to placate an angry audience. It knowingly sacrificed its integrity to maintain its market share.Why? There are the obvious reasons: Money. Power. Fame. These are universal human temptations. But the answer goes deeper. Fox News became a juggernaut not simply by being “Republican,” or “conservative,” but by offering its audience something it craved even more deeply: representation. And journalism centered on representation ultimately isn’t journalism at all.To understand the Fox News phenomenon, one has to understand the place it occupies in Red America. It’s no mere source of news. It’s the place where Red America goes to feel seen and heard. If there’s an important good news story in Red America, the first call is to Fox. If conservative Christians face a threat to their civil liberties, the first call is to Fox. If you’re a conservative celebrity and you need to sell a book, the first call is to Fox.And Fox takes those calls. In the time before Donald Trump, I spent my share of moments in Fox green rooms and pitching stories to Fox producers. I knew they were more interested in stories about, say, religious liberty than most mainstream media outlets were. I knew they loved human-interest stories about virtuous veterans and cops. Sometimes this was good — we need more coverage of religion in America, for example — but over time Fox morphed into something well beyond a news network.Fox isn’t just the news hub of right-wing America, it’s a cultural cornerstone, and its business model is so successful that it’s more accurate to think of the rest of the right-wing media universe not as a collection of competitors to Fox, but rather as imitators. From television channels to news sites, right-wing personalities aren’t so much competing with Fox as auditioning for it.Take, for example, the online space. Fox News is so dominant that, according to data from December, you could take the total traffic of the next 19 conservative websites combined, and still not reach half of Fox’s audience.But that kind of loyalty is built around a social compact, the profound and powerful sense in Red America that Fox is for us. It’s our megaphone to the culture. Yet when Fox created this compact, it placed the audience in charge of its content.During the Trump years, Fox faithfully upheld its end of the bargain. If you were Republican and felt embattled for supporting Donald Trump, a quick visit to Fox (especially in prime time) would calm your mind and soothe your soul. There you’d be reminded that the Democrats are the real radicals. That the Democrats are the true threat to America. And if you voted for Trump even though you were uncomfortable with some of his conduct, it was only because “they” forced your hand.As the Trump years wore on, the prime-time messaging became more blatant. Supporting Trump became a marker not just of patriotism, but also of courage. And what of conservatives, like myself, who opposed Trump? We were “cowards” or “grifters” who sold our souls for 30 pieces of silver and airtime on MSNBC.Our disagreement was cast as an act of outright betrayal. People like me had allegedly turned our backs on our own community. We had failed in our obligation to be their voice.So you can start to understand the shock when, on Election Day in 2020, Fox News accurately, if arguably prematurely, called Arizona for Joe Biden. It broke the social compact. By presuming the fairness of the election and by declaring Joe Biden the winner of a previously red state, Fox sent a message to its own audience — an audience that had been primed to mistrust election results by Trump and by reports on Fox News — that it did not hear them. It did not see them.In the emails and texts highlighted in the Dominion filing, you see Fox News figures, including Sean Hannity and Suzanne Scott and Lachlan Murdoch, referring to the need to “respect” the audience. To be clear, by “respect” they didn’t mean “tell the truth” — an act of genuine respect. Instead they meant “represent.”Representation can have its place. Fox’s deep connection with its conservative audience means that it can be ahead of the rest of the media on stories that affect red states and red culture.But there is a difference between coming from a community and speaking for a community. In journalism, the former can be valuable, but the latter can be corrupt. It can result in audience capture (writing to please your audience, not challenge it) and in fear and timidity in reporting facts that contradict popular narratives. And in extreme instances — such as what we witnessed from Fox News after the 2020 presidential election — it can result in almost cartoonish villainy.There are courageous reporters at Fox. We learned some of their names in the Dominion filing. They were the people who had the courage to tell the truth. But then there are the leaders, and the prime-time stars. Tough? Courageous? Hardly. When push comes to shove, they embody the possibly apocryphal remark of the French revolutionary Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin: “There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.” And follow them they did, straight into a morass of lies and conspiracy theories that should undermine Fox’s credibility for years to come.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