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    Brazil’s Presidential Election Will Determine the Planet’s Future

    .fallbackimg:before { content: “”; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; background-image: url(”); opacity: 0.5; background-size: cover; background-position: center; } #bgvideo{ opacity: 0.5; } .mobile-only{ display:block; } .desktop-only{ display:none; } h1.headline.mobile-only{ margin-bottom: 10px; } @media screen and (min-width: 740px){ .fallbackimg:before{ background-image: url(”); opacity: 0.5; } #bgvideo{ opacity: 0.5; } .mobile-only{ display:none; } […] More

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    How Mike Lindell’s Pillow Business Propels the Election Denial Movement

    Three days after federal agents seized his cellphone as part of an investigation into voting machine tampering, Mike Lindell seemed energized and ready to sell pillows.He strode onstage at a rally of Trump supporters in western Idaho, defiantly waving a cellphone. Eric Trump greeted him with a hug.“When they start attacking the MyPillow guy,” the former president’s son declared, “you know we have a large problem in this country.”Mr. Lindell, smiling broadly in a blue suit and red tie, leaned into the mic. “Use promo code ‘FBI’ to save up to 66 percent!” he yelled, raising his fist in the air. The crowd roared its approval.And pillows were sold. On Sept. 14, the day after Mr. Lindell’s encounter with the F.B.I., daily direct sales at his bedding business, MyPillow Inc., jumped to nearly $1 million, from $700,000 the day before, according to Mr. Lindell. Propelled by a blizzard of promotions, memes and interviews on right-wing media outlets, sales remained elevated for two days.American entrepreneurs have long mixed their business and political interests. But no one in recent memory has fused the two quite as completely as Mr. Lindell. In less than two years, the infomercial pitchman has transformed his company into an engine of the election denial movement, using his personal wealth and advertising dollars to propel the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump.In the process, Mr. Lindell has secured a platform for his conspiracy theories — and a devoted base of consumers culled from the believers.By his account, Mr. Lindell has spent as much as $40 million on conferences, activist networks, a digital media platform, legal battles and researchers that promote his theory of the case — the particularly outlandish conspiracy theory that the election was stolen through a complex, global plot to hack into voting machines.But a New York Times analysis of advertising data, along with interviews with media executives and personalities, reveal that Mr. Lindell’s influence goes beyond funding activism: He is now at the heart of the right-wing media landscape.Already the largest single advertiser on Fox News’s right-wing opinion prime-time lineup, according to data from the media analytics firm iSpot.tv, MyPillow has since early last year become a critical financial supporter of an expanding universe of right-wing podcasters and influencers, many of whom keep election misinformation coursing through the daily discourse.Mr. Lindell’s promotion of election conspiracy theories have cost him sales at mainstream retailers, he says.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesHis chief vehicle for that support is a sprawling system of promo codes handed out to podcasters, pundits and activists, giving them a stake in each sale and incentive to promote Mr. Lindell’s products — and, in the process, his election theories.Podcasters and advertising executives say the arrangement has cemented Mr. Lindell’s influence. Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser whose “War Room” podcast ranks among the top news shows on Apple, described him in an interview as “the most significant financier in all of conservative media.” Mr. Bannon last year devoted as much as a third of the promotional time on his podcast to MyPillow, although that share has fallen since, according to an analysis by the analytics firm Magellan AI.Mr. Lindell’s message is being received. He has called on his followers to find evidence to back up his claims, and they have inundated election officials with requests for voting records, audits and even access to voting machines. Mr. Lindell and his network of allies are mobilizing right-wing activists to act as self-styled election vigilantes searching for evidence of misconduct in the midterm elections.The Spread of Misinformation and FalsehoodsElection Fraud Claims: A new report says that major social media companies continue to fuel false conspiracies about election fraud despite promises to combat misinformation ahead of the midterm elections.Russian Falsehoods: Kremlin conspiracy theories blaming the West for disrupting the global food supply have bled into right-wing chat rooms and mainstream conservative news media in the United States.Media Literacy Efforts: As young people spend more time online, educators are increasingly trying to offer students tools and strategies to protect themselves from false narratives.Global Threat: New research shows that nearly three-quarters of respondents across 19 countries with advanced economies are very concerned about false information online.Some critics — including the voting machine companies that have sued him for defamation, libel and slander — charge that Mr. Lindell’s operation is simply an enormous grift. “The lie sells pillows,” lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems argued in a still-pending $1.3 billion lawsuit filed against Mr. Lindell last year.Mr. Lindell disputes the allegations and insists that his activism has lost him money.“I didn’t do this to make a profit,” he told The Times in an interview. “I did it to save our country.” He said he pours “every dime I make” into his cause.It is difficult to assess that claim. As a privately held company, MyPillow does not disclose financial information and Mr. Lindell has frequently given conflicting accounts about his spending.Mr. Lindell has spent nearly $80 million on advertising on Fox News’s prime-time lineup of opinion shows since accelerating his activism in January 2021, according to estimates by iSpot.TV. His advertising on podcasts in that same period is valued at more than $10 million, according to estimates from Magellan AI. In addition to the tens of millions he says he has spent on activism and lawsuits, Mr. Lindell has given $200,000 to state and federal political action committees since January 2021, public records show.That investment has built a brand loyalty that goes well beyond appreciation for a rectangle of shredded foam that lists for $49.98 (but sells for as low as $19.98 with a promo code).His customers are “supporting a guy they believe shares their worldview,” said Benjamin Pratt, an advertising executive who focuses on conservative media. They say, said Mr. Pratt, “we’re going to support him, he’s being attacked and they’re trying to silence him. OK, we’ll buy more pillows.”Mr. Lindell says he was disengaged from politics until meeting Donald Trump in 2016. Jordan Vonderhaar For The New York Times/Getty Images North AmericaFinding a MarketMr. Lindell, a 61-year-old recovering crack cocaine and gambling addict who previously managed a string of bars in suburban Minneapolis, says he started MyPillow in 2004 after receiving the idea in a dream.He initially sold his signature pillows directly, through homespun infomercials and in booths at home and garden shows, as well as through cut-rate newspaper ads and radio spots. He perfected a relentlessly high-energy sales pitch. In an effort to squeeze as much value as possible out of these advertising dollars, he began pairing each ad with a distinct promotional code that would allow him to track its performance in inducing direct sales.By 2019, he told The Times, the company had annual revenues of over $300 million. He had also expanded to more conventional distribution deals with large retailers like Walmart and Bed Bath & Beyond.MyPillow’s work force, which numbered just 300 in 2012, had grown to more than 1,500 by 2018, according to legal filings, and the company reported having sold more than 40 million pillows since its founding. As he built his company, Mr. Lindell says, he was disengaged from politics — until being called to a meeting with Mr. Trump in 2016, where the then-candidate expressed an interest in MyPillow’s American manufacturing operations. Mr. Lindell became an ardent Trump supporter.In early 2021, he became an integral part of a growing movement to somehow retroactively reverse Mr. Trump’s defeat. On Jan. 15 of that year he was seen entering the White House with a sheaf of papers on which the phrase “martial law” was visible. (Mr. Lindell has insisted he was merely delivering the papers and had not read them.).css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Within days, national retailers carrying MyPillow products dropped the brand. But Mr. Lindell only plunged deeper into election denial, seizing on fanciful theories about “algorithms” manufacturing votes and China hacking into machines.In an interview, Mr. Lindell said losing the big box stores has cost MyPillow 80 percent of its retail sales, which had accounted for a little less than half of its overall sales.MyPillow kept its steady presence on Fox News, which does not promote his election theories. So far this year, its spots have accounted for nearly 8 percent of all ad impressions — more than any other outside advertiser — on the network’s prime-time shows hosted by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, according to iSpot.tv. MyPillow’s strategy of saturating one network with ads, even at risk of annoying viewers, is “an anomaly in television,” Jason Damata, an analyst for iSpot.tv.Starting in early 2021, the company moved aggressively into podcast advertising. In the first quarter of this year, the number of podcasts MyPillow supported jumped to 45, from 29, while the number of spots it aired nearly doubled to more than 1,200, according to Magellan AI, which monitors advertising on the top 3,000 podcasts weekly.Joe Schmieg, MyPillow’s vice president for sales and marketing, said the company’s executives targeted podcasts popular with Christian audiences and conservative women in their 40s and 50s. “They’re typically the ones that are buyers,” he said. It offered the outlets a dedicated promotional code and a share — 25 percent or more — of all sales linked to that code. (Mr. Lindell disputed that the company directly targeted a conservative audience.)The strategy partly offset the loss of the chain stores, Mr. Schmieg said. According to Mr. Lindell, the company’s overall sales dipped only 10 percent in 2021 — though they have fallen further since losing its contract to sell in Walmart stores this year. (Mr. Lindell provided no documentation to support the numbers.)Mr. Lindell, center, with the far-right agitator Jack Posobiec, left, and Stephen Bannon, a former Trump adviser, at a conference this year.Emil Lippe for The New York TimesBuying a MegaphoneThe strategic shift to podcasts put Mr. Lindell on the vanguard of right-leaning media. In this decentralized ecosystem, where audience sizes vary widely and programming spans from the conventionally conservative to the conspiratorial fringe, MyPillow promotions are ubiquitous.A Times analysis that identified 125 codes found the list of affiliates included well-known figures like Glenn Beck and Dan Bongino, whose daily shows are both among Apple’s top 50 news podcasts in the country, as well as Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer.Jack Posobiec, the far-right agitator known for promoting the disinformation campaign “Pizzagate,” had a code, as did Vincent James Foxx, a media entrepreneur who espouses anti-Semitism and white supremacy.(After The Times asked him about his relationship with Mr. Foxx, Mr. Lindell said he was cutting ties with him — not because of Mr. Foxx’s views but because he said Mr. Foxx had misrepresented the terms of his affiliate deal on his show.) Lines between promotion and politics are blurry on MyPillow’s affiliate podcasts. Mr. Lindell regularly appears as a guest on shows, and even when he doesn’t, his pet theories are present.On a recent episode of BardsFM, a podcast that layers Christian nationalism, anti-vaccine beliefs, QAnon and election denialism, the host, Scott Kesterson called the coming election a “a clown show” that would be stolen via an “algorithm.”In 2022, nearly two-thirds of all advertising minutes on BardsFM have been dedicated to MyPillow, according to data from Magellan AI.“Every dollar you spend at MyPillow helps fund Mike Lindell’s efforts for this nation,” Mr. Kesterson said on his podcast in September. “He’s done that as they’ve tried to destroy his company.”By his account, Mr. Lindell has spent as much as $40 million advancing his election theories.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesUsing His LeverageSome on the right have tried to keep a distance from Mr. Lindell and his far-fetched voting machine theories — either out of fear of legal liability or skepticism. He has not made it easy.At times, he has publicly threatened to withhold advertising support from outlets that he doesn’t see as sufficiently supportive. He once carried through on those threats, pulling MyPillow spots from Fox News for nearly two months last year after the network refused to allow him to advertise one of his conferences.Mr. Bannon, who has often called himself “not a machine guy” and said he doesn’t understand the theories about hacking, nonetheless often features Mr. Lindell on “War Room.” He has twice broadcast from Mr. Lindell’s conferences that convene activists to swap conspiracy theories about election machines. In an interview at one in Springfield, Mo., in August, Mr. Bannon said Mr. Lindell had started to convince him.“I do know the machines have to go,” said Mr. Bannon, who on Friday was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of Congress.In November 2021, Mr. Lindell threatened to pull his advertising from Salem Media Group, a publicly traded conservative radio and podcast company with a roster that includes Charlie Kirk, a young right-wing commentator, and Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer. Mr. Lindell claimed the company wasn’t sufficiently covering his particular election theories.“You better at least say something because you might not have products to sell at least from MyPillow,” he warned in a broadcast from his own online video site. “You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. There will be no more MyPillow if you can’t address the election of 2020.”Mr. Lindell backed off the threat after speaking to a Salem executive, according to a person briefed on the conversation. (Salem did not respond to requests for comment, but at the time an executive told The Daily Beast that there was no policy blocking hosts from discussing any topics.)More recently, Salem was eager to promote Mr. Lindell’s encounter with the F.B.I. After Mr. Lindell went public about the investigation, a Salem executive sent an email urging hosts to talk about it on their shows, according to a person familiar with the email. Mr. Lindell’s supporters would want to know and help him, the email said.Soon, many of Salem’s political commentators were discussing the case at length, portraying Mr. Lindell as an innocent businessman unfairly targeted by federal agents. Mr. Lindell also made the rounds on shows himself, slipping in allegations about voting machines.“When you talk about evidence to get rid of machines, we’ve had that for a year and a half,” Mr. Lindell said on Mr. Kirk’s podcast.Mr. Kirk did not discuss voting machines, but told his listeners that he was buying extra sets of MyPillow’s Giza Dreams sheets himself to support Mr. Lindell. He urged his audience to do the same.“Use promo code: ‘Kirk’,” he said.Tina Peters at an event in June with Mr. Lindell in Colorado. She faces charges in an election plot.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesThe Search for ProofAt MyPillow’s headquarters and factory in the exurbs of Minneapolis, Mr. Lindell’s politics intermingle with his business.In its warehouse, pallets of DVDs of “Absolute Proof,” a feature-length video promoting election conspiracy theories, share floor space with packaged pillows.On a morning last month in Mr. Lindell’s office, a picture of Mr. Trump leaned against a wall, as the executive juggled meetings with company officials and calls from his allies in his election crusade — as well as the lawyers who were crafting his response to the encounter with federal agents the previous week.The investigation involves Tina Peters, the county clerk of Mesa County, Colo., whom state prosecutors have accused of plotting to copy sensitive data from voting machines in an attempt to prove the 2020 election was rigged. Ms. Peters has pleaded not guilty to the state charges. Mr. Lindell, whom prosecutors identified as a potential co-conspirator in a related federal investigation, denies any involvement.He has promoted Ms. Peters and her data. At a conference Mr. Lindell hosted in South Dakota last year, Ms. Peters flew in on Mr. Lindell’s private plane and was celebrated as a hero onstage.Such conferences are a showcase of Mr. Lindell’s organizing power in the movement. At the recent gathering in Springfield, activists from all 50 states, many of whom gather weekly on calls hosted by Mr. Lindell, took turns describing their hunt for evidence of malfeasance in American democracy, notably turning their focus beyond the 2020 election.Activists from Alabama said they had fed fake ballots into machines ahead of the primary election in an attempt to prove how easily they could be tampered with. A county Republican official from Oklahoma urged attendees to be diligent in monitoring voting in midterm elections — even telling them to videotape absentee ballots as they are opened.After hours of presentations, Mr. Lindell bounded onstage: “By the way, if you’re watching from home use that promo code: ‘Truth45’,” he said. More

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    Your Thursday Briefing: Iran’s Protests Intensify

    Plus Myanmar gets closer to Russia and a dire climate report.Iranian mourners walked toward the cemetery where Mahsa Amini is buried.Eurovision Social Network/Via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Iranians mourn Mahsa AminiTens of thousands of demonstrators in Iran gathered yesterday to mark the 40th day of the traditional Islamic mourning period for Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody set off protests across the country.The mourning was marred by violence as security forces attacked and shot at demonstrators across the country. By evening, demonstrations had spread across the country to many cities and university campuses, with large crowds in the streets clapping and defiantly chanting the mantras of the protests: “Women, Life, Freedom” and “We will fight and take Iran back,” according to videos on social media.Security forces attacked protesters with tear gas, beat them with batons and in some places, like Tehran, Qazvin and Saghez, opened fire on them, videos showed. Some crowds in the capital fought back, chasing security forces and setting fire to their motorcycles.In Tehran, women tossed their head scarves onto bonfires in the street, shouting “Freedom! Freedom!” videos showed. In many places, the protesters condemned the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and chanted for his death and removal.Analysis: The protests that unfolded in recent weeks were more scattered and smaller in recent days, but the revolt may inject new energy into the demonstrations.Culture: The Times spoke with Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who fled Iran in 2008, and won the best actress award at Cannes this year. She stars in “Holy Spider,” a timely Iranian story of female resistance in the face of male violence. “I saw these images of three actresses throwing away their hijabs, saying we don’t want to lie anymore, we don’t want to hide ourselves,” Ebrahimi said, “and I figure if they arrived at this point, the whole of society is kind of there.”Myanmar’s junta sees itself as part of a new world order led by strongmen ideologically opposed to democracy.Nanna Heitmann for The New York TimesMyanmar cozies up to RussiaMyanmar’s junta, ostracized by the West and by its neighbors, is deepening its ties with Russia.Myanmar is the only Southeast Asian country to endorse Russia’s invasion, and the Kremlin has referred to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the junta, as the “prime minister,” a post he gave himself that no other major country recognizes.The relationship has mutual benefits. Myanmar gets Russian oil in the midst of a fuel shortage exacerbated by the junta’s mismanagement, as well as ammunition and a powerful ally at the U.N.More on the Protests in IranA Women-Led Uprising: Casting off their legally required head scarves, Iranian women have been at the forefront of the demonstrations, supplying the defining images of defiance.Prison Fire: The causes of a fire in the notorious Evin Prison, in Tehran, remain unclear. But witnesses and families of prisoners say that the authorities there had been bracing for potential unrest.The New Faces of the Protests: Two 16-year-old girls who were killed by the Iranian security services in a crackdown on protesters have become a symbol of the uprising.Economic Despair: While Iranians have a range of grievances to choose from, the sorry state of Iran’s economy has been one of the main forces driving the protests. Strikes by oil-sector workers joining the protests could damage it further.Russia gets revenue as Western sanctions squeeze its economy. Moscow could even eclipse Beijing as Myanmar’s top supplier of weapons, which have been frequently deployed by the military against civilians since it took control of the country in a military coup in 2021.Ukraine war updates:A hydroelectric dam could be a linchpin in the looming battle for Kherson. If Ukraine retook the dam, Russian soldiers would have nowhere to retreat, but Russia could breach the dam to slow Ukraine’s advance.Ukraine’s government urged displaced people not to return this winter, acknowledging that the country faces hardships in the cold months ahead.A new propaganda push by the Kremlin frames the war as a counterterrorism operation.Earth is heading toward more intense flooding, wildfires, drought, heat waves and species extinction.Feisal Omar/ReutersClimate pledges are falling shortOnly 26 of 193 nations that agreed to climate action plans have followed through, increasing the likelihood of an environmental catastrophe, according to a U.N. report.Without drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the document said, the planet is on track to warm by an average of 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels, by 2100.That’s far higher than the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) set by the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015, and it crosses the threshold beyond which scientists say the likelihood of catastrophic climate impacts significantly increases.The U.N. report comes less than two weeks before nations are set to gather for climate talks in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss unfulfilled promises and the fight to stave off a catastrophe.Details: The world’s top two polluters, China and the U.S., have taken some action but did not pledge more interventions this year; climate negotiations between the two have been frozen for months. Toll: Emperor penguins have been listed as a threatened species by the U.S. government. Experts predict that 99 percent of the birds will disappear by 2100 without a significant reduction in carbon pollution.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificThe fossil was taken in broad daylight. Bryan Le Dantec /Getty ImagesTwo men with a rock saw and a chisel stole a cherished 23-million-year-old whale fossil from a remote riverbank in New Zealand. Shanghai began using an inhalable form of the Covid-19 vaccine, China Daily reports.Anne Jakrajutatip, a transgender Thai billionaire and celebrity, purchased the Miss Universe Organization for $20 million, Reuters reports.Medibank, Australia’s largest health insurer, said a hack had compromised the data of all its customers, Reuters reports.Around the WorldMarkets were unruffled by Rishi Sunak’s announcement, but the Labour Party is on the offensive against him.Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesRishi Sunak, Britain’s new prime minister, delayed the announcement of a major economic plan, saying that he needed time to make the “right decisions.”A measure tracked by Wall Street signaled that the U.S. could be heading toward an economic slump.This summer, Mexico’s government said it had finally solved the mystery behind a mass abduction in 2014. Since then, the case has fallen apart.Other Big StoriesPresident Biden thought he had secured a secret pledge from Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. He was wrong. Nablus, a city in the West Bank, has been under a semi-blockade for weeks by the Israeli Army. Residents are furious. A small trial suggested that some breast cancer patients could skip surgery and be treated with chemotherapy alone.A Morning ReadMadhur Jaffrey’s 1985 children’s book, “Seasons of Splendour: Tales, Myths and Legends of India,” is being reissued next month.Adrianna Newell for The New York TimesMadhur Jaffrey introduced Indian food to the West. Now, at 89, she continues to publish recipes and articles and give interviews. Her first cookbook, “An Invitation to Indian Cooking,” will be reissued next year. “She inspired an entire generation of Indians,” said Chintan Pandya, 42, the chef at New York City’s Dhamaka who was named the best chef in New York State this year at the James Beard awards. “She planted the seed.”TAIPEI DISPATCHTaiwan’s autocratic relicsSouth of Taipei, there’s a museum dedicated to Taiwan’s not-so-distant authoritarian past. It’s become a surprising tourist hot spot.Once the site of a secretive military detention center, the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park has seen an increase in visitors since Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. House speaker, met there in August with pro-democracy activists who have criticized China.“Now, Taiwan is already a free and democratic country,” said Chen Chung-tong, 85, a physician who was held there for a decade until his release in 1979. He said that Pelosi’s visit to the site was a reminder that Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, “used to rule Taiwan this way, like the Communist Party rules China now.”Political dissidents were prosecuted at the detention center during the four decades until 1992 known in Taiwan as the White Terror, which began when the Kuomintang fled to the island to escape the Communist revolution in China. During that period, the Kuomintang targeted people seen as threats to its rule over the island.For many, the site has a new resonance as China increases its military intimidation in a bid to pressure Taiwan into unification. The site also carries echoes of China’s autocratic present under Xi Jinping — and a potent warning of one possible future. Some fear the past may be a prologue.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRyan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.Delicata squash has an edible skin, so you can roast it without having to peel it.What to ReadBooks to take you through Istanbul.Ask WellDo statins, which lower blood cholesterol, increase the risk of diabetes?Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Taxi (Three letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic, is joining The Times. Her brand-new newsletter will recommend new songs (and older ones, too).The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the subpoena issued to Donald Trump.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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    The Left-Right Divide Might Help Democrats Avoid a Total Wipeout

    With the midterm election less than two weeks away, polling has turned bleak for the Democrats, not only increasing the likelihood that the party will lose control of the House, but also dimming the prospects that it will hold the Senate.The key question is whether Republicans will wipe out Democratic incumbents in a wave election.In a 2021 article, “The presidential and congressional elections of 2020: A national referendum on the Trump presidency,” Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California San Diego, described how the Trump administration and its 2020 campaign set the stage for the 2022 midterms:Reacting to the [Black Lives Matter] protests, Trump doubled down on race‐baiting rhetoric, posing as defender of the confederate flag and the statues of rebel generals erected as markers of white dominance in the post‐Reconstruction South, retweeting a video of a supporter shouting “white power” at demonstrators in Florida, and vowing to protect suburbanites from low-income housing that could attract minorities to their neighborhoods.The headline and display copy on my news-side colleague Jonathan Weisman’s Oct. 25 story about the campaign sums up the party’s current strategy:With Ads, Imagery and Words, Republicans Inject Race Into Campaigns: Running ads portraying Black candidates as soft on crime — or as “different” or “dangerous” — Republicans have shed quiet defenses of such tactics for unabashed defiance.Republican strategies that emphasize racially freighted issues are certainly not the only factor moving the electorate. Republican skill in weaponizing inflation is crucial, as is inflation itself. Polarization and the nationalization of elections also matter, particularly in states and districts with otherwise weak Republican candidates.Jacobson is one of a number of political analysts who argue that the calcification of the electorate into two mutually adversarial blocs limits the potential for significant gains for either party. In a recent essay, “The 2022 U.S. Midterm Election: A Conventional Referendum or Something Different?” Jacobson writes:Statistical models using as predictors the president’s most recent job approval ratings and real income growth during the election year, along with the president’s party’s current strength in Congress, can account for midterm seat swings with considerable accuracy. For example, applying such a model to 2018, when President Donald Trump’s approval stood at 40 percent and real income growth at 2.1 percent, Republicans should have ended up with 41 fewer House seats than they held after the 2016 election — improbably, the precise outcome.Applying those same models to the current contests, Jacobson continued,the Democrats stand to lose about 45 House seats, giving the Republicans a 258-177 majority, their largest since the 1920s. For multiple reasons (e.g., inflation, the broken immigration system, the humiliating exit from Afghanistan) Biden’s approval ratings have been in the low 40s for the entire year. High inflation has led to negative real income growth.No wonder then, Jacobson writes, that “the consensus expectation at the beginning of the year was an electoral tsunami that would put Republicans in solid control of both chambers.” Now, however, “this consensus no longer prevails.”Why?Partisans of both parties report extremely high levels of party loyalty in recent surveys, with more than 96 percent opting for their own party’s candidate. Most self-identified independents also lean toward one of the parties, and those who do are just as loyal as self-identified partisans. Party line voting has been increasing for several decades, reaching the 96 percent mark in 2020. This upward trend reflects a rise in negative partisanship — growing dislike for the other party — rather than increasing regard for the voter’s own side. Partisan antipathies keep the vast majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents from voting for Republican candidates regardless of their opinions of Biden and the economy.Jacobson noted in an email that over the past weekthe numbers have moved against the Democrats, and they should definitely be worried. The latest inflation figures were very bad news for them. But I still doubt that their House losses will approach the 45 predicted by the models and I think they still have some hope of retaining the Senate — or at least, their tie.Jacobson points out that in the current lead-up to the midterms, there is an exceptionally “wide gap between presidential approval and voting intentions, with the Democrats’ support on average 9.2 percentage points higher than Biden’s approval ratings.” He also notes that in previous wave elections, the spread between presidential approval and vote intention was much closer, 5 points in 1994, 4.9 in 2006, 0.3 in 2010 and 4.1 in 2018.Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, argued in an email that polarization has in very recent years changed the way voters evaluate presidents and, in turn, how they cast their ballots in midterm contests. “There is a higher floor and lower ceiling in presidential approval,” she said:If anything, approval is fairly resistant to external shocks in ways that look very different from either George W. Bush or Obama. An approval rating below 50 percent seems to be the new norm. But if we think about this from a partisan lens, an overwhelming percent of Democrats will always support the Democratic president, while an overwhelming percent of Republicans will oppose him.Put another way, Wronski said, “it wouldn’t matter what Biden does or doesn’t do to curb inflation, Democrats will largely support, and Republicans will largely oppose.”In this context, “partisanship serves as lens through which economic conditions are evaluated. The stronger partisanship exists as a social identity, the more likely it will be used as the motivation to view and accept information about economic conditions, like inflation.”Negative partisanship, Wronski wrote, “has emerged in recent elections as a driver of voting turnout and vote choice,” with the resultthat partisan antipathies keep Democrats from voting for Republican candidates. No matter how bad economic conditions may be under Biden, the alternative is seen as much worse. The threat to abortion rights and democracy should Republicans take control of Congress may be a more powerful driver of voting behavior.While polls show growing public fear that adherence to the principles of democracy have declined, Wronski pointed out thatthose concerns do not trump more immediate needs like being able to afford food, housing, and gas. To be fair, people cannot fight for lofty ideals like democracy when their basic needs are not being met. People need to be secure in their food and housing situation before they can advocate for bigger ideas.There is another factor limiting the number of House seats that the Republican Party is likely to gain: gerrymandering.Sean Trende, senior elections analyst at RealClearPolitics, makes the case that in state legislatures both parties “hoped to avoid creating districts that were uncertain for their party and/or winnable for the other party. One upshot of this is that in a neutral or close-to-neutral environment, there aren’t many winnable seats for either party.”Trende elaborates: “In the swingiest of swing seats where Biden won between 51 percent and 53 percent, there are just 19 seats. Of those seats, 10 are held by Democrats, seven are held by Republicans, and one is a newly created district.” In a neutral year when neither party has an advantage in the congressional vote, Trende writes, if “Republicans won all the districts where Joe Biden received 52 percent of the vote or less and lost all of the districts where he did better, they would win 224 seats.Gerrymandering has created what Trende calls “levees” — bulwarks — that limit gains and losses for both parties. The danger for Democrats is the possibility that these levees may be breached, which then turns 2022 into a Republican wave election, as was the case in 1994 and 2010: “In a universe where Republicans win the popular vote by four points, sweeping all of the districts that Biden won with 54 percent of the vote or less, the levee would break and the Republican majority would jump from 232 seats to 245 seats.”When Trende published his analysis on Sept. 29, the generic congressional vote was almost tied, 45.9 Republican to 44.9 Democratic, close to a “neutral” election. Since then, however, Republicans have pulled ahead to a 47.8 to 44.8 advantage on Oct. 22, according to RealClearPolitics. FiveThirtyEight’s measure of the generic vote shows a much closer contest as of Oct. 25, with Republicans ahead 45.2 to 44.7 percent.In 2010, the Republican Party’s generic advantage in late October was 9.4 points, a clear signal that a wave election was building.Educational polarization — with college-educated voters shifting decisively to the Democratic Party and non-college voters, mostly white, shifting to the Republican Party — in recent elections has worked to the advantage of the right because there are substantially more non-college voters than those with degrees.This year, the education divide may work to some extent to the benefit of Democrats.James L. Wilson, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, pointed out in an email that not only do “polarization and party loyalty make the election outcomes less likely to depend on immediate economic circumstances,” but also “educational polarization, combined with the fact that better-educated voters tend to turn out at higher rates in midterm elections than do less-educated voters, may help the Democrats despite voter concerns about Biden or the economy.”Even with inflation as one of the Democratic Party’s major liabilities, the intensification of polarization appears to be muting its adverse impact.In their 2019 paper, “Motivated Reasoning, Public Opinion, and Presidential Approval,” Kathleen Donovan, Paul M. Kellstedt, Ellen M. Key and Matthew J. Lebo, of St. John Fisher University, Texas A&M University, Appalachian State University and Western University, wrote that “Polarization has increased partisan motivated reasoning when it comes to evaluations of the president,” as the choices made by voters are “increasingly detached from economic assessments.”As partisanship intensifies, voters are less likely to punish incumbents of the same party for failures to improve standards of living or to live up to other campaign promises.Yphtach Lelkes, a professor of communication and a co-director of the polarization lab at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote by email that “people (particularly partisans) are far less likely to, for instance, rely on retrospective voting — that is, they won’t throw the bums out for poor economic conditions or problematic policies.”In the early 1970s, Lelkes wrote, “partisanship explained less than 30 percent of the variance in vote choice. Today, partisanship explains more than 70 percent of the variance in vote choice.”This trend grows out of both identity-based partisanship and closely related patterns of media and information usage.As Lelkes put it:There are various explanations for this. There is an identity/motivated reasoning perspective, where people think better us than them and would prefer a lampshade to an out partisan. Another possibility is that people get skewed information. If I watch lots of Fox News or pay even marginal attention to Republican candidates, I’ll hear lots about the economy. If I watch MSNBC and pay attention to Democratic candidates, I’ll hear a lot about abortion, but less about the economy.Not everyone agrees that polarization will limit Democratic losses this year.John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt, wrote by email that “it is absolutely true that party loyalty in congressional elections has increased. But this does not stop large seat swings from occurring.”There is, Sides continued, “some evidence that midterm seat swings can be driven by people actually switching their votes from the previous presidential election,” suggesting that “clearly not every voter is a die-hard partisan.”Sides remained cautious, however, about his expectations for the results on Nov. 8: “The recent poll trends are pushing toward larger G.O.P. gains but I am not sure those trends suggest the 40+ House seat gains that the national environment would forecast.” A narrow win, he wrote, would mean that Republican leaders in the House will face “a very delicate task. On the one hand, they have to appease Freedom Caucus types. But they also have to protect potentially vulnerable G.O.P. members in swing districts. I do not know how you manage that task, and so I do not envy Kevin McCarthy.”Dritan Nesho, a co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, was distinctly pessimistic concerning Democratic prospects:An empirical analysis of the 2022 midterm polls in the final stretch suggests that this election will tip both the House and the Senate toward Republicans, and it’s no exception to historical trends suggesting the incumbent party tends to lose an average of 28 seats in the House and 3 or so seats in the Senate. Key numbers around lack of confidence in the economy, the pervasive impact of inflation, and a worsening personal financial situation among a majority of voters today, actually suggest a stronger loss than the average.The two best predictive variables for election outcomes, Nesho writes,are presidential approval and the direction of personal finances. Both are severely underwater for Democrats. In our October Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, Biden has plateaued at 42 percent job approval and 54 percent of voters report their personal financial situation as getting worse. 55 percent blame the Biden administration for inflation rather than other factors (including 42 percent of Democratic respondents), and 73 percent expect prices to further increase rather than come down. 84 percent of voters think the U.S. is in a recession now or will be in one by next year.If that were not enough, Nesho continued,at the same time Democrats are seen as disconnected from the key issues of concern for the median voter. Republicans are connecting better with general voters on inflation and the economy, crime, and immigration; Democrats are seen as preoccupied with Jan. 6, women’s rights/abortion, and the environment, which are further down the list of concerns.Republicans, in turn, have pulled out all the stops in activating racially divisive wedge issues, relentlessly pressing immigration, crime and the specter of generalized disorder.In Missouri, for example, Brian Seitz, a state representative, is determined to “shut down” critical race theory, declaring, “There is a huge red wave coming.” Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican Conference, ran a Facebook ad that read: “Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION. Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” In Ohio, J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate, contends that Democrats are recruiting immigrants and “have decided that they can’t win re-election in 2022 unless they bring in a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here.” Blake Masters, the Republican Senate nominee in Arizona, warns that Democrats want to increase immigration “to change the demographics of our country.”Robert Y. Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia, observed in an email: “By all rights this should be a debacle for the incumbent party based on the fundamentals — the relative bad news about the economy — inflation — crime, the southern border, and the lingering Afghanistan fiasco.”But, Shapiro added:There are mitigating factors: a very important one is that the Republicans picked up many seats in the House in 2020 so those seats are not at risk now for the Democrats, thanks to around 11 million more Republican voters in 2020 than in 2016. The other factor is the Dobbs abortion decision that led to a surge in Democratic voter registration, very likely significantly women and younger voters. This at best has just helped the Democrats to catch up to Republicans.The crucial question in these circumstances, in Shapiro’s view, “will be relative partisan turnout — will this be more like 2010 or 2018? I sense the enthusiasm and anger here is at least a bit greater among Republicans than Democrats for House voting.”Bruce Cain, a political scientist at Stanford, emailed me to say that he agrees “with those who think the Democrats will lose the House,” but with Republicans seeing “a below historical average seat gain, i.e. under the 40-45 seats that some models are predicting.”Cain argued that a Democratic setback will not be as consequential as many on both the left and right argue: “It’s not like either party needs to worry about being locked out of power for very long. The electoral winds will shift, and the window to power and policy will open again soon enough.” Polarization, Cain noted, “has made it clear to both parties that you have to grab the policy prizes while you have trifecta control” — as both Trump and Biden have done during their first two years in office.One difference between the current election and the wave election of 1994 is that this time around Republicans have no attention-getting, mobilizing agenda comparable to Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America. They have contented themselves with hammering away on the economy, race and immigration.Republicans are fixated on an ethnically and racially freighted agenda of gridlock and revenge. They propose to reduce immigration and to roll back as much as they can of the civil rights revolution, the women’s rights revolution and the gay rights revolution. They threaten to hound Biden appointees, not to mention the president’s son Hunter, with endless hearings and inquiries. The party has also signaled its refusal to raise the debt ceiling and promised to shut down the government in order to force major concessions on spending.While this agenda may win Republicans the House and perhaps the Senate this year, it contains too many contradictions to achieve a durable Republican realignment.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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    Las encuestas electorales en Brasil se equivocaron, y ahora Bolsonaro quiere penalizar a las que fallen

    El presidente Jair Bolsonaro y los legisladores conservadores de Brasil quieren ilegalizar la publicación de encuestas que no coinciden con los resultados de las elecciones.BRASILIA — Este mes se celebró la primera vuelta de las elecciones en Brasil, que han sido observadas con detenimiento, y las encuestas mostraron un pronóstico errado porque subestimaron el apoyo con el que cuenta el presidente en funciones, Jair Bolsonaro, un líder de extrema derecha, y otros candidatos conservadores de todo el país.Muchos integrantes de la derecha se pusieron furiosos y criticaron las encuestas por estar desconectadas del electorado brasileño.Esa reacción no fue ninguna sorpresa. Lo que pasó después, sí lo fue.A instancias de Bolsonaro, algunos líderes políticos brasileños ahora buscan tipificar como delito las predicciones incorrectas de una elección.La Cámara de Diputados de Brasil ha acelerado un proyecto de ley que penalizaría la publicación de una encuesta que luego se compruebe que estuvo fuera de su margen de error. Se prevé que la Cámara Baja, controlada por aliados de Bolsonaro, vote para aprobar la medida en los próximos días.El contenido y destino finales de la propuesta de ley aún no están claros. Los líderes legislativos han insinuado que podrían cambiar algunos aspectos de la legislación, y las posibilidades de que se apruebe en el Senado, donde los oponentes a Bolsonaro son mayoría, parecen mucho menos certeras.Sin embargo, independientemente del futuro de esa propuesta, tanto ese proyecto como otras iniciativas para investigar a las encuestadoras por sus recientes errores de cálculo forman parte de una narrativa más amplia, sin evidencias, promovida por Bolsonaro y sus aliados, según la cual la clase política y la izquierda de Brasil tratan de amañar las elecciones en su contra.Mientras Brasil se prepara para votar en la segunda vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales el 30 de octubre, las encuestas siguen mostrando que Bolsonaro está rezagado detrás de su rival de izquierda, el expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, aunque la contienda luce cada vez más cerrada.Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrando los resultados de la primera vuelta de las elecciones en São Paulo, a principios de este mes.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesPor su parte, Bolsonaro optó por tildar a las empresas encuestadoras de “mentirosas” y denunciar que sus errores cambiaron hasta tres millones de votos a favor de Da Silva en la primera ronda electoral, y ha abogado para que las firmas enfrenten consecuencias. “No es por haberse equivocado, ¿OK? Una cosa es cometer un error”, puntualizó. “Es por los delitos que cometieron”.Bolsonaro no ha aclarado qué delitos considera que se cometieron.La Asociación Brasileña de Empresas Encuestadoras declaró en un comunicado que estaba “ofendida” por los intentos de criminalizar las encuestas que arrojan pronósticos equivocados.“Iniciar este tipo de investigación durante el periodo de campaña para la segunda vuelta electoral, cuando las encuestadoras están realizando su trabajo, demuestra otro intento flagrante de obstruir la investigación científica”, aseveró el grupo.Las firmas encuestadoras agregaron que su trabajo no era predecir elecciones, sino brindar un panorama general de las intenciones de los electores en el momento en que se realiza una encuesta.El proyecto de ley en el Congreso no es el único recurso que se ha entablado contra las encuestadoras. A petición de la campaña de Bolsonaro, el ministro de Justicia y Seguridad Pública de Brasil le ordenó a la policía federal que abriera una investigación contra las encuestadoras por los sondeos que realizaron antes de la primera ronda electoral. Además, la agencia federal antimonopolio de Brasil inició sus propias pesquisas sobre las principales instituciones encuestadoras de la nación por posible colusión.Alexandre de Moraes, juez del Supremo Tribunal Federal y director del tribunal electoral del país, no tardó en ordenar la suspensión de ambas investigaciones, tras señalar que carecían de jurisdicción y parecían cumplir las órdenes políticas del presidente. A su vez, Moraes le ordenó al tribunal electoral de Brasil investigar si Bolsonaro trataba de usar de manera indebida el poder que tiene sobre las agencias federales.En este último año, Moraes se ha posicionado como el principal contrapeso al poder de Bolsonaro, lo cual le ha valido algunas críticas por medidas que, según expertos en derecho y gobernanza, representan un giro represivo para el máximo tribunal de Brasil.Entre otras decisiones, Moraes encarceló a cinco personas sin juicio previo por hacer publicaciones en redes sociales que él consideró que eran ataques contra las instituciones brasileñas. El 20 de octubre, los funcionarios electorales ampliaron aún más su poder al otorgarle la autoridad unilateral para suspender las plataformas de redes sociales en Brasil que no obedecieran de inmediato sus órdenes de eliminar la desinformación.Alexandre de Moraes en Brasilia antes de la primera vuelta de las elecciones, a principios de este mes.Dado Galdieri para The New York TimesMoraes y el Senado del país parecen estar listos para proteger a las encuestadoras de las medidas en contra de sus sondeos.Sin embargo, las acusaciones reiteradas de que las encuestadoras son corruptas podrían socavar aún más su capacidad para brindar la mejor estimación posible de la opinión pública. Algunos de los asesores principales de Bolsonaro han hecho un llamado para que sus partidarios ignoren a los encuestadores con el fin de sabotear los resultados.“¡¡¡No le respondan a ninguno de ellos hasta el final de la elección!!! Así será seguro desde el principio que cualesquiera de sus resultados son fraudulentos”, escribió Ciro Nogueira, el jefe de gabinete de Bolsonaro, en su cuenta de Twitter. “¿Fue un delito su absurdo error? Solo una investigación profunda lo determinará”.Las firmas encuestadoras más importantes habían pronosticado que Bolsonaro recibiría alrededor de un 36 por ciento del voto en la primera ronda electoral. Recibió un 43,2 por ciento, una brecha de siete puntos porcentuales fuera del margen de error de prácticamente todas las encuestadoras.Sus pronósticos fueron aún peores en muchas contiendas por cargos de menor relieve. En Río de Janeiro, los sondeos mostraron que el candidato conservador a gobernador llevaba una ventaja de unos nueve puntos porcentuales. En cambio, ganó por 31 puntos.En São Paulo, algunas encuestas mostraron que un candidato de izquierda que aspira a llegar al Senado llevaba una delantera de 14 puntos porcentuales frente a su oponente antes de la primera ronda de elecciones. En cambio, un candidato de derecha ganó por casi el mismo margen, una diferencia de 28 puntos porcentuales de lo que predijeron los sondeos previos a la elección.Las empresas encuestadoras han atribuido sus pronósticos fallidos a una variedad de factores, entre ellos los datos obsoletos del censo, los cuales minaron su capacidad de encuestar a una muestra estadísticamente representativa de electores. Esas firmas mencionaron que sus encuestas también fueron deficientes porque una ola de votantes más grande de lo esperado cambió su voto para apoyar a Bolsonaro en el último minuto.Algunas encuestadoras también comentaron que creían que muchos electores conservadores no estuvieron dispuestos a responder sus encuestas.La proporción de votantes de mayor edad excedió por mucho sus expectativas, tal vez debido a un anuncio que hizo el gobierno este año de que votar era una nueva manera de dar fe de vida y mantener activos sus beneficios de jubilación. Las encuestas en la víspera de las elecciones mostraron que los electores mayores apoyaban a Bolsonaro más que a Da Silva.Brasil está lejos de ser el único país donde las encuestas luchan por dar una imagen precisa del electorado, particularmente la fuerza del apoyo conservador.En 2016, las encuestas en Estados Unidos no pronosticaron con precisión el apoyo a Donald Trump, y las empresas dieron razones similares para el error, incluido que algunos votantes de derecha no estaban dispuestos a responder las encuestas.El presidente Jair Bolsonaro, en São Paulo, a principios de este mes.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesLa credibilidad de las empresas de encuestas en Brasil se vio afectada después de la primera vuelta de las elecciones, y algunos periodistas se han mostrado reacios para compartir las encuestas antes de la segunda vuelta del domingo.Ricardo Barros, un congresista conservador que está ayudando a impulsar el proyecto de ley para criminalizar las encuestas defectuosas, dijo que la legislación obligaría a las empresas encuestadoras a ser más cuidadosas con sus resultados. Según la ley propuesta, solo las encuestas que se equivocan fuera de su margen de error enfrentarían responsabilidad.“Si no están seguros del resultado, usen un margen de error del 10 por ciento”, dijo. “Pierden credibilidad, pero no desinforman a los votantes. El problema es que hoy en día siempre se presentan como una verdad absoluta”.Los legisladores tanto de la Cámara como del Senado también han reunido suficientes firmas para abrir investigaciones en el Congreso sobre las firmas de encuestas, aunque se espera que el líder del Senado tome medidas para bloquear la investigación.Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo, director de la agencia federal antimonopolio de Brasil que fue designado por Bolsonaro, trató de ir más allá que Barros al señalar la supuesta responsabilidad de las firmas de encuestas.Antes de que Moraes interviniera y detuviera la investigación, Cordeiro Macedo acusó a las principales encuestadoras de colusión basándose en lo que calificó como la improbabilidad estadística de que todas hubieran subestimado el apoyo de Bolsonaro por un margen tan significativo. Afirmó que el escenario era tan probable como ganar la lotería varias veces.Pero Alexandre Patriota, profesor de estadística en la Universidad de São Paulo, lo cuestionó y dijo que probar la colusión basada únicamente en esa única medida sería casi imposible.“Incluso si todos los institutos se equivocaron de la misma manera, eso no es una prueba de colusión”, dijo. “Para tener un toque de malicia, necesitas algo más que números”.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía del Times en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Antes cubría tecnología desde San Francisco. Antes de unirse al Times, en 2018, trabajó durante siete años en The Wall Street Journal. @jacknicas • Facebook More

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    Rishi Sunak’s Challenge: Unifying the Party and Fixing the Economy

    The Conservative Party is fractured and Britain’s public finances are battered. That will test the political skills of a leader who has been involved in national politics for only seven years.LONDON — Rishi Sunak took over as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday, the third in seven weeks, hoping to slow the revolving door at 10 Downing Street and restore stability to a government in turmoil.But as he assembled a cabinet and began to confront a grave economic crisis, Mr. Sunak faced formidable political challenges, for which analysts said his seven-year career in national politics had not fully prepared him. The swift, truncated nature of his election may further complicate his task.Having been elected with the votes of some 200 Conservative Party lawmakers, but not the party’s rank-and-file members, Mr. Sunak could have trouble claiming a mandate to lead a deeply fractured party, let alone the whole country. With his government forced into spending cuts and tax increases, he will have few resources with which to reward either his lawmakers or the public.“He’s inheriting a divided party with a large number of Conservative M.P.s and members who believe he has no legitimate mandate,” said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics at the University of Kent. “That’s compounded by the fact that the party is in a free-fall and it’s not clear it has a parachute.”And yet, on a day of now-familiar rituals, as Mr. Sunak, the fifth prime minister in six years, traveled to Buckingham Palace to be anointed by King Charles III, there was also a calm in British politics — something that had been missing since Boris Johnson’s chaotic departure this past summer.Much of that owed to the 42-year-old prime minister himself: His well-received address to the nation on Tuesday showed a degree of political awareness, conceding the mistakes of his predecessor, Liz Truss, and promising improvement, while also reaching out to her and Mr. Johnson.“I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda,” a somber and solitary Mr. Sunak said on Downing Street, after returning from the palace. “This will mean difficult decisions to come.”Mr. Sunak and King Charles III in Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.Pool photo by Aaron ChownHis decision to appear there without his wife or daughters, and to dispense with the cheering staff members that greeted Ms. Truss last month, lent his arrival a brisk, businesslike tone. It also underlined the contrast between Mr. Sunak and his predecessor, which he said would extend beyond optics.A former chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Sunak is expected to pull Britain back to more mainstream policies after Ms. Truss’s experiment in trickle-down economics, which rattled financial markets and badly damaged Britain’s fiscal reputation.More on the Political Turmoil in BritainMaking History: Rishi Sunak is the first person of color and the first Hindu to become prime minister of Britain — a milestone for a nation that is more and more ethnically diverse but also roiled by occasional anti-immigrant fervor.Economic Challenges: Sunak already has experience steering Britain’s public finances as chancellor of the Exchequer. That won’t make tackling the current crisis any easier.Political Primaries: Are primary elections of British leaders driving Britain’s dysfunction? The rise and fall of Liz Truss offers some lessons.Lifelong Allowance: As a former prime minister, Ms. Truss is eligible for a taxpayer-funded annual payout for the rest of her life. Some say she shouldn’t be allowed to receive it.“Mistakes were made,” Mr. Sunak said. “Not borne of ill will or bad intentions. Quite the opposite, in fact. But mistakes, nonetheless. And I have been elected as leader of my party, and your prime minister, in part, to fix them.”Mr. Sunak quickly set about selecting a cabinet remarkable for its familiar faces. He retained Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor whom Ms. Truss installed after ousting Kwasi Kwarteng, the architect of ill-fated tax cuts. Mr. Hunt, who has soothed the markets, is scheduled to present a more detailed fiscal plan on Oct. 31.Mr. Sunak also kept on Ben Wallace as defense secretary and James Cleverly as foreign secretary, even though both had backed Mr. Johnson over him in the leadership race. And he retained Penny Mordaunt, who mounted a spirited challenge to him in that contest, as leader of the House of Commons.It was a striking contrast to Ms. Truss, whose cabinet consisted almost entirely of people who had backed her for leader, and it seemed to signal a recognition by Mr. Sunak that he could not succeed by drawing dividing lines in the party.Clockwise from top left: Jeremy Hunt, Ben Wallace, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Suella Braverman, James Cleverly.AFP — Getty; EPA, via Shutterstock; EPA, via Shutterstock; EPA, via Shutterstock; AFP — Getty; AFP — GettyMost conspicuously, Mr. Sunak reappointed Suella Braverman as home secretary, a job she had been forced out of only a week ago, ostensibly because she breached security rules. Her appointment was a gesture to the Conservative Party’s right flank: Ms. Braverman is a hard-liner who wants to cut immigration numbers. She said her “dream” was to see flights deporting asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda.Mr. Sunak did reward some loyalists, naming Dominic Raab, who campaigned faithfully for him, as deputy prime minister and justice minister, posts he held under Mr. Johnson.Ms. Truss made her own appearance at Downing Street in the morning with her family, after formally submitting her resignation to the king, just seven weeks after she had been anointed by his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in one of her last official acts, two days before her death.In defiant, unapologetic farewell remarks, Ms. Truss took credit for protecting people from rising energy bills. Reiterating her belief in lower taxes and a fast-growing economy, she said, “I am more convinced than ever we need to be bold and confront the challenges that we face.”Taking a page from Mr. Johnson, who likened himself to the retiring fifth-century Roman politician Cincinnatus, Ms. Truss quoted the Roman philosopher Seneca: “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”Liz Truss after her farewell remarks on Downing Street on Tuesday.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Truss’s misfires have made Mr. Sunak’s job even more difficult. Britain’s straitened public finances and its higher borrowing costs — a consequence, in part, of rising interest rates in reaction to her policies — will require painful spending cuts. That will further test Mr. Sunak’s political skills. Last summer, he struggled to sell his tough-love message to party members, who preferred Ms. Truss’s supply-side remedies.“The ideological riddle that Sunak has to try to solve is how the Conservative Party, amid a profound and prolonged economic crisis, can reconnect with the voters it attracted after Brexit,” Professor Goodwin said.Mr. Sunak did reappoint Michael Gove, a seasoned minister, to a post overseeing efforts to “level up” struggling cities in the Midlands and north of England with more prosperous London. That is important to retaining working-class voters who propelled the Conservatives to their landslide general election victory in 2019.As chancellor, Mr. Sunak was lionized when he doled out billions of pounds to people who had lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic. He sponsored another good-news program, “Eat Out to Help Out,” which subsidized meals at restaurants to revive the industry after lockdowns.But when it came to withdrawing those benefits and raising taxes, Mr. Sunak’s reputation unsurprisingly suffered. During his campaign against Ms. Truss, he struggled to stick to his message of fiscal conservatism. Under pressure from her promises of tax cuts, he said he would temporarily suspend the value-added tax, a sales tax, on energy bills — something that he had earlier rejected.“He doesn’t have a lot of what I’d call trench-fighting experience,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “His progress through the party has been so rapid that he hasn’t spent years forging friendships with colleagues who’ve got his back come what may.”Mr. Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty at the British Asian Trust Reception at the British Museum in London, in February.Vickie Flores/EPA, via ShutterstockProfessor Bale said Mr. Sunak was also thin-skinned about criticism he faced last spring of his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian technology billionaire, for her privileged tax status. Her so-called non-domicile status allowed her to avoid paying taxes in Britain on millions of pounds of her global income (she eventually agreed to pay British taxes).While Mr. Sunak’s sensitive reaction to the attacks against his wife may have been understandable, he is likely to face many more of them in the coming months from an opposition Labour Party that will seize on his extreme wealth to paint him as out of touch with the anxieties of ordinary people.“They don’t care that he and his family are filthy rich,” Professor Bale said. “They do care they didn’t seem to be paying their fair share. That — and his heated outdoor swimming pool and his house in Santa Monica — is going to make it difficult for him to argue, ‘We’re all in this together.’”Political analysts said the sheer magnitude of Ms. Truss’s failure was Mr. Sunak’s biggest asset. The Conservatives are trailing Labour by more than 30 percentage points in some polls. Even those who ardently opposed Mr. Sunak recognize that he is likely their last hope of avoiding a general election rout that would sweep hundreds of Conservative lawmakers out of their seats.“His M.P.s have looked over the edge of the precipice and know that, unless they get behind the guy, who is basically their last chance, they’re heading for a huge fall,” Professor Bale said. “Basically, it’s Rishi or bust.”Mr. Sunak is Britain’s third prime minister in seven weeks. Hannah Mckay/Reuters More

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    Putin Is Onto Us

    As the Russian Army continues to falter in Ukraine, the world is worrying that Vladimir Putin could use a tactical nuclear weapon. Maybe — but for now, I think Putin is assembling a different weapon. It’s an oil and gas bomb that he’s fusing right before our eyes and with our inadvertent help — and he could easily detonate it this winter.If he does, it could send prices of home heating oil and gasoline into the stratosphere. The political fallout, Putin surely hopes, will divide the Western alliance and prompt many countries — including ours, where both MAGA Republicans and progressives are expressing concerns about the spiraling cost of the Ukraine conflict — to seek a dirty deal with the man in the Kremlin, pronto.In short: Putin is now fighting a ground war to break through Ukraine’s lines and a two-front energy war to break Ukraine’s will and that of its allies. He’s trying to smash Ukraine’s electricity system to ensure a long, cold winter there while putting himself in position (in ways that I’ll explain) to drive up energy costs for all of Ukraine’s allies. And because we — America and the West — do not have an energy strategy in place to dampen the impact of Putin’s energy bomb, this is a frightening prospect.When it comes to energy, we want five things at once that are incompatible — and Putin is onto us:1. We want to decarbonize our economy as fast as we can to mitigate the very real dangers of climate change.2. We want the cheapest possible gasoline and heating oil prices so we can drive our cars as fast and as much as we want — and never have to put on a sweater indoors or do anything to conserve energy.3. We want to tell the petrodictators in Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to take a hike.4. We want to be able to treat U.S. oil and gas companies as pariahs and dinosaurs that should pump us out of this current oil crisis and then go off in the woods and die and let solar and wind take over.5. Oh, and we don’t want any new oil and gas pipelines or wind and solar transmission lines to spoil our backyards.I understand why people want all five — now. I want all five! But they involve trade-offs, which too few of us want to acknowledge or debate. In an energy war like the one we’re in now, you need to be clear about your goals and priorities. As a country, and as a Western alliance, we have no ladder of priorities on energy, just competing aspirations and magical thinking that we can have it all.If we persist in that, we are going to be in for a world of hurt if Putin drops the energy bomb that I think he’s assembling for Christmas. Here’s what I think is his strategy: It starts with getting the United States to draw down its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It is a huge stock of crude oil stored in giant caverns that we can draw on in an emergency to offset any cutoff in our domestic production or imports. Last Wednesday, President Biden announced the release of 15 million more barrels from the reserve in December, completing a plan he laid out earlier to release a total of 180 million barrels in an effort to keep gasoline prices at the pump as low as possible — in advance of the midterm elections. (He didn’t say the last part. He didn’t need to.)According to a report in The Washington Post, the reserve contained “405.1 million barrels as of Oct. 14. That’s about 57 percent of its maximum authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels.”I sympathize with the president. People were really hurting from $5- and $6-a-gallon gasoline. But using the reserve — which was designed to cushion us in the face of a sudden shut-off in domestic or global production — to shave a dime or a quarter off a gallon of gasoline before elections is a dicey business, even if the president has a plan for refilling it in the coming months.Putin wants America to use up as much of its Strategic Petroleum Reserve cushion now — just like the way the Germans gave up on nuclear energy and he got them addicted to Russia’s cheap natural gas. Then, when Russian gas was cut off because of the Ukraine war, German homes and factories had to frantically cut back and scramble for more expensive alternatives.Next, Putin is watching the European Union gear up for a ban on seaborne imports of crude oil from Russia, starting Dec. 5. This embargo — along with Germany and Poland’s move to stop pipeline imports — should cover roughly 90 percent of the European Union’s current oil imports from Russia.As a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., noted, “Crucially, the sanctions also ban E.U. companies from providing shipping insurance, brokering services or financing for oil exports from Russia to third countries.”The U.S. Treasury and European Union believe that without that insurance, the number of customers for Russian oil will shrink dramatically, so they are telling the Russians that they can get the insurance for their oil tankers from the few Western insurance companies that dominate the industry only if they lower the price of their crude oil exports to a level set by the Europeans and the United States.My sources in the oil industry tell me they seriously doubt this Western price fixing will work. Russia’s OPEC Plus partner Saudi Arabia is certainly not interested in seeing such a buyers’ price-fixing precedent set. Moreover, international oil trading is full of shady characters — does the name Marc Rich ring a bell? — who thrive on market distortions. Oil tankers carry transponders that track their locations. But tankers engaged in shady activities will turn their transponders off and reappear days after they’ve made a ship-to-ship transfer or will transfer their cargo into storage tanks somewhere in Asia for re-export, in effect laundering their Russian oil. Oil in just one very large tanker can be worth roughly $250 million, so the incentives are enormous.Now add one more dodgy player to the mix: China. It has all kinds of long-term, fixed-price contracts to import liquefied natural gas from the Middle East at roughly $100 a barrel of oil equivalent. But because President Xi Jinping’s crazy approach to containing Covid — in recent months some 300 million citizens have been under full or partial lockdown — China’s economy has slowed considerably, as has its gas consumption. As a result, an oil industry source tells me, China has been taking some of the L.N.G. sold to it on those fixed-price contracts for domestic use and reselling it to Europe and other gas-starved countries for $300 a barrel of oil equivalent.Now that Xi has locked in his third term as general secretary of the Communist Party, many expect that he will ease up on his lockdowns. If China goes back to anything near its normal gas consumption and stops re-exporting its excess, the global gas market will become even more scarily tight.Last, as I noted, Putin is trying to destroy Ukraine’s ability to generate electricity. Today more than one million Ukrainians are without power, and as one Ukrainian lawmaker tweeted last week, “Total darkness and cold are coming.”So add all of this up and then suppose, come December, Putin announces he is halting all Russian oil and gas exports for 30 or 60 days to countries supporting Ukraine, rather than submit to the European Union’s fixing of his oil price. He could afford that for a short while. That would be Putin’s energy bomb and Christmas present to the West. In this tight market, oil could go to $200 a barrel, with a commensurate rise in the price of natural gas. We’re talking $10 to $12 a gallon at the pump in the United States.The beauty for Putin of an energy bomb is that unlike setting off a nuclear bomb — which would unite the whole world against him — setting off an oil price bomb would divide the West from Ukraine.Obviously, I am just guessing that this is what Putin is up to, and if the world goes into recession, it could take energy prices down with it. But we would be wise to have a real counterstrategy in place, especially because, while some in Europe have managed to stock up on natural gas for this winter, rebuilding those stocks for 2023 without Russian gas and with China returning to normal could be very costly.If Biden wants America to be the arsenal of democracy to protect us and our democratic allies — and not leave us begging Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela or Iran to produce more oil and gas — we need a robust energy arsenal as much as a military one. Because we are in an energy war! Biden needs to make a major speech, making clear that for the foreseeable future, we need more of every kind of energy we have. American oil and gas investors need to know that as long as they produce in the cleanest way possible, invest in carbon capture and ensure that any new pipelines they build will be compatible with transporting hydrogen — probably the best clean fuel coming down the road in the next decade — they have a welcome place in America’s energy future, alongside the solar, wind, hydro and other clean energy producers that Biden has heroically boosted through his climate legislation.I know. This is not ideal. This is not where I hoped we would be in 2022. But this is where we are, and anything else really is magical thinking — and the one person who will not be fooled by it is Vladimir Putin.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 Wednesday Briefing: Tensions Rise in the West Bank

    Plus Myanmar’s junta kills dozens and Brittney Griner faces nine years in a Russian penal colony.Mourners attended the funeral of Palestinians killed in an overnight Israeli raid in Nablus.Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIsrael targets a Palestinian militiaIsraeli forces carried out a major raid against a new Palestinian militia in Nablus, a city in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian officials and militia members said the raid yesterday killed a leader of the group and four other men.Israel has blamed the militia, known as the Lions’ Den, for a rise in shootings that it says are aimed at its troops and Jewish settlements; one shooting killed a soldier this month. The militia, which emerged this year and does not answer to any of the established Palestinian factions, is steadily gaining support among young people.Many Palestinians have championed the group’s fighters as popular heroes. These young Palestinians are as frustrated with the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited authority over parts of the West Bank, as they are with Israel.The predawn raid came ahead of Israel’s general election, its fifth since 2019, set for next Tuesday. It could add to right-wing momentum and strengthen Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid to retake power.Context: The Israeli army has kept Nablus under a tight siege for about two weeks. Palestinians have decried the move as a collective punishment.Background: This year has already been the deadliest in the West Bank since 2015 for Palestinians in the conflict with Israel, much of which has been focused on Nablus and Jenin. There has been a notable rise in violence against Palestinians by extremist Jewish settlers.One bomb killed Aurali Lahpai, a popular singer, and other performers mid-song.Associated PressAirstrike kills dozens in MyanmarAt least 80 people died in Myanmar after the military regime mounted its deadliest aerial attack since it seized power last year.The Sunday airstrike in northern Myanmar targeted the territory of ethnic Kachin rebels. People had gathered for an outdoor concert to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organization, one of the largest and most active ethnic groups in the country, which has been fighting the military for years.Since the coup, the organization has joined with pro-democracy forces and has helped train soldiers from the People’s Defense Force, an armed resistance group. The organization pledged to step up its military activities against the junta in retaliation.Military: The junta said that the site of the bombing was a Kachin army base, not a concert venue, and said widespread reports of civilian deaths, including the deaths of the performers, were “rumors based on fake news.”Context: The Kachin Independence Organization has long sought autonomy for Kachin State, which borders China and India and is well known for its lucrative jade trade.Brittney Griner has already been jailed for about eight months.Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesGriner’s prison term upheldA Russian court upheld the nine-year prison sentence for Brittney Griner, the U.S. basketball star. A prisoner swap with the U.S. may be her best hope to avoid a penal colony.There are two higher courts above the appellate division, culminating in the Supreme Court, but Griner’s lawyers said they had not decided whether to take the case any further. Higher courts in Russia are not known for overturning verdicts, especially in a case involving foreign policy and the interests of the Kremlin.The U.S. has proposed exchanging Griner and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine held since December 2018, for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year federal prison sentence, according to a person familiar with the talks. But negotiations have dragged on for months.Background: Griner was arrested days before Russia invaded Ukraine after she arrived in Russia with a small amount of hashish oil. Threats: Russia and Ukraine accused each other of planning attacks to spread radioactive material, raising fears in the West that Moscow’s claims could be a pretext for an escalation. President Biden sharply warned Moscow against using a tactical nuclear weapon.THE LATEST NEWSAustralia’s BudgetJim Chalmers, Australia’s treasurer, delivered the 2022-23 federal budget yesterday.Lukas Coch/EPA, via ShutterstockAustralia’s government released its first budget yesterday. It is the first from the Labor Party in almost a decade, The Guardian reports.Australia’s plan emphasizes spending on families, as well as on older adults, defense and other countries in the Pacific, The Associated Press reports.Reuters reports that the “low-drama” budget stressed stability, pragmatism and tight controls.Australia is anticipating an economic slowdown amid rising global inflation, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.British PoliticsKing Charles III welcomed Rishi Sunak to Buckingham Palace yesterday.Pool photo by Aaron ChownRishi Sunak is now Britain’s prime minister. He opted for stability and continuity in his cabinet. Jeremy Hunt, who quickly reversed Liz Truss’s economic proposals, will stay on as the top finance minister. Sunak supported Brexit and pledged to do “whatever it takes” to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. But he has been tight-lipped about his policy agenda.China said it supported advancing ties with Britain under Sunak, despite simmering tensions.Sunak’s ascent has inspired some members of the Indian diaspora. But his immense personal wealth makes him less relatable.Other Big Stories“I want to cry, I want to scream,” said a 31-year-old Venezuelan migrant, who said he had traversed 10 countries to get to the U.S. Alejandro Cegarra for The New York TimesTens of thousands of Venezuelans are stranded south of the U.S. border after an abrupt shift in the Biden administration’s immigration policy.WhatsApp went down in India, South Korea and other countries yesterday. The company did not provide a cause.Here are photos from the partial solar eclipse yesterday.A Morning ReadBefore the pandemic, Kathryn Wiltz’s employer repeatedly denied her requests to work from home because of her disability. Now, her new job allows her to do so permanently.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesThe pandemic prompted more employers to consider remote work arrangements. As a result, the share of adults with disabilities who are working has soared.A man with autism spectrum disorder, which has made it difficult for him to find steady work, recently landed a full-time job — with a 30 percent raise. “If I have my bad days, I just pick up the laptop and work from home,” he said.POP CULTUREAdidas drops YeAdidas said it was immediately ending its partnership with Kanye West, now known as Ye, who made a series of antisemitic remarks and embraced a slogan associated with white supremacists this month.In so doing, the German sneaker giant ended what may have been the most significant corporate fashion partnership of Ye’s career. It’s not the first to go: After days of notable silence, Balenciaga, the fashion house that had Ye walk down its runway, cut him loose. CAA, the talent agency that represents Ye, also dropped him as a client.Like many of Ye’s other fashion connections, Adidas seemed to be dragging its feet, perhaps hoping for a public apology. Now, Ye’s economic future and his status as a pop culture icon may be in peril.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKate Sears for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.Roast butternut squash in miso and butter for a savory vegetarian pasta dinner.Letter of RecommendationThere’s joy in jet lag.FashionFind your personal style.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Polluted air (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Park Chung-hee, South Korea’s president who seized power in a coup, was assassinated 43 years ago today. His friend Kim Jae-kyu, then the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, killed him and was sentenced to death.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on Europe’s energy crisis.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More