Elections

Subterms

    More stories

    • 75 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      A President Governing From Behind Bars?!

      by

      Watching the torrent of invective and megalomania pouring from Donald Trump on Tuesday after his arraignment for a second time, what struck me was not so much the falsehoods as the desperation.“I am the only one that can save this nation,” Trump declared. He spoke of “the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country” — meaning his own “persecution.” He denounced the special counsel, Jack Smith, as “deranged.”Trump’s delirium didn’t seem to energize either him or the crowd, however, and this classic con man has seemed to shrink under prosecutorial scrutiny. It was difficult to avoid thinking of other leaders I’ve covered over the decades when they were scrambling to avoid prison; under investigation, they deflated before our eyes. Now the net is tightening around Trump.An absurd question keeps nagging at me: Could an inmate in a federal prison get a leave to attend his own presidential inauguration?I wonder about that because Trump seems to be moving simultaneously in two opposing and irreconcilable directions. First, it seems increasingly plausible that he will become the first former president to be convicted of a felony. Second, he also seems increasingly likely to win the Republican nomination for president, with the betting markets also giving him about a 22 percent chance of going on and actually being elected president.Any defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But some smart lawyers believe that for Trump, the “peril is extreme,” as one former federal prosecutor put it. Trump’s own attorney general William Barr said, “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast.”Trump could, of course, catch a break. The evidence from his own lawyer could be declared inadmissible in trial, or maybe the trial judge will allow stalling tactics by the defense, or maybe a die-hard sympathizer on the Florida jury will refuse to convict. But Trump could eventually be indicted in four separate criminal cases, and with so many cases swirling about, the odds increase that he may find himself convicted of at least some felonies.He would be a first offender, and it’s not certain that he would do prison time. Officials so far have been very deferential toward Trump: He hasn’t been handcuffed or subjected to a mug shot.Still, deference may end upon conviction, and defendants in less serious cases have ended up with substantial prison sentences. Just this month, a former Air Force officer was sentenced to three years in prison for keeping classified documents — and he had pleaded guilty and thus presumably received leniency. And during Trump’s presidency, Reality Winner leaked a single document and was sentenced to more than five years in prison.Even if Trump is convicted and imprisoned, he could continue to run for office and even presumably hold the office of president, if he isn’t too busy in the prison factory making license plates. Eugene Debs, the socialist candidate, famously ran for president from federal prison in 1920, receiving almost one million votes.I guess accommodations could be made so that prison officials didn’t listen in on phone conversations between federal inmate No. 62953-804 and Chinese and Russian leaders. Perhaps summits could be held in a larger cell? State banquets in the prison dining hall?One low-level precedent: Joel Caston, while serving a sentence for murder, was elected in 2021 to be an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Washington, D.C. But that’s an unpaid two-year advisory position, a bit different from the presidency.If Trump is both incarcerated and elected president, perhaps his cabinet could invoke the 25th Amendment and declare him unable to serve. But Trump presumably would carefully choose cabinet members who would never do that. Alternatively, maybe if elected, would he try to pardon himself?Is it conceivable that voters would actually choose as president a man who had been convicted of felonies, or was about to be? It seems hard to believe, but I also thought Trump was unelectable in 2016. It’s notable that as the legal cases against Trump have gained ground this year he has also risen in Republican polling.A plausible guess, based in part on the latest polling since the federal indictment, is that prosecutions could help him in the Republican primaries while hurting him in the general election. Looking ahead, news organizations must not drop the ball as they did in 2016, giving Trump a platform without adequately fact-checking him. We should enable democracy, not empower an antidemocratic demagogue.All in all, I think Trump is going down. But my nightmare is that the United States slips into a recession that voters blame on President Biden, that there is a Middle East crisis that raises oil and gas prices and that there is a third-party candidate who draws more votes from Biden than from Trump. Or perhaps Biden has a health crisis and the Democratic nominee is Kamala Harris, who I fear would be a substantially weaker candidate. In short, Trump’s election as president seems unlikely, but not impossible — and the consequences could be catastrophic.A sitting president governing from behind bars? It’s utterly unimaginable — right? The uncertainty speaks to a tragedy for our nation.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. More

    • 88 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Berlusconi’s Legacy Lives On Beyond Italy’s Borders

      by

      Silvio Berlusconi rose when political parties were weakened and carried on through a cascade of scandals. Leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have had similar trajectories.In a strange bit of synergy, both the indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the death of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy took place this week. Berlusconi, arguably, was the O.G. of populist leaders whose political careers carried on through a cascade of scandals and criminal cases.Both are examples of how the weakening of mainstream political parties can open the field for charismatic outsiders with a populist bent.In the early 1990s, Italy’s national “clean hands” investigation revealed that wide-ranging corruption had infected business, public works and politics, and found that the country’s political parties were largely financed by bribes. The two parties that had dominated Italian politics since the fall of fascism, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, collapsed after a wave of indictments. So did nearly every other established political party.“The party system that was the anchor of the democratic regime in the postwar period basically crumbled,” Ken Roberts, a Cornell University political scientist, told me a few years ago. “What you end up with is a political vacuum that gets filled by a populist outsider in Berlusconi.”That 2017 conversation with Roberts, notably, was focused on another country, where another corruption scandal was opening the path to power for another right-wing outsider: Brazil, where an obscure lawmaker named Jair Bolsonaro was just starting to gain national traction in the wake of the Carwash corruption investigation.“I really worry that in cleaning it up, the whole system is going to crumble,” Roberts said at the time. “I really fear what a Brazilian Berlusconi is going to look like.”In another conversation this week, Roberts recalled that back then, most analysts did not yet take Bolsonaro seriously. “But he was beginning to stir, and my quote to you was in anticipation of his rise,” he said.“I think it holds up pretty well over time,” he added.A year after Roberts and I first spoke, Bolsonaro was elected president after running on a far-right platform that included opposition to same-sex marriage and fulsome praise for Brazil’s former military dictatorship.As his term neared its close, he spent more than a year warning that he might not accept the results of the 2022 election if he failed to win. When he lost, he made baseless claims of fraud. A mob of his supporters eventually overran federal buildings in Brasília, the capital, in a failed effort to prevent the candidate who won the vote, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office.Bolsonaro is now set to face trial next week over his electoral fraud claims.Other examples of this pattern aren’t hard to find. In Venezuela, a series of corruption scandals opened a power vacuum that Hugo Chávez easily filled with populist appeals, leading to to an authoritarian government that, by the time of his death, oversaw a country racked by crises. In Guatemala, after a corruption investigation forced President Otto Pérez Molina out of office in 2015, he was replaced by Jimmy Morales, a charismatic television comedian with no political experience who ran on the slogan “not corrupt, nor a thief,” as president. When the U.N.-backed group that had investigated Molina began looking into Morales as well, he expelled it from the country.The United States has not had a massive corruption scandal that sent politicians to courtrooms and jail cells and decimated faith in its political parties. But, as I discussed in columns in April and May, Trump rose to power after the Republican Party was profoundly weakened by other factors, including campaign finance laws that allowed big-money donors to circumvent the party, and the rise of social media that meant the party was no longer a gatekeeper for press and messaging access.That kind of institutional weakness creates an opening for outsider politicians who might once have been kept out of politics by robust political parties. But more specifically, it also privileges a certain type of candidate, who has celebrity name recognition (perhaps a celebrity entertainer like Morales, a famous businessman like Berlusconi, or one like Trump, who bridges both worlds), charisma, and a willingness to win votes and headlines by embracing positions that would be taboo for mainstream candidates.Unfortunately, it is rare for such politicians to also be good at building new, strong institutions to replace those whose decay enabled their rise to power.In Italy, Berlusconi presided over and helped maintain decades of weak coalition governments and political turmoil, not to mention the multiple corruption scandals he landed in. And that chaos looks set to outlive him.“Even in death,” my colleague Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief of The Times, wrote this week, “Berlusconi had the power to potentially destabilize the political universe and Ms. Meloni’s governing coalition, of which his party, Forza Italia, is a small but critical linchpin.”Thank you for being a subscriberRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.I’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to interpreter@nytimes.com. You can also follow me on Twitter. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      José Rubén Zamora mostró la corrupción en Guatemala y enfrenta prisión

      by

      Durante años, elPeriódico denunció los manejos indebidos del gobierno. El juicio a su fundador se produce, aseguran los críticos, cuando la democracia en el país se desmorona.Para los activistas que defienden la libertad de prensa y los derechos humanos en Guatemala, el miércoles se perfila como un indicador clave de la tambaleante salud democrática del país.En un tribunal de la capital del país, se espera un veredicto en el juicio de uno de los periodistas más destacados de Guatemala, un caso ampliamente visto como otra señal del deterioro del estado de derecho en el país centroamericano.El periodista, José Rubén Zamora, fue el fundador y director de elPeriódico, un diario líder en Guatemala que investigaba con regularidad la corrupción gubernamental, incluidas las acusaciones contra el actual presidente, Alejandro Giammattei, y la fiscal general, María Consuelo Porras.Zamora es juzgado por cargos de irregularidades financieras que, según los fiscales, se centran en sus negocios y no en su periodismo. Un panel de jueces emitirá un veredicto y, si es declarado culpable, impondrá una sentencia.Una condena, que muchos observadores legales y el mismo Zamora dicen es el resultado probable, sería otro golpe a la frágil democracia de Guatemala, según los defensores de los derechos civiles, ya que el gobierno y sus aliados han apuntado repetidamente a instituciones clave y medios de comunicación independientes.El juicio también se produce cuando el país se dirige hacia una elección presidencial este mes que ha estado plagada de irregularidades, con cuatro candidatos de la oposición descalificados antes de la carrera.“El estado de derecho está roto”, dijo Ana María Méndez, directora para Centroamérica de WOLA, un instituto de investigación con sede en Washington. El caso de Zamora, agregó, representa “un paso más hacia la consolidación de una dictadura” en Guatemala.Sin embargo, a diferencia de otros países centroamericanos, como Nicaragua y El Salvador, donde la democracia también se ha erosionado, el poder en Guatemala no se concentra en una familia o un individuo, dijo Méndez.En Guatemala, agregó, “el autoritarismo se ejerce por redes ilícitas que están conformadas por la élite económica, la élite militar y el crimen organizado en contubernio con la clase política”.Zamora, de 66 años, ha negado repetidamente haber actuado mal y acusó al gobierno de tratar de silenciar a sus críticos.“Soy un preso político”, dijo a los periodistas el 2 de mayo, el día en que comenzó su juicio. Señaló que esperaba que el proceso termine con un veredicto de culpabilidad y agregó: “Me van a sentenciar”.Durante su cargo al frente de elPeriódico, Zamora fue demandado decenas de veces, principalmente por difamación, por parte del gobierno como resultado de la cobertura del diario.Las máquinas prensa guardaban silencio el mes pasado en las oficinas de elPeriódico en Ciudad de Guatemala. El periódico cerró después de que el gobierno congelara sus finanzas.Simone Dalmasso para The New York TimesPero su enfrentamiento legal más serio con las autoridades se inició en julio pasado, cuando fue acusado de lavado de dinero, tráfico de influencias y chantaje.Como parte del caso de la fiscalía, las cuentas bancarias de elPeriódico fueron congeladas, lo que dificultó su economía antes de que cerrara sus puertas definitivamente el mes pasado.El principal testigo del caso fue un exbanquero, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, quien dijo a los fiscales que Zamora le pidió que lavara 300.000 quetzales guatemaltecos, o casi 40.000 dólares. También afirmó que Zamora lo había obligado a pautar publicidad de paga anual en el periódico para evitar recibir una cobertura poco halagüeña.Pero la acusación no presentó ninguna prueba que demostrara que Zamora hubiera obtenido el dinero de manera ilegal. La mayor parte de los fondos, que según Zamora eran para pagar los salarios de los empleados del periódico, provenían de un empresario que no quería que se revelara su conexión con elPeriódico por temor a represalias.Su defensa se vio obstaculizada por varias medidas tomadas por los fiscales y una organización de extrema derecha que apoya al fiscal general, la Fundación Contra el Terrorismo, que según los críticos ha tratado de intimidar a algunos de los abogados de Zamora.Pasó por nueve abogados defensores, y al menos cuatro han sido acusados ​​de obstrucción de la justicia por su papel en el caso.“La defensa de Zamora se ha visto obstaculizada desde el primer día por una puerta giratoria de abogados defensores”, dijo Stephen Townley, director legal de la iniciativa TrialWatch de la Fundación Clooney para la Justicia, un grupo defensor de derechos. “Cuatro de sus abogados han sido procesados ​​por las autoridades guatemaltecas. Otros parecían no tener acceso a los materiales de sus predecesores”.Un juez que había estado presidiendo el caso anteriormente no permitió que Zamora presentara ningún testigo y rechazó la mayoría de las pruebas que trató de presentar por considerarlas irrelevantes.“Hemos visto un montaje’’, dijo Zamora en una entrevista, “como un teatro de terror”.El hijo de Zamora, José Carlos Zamora, quien también es periodista, calificó el juicio como “una persecución política”.Por su parte, Giammattei, refiriéndose al caso contra Zamora, ha dicho que ser periodista no le da a una persona el “derecho a cometer actos criminales”.El presidente Alejandro Giammattei se encontraba entre las principales figuras guatemaltecas investigadas por el periódico de Zamora.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAun así, su gobierno ha sido acusado por grupos de derechos humanos de usar el sistema de justicia para atacar a cualquiera que lo desafíe.Los casos de corrupción y derechos humanos se han estancado y el sistema de justicia ha sido “secuestrado” por una red de actores corruptos, según un informe de WOLA.Desde 2021, casi tres decenas de jueces, fiscales anticorrupción y sus abogados han huido de Guatemala, al igual que 22 periodistas que dijeron haber sido amenazados por su trabajo.Cuando se fundó elPeriódico en 1996, Guatemala estaba entrando en un período más esperanzador luego de una brutal guerra civil que duró casi cuatro décadas y dejó cientos de miles de muertos o desaparecidos. Para muchos guatemaltecos agotados, existía la sensación de que la democracia se estaba afianzando y que el gobierno gobernaría con transparencia.Un panel internacional de investigadores respaldado por la ONU trabajó 12 años junto con el poder judicial de Guatemala para exponer la corrupción en la élite del país, incluidos altos funcionarios gubernamentales y empresarios, antes de ser expulsado del país en 2019 por el presidente anterior, a quien el panel estaba investigando.“Lo que vemos hoy es un sistema que quiere seguir protegiendo esa clase de prácticas”, dijo Daniel Haering, analista político en Ciudad de Guatemala.El caso de Zamora y la desaparición de su periódico hacen retroceder los esfuerzos para hacer que el gobierno rinda cuentas por sus acciones, dijo Méndez.“¿Quién va a decir ahora la verdad en Guatemala?”, dijo. “Quedará un vacío enorme”.Zamora con su abogada el día de la apertura de su juicio el mes pasado. No se le permitió presentar ningún testigo ni la mayor parte de las pruebas en su defensa.Santiago Billy/Associated PressEl juicio de Zamora termina cuando el país se prepara para las elecciones nacionales del 25 de junio, que según los grupos de derechos civiles ya se han visto empañadas después de que los jueces en los últimos meses prohibieron la participación a cuatro candidatos presidenciales de partidos de oposición.Entre ellos estaba Carlos Pineda, un populista conservador, que se había comprometido a luchar contra la corrupción y que, según una encuesta reciente, había ascendido a puntero. El tribunal supremo de Guatemala lo retiró de la contienda por acusaciones de que los métodos que usó el partido de Pineda para elegirlo como su candidato habían violado la ley electoral.El caso de Zamora también ha entrampado a los periodistas simplemente por cubrirlo. Ocho reporteros, editores y columnistas están siendo investigados por obstrucción a la justicia tras escribir sobre el proceso para elPeriódico. La mayoría se ha ido de Guatemala.Desde que Giammattei asumió el cargo en enero de 2020, el Asociación de Periodistas de Guatemala ha documentado 472 casos de hostigamiento, agresiones físicas, intimidación y censura contra la prensa.“De inmediato te preguntas: ‘¿En qué momento mis coberturas son interpretadas como un delito?’”, dijo Claudia Méndez, quien trabajó en elPeriódico como reportera y editora y ahora conduce un programa de radio. “‘¿En qué momento mi labor es ya no un ejercicio de crítica y rendición de cuentas, sino visto como un acto ilícito?’”. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      He Exposed Corruption in Guatemala. Now He Faces Prison.

      by

      The trial of José Rubén Zamora, the founder of a newspaper that long shone a spotlight on government graft, comes as critics say democracy in Guatemala is crumbling.For activists defending press freedom and human rights in Guatemala, Wednesday looms as a key gauge of the country’s wobbly democratic health.In a courtroom in the country’s capital, a verdict is expected in the trial of one of Guatemala’s most high-profile journalists, a case widely seen as another sign of the deteriorating rule of law in the Central American country.The journalist, José Rubén Zamora, was the founder and publisher of elPeriódico, a leading newspaper in Guatemala that regularly investigated government corruption, including accusations involving the current president, Alejandro Giammattei, and the attorney general, María Consuelo Porras.He stands trial on charges of financial wrongdoing that prosecutors say focus on his business dealing and not his journalism. A panel of judges will deliver a verdict and, if he is found guilty, will impose a sentence.A conviction, which many legal observers and Mr. Zamora himself say is the likely outcome, would be another blow to Guatemala’s already fragile democracy, according to civil rights advocates, as the government and its allies have taken repeated aim at key institutions and independent news media outlets.The trial also comes as the country heads toward a presidential election this month that has already been plagued by irregularities, with four opposition candidates disqualified ahead of the race.“The rule of law is broken,” said Ana María Méndez, the Central America director at WOLA, a Washington-based research institute. Mr. Zamora’s case represents, she added, yet another “step toward the consolidation of a dictatorship” in Guatemala.Unlike other Central American countries, like Nicaragua and El Salvador, where democracy has also eroded, however, power is not concentrated in a family or an individual, Ms. Méndez said.In Guatemala, she added, “authoritarianism is exercised by illicit networks made up of the economic elite, the military elite and organized crime in collusion with the political class.”Mr. Zamora, 66, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and accused the government of trying to silence its critics.“I am a political prisoner,” he told reporters on May 2, the day his trial started. He said he fully expected it would end with a guilty verdict, adding, “I will be sentenced.”During his tenure running elPeriódico, Mr. Zamora was sued scores of times, mostly for slander, by the government as a result of the newspaper’s coverage.The presses were silent last month at the elPeriódico newspaper offices in Guatemala City. The newspaper shut down last month after the government froze its finances.Simone Dalmasso for The New York TimesBut his most serious legal confrontation with authorities was set in motion last July, when he was charged with money laundering, influence peddling and blackmail.As part of the prosecution’s case, elPeriódico’s bank accounts were frozen, hobbling its finances before it finally closed its doors for good last month.The main witness in the case was a former banker, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, who told prosecutors that Mr. Zamora asked him to launder 300,000 Guatemalan quetzales, or nearly $40,000. He also claimed that Mr. Zamora had forced him to place annual paid advertising in the newspaper to avoid receiving unflattering coverage.But the prosecution did not present any evidence showing that Mr. Zamora had obtained the money illegally. Most of the funds, which Mr. Zamora has said was to pay the salaries of the newspaper’s employees, had come from a businessman who did not want his connection to elPeriódico disclosed for fear of reprisals.His defense was hampered by various steps taken by prosecutors and a far-right organization that supports the attorney general, the Foundation Against Terrorism, which critics say has tried to intimidate some of Mr. Zamora’s lawyers.He cycled through nine defense lawyers, and at least four have been charged with obstruction of justice for their role in the case.“Zamora’s defense has been hamstrung from day one by a revolving door of defense lawyers,” said Stephen Townley, legal director of the TrialWatch initiative at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, a rights group. “Four of his lawyers have been prosecuted by the Guatemalan authorities. Others then seemed not to have access to their predecessors’ materials.”A judge who had been presiding over the case earlier in the process did not allow Mr. Zamora to present any witnesses and rejected most of the evidence he tried to submit, deeming it irrelevant.“We have seen,’’ Mr. Zamora said in an interview, “a theater of terror.”Mr. Zamora’s son, José Carlos Zamora, who is also a journalist, called the trial a “political persecution.’’For his part, Mr. Giammattei, referring to the case against Mr. Zamora, has said that being a journalist does not give a person the “right to commit criminal acts.’’President Alejandro Giammattei was among the leading Guatemalan figures being investigated by Mr. Zamora’s newspaper.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesStill, his administration has been accused by human rights groups of using the justice system to target anyone who challenges his government.Corruption and human rights cases have stalled and the justice system has been “hijacked” by a network of corrupt actors, according to a report by WOLA.Since 2021, nearly three dozen judges, anti-corruption prosecutors and their lawyers have fled Guatemala, as have 22 journalists who say they had been threatened because of their work.When elPeriódico was founded in 1996, Guatemala was entering a more hopeful period following a brutal civil war that lasted nearly four decades and left hundreds of thousands dead or missing. For many weary Guatemalans, there was a feeling that democracy was taking hold and the government would rule with transparency.A U.N.-backed international panel of investigators spent 12 years working alongside Guatemala’s judiciary to expose graft among the country’s elite, including top government officials and businessmen, before being expelled from the country in 2019 by the previous president whom the panel was investigating.“What we see today is a system that wants to continue to protect’’ criminal behavior, said Daniel Haering, a political analyst in Guatemala City.Mr. Zamora’s case and the demise of his newspaper sets back efforts to hold the government accountable for its actions, Ms. Méndez said.“Who’s going to tell the truth in Guatemala now?” she said. “There will be a huge void left.”Mr. Zamora with his lawyer on the opening day of his trial last month. He had not been allowed to present any witnesses or submit most of the evidence in his defense.Santiago Billy/Associated PressMr. Zamora’s trial ends as the country prepares for national elections on June 25, which civil rights groups say have already been tarnished after judges in recent months banned four presidential candidates from opposition parties from the vote.Among those was Carlos Pineda, a conservative populist, who had pledged to fight corruption and who a recent poll showed had risen to the top of the field. Guatemala’s top court removed him from the race on charges that the methods Mr. Pineda’s party used to choose him as its candidate had violated electoral law.Mr. Zamora’s case has also ensnared journalists simply for covering it. Eight reporters, editors and columnists are being investigated on charges of obstruction of justice after writing about the process for elPeriódico. Most have left Guatemala.Since Mr. Giammattei took office in January 2020, the Journalists Association of Guatemala has documented 472 cases of harassment, physical attacks, intimidation and censorship against the press.“You immediately ask yourself, ‘At what point is my coverage interpreted as a crime?’” said Claudia Méndez, who worked at elPeriódico as a reporter and editor and now works for a Guatemalan radio show. “‘At what point is my work no longer an exercise in criticism and accountability, but seen as an unlawful act?’” More

    • 63 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      How Democrats Can Win Workers

      by

      We’re covering a new poll about the Democratic Party, Donald Trump’s court appearance and the N.B.A. finals.About 60 percent of U.S. voters do not have a four-year college degree, and they live disproportionately in swing states. As a result, these voters — often described as the American working class — are crucial to winning elections. Yet many of them are deeply skeptical of today’s Democratic Party.Republicans retook control of the House last year by winning most districts with below-median incomes. In nearly 20 Western and Southern states, Democrats are virtually shut out of statewide offices largely because of their weakness among the white working class. Since 2018, the party has also lost ground with Black, Asian and especially Latino voters.Unless the party improves its standing with blue-collar voters, “there’s no way for progressive Democrats to advance their agenda in the Senate,” according to a study that the Center for Working-Class Politics, a left-leaning research group, released this morning.The class inversion of American politics — with most professionals supporting Democrats and more working-class people backing Republicans — is one of the most consequential developments in American life (and, as regular readers know, a continuing theme of this newsletter).Today, I’ll be writing about what Democrats might do about the problem, focusing on a new YouGov poll, conducted as part of the Center for Working-Class Politics study. In an upcoming newsletter, I’ll examine the issue from a conservative perspective and specifically how Republicans might alter their economic agenda to better serve their new working-class base.A key point is that even modest shifts in the working-class vote can decide elections. If President Biden wins 50 percent of the non-college vote next year, he will almost certainly be re-elected. If he wins only 45 percent, he will probably lose.‘Fight for us all’Elections can be tricky for social scientists to study. The sample sizes are small and idiosyncratic. Researchers can’t conduct hundreds of elections in a laboratory, changing one variable at a time and analyzing how the results change. But researchers can conduct polls that pit hypothetical candidates against each other and see how the results change when the candidates’ biographies, messages and policy proposals change.This approach, which has become more common among pollsters, is the one that YouGov used. It focused on swing voters — those who don’t identify strongly with either party, many of whom are working class. The poll described a pair of Democratic candidates, each with a biography and a campaign platform, and asked respondents which one they preferred.Among the findings:Voters preferred a candidate who was a teacher, construction worker, warehouse worker, doctor or nurse. The least popular candidate professions were lawyer and corporate executive.Many effective messages involved jobs, including both moderate policies (like tax credits for training at small businesses) and progressive ones (like a federal jobs guarantee). “People are obviously interested in good-paying jobs,” said Bhaskar Sunkara, the founder of Jacobin, a leftist magazine that helped sponsor the project. “They have an identity that’s rooted in their work.”Black and Latino candidates were slightly more popular than other candidates, mostly because some voters of color preferred candidates of color. (Related: Black candidates — of different ideologies — have beaten non-Black candidates in recent mayoral primaries and elections in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia, Matthew Yglesias of Substack pointed out to me.) But candidate messages that explicitly mentioned race were unpopular.Voters liked Democrats who criticized both political parties as “out of touch.” There is real-world evidence to support this finding, too: Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio won close races last year while highlighting their differences with Democratic leaders, as Data for Progress, another research group, has noted.Moderate social policies fared better than more liberal ones. The single most effective message in the poll was a vow to “protect the border”; decriminalization of the border was very unpopular.Swing voters liked tough, populist messages such as “Americans who work for a living are being betrayed by superrich elites” and “Americans need to come together and elect leaders who will fight for us all.” As Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, argued, “Democrats need to be less concerned with rhetorical niceties.” Doing so would hardly be new: Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt used such red-blooded language.The bottom lineI find the study’s conclusions fascinating because they are both original and consistent with other evidence. Democrats who have won difficult recent elections, including both progressives and moderates, have often presented a blue-collar image.President Biden talks about growing up in a working-class neighborhood. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, who owns a car-repair shop, flipped a House district in Washington State partly by criticizing her own party for being elitist. Senator Sherrod Brown, the only Democrat to win statewide in Ohio since 2011, is a populist. So is John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the only Senate candidate from either party to flip a seat last year.Many Americans are frustrated with the country’s direction, and they want candidates who will promise to fight for their interests. One of the vulnerabilities of today’s Democratic Party, as my colleague Nate Cohn has written, is that it has come to be associated with the establishment.More on politicsDuring a CNN town hall last night, Chris Christie called Donald Trump angry and vengeful.Hard-right House Republicans will give Kevin McCarthy a reprieve from a weeklong blockade of the House floor to allow legislative business to move forward.The Senate said it would investigate the merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf. (This story goes behind the scenes of the deal.)THE LATEST NEWSTrump IndictmentDonald Trump arriving in Miami yesterday.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesTrump will appear in court in Miami today.He is expected to plead not guilty on charges that he illegally kept documents and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve them.Trump has tested several defenses, including painting himself as a victim. But the evidence already presented could make them hard to sustain in court.Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, will preside over the trial.There have been about a dozen cases involving classified information in recent years. Many of them ended in prison sentences.Business and MediaJPMorgan Chase will pay $290 million to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. The bank kept him as a customer despite media reports about him abusing teenage girls.Fox News told Tucker Carlson to stop posting videos on Twitter. Although Fox canceled his show, Carlson is under contract with the network until 2025.The F.T.C. sued to stop Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard, a major video game company.Fred Ryan, the publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, is stepping down.Other Big StoriesRussia struck a residential building in central Ukraine this morning, killing at least six people. Rescuers were searching for survivors.A climate trial has begun in Montana. Sixteen young people are accusing the state of robbing their future by embracing fossil fuels.Keechant Sewell, the N.Y.P.D.’s first female commissioner, will resign after less than 18 months. She didn’t give a reason.New York City set a minimum wage for food delivery workers: $17.96 per hour before tips.OpinionsSilvio Berlusconi provided a template for Trump’s political career, Mattia Ferraresi writes.To achieve universal health coverage, the United States should take inspiration from other countries, Aaron E. Carroll writes.Ezra Klein and Carlos Lozada discuss how Ron DeSantis’s books make the case for his candidacy over Trump’s.Here are columns by Lydia Polgreen on the decline of free news and Jamelle Bouie on Republican loyalty to Trump.MORNING READSIllustration by Eric YahnkerMr. Beast: His headline-grabbing giveaways made him the Willy Wonka of YouTube. Why do people think he’s evil?Health: Sleep is more challenging for women than for men.Lives Lived: Treat Williams, famous for his roles in the movies “Hair” and “Deep Rising” and the TV show “Everwood,” died at 71.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICNikola Jokic last night.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesN.B.A. finals: The Denver Nuggets beat the Miami Heat to win their first championship. Nikola Jokic cemented his spot in the pantheon of N.B.A. greats with a stunning performance.A departure: The Oklahoma softball ace Jordy Bahl said she would leave the program.A mission: Christian McCaffrey’s voice was the last thing Logan Hale heard. Now McCaffrey, a 49ers running back, is helping fulfill his young fan’s final wish.ARTS AND IDEAS A gallery in Copenhagen.Charlotte de la Fuente for The New York TimesAn ancient reunion: It’s not a coincidence that so many of the statues in museums are missing their heads: Throughout history, invaders would target statues when they attacked a city, decapitating the likenesses of local leaders to make a statement. And the statues that survived were often chopped up by smugglers, who wanted two artifacts to sell instead of one. Now, as Graham Bowley writes in The Times, those ancient acts of vandalism have made it hard for museums to match heads with their long-lost torsos.More on culturePat Sajak is retiring from “Wheel of Fortune” after 41 seasons as its host.The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which was at the center of recent scandals, is shutting down. The Golden Globes will continue.Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat, Pray, Love,” delayed her new novel indefinitely after being criticized for setting the story in Russia.THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …Armando Rafael for The New York TimesMake a one-pot vegetable pulao, which combines rice, vegetables and spices.Try the best summer eats in New York.Visit vineyards in California that are far from the Napa crowds.Read an old magazine. You’ll understand the past in a new way.GAMESHere are today’s Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday’s pangram was expletive.And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidSign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Scotland’s Independence Movement Is Down, but Not Out, Analysts Say

      by

      Support for Scottish independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom is fragile, too. Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest leaves the fate of the movement in flux.For almost a decade Nicola Sturgeon, as the leader of the Scottish government, was the uncontested figurehead of the push to break Scotland’s centuries-old union with England.Her resignation earlier this year — and now her arrest on Sunday over an investigation into her Scottish National Party’s finances — leaves the fate of the movement in flux.Support for independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, a bond forged in 1707, is fragile, too. Opinion polls show the Scottish public still roughly split on the issue. For now, the political path to an independent Scotland is blocked.“It’s a stalemate, there is no settled will for independence, but equally we have to acknowledge that there is no settled will for union either,” said Nicola McEwen, professor of territorial politics at the University of Edinburgh.“Reports of the demise of the independence movement and indeed of the S.N.P. are somewhat exaggerated,” said Professor McEwen, who added that “given everything that’s going on, maybe it’s surprising that support hasn’t declined more than it has.”Operation Branchform, the code name for inquiry into the Scottish National Party’s finances, began in 2021 and was reported to have followed complaints about the handling of about 600,000 pounds, or about $750,000, in donations raised to campaign for a second vote on Scottish independence. In 2014, Scots voted by 55 to 45 percent against breaking away from the United Kingdom in a divisive referendum.Ms. Sturgeon, who was released on Sunday after seven hours of questioning and who swiftly proclaimed her innocence, has not been charged. On Monday, her successor, Humza Yousaf, rejected calls for Ms. Sturgeon to be suspended from the party.She is the third senior figure in the party to be arrested but not charged. Another is Ms. Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive who held the post from 1999 until March, when he resigned after accepting blame for misleading statements from the party about the size of its dues-paying membership.Police officers outside the home of Ms. Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, in Uddingston, Scotland, in April.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressThe police investigation deepened in the weeks after Ms. Sturgeon’s surprise resignation and the fractious competition to succeed her that was won, narrowly, by Mr. Yousaf.His leadership is still relatively new but, so far, he has struggled to match the high profile of his predecessor, or to advance toward the prize that ultimately eluded her: Scottish independence.Supporters have pressed for a second vote on Scottish independence after the first one failed in 2014. Their argument was bolstered by Brexit, which took Britain out of the European Union because the majority of Scots who voted in the Brexit referendum of 2016 wanted to remain in the European bloc. They were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who wanted to leave.But, to have legal force, the government in London must agree to another vote on independence, and successive prime ministers have refused, insisting that the decision of 2014 stands for a generation.Ms. Sturgeon hit another roadblock last year when she tested in court her right to schedule a referendum without approval from London. In November, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled against her.Some hard-line voices favor unilateral action, perhaps holding a vote in defiance of London. Catalan separatists in Spain took that route in 2017, but it led to the imprisonment or exile of some independence movement leaders. And going outside the law would block an independent Scotland’s path toward membership of the European Union, the S.N.P.’s objective.Frustrated on all sides, Ms. Sturgeon finally proposed using the next British general election, which is expected in the second half 2024, as a de facto independence referendum, making Scotland’s constitutional future the central question. Internal critics doubted the practicality of that idea, given that other political parties would not agree.Nicola Sturgeon at a news conference in 2022 about Scottish independence.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressIn an interview broadcast on Sunday, before Ms. Sturgeon’s arrest, Mr. Yousaf said he was confident that, even with recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.“Despite having some of the most difficult weeks our party has probably faced, certainly in the modern era, that support for independence is still rock solid. It’s a good base for us to build on,” he told the BBC. “I’ve got no doubt at all, that I will be the leader that will ensure that Scotland becomes an independent nation.”The party might have missed its moment, however. It is hard to see a more favorable backdrop for the independence campaign than the messy aftermath of Brexit, the chaotic leadership of the former prime minister, Boris Johnson — who was unpopular in Scotland — and the political dramas of 2022 when Britain changed prime ministers twice.Paradoxically, while Brexit may have strengthened the political case for Scottish independence, it has complicated the practical one. Britain has left the European Union’s giant single market and customs union, and that implies that there would be a trade border between an independent Scotland and England, its biggest economic partner.The years of gridlock and chaos that followed the Brexit referendum may also have scared some Scottish voters away from further constitutional changes.In addition, the S.N.P. has been criticized over its record in government, and the opposition Labour Party senses an opportunity to recover in Scotland, where it dominated politically before the S.N.P. decimated it.“Coming after dishonest claims of party membership, a very poor record in government and making no progress on independence this simply adds to the S.N.P.’s woes,” said James Mitchell, a professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, referring to recent events.“It would be damaging enough to the S.N.P.’s electoral prospects but with Labour looking ever more confident and competent in Scotland as well across Britain, it looks as if the S.N.P.’s opportunity to advance its cause has passed.”Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s new first minister, has said he was confident that, despite recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.Russell Cheyne/ReutersThe next British general election might present Mr. Yousaf with a new opening if, as some pollsters predict, Labour emerges as the biggest party but without an overall majority. In that scenario, the S.N.P. could try to trade its support for a minority Labour government in exchange for a promise to hold a second referendum.The problem is that Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has so far rejected any such deal. And, if some Scottish independence supporters vote for Labour to try and defeat the Conservative government, led by Rishi Sunak, the S.N.P. could lose seats at Britain’s Parliament, weakening its hand.Some analysts believe that the independence movement should concentrate on building wider popular support, including through other organizations and political parties, reaching out beyond the confines of the S.N.P. and its supporters.After all, Scotland’s union with England was entered into voluntarily, and were opinion polls to show around 60 percent of voters consistently favoring an independent Scotland, that would be difficult for a British government to ignore.Even Mr. Yousaf acknowledges that is some way off, however. At present, he told the BBC, “it’s pretty obvious that independence is not the consistent settled will of the Scottish people.”The question confronting him, his colleagues and the wider independence movement is how they intend to change that. “I don’t really see any signs of a strategy,” said Professor McEwen, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, I just don’t see any evidence of it.” More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      ‘The State Killed My Brother’: Senegal in Uproar After Deadly Protests

      by

      After several protesters were killed by live ammunition this month in Senegal, many in the usually stable West African nation wonder what comes next.A tailor shot in the head. A baker killed by a bullet in the chest. A geography student planning to continue his studies in Canada felled by a deadly bullet in the back.The West African nation of Senegal is reeling after clashes between the police and supporters of a leading opposition figure early this month left at least 16 people dead. Many families have found that their loved ones had died from gunshot wounds, raising suspicions that the Senegalese police fired on demonstrators.Senegal is often hailed as a model of stability in West Africa, but for years anger has been mounting against President Macky Sall and his government over widespread youth unemployment and perceptions of entrenched corruption. Mr. Sall has also remained vague about his intentions to run for a third term next year, which most legal experts say would violate the Senegalese Constitution.Mr. Sall has praised the professionalism of the country’s security forces, while his interior minister, blaming a “foreign influence” for the riots, has said the death toll could have been much worse had the police not shown restraint.Yet a different picture is painted by social media footage, testimonies from relatives of victims and human rights defenders, and half a dozen death certificates obtained by The New York Times. The certificates all list the cause of death as wounds inflicted by live ammunition.Women mourning Mr. Sarr, a tailor, on Friday in front of the family house in Thiaroye, on Dakar’s outskirts. Senegal is reeling after clashes between the police and supporters of a leading opposition figure left at least 16 people dead.Philippe Gaspard Bass, who was shot in the chest and leg during anti-government protests, showed his wounds last week at his home.The source of the bullets is not mentioned on the death certificates. But Amnesty International, which has counted 23 fatalities, said most of the victims died from bullets fired by the police or unidentified armed men operating alongside them. The Senegalese Red Cross said it had treated more than 350 people, 10 percent of whom were among the security forces.“The state killed my brother,” said Issa Sarr, whose brother died on June 2 after being shot in the head in Pikine, a suburb of the capital, Dakar. His brother, Bassirou Sarr, 31, was a tailor who invested his spare time in his neighborhood, painting, planting trees and installing lighting to make the area safer, his relatives said.The government has rejected accusations that the police fired at protesters and said it had arrested 500 people, some carrying firearms. The Interior Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.Thousands of protesters took to the streets of various Senegalese cities earlier this month after the country’s leading opposition figure, Ousmane Sonko, was sentenced to two years in prison for “corrupting youth.” He was acquitted of rape and other charges, all which he had denied.Mr. Sonko’s supporters, and an increasing number of public intellectuals and political observers, say the case was an attempt to block him from running in next year’s presidential election.Mourners at the cemetery where Mr. Sarr was buried. Many fear this month’s strife could escalate as Senegal heads into next year’s presidential race.Relatives of Mr. Sarr, 31, waiting on Tuesday to collect his body from a morgue in Dakar.As news of the verdict against Mr. Sonko spread, protesters set cars ablaze, threw stones at security forces and ransacked properties and businesses. Dakar’s central university, one of the best in West Africa, remains closed until further notice after rioters burned several buildings.The Senegalese government deployed the military to respond to the protests. It also cut off access to social media for nearly a week.Many families say that the young men they lost had not even participated in the protests. Bassirou Sarr, the tailor, had been forced to close his shop because of the protests, like most businesses, and was shot as he was standing on a bridge overlooking rioters who were cornering police officers at a tollgate, his brother Issa said in an interview last week. His account could not be verified independently.An X-ray of a patient who was shot in the pelvis and treated at a Dakar clinic. Officials say the police showed restraint in dealing with protesters and deny security forces fired into the crowds.Loading the coffin of Seyni Coly, a baker who was fatally shot in demonstrations, onto a vehicle last week in Dakar.Issa Sarr spoke as he was waiting to collect his brother’s body at a morgue in Dakar. Minutes later, another family loaded the coffin of a man killed in the demonstrations on the roof of a hearse. Mr. Sarr and two of his brothers gathered around the coffin with two dozen others and prayed for the victim, Seyni Coly, a baker who died after being shot in the abdomen, according to his autopsy report.Families of other victims shared similar stories. Elhadji Cissé, a 25-year-old geography student who was about to move to Canada this summer for his studies, was returning from a mosque, his family said, when he was shot in the back. The bullet punctured his right lung and came out of his arm, according to an autopsy report.With three-quarters of Senegal’s population younger than 35, most of its 17 million people have known only democracy. Even as Senegal has faced sporadic episodes of political violence since it gained independence from France in 1960, it has long taken pride in its culture of free expression and the existence of multiple political parties — in a region where coups are common and aging leaders cling to power.But that exceptionalism has come under question as the country faces its worst political crisis in decades. In recent years, demonstrations against Mr. Sall have grown more violent, political opponents have been jailed, journalists arrested and news organizations suspended.In 2021, Mr. Sonko’s arrest, following accusations of rape by an employee of a massage parlor, set off demonstrations and left 14 people dead over six days. But the police response was more violent this year, according to human rights organizations.Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation.Abdoulaye Ba on Dakar’s outskirts with a photograph of Elhadji Mamadou Sidibé, his nephew, who he say was shot on his way back from a mosque.The home of another man killed by gunfire in this month’s protests. Senegal has faced sporadic political violence since independence in 1960 but takes pride in its culture of democratic principles and free expression.Mr. Sonko, who was convicted on June 1, has yet to be arrested. Stranded in his house in Dakar, he has not condemned the violence, instead calling for more unrest. More than half a dozen protesters hospitalized after being wounded in the protests and interviewed by the Times last week said they would keep demonstrating against Mr. Sall’s government. (Mr. Sall was elected in 2012 after defeating an incumbent who had rankled many in Senegal by attempting to claim a third term.)“I don’t regret anything,” said Samba, a 23-year-old demonstrator who was discharged from a hospital in Dakar this past week after being shot in the chest. He asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of government retaliation.“Injustice in this country must stop,” he added, referring to the prosecution of Mr. Sonko.But the strife has also alienated more moderate Senegalese who favor dialogue, observers say.“Political parties, in power and in the opposition, are rarely insisting on the fact that violence isn’t the solution or that institutions should be respected,” said Guillaume Soto-Mayor, a Dakar-based researcher with the Middle East Institute. “Those same institutions, most recently the justice system, and their leaders have lost credibility.”As hospitals discharged their wounded, families buried their loved ones in Ziguinchor, a city in southern Senegal where Mr. Sonko is the mayor, and in Dakar and its suburbs.The body of Mr. Sarr, the tailor, was released by the authorities on Thursday, six days after he died. As relatives and acquaintances lined up on Friday in a narrow alley outside a mosque, the imam urged young mourners to think twice before acting.“Your parents need you alive, not dead,” he said.Saly Sarr, one of Bassirou’s aunts, said she had had time while waiting for his body to be released to reflect on Senegal’s future.“What happens if our children grow up in a country where the police shoot at their own people with real bullets?” she asked earlier at the family house. “They’ll just create more insurgents.”At Mr. Sarr’s funeral, where an imam urged people not to rush headlong into angry action.Mady Camara More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s Former Leader, Is Arrested in Financial Inquiry

      by

      The arrest of Ms. Sturgeon, who resigned as leader of the Scottish National Party in February, follows that of her husband, previously the party’s chief executive, and of its former treasurer.Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s former first minister, was arrested on Sunday by police officers investigating the finances of the Scottish National Party, which dominates the country’s politics and which she led until her unexpected resignation in February.The news deepens the crisis engulfing the S.N.P., which campaigns for Scottish independence, following the earlier arrests of Ms. Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, and then of Colin Beattie, its former treasurer.Both men were released without being charged after questioning, but the latest development is a dramatic fall from grace for Ms. Sturgeon, a popular politician who served as Scotland’s first minister for more than eight years until she announced her resignation.That decision took the political world by surprise and prompted a divisive race to succeed her that was ultimately won by Humza Yousaf, previously Scotland’s health secretary.However, Mr. Yousaf’s efforts to establish himself as Scotland’s new first minister have been overshadowed by the extraordinary drama after the recent escalation of the police investigation into the S.N.P.’s finances.In line with normal British protocol, Ms. Sturgeon was not named in a statement from Police Scotland, which said that “a 52-year-old woman” had on Sunday “been arrested as a suspect in connection with the continuing investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National Party,” adding that she was “in custody and is being questioned” by detectives. The BBC and other British news outlets identified the arrested woman as Ms. Sturgeon.Police Scotland’s inquiry, code-named Operation Branchform, began in 2021 and was reported to have followed complaints about the handling of around 600,000 pounds, or nearly $750,000, in donations raised to campaign for a second vote on Scottish independence. (A first referendum on the question was held in 2014, with Scots voting by 55 percent to 45 percent against independence.)The authorities are thought to be looking into whether money intended to fight for another vote on independence was diverted for a different purpose, and to be investigating why Mr. Murrell made a loan to the party.Mr. Murrell, who has been married to Ms. Sturgeon since 2010, held the post of chief executive from 1999 until March, when he resigned after accepting blame for misleading statements from the party about the size of its dues-paying membership. Mr. Beattie resigned after his arrest.After Mr. Murrell’s arrest, the British media reported that the police had seized a luxury motor home parked outside his mother’s house. Mr. Yousaf confirmed to reporters that the party had bought the vehicle — to use as a mobile office for campaigns, officials told local news outlets — but said that he only learned about the purchase after he became leader.At the time of her resignation, Ms. Sturgeon explained her decision by saying she was exhausted and had become too polarizing a figure in Scottish politics to persuade wavering voters to support independence.Some critics have since come to doubt that explanation but, when asked by the BBC in April if the police investigation of Mr. Murrell had prompted Ms. Sturgeon’s resignation, Mr. Yousaf replied: “No, I believe Nicola Sturgeon absolutely that she had taken the party as further forward as she possibly could.” More