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    Virginia Ogilvy, Confidante to Queen Elizabeth II, Dies at 91

    Born into New York wealth and married to a Scottish earl, she was the only American-born lady-in-waiting to the queen, serving for nearly 50 years.Virginia Ogilvy, the Countess of Airlie, who served Queen Elizabeth II for nearly 50 years as the only American-born member of the monarch’s inner circle of advisers, assistants and close friends known as the ladies-in-waiting, died on Aug. 16 at her estate in Cortachy, a village in Scotland. She was 91.Her daughter Lady Elizabeth Baring confirmed the death.Ladies-in-waiting, a position dating to the Middle Ages, carried out different tasks under different queens, including planning, correspondence and household administration.But in all cases the most important task was to serve as a sort of official best friend, requiring discretion, an ear for gossip and a careful eye on the queen’s needs and wants. By tradition and necessity, the role is usually held by a peer, in part because it comes without salary or benefits.Lady Ogilvy’s husband, David, the Earl of Airlie, had been friends with Queen Elizabeth since they were children, and the couple were long a part of her social circle. Both would join her household: Lady Ogilvy in 1973 and her husband in 1984, taking the role of Lord Chamberlain of the Household, overseeing the queen’s domestic affairs after a long career in banking.Lady Ogilvy was something of a first among equals in the ranks of the ladies-in-waiting, with the official title of Lady of the Bedchamber. She and the queen were by all accounts quite close; the queen even joined Lady Ogilvy at her 70th birthday party, at Annabel’s, a members-only nightclub in London, an event celebrated in the British news media as the only time the queen went clubbing.Lady Ogilvy with her husband, David Ogilvy, at a state banquet in 1992. In public she wore the pearl-and-diamond encrusted Airlie Tiara, a jewelry piece created for her husband’s grandmother.Terry Fincher/The Fincher Files/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Collectors Line Up in London as King Charles Bank Notes Are Released

    A steady stream of people lined up at the Bank of England on Wednesday to get what they hoped would be collector’s items: the first bank notes featuring the portrait of King Charles III.Bank notes can still be exciting in our increasingly cashless society.On Wednesday morning, in front of the Bank of England headquarters, a queue — that’s a British line, which is the same as an American line but more orderly — formed, as people walked out with collector’s items: the first bills with King Charles III’s portrait on them.In the queue were avid coin collectors, people with nostalgic feelings toward the new bank note (the first in their lifetime showing a new monarch) and the odd tourist who happened to need old money changed.The bank has issued 5, 10, 20 and 50 pound bills with the new designs, which are similar in color scheme to the bills in circulation with Queen Elizabeth II on them. Bills with the Queen’s portrait on them will remain in circulation across the country, alongside the ones with King Charles.Although Brits are accustomed to seeing the monarch on their money, it wasn’t always the case. The Bank of England began printing bank notes in 1725, but it was not until 1960 that bills featured the monarch. Until that time, Britannia — the personification of Britain — had been the only character on the bills.The modest but steady line moved along swiftly on Wednesday, with people spending no more than 20 minutes to exchange their money.An orderly line outside the Bank of England headquarters in central London, on Wednesday.Claire Moses/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Prince Harry Now Officially Resident in U.S., Documents Show

    For years, Harry and his wife, Meghan, have considered California home. This week, he updated his residency in a corporate filing.The document filed on Wednesday at Britain’s corporate registrar, Companies House, was just a few lines long. But its purpose was to formally update the country of residency for one “Prince Henry Charles Albert David Duke of Sussex” — otherwise known as Prince Harry.For years, Harry and his American wife, Meghan, have considered California home. The document updated the residency of the British royal to the United States for official paperwork for his business Travalyst Limited, a nonprofit sustainable travel initiative.The paperwork was just a bureaucratic formality. But it underscores just how far Harry, 39, has come from his days as a central member of the royal family in the country of his birth, to a very different life with his wife and children in California. It also comes at a time of turmoil for the House of Windsor.Harry and Meghan moved to Montecito, Calif., after stepping back from royal duties in 2020, amid a rift with the royal family.Prince Harry said in February that he had considered becoming a U.S. citizen, telling ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “It’s a thought that has crossed my mind but it’s not a high priority for me right now.”But there had been little in the way of official confirmation of Harry’s residency status until this week. The filing indicates the change of residency dates to June 29, 2023, the day that Buckingham Palace confirmed the couple had vacated Frogmore Cottage, their British home. Queen Elizabeth II had offered the home to the couple when they were married in 2018.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    King Charles’s Cancer Diagnosis May Reshape How U.K. Monarchy Works

    Britain’s king has been a highly visible royal, making hundreds of public appearances. As he steps back from view, who will fill the gap?Queen Elizabeth II liked to say that she needed to be seen to be believed. Now it falls to her son King Charles III to test that principle, after a cancer diagnosis that will force him out of the public eye for the foreseeable future.For a family that has cultivated its public image through thousands of appearances a year — ribbon-cuttings, ship launchings, gala benefits, investiture ceremonies, and so on — the sidelining of Charles may finally force the royals to rethink how they project themselves in a social-media age.The king’s illness is the latest blow to the British royal family, which has seen its ranks depleted by death (Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip), scandal (Prince Andrew), self-exile (Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan), and other health woes (Catherine, the wife of Prince William).Charles, who is 75, took part in 425 royal engagements in 2023, his first full year on the throne, according to a count by The Daily Telegraph. That made him the second hardest-working royal after his younger sister, Princess Anne, who did 457. Both were busier than in the previous year, when Elizabeth, though in the twilight of her life, still appeared in public sporadically.While Anne, 73, shows little sign of slowing down and William plans to return to public duties while his wife convalesces at home from abdominal surgery, even a temporary absence of the king from the public stage would put heavy pressure on the family’s skeleton crew of working royals.Princess Anne, left, during royal duties on Tuesday, giving an honor to Nicholas Spence, an operatic tenor.Yui Mok/Press Association, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Royals May Be on to Something

    LONDON — With the thrill of coronation still in the air outside Buckingham Palace, it’s tempting for a Yankee to mock the British for the shop windows full of coronation plates and King Charles III coffee mugs. And how can we not roll our eyes when a slice of cake from the 2005 wedding between the new king and queen now sells for $1,600?Yet I won’t indulge in mockery for two reasons. First, many of the tourists buying the souvenirs have undeniable American accents.Second, I would never admit this in public — but I’ve come to think that maybe there are advantages to having a royal family.Britain is, like America, so polarized that any political leader is loathed by a sizable chunk of the population, sowing conflict and risking violence. But with the monarchy, the U.K. is guaranteed a nonpolitical head of state who amounts to a unifying force.“It helps to have someone who is above politics and can bring people together,” said Chris Patten, a longtime political leader who is now formally Lord Patten of Barnes.A May poll found that 62 percent of people in Great Britain favored remaining a monarchy, compared to 28 percent who preferred a republic. Young people were somewhat less enthusiastic about royalty than older people, but that has been true for decades: As they age, Britons appear to become more pro-monarchy.A monarch is not the only option for a nonpolitical head of state. Germany, Israel and other countries have non-royal largely ceremonial heads of state who can stand for harmony above the fray. President Isaac Herzog of Israel tried to do that this year to promote compromise, preserve democratic norms and calm the mass protests in Israel; he warned that the conflict could even lead to civil war.But even the nonpolitical presidents like Herzog are often former politicians and don’t seem to have the healing power of monarchs. King Charles declined to be interviewed (when I requested time with him, I think his staff giggled). But I’ve occasionally interacted with other members of his family and with royalty in other countries — and it’s funny how even we Americans go weak-kneed over even a measly duchess or, say, a Tongan king.When Japan gave up fighting in 1945 to end World War II, many in the Tokyo government bitterly opposed the decision. It was perhaps only Emperor Hirohito as the revered leader of Japan who could convince the army to stand down, even if his speech announcing surrender was royally elliptical: “The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”One study of 137 countries over more than a century found that monarchies perform better economically than republics over the long run. The authors concluded that this was in part because monarchs provided a national symbol of unity, reducing internal conflict and threats to property rights.Kings can be expensive, of course, and it can seem ridiculous to provide public housing in the form of palaces to one family, while countless others are homeless. But in Britain, the royal family may pay for itself with tourism income, and constitutes a useful tool of foreign policy: Every foreign leader wants tea with the sovereign, so when prime ministers ruffle foreign feathers the royals can smooth them.The royal family is “an integral part of our soft power strategy,” noted Arminka Helic, now the Baroness Helic, a foreign policy expert. Helic grew up in the former Yugoslavia and came to Britain only at the age of 24, but she says she still sees the royals as “the family to which we are all related no matter where we come from.”I’m not advocating for royalty in America, even if we may be more perilously divided than at any time in a century. George III soured us forever on kings. Which raises the question: What happens when a bad (or mad) king comes along?Britain dodged a bullet when King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, for he was a racist who was soft on Nazism, especially because he lived a long life, dying only in 1972. The United Kingdom hit the jackpot with Queen Elizabeth II and seems to have relatively reliable heirs in the form of King Charles and Prince William.Thailand is less fortunate. When the last, much revered Thai king died in 2016, he was succeeded not by the king’s widely admired daughter but by his scandal-plagued son — who has spent a great deal of time in Germany with his paramours and once promoted his poodle, Foo Foo, to the rank of “air chief marshal.”Bad kings are difficult to recover from. They’re one reason the number of monarchies has fallen from 160 in 1900 to fewer than 30 now.But today’s constitutional monarchies like Britain, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands may benefit by turning to an apolitical family that, in exchange for palaces, will supply a nation with gossip, tourism and a bit of harmony.So don’t tell a soul, but as I stand outside Buckingham Palace, I think: “God save the king!”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

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    As Cable News Focused on Queen, Democratic Political Donations Slipped

    When the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina introduced a bill this month to ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks, Democratic fund-raisers expected it to dominate news outlets like MSNBC, bringing small-dollar donations for candidates.But they did not anticipate that cable news networks, overtaken by the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8, would relegate politics to an afterthought for more than a week in favor of ancient rituals, Grenadier Guards and the monarch’s corgis.Suddenly, the traditional September influx of campaign cash slipped, which Democrats attributed in significant part to the round-the-clock coverage of the 10-day period of mourning for the queen that culminated in her funeral on Monday.Democrats said that they relied on grass-roots donations — those under $250 — to compete with spending by Republican-aligned super PACs on television ads, particularly in battleground states.Nat Binns, a principal for MissionWired, a digital fund-raising company that supports Democrats, said in an interview on Friday that he had never experienced such a vacuum of political news stories at this stage of the campaigns.Some Key Moments in Queen Elizabeth’s ReignCard 1 of 9Becoming queen. More

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    Your Tuesday Briefing: Britain Buries Queen Elizabeth II

    Plus a preview of the U.N. General Assembly and growing nuclear fears in Ukraine.The queen’s coffin was moved from the gun carriage to a hearse before traveling on to Windsor.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBritain buried Queen Elizabeth IIQueen Elizabeth II was buried in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, next to her husband, Prince Philip. It concluded the period of official mourning — a time of unifying grief and disorienting change.The state funeral began with a majestic service at Westminster Abbey. International dignitaries and about 200 people who had performed public services joined members of the royal family.The queen’s coffin then moved through London in a procession as tens of thousands of people watched. “They don’t make them like her anymore,” one woman said. “She was a one-off.”The funeral closed with a more intimate service and private internment. Before the final hymn, the crown jeweler removed the imperial state crown, the orb and the scepter from the queen’s coffin and placed them on the altar. The lord chamberlain broke his wand of office and placed it onto the coffin, a symbol of the end of his service, to be buried with the sovereign.Photos: See images from her life and a visual dictionary of the symbols of her reign.Reflection: The queen’s coronation and funeral have become the bookends of a generation, Alan Cowell, a contributor based in London, writes in an essay on her life.Yoon Suk Yeol, president of South Korea, is trying to raise his profile by pursuing a new foreign policy agenda.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesU.N. General Assembly beginsThe 77th session of the U.N. General Assembly, the largest annual gathering of world leaders, began yesterday in New York City. Here’s what to expect.The meeting will be the first in-person General Assembly in three years, after the pandemic restricted movements. But the mood is likely to be a somber one. Leaders will address the war in Ukraine, mounting food and energy crises and concerns over climate disruptions, such as the floods in Pakistan.Tensions are expected to be high between Russia, the U.S. and European countries over Ukraine — and between China and the U.S. over Taiwan and trade. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the leaders of Russia and China, are not expected to attend.The State of the WarA Critical Moment: After success in the northeast battlefields, Ukraine is pressing President Biden for more powerful weapons. But Mr. Biden wants to avoid provoking Russia at a moment U.S. officials fear President Vladimir V. Putin could escalate the war.Ukraine’s Counteroffensive: As Ukrainian troops try to inch forward in the east and south without losing control of territory, they face Russian forces that have been bolstered by inmates-turned-fighters and Iranian drones.In Izium: Following Russia’s retreat, Ukrainian investigators have begun documenting the toll of Russian occupation on the northeastern city. They have already found several burial sites, including one that could hold the remains of more than 400 people.An Inferno in Mykolaiv: The southern Ukrainian city has been a target of near-incessant shelling since the war began. Firefighters are risking their lives to save as much of it as possible.“The General Assembly is meeting at a time of great peril,” António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, said last week.Analysis: “This is the first General Assembly of a fundamentally divided world,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at International Crisis Group, a research group based in Brussels. “We have spent six months with everyone battering each other. The gloves are off.”South Korea: Yoon Suk Yeol, the new president of South Korea, is expected to address the General Assembly today. Last week, he told our Seoul bureau chief that it had become necessary — even inevitable — for South Korea to expand its security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo as North Korea intensified its nuclear threat.Other details: Narendra Modi, India’s leader, and Abiy Ahmed, the leader of Ethiopia, will also skip the meeting. The U.S. and Europe will most likely try to pressure Iran over the nuclear deal. And developing nations and the West will very likely spar over development aid.Recent setbacks haven’t deterred Russia from advancing on the eastern city of Bakhmut and claiming all of the Donbas Region.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesNuclear concerns rise in UkraineRussian missiles struck a second nuclear site in Ukraine yesterday, narrowly avoiding a possible calamity in the Mykolaiv region.Moscow damaged a hydroelectric station less than 900 feet (about 274 meters) from reactors at Ukraine’s second-biggest nuclear plant. (The occupied Zaporizhzhia site is the largest.) Despite the close call, there was no damage to essential safety equipment at the plant, which remained fully operational, Ukraine’s national nuclear energy company said.The explosion still caused extensive damage, forced the shutdown of one of the plant’s hydraulic units and led to partial power outages in the area. It also highlighted the threat to Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.“A few hundred meters and we would have woken up in a completely different reality,” a Ukrainian official said. Here are live updates.Details: Before the war, 15 working reactors at four nuclear power plants produced more than half of Ukraine’s electricity, the second-highest share among European nations after France.Other updates:Senior officials from China and Russia announced joint military exercises and enhanced defense cooperation. It signals a strengthening partnership, despite Xi Jinping’s apparent misgivings about the war in Ukraine.Ukraine is facing a severe glass shortage that will make it hard to fix shattered windows before winter.European manufacturing are furloughing workers and shutting down lines because of “crippling” energy bills.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaAn undated photo of the American engineer, Mark Frerichs.Charlene Cakora, via Associated PressIn a prisoner swap with the U.S., the Taliban freed an American engineer in exchange for a tribal leader convicted of drug trafficking.The deaths of 27 people on a quarantine bus in China renewed an anguished debate over “zero Covid.” Even in Tibet, where people live under repressive controls from the Chinese government, there are grumblings against lockdowns.Army helicopters in Myanmar shot at a school, Reuters reports, killing at least six children.Typhoon Nanmadol has killed at least two people in Japan, the BBC reports.World NewsMore than 1,000 residents were rescued across Puerto Rico.Ricardo Arduengo/ReutersHurricane Fiona dumped heavy rain on the Dominican Republic after knocking out Puerto Rico’s fragile power grid. It is expected to strengthen into a major hurricane. Here is a map of its path and live updates.Donald Trump is involved in six separate investigations. And the trial of one of his advisers, Thomas Barrack, who is accused of working secretly for the U.A.E., may shed light on foreign influence campaigns.The economy remains the top concern for U.S. voters, a New York Times/Siena poll found.A Morning ReadHundreds of thousands gathered in Washington, a day after Donald Trump took office.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesIn 2017, as American feminists came together to protest Donald Trump’s election, Russia’s disinformation machine worked to derail the Women’s March, a Times investigation found.Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian American activist whose hijab marked her as an observant Muslim, became a central target. ARTS AND IDEAS“The Phantom of the Opera” will close a month after celebrating its 35th anniversary.Matthew MurphyThe end of “Phantom”“The Phantom of the Opera” is the longest-running show in Broadway history. Based on Gaston Leroux’s 1911 novel, this symbol of musical theater will drop its famous chandelier for the last time in February after 35 years, becoming the latest show to fall victim to the drop-off in audiences since the pandemic hit.The show, about a mask-wearing opera lover who haunts the Paris Opera House and becomes obsessed with a young soprano, is characterized by over-the-top spectacle and melodrama. A Times review in 1988 acknowledged, “It may be possible to have a terrible time at ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ but you’ll have to work at it.”Speaking about the decision to end the show’s run, the producer Cameron Mackintosh, said: “I’m both sad and celebrating. It’s an extraordinary achievement, one of the greatest successes of all time. What is there not to celebrate about that?”By the numbers: On Broadway, the show has been seen by 19.8 million people and has grossed $1.3 billion since opening. —Natasha Frost, a Briefings writer.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.Garam masala punches up this pantry pasta.What to Watch“The Lost City of Melbourne,” a new documentary with a growing cultural cachet, explores the city’s fraught architectural history.What to Read“The Rupture Tense,” already on the poetry longlist for the National Book Award, was partly inspired by a hidden photo archive of China’s Cultural Revolution.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Fan publication (four letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The executive editor of The Times, Joseph Kahn, wrote about why we’re focusing on the challenges facing democracy in the U.S. and around the world.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the U.K after the Queen.Natasha Frost wrote today’s Arts and Ideas. You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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    Why Queen Elizabeth’s Strength Is Putin’s Weakness

    Why is Vladimir Putin failing to win his war in Ukraine? The answers multiply: hubris, corruption and incompetence on the Russian side; military valor, canny leadership and American munitions on the Ukrainian side.But the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the wave of antique pageantry help illuminate one of the Russian president’s important weaknesses. He has been hobbled in his fight because his regime lacks the mystical quality we call legitimacy.Legitimacy is not the same thing as power. It’s what enables power to be exercised effectively amid trials and transitions, setbacks and successions. It’s what grounds political authority even when that authority isn’t delivering prosperity and peace. It’s what rulers reach for when they call their societies to sacrifice.In most of the world today there are only two solid foundations for legitimacy: the demos and the nation, democracy and national self-determination. The legitimacy that once attached to imperial rule has washed away, and likewise, outside of the Middle East and a few other places here and there, the legitimacy of hereditary monarchy. Alternative claims to legitimacy exist — the ideological authority invoked by the Beijing Politburo, the religious authority invoked by the mullahs in Tehran — but those claimants rely more on repression for power and survival.The Elizabethan pageantry emphasizes this global reality because the House of Windsor is an exception that proves the rule. Like almost no other institution in the West outside the Vatican, the British monarchy has retained a pre-modern, pre-democratic legitimacy; in the outpouring of secular grief there was still a sense that the queen was somehow God-ordained to sit on the throne. But the royal family has kept that legitimacy by giving up all but a fraction of its personal power; it has legitimacy and little else.In Moscow you have the contrast: personal political power, far greater than the power of King Charles III, that lacks deep legitimating structures. Putin is a pseudo-czar but not a real one, with no divine anointing or ancient oath. He claims some Russian-nationalist legitimacy, but his system is actually a polyglot imperium. He claims some democratic legitimacy by holding regular elections, but their results are neither fair nor free.So all he has to really justify his power is success. Which he has delivered for most of his career — a Russia richer and more stable than in the years before he took the presidency, and a series of successful foreign policy gambits.But now comes the test, the gambit that hasn’t delivered, the specter of defeat, and what does he have to fall back upon? Not the authority of a czar: He cannot mobilize the Russian people as feudal subjects, calling on them to treat imperial Russia’s grand projects as their own. Not the authority of a national leader in a struggle for self-determination: He is the invader; it’s Ukraine that’s fighting for a nation. And not the authority of a democratic leader: He cannot have his war policy vindicated in an election, as Abraham Lincoln did in 1864, because any election would be a masquerade.In recent years, as authoritarian leaders have gained ground around the world and democracy has decayed, there’s been a fear that these figures have a stronger hand to play than the dictators of the past, because their authoritarianism is gentler and subtler, and also wrapped in the legitimating structures of elections.But Putin’s predicament suggests that this subtler authoritarianism is weaker than its predecessors in a crisis. The 20th century’s totalitarian regimes often co-opted the rhetoric of democracy and nationalism, but at bottom they made their own unique (and dreadful) claims to legitimacy — the people’s republic, the rule of the master race. Putin, lacking any such foundation, cannot just be a proud imperialist or autocrat or revolutionary: He has to legitimize his ambitions in the frameworks of his Western enemies, with absurd results (Ukraine isn’t a real nation, Russia is liberating Ukraine from Nazis, the Russians are fighting for human rights).There are parallels to the internal politics of the United States, where movements tempted toward authoritarianism nevertheless legitimate themselves in the familiar language of democracy. Thus Donald Trump has to claim that the will of the people was thwarted in 2020, not that he had a right to autocratic rule. Likewise, the push from the left to cancel or de-platform, to steer public opinion via censorship, tends to be justified in the name of “safeguarding democracy.”This pattern doesn’t mean there aren’t authoritarian perils in our politics, anymore than Putin’s legitimacy problems make his invasion any less destructive. But it helps to see our crises clearly if you recognize that they’re still happening inside the lines of late modernity — that as Elizabeth II is laid to rest, nothing like her radically un-democratic legitimacy seems ready for rebirth.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