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      Italy’s Next Government Hinges on a Familiar Face: Silvio Berlusconi

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      Giorgia Meloni’s likely turn as prime minister will depend on support from the billionaire media mogul. So may the health of Italian democracy.ROME — During the final campaign rally for Italy’s right-wing coalition before it emerged victorious in Italy’s elections last month, the billionaire mogul Silvio Berlusconi, a smile frozen on his waxen face, stood center stage, propped up, quite literally, by his hard-right partners, Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, who waved Mr. Berlusconi’s hand above his head.The tableau may have evoked an Italian remake of “Weekend at Bernie’s” more than a modern-day triumvirate. But the three will now make up the most right-wing Italian government since Mussolini, with Mr. Berlusconi, 86 and decreasingly popular, as its fragile linchpin.It was nearly 30 years ago that Mr. Berlusconi brought his partners’ once small, marginalized parties into one of his governments and Italy’s political mainstream. But today it is Ms. Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the wreckage of Italy’s experiment with Fascism last century, who is almost certain to be the next prime minister when a government is formed, perhaps as soon as this week.The question now, though, is whether the aging center-right leader can fulfill his promise to act as a moderating, pro-European force on Italy’s next government, or whether he has lost control of the politics he set in motion that have made Italy, the birthplace of Fascism, once again a testing ground for the far right’s advance in Europe. On Monday, Sweden installed its own right-wing government, backed by a party with neo-Nazi roots.“Europe expects much from us,” Mr. Berlusconi, who declined a request for an interview, wrote last week on Twitter. “And we consider ourselves the guarantor of the next government.”Even before the government begins, the tensions are already evident. Last week, as Mr. Berlusconi took his new seat in the Senate, a body that almost a decade ago temporarily barred him after a conviction for tax fraud, photographers zoomed in on his notes, perhaps purposefully left visible, describing Ms. Meloni as “overbearing, arrogant, offensive.” Asked about it by reporters, Ms. Meloni snapped that he forgot something: “Not blackmailable.”The two seemed to make peace during a meeting on Monday evening in Rome; they released a photo of themselves smiling together, and Mr. Berlusconi called them “united.”The notion of Mr. Berlusconi as a protector of Italian democracy is for many a deeply troubling one.Supporters of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party last month in Cagliari, Sardinia. Ms. Meloni, the party leader, is almost certain to be the next prime minister when a government is formed.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesHis legions of critics recall his abuses of government power to protect his business interests, his libertine escapades with young women and so-called Bunga Bunga parties while in office, his degrading of Italian women and culture with his humor, and his often crude television channels, which, along with his newspapers and magazines, he exploited for political propaganda.For them, he is the villain who debased Italian democracy, whose conflicts of interest, questionable associations and apparent illegality set off an opposition movement of angry anti-establishment populists and drove the left into a nervous breakdown from which it has still not recovered.On the international stage, he is a longtime friend of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom he defended as recently as last month, causing a headache for Ms. Meloni, who is a strong supporter of Ukraine in the war with Russia.Mr. Berlusconi also prompted a mutiny of centrists in his own party in July when he sank the government of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, whom he publicly admired, as he reached for another taste of power.“It’s very important to understand immediately that Berlusconi is no friend to democracy,” Paul Ginsborg, the biographer of Mr. Berlusconi, said in a conversation recently, before his death.But given the composition of the new government, some analysts believe that Mr. Berlusconi may be the best friend proponents of a pro-Europe, centrist and democratic Italy have.“The responsible part of the center-right is embodied by the leader considered for a long time the most irresponsible in the world,” said Claudio Cerasa, the author of a new book, “The Chains of the Right,” about the embrace of conspiracy theories by nationalists and populists.“Europe expects much from us,” Mr. Berlusconi wrote last week on Twitter. “And we consider ourselves the guarantor of the next government.”Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesMr. Cerasa, who is also the editor of Il Foglio, a newspaper founded by Mr. Berlusconi’s family but is now independent, noted that Mr. Berlusconi alone on the Italian right had rejected Trumpism, anti-elite populism and Euroskeptic nationalism. He also served as a counterweight to vaccine skepticism exercised by Ms. Meloni and Mr. Salvini, and he governed in coalitions with the center left.Many in the political establishment believe that Mr. Berlusconi will prevent Ms. Meloni from endangering European unity by gravitating back toward her old allies, including the Euroskeptic and hard-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France. “He’s like a compass,” Mr. Cerasa said.It is not clear that Ms. Meloni is following him. This month, she, along with former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Orban, took part in a rally of the far-right Spanish party Vox. “We are not monsters,” she said in a video message. “The people understand that.”Ms. Meloni, aware of concerns about her ideological past, is eager to assuage international markets by appointing mainstream technocrats to key economic ministries. But they keep turning her down.Some argue that Mr. Berlusconi’s most lasting legacy on Italian politics — more than the debate he forced about burdensome taxation or judicial overreach — may be his creation of a modern European right-wing coalition, made from previously untouchable parties, which are now led in their current iterations by Ms. Meloni and Mr. Salvini.In doing so, Mr. Berlusconi eliminated the notion, John Foot, a historian of Fascism, said, that “a Fascist should not speak, should not exist, should not have a place in Italian society.”Mr. Berlusconi said in 2019 at a political rally that, when it came to Mr. Salvini’s League party and the “Fascists,” “we let them in in ’94 and we legitimized them.” He insisted, though, that “we are the brain, the heart, the backbone.”“Without us,” he said, “the center right would never exist and will never exist.”Ms. Meloni last month in Rome. Some argue that Mr. Berlusconi’s most lasting legacy on Italian politics may be his creation of a modern European right-wing coalition.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSome of Mr. Berlusconi’s longtime supporters cast that alliance as a democratic masterstroke, for forcing the fringe to normalize and compromise in the transactional reality of the capital.“He transformed these two movements which were, let’s say, loose cannons, or who were out-of-control variables, and brought them into the constitutional harbor,” said Renato Brunetta, who helped found Mr. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. “This was an element of stabilization.”But after Forza Italia helped trigger new elections, Mr. Brunetta, who was a minister in Mr. Draghi’s government, quit the party and said Ms. Meloni was “actually regressive when it comes to right-wing culture in Italy.”Ms. Meloni, for her part, appreciated what Mr. Berlusconi had done. In a recent interview, she acknowledged that he “did something unexpected” when in 1993 he supported the mayoral candidacy of the leader at the time of her National Alliance party, who later served as Mr. Berlusconi’s foreign minister.“That surely brought many who maybe did not have the courage to say it, and thought it in their hearts, to come out,” Ms. Meloni said. “In this sense, it is the theme of legitimization.”But, Ms. Meloni added, “I believe the time of the right had arrived.”It now clearly has. Ms. Meloni’s party received 26 percent of the vote, larger than any other. She insisted she was not merely carrying Mr. Berlusconi along because she needed his party’s small percentage to govern, as he once needed her party.“We don’t need to carry him with us,” Ms. Meloni said. She added, “He may be the person who has imposed himself in the Italian history, in the Italian Republican history, more than any other in the last 20 years.”Indeed, despite his shuffling gait and the flag-bearing youths who shield him from view as he exits the stage, things seem to be going Mr. Berlusconi’s way.Last week, his hair looking lacquered, he held court during the first seating of the newly elected Senate.Mr. Berlusconi, center, on Thursday at the first seating of the newly elected Senate in Rome.Antonio Masiello/Getty ImagesAll of the contradictions of Italy’s history and current politics were on display. As were the tensions between the right-wing partners.The session was opened by a Holocaust survivor and senator for life who noted that Mussolini’s Fascism took power 100 years ago. Senators elected as their president Ignazio La Russa, a leader in Ms. Meloni’s party, who carries the middle name Benito and keeps Mussolini memorabilia in his house.Mr. Berlusconi, who received handshakes and selfie requests from senators, threw down his pen and angrily cursed Mr. La Russa, whose presidency he tried to block as a reprisal for Ms. Meloni’s refusal to make a minister out of his own lieutenant, Licia Ronzulli, a former nurse who sat beside him and used to help organize his after-hours soirées with young women.Mr. Berlusconi’s girlfriend, Marta Fascina, 32, won a seat in the Parliament representing a Sicilian town she never campaigned in. On Sept. 29, his birthday, she arranged for a hot-air balloon to release thousands of red balloon hearts over his villa’s garden.The next day, Mr. Berlusconi posted a video of his birthday dinner where waiters in white gloves brought out a multitiered cake — one for his soccer team, one for his political party, one for his media empire.Atop it all sat a likeness of a Mr. Berlusconi, much younger and in his trademark suit, grinning next to an edible earth. More

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      Stewart Rhodes is Not the Only Oath Keeper on Trial

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      The stories of the four other members of the far-right militia also facing charges of seditious conspiracy help flesh out the group’s role around the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.When the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the Oath Keepers militia opened last week in Federal District Court in Washington, prosecutors focused much of their attention on the organization’s founder and leader, Stewart Rhodes.That was for good reason: The government’s evidence suggests that Mr. Rhodes was the central force driving the far-right group to disregard the results of the 2020 election and to ultimately seek to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power from Donald J. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.But as the trial unfolds over the next several weeks, the spotlight will fall on Mr. Rhodes’s co-defendants: Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell. Their stories help to flesh out how the group came to play such a prominent role in the effort to keep Mr. Trump in the White House despite his loss in the election.Here is a look at each of them and what the jury may hear about their individual roles in the plot to storm the Capitol and disrupt the democratic process on Jan. 6, 2021.“Sir Yes Sir,” Kelly Meggs, one of Mr. Rhodes’s co-defendants, wrote in a Facebook message after President Donald J. Trump urged his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.Robert Nickelsberg/Getty ImagesKELLY MEGGSMr. Meggs, a car dealer from Dunnellon, Fla., a small town north of Tampa, was the leader of the Oath Keepers’ Florida chapter on Jan. 6, having taken over the position two weeks earlier from its previous chief, Michael Adams. Mr. Adams, who testified at the trial last week, said he had resigned the post in protest over Mr. Rhodes’s increasingly violent language, including calls for a “bloody war” against the Biden administration.From an early stage, Mr. Meggs, outraged by the results of the election, seemed prepared to join that fray according to Facebook messages seized by the government. And after Mr. Trump posted a tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, inviting supporters to a “wild” protest in Washington on Jan. 6, Mr. Meggs reacted enthusiastically.“He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!!” he wrote. “Sir Yes Sir!! We are headed to DC.”Around the same time, Mr. Meggs claimed to have organized an “alliance” between the Oath Keepers and other far-right groups — among them, the Proud Boys and the Florida chapter of the Three Percenter militia movement, the Facebook messages show. While much of the planning seems to have revolved around efforts to combat leftist activists from antifa, who were expected to harass Trump supporters on Jan. 6, Mr. Meggs discussed bringing mace, gas masks and batons to Washington for the rally that day.Mr. Meggs also played an instrumental role in the Oath Keepers’ getting the job of providing security to Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longtime political adviser, who was scheduled to speak at rallies on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. Lawyers for the group have used the security job as part of their defense strategy, suggesting the Oath Keepers did not go to Washington to attack the Capitol, but rather to protect pro-Trump dignitaries.On Jan. 6 itself, Mr. Meggs was part of a military-style “stack” that entered the east side of the Capitol and, according to prosecutors, moved through the Rotunda toward the House of Representatives in search of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Should Mr. Rhodes testify at the trial, as expected, he is likely to say that Mr. Meggs went “off mission” by going into the building and that he did so without instructions from any Oath Keepers leaders.KENNETH HARRELSONTwo days before the Capitol attack, Mr. Meggs named Mr. Harrelson, a welder and Army veteran from Titusville, Fla., as the leader of his “ground team,” prosecutors say.But not much is known about Mr. Harrelson’s activities or beliefs in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, in large part because he had no social media accounts and deleted most of his cellphone messages after the Oath Keepers left Washington that day..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-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs 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.The jury will eventually hear evidence that Mr. Harrelson brought rifles to a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va., as part of a so-called “quick reaction force” designed to rush into Washington and aid the Oath Keepers at the Capitol if things went wrong.The jurors will also likely hear how Mr. Harrelson entered the building with one of the military “stacks” and joined Mr. Meggs in search of Ms. Pelosi.Mr. Harrelson’s lawyers chose not to give an opening statement to the jury, but they have said he had no idea the Oath Keepers intended to storm the Capitol and had only gone to Washington to take part in the group’s security work. The quick reaction force also never brought their weapons from Virginia into Washington.Jessica Watkins used a digital walkie-talkie app to communicate on Jan. 6, and prosecutors intend to play chatter from it to document how she marched to and then entered the Capitol.Jim Bourg/ReutersJESSICA WATKINSMs. Watkins, an Army veteran and bar owner from rural Ohio, ran her own militia in that state and joined up with the Oath Keepers around the time of the election. Like others in the group, she was disturbed by the results of the election and considered the prospect of a Biden presidency to be “an existential threat,” court papers say.“Biden may still be our President,” she wrote to an associate in November 2020. “If he is, our way of life as we know it is over.”She quickly added: “Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights.”On Jan. 6, Ms. Watkins used a digital walkie-talkie app called Zello to communicate with her fellow Oath Keepers and with dozens of others who were on the same channel, “Stop the Steal J6.” Prosecutors intend to play a recording of their chatter to the jury, providing a real-time, firsthand account of Ms. Watkins marching toward the Capitol and entering the building where she was met by paintballs and stun grenades from the police.As a transgender woman, Ms. Watkins may have the most interesting personal story of any of the Oath Keepers defendants, and her lawyer, Jonathan Crisp, said during his opening statement last week that he intends to use it to humanize her for the jury.While the details remain unclear, Mr. Crisp said that Ms. Watkins found it challenging to spend years in hypermasculine organizations like the Army and the Oath Keepers.Thomas Caldwell took charge of assembling the armed “quick reaction force” that the Oath Keepers stationed at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va.Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesTHOMAS CALDWELLThough he was not a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers, Mr. Caldwell, a former naval officer who once held a top-secret clearance, was intimately involved with each of the Oath Keepers’ events in Washington after the election.He let several members of the group stay on his 30-acre property in Berryville, Va., while they attended the so-called Million MAGA March on Nov. 14, 2020.Then, in advance of a second pro-Trump rally in the city on Dec. 12, Mr. Caldwell — a self-described “crusty intel guy” — wrote an “ops plans,” advising his compatriots to bring “striking weapons” and possibly firearms to the event. The guns, and each of their bullets, he wrote, should be wiped down thoroughly before the gathering and discarded after use.As Jan. 6 approached, Mr. Caldwell took charge of assembling the armed “quick reaction force” that would be stationed at a Comfort Inn in Arlington, Va. At one point, he considered a plan to use a boat to ferry weapons across the Potomac River to his fellow Oath Keepers at the Capitol, evidence has shown. More

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      Witness in Oath Keepers Sedition Trial Says Leader Promoted Violent Approach

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      “It sounded like we were going to war against the United States government,” a former member of the militia group testified.WASHINGTON — Two days after news organizations called the 2020 election for Joseph R. Biden Jr., Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, held a video meeting with his members to discuss bringing weapons to a Stop the Steal rally in Washington that month and to urge them to “fight” on behalf of President Donald J. Trump.Listening to the meeting was Abdullah Rasheed, a Marine Corps veteran and a member of the far-right group from West Virginia. During testimony on Thursday at the trial of Mr. Rhodes and four of his subordinates, Mr. Rasheed told the jury that he was so disturbed by what he heard during the meeting that he recorded the conversation and ultimately called the F.B.I. to alert them about Mr. Rhodes.“The more I listened to the call,” he said, “it sounded like we were going to war against the United States government.”The testimony by Mr. Rasheed, a heavy-equipment mechanic, was clearly intended to bolster accusations by the government that Mr. Rhodes and his co-defendants — Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell — committed seditious conspiracy by using force to oppose Mr. Biden’s ascension to the White House.The five Oath Keepers are the first of nearly 900 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, to face trial on sedition charges, the most serious crime that prosecutors have brought against any of the defendants.Even as testimony proceeded, in another case in the same Federal District Court in Washington, Jeremy Bertino became the first member of another far-right group, the Proud Boys, to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy charges. As part of a deal with the government, Mr. Bertino agreed to testify against Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys’ former chairman, and four other members of the group at their upcoming trial.The Proud Boys trial, scheduled for December, is likely to feature accusations that members of the group were instrumental in several breaches of the Capitol’s defenses and helped to rile up other protesters in assaulting the police. Charles Donohoe, a Proud Boys leader from North Carolina, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and assault charges in April and has been cooperating with the government against others in the group.On Tuesday, prosecutors at the Oath Keepers trial played several clips of Mr. Rasheed’s recording for the jury. The jurors heard Mr. Rhodes make baseless claims about foreign interference in the election and declare that he would welcome violence from leftist antifa activists because that would give Mr. Trump an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call on militias like his own to quell the chaos.“We’re not getting out of this without a fight,” Mr. Rhodes said. “There’s going to be a fight. But let’s just do it smart, and let’s do it while President Trump is still commander in chief.”While Mr. Rasheed initially called an F.B.I. tip line to complain about Mr. Rhodes not long after the meeting took place, the bureau did not reach out to him until March 2021, two months after the Capitol was attacked. He also tried to warn other law enforcement agencies, he testified, writing to the Capitol Police that Mr. Rhodes was “a friggin’ wacko that the Oath Keepers would be better without.”Mr. Rasheed’s turn on the witness stand came between testimony from two other former Oath Keepers: Michael Adams, the onetime leader of the group’s Florida chapter, and John Zimmerman, who once ran a chapter in Cumberland County, North Carolina.Both men told the jury how they became involved with the Oath Keepers amid the street protests in the summer of 2020 out of concern about the leftist antifa movement but eventually, like Mr. Rasheed, became disillusioned by Mr. Rhodes’s extreme rhetoric.Mr. Adams was the administrator of the video meeting that Mr. Rasheed recorded and told the jury that he was put off by Mr. Rhodes’s claims that the election had been stolen as well as by his personal attacks against Mr. Biden, who he repeatedly referred to as a “puppet” of the Chinese Communist Party.The Oath Keepers are accused of plotting to use violence to keep Mr. Trump in office after his defeat at the polls.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesIn December, after Mr. Rhodes wrote two open letters to Mr. Trump, urging the president to invoke the Insurrection Act and call up militias like the Oath Keepers to quell potential violence from the left, Mr. Adams was further disillusioned, he said. Unable to serve with a group that was considering using force in a manner he felt might be illegal, he left the Oath Keepers for good.Mr. Zimmerman, an Army veteran who once ran an emergency preparedness store, told the jury a similar story. He testified that shortly after the so-called Million MAGA March — a pro-Trump rally that took place in Washington in November 2020 — he was horrified when Mr. Rhodes proposed a brazen new plan for going after antifa.Because antifa often attacked the “weak and elderly,” Mr. Zimmerman said, Mr. Rhodes suggested that, at future pro-Trump rallies, the Oath Keepers should sucker their opponents into fighting by dressing up as old people or as parents pushing strollers.“If we could entice them to attack us,” said Mr. Zimmerman, who wore a mask reading “Front Toward Enemy” as he took the witness stand, “then we could give them a beat down.”Much of the testimony Thursday homed in on the ways that antifa loomed large in Mr. Rhodes’s imagination and how the leftist movement has played a central role in the arguments that he and his co-defendants have raised against the charges they used force to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote at a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.Since the trial began on Monday, lawyers for the Oath Keepers have told the jury that their clients never had a plan to use violence at the Capitol but instead took measures to prepare for violence from antifa, including the creation of an armed “quick reaction force” staged outside Washington in hotel rooms in Virginia.Mr. Zimmerman told the jury that during the Million MAGA March he helped to oversee a similar armed force that was staged at Arlington National Cemetery. Stashed in his oversized RAM ProMaster van, he said, were 12 to 15 assault-style rifles, a half-dozen handguns and several sawed-off pool cues that were to be used in case he needed to rush to the aid of his compatriots in the city.Mr. Rhodes talked incessantly about antifa, Mr. Zimmerman said, telling his fellow Oath Keepers that they had to prepare for violent attacks from the movement even before the election took place. At a pro-Trump rally in North Carolina in September 2020, Mr. Zimmerman recalled, Mr. Rhodes coordinated the militia’s efforts to protect Trump supporters with someone he claimed was in the Secret Service.One of the oddities of the Oath Keepers trial is that few of the facts presented so far are in dispute. That has allowed the defense and prosecution to effectively set aside the question about what the group did on Jan. 6 and the days leading up to it and focus instead on the reasons that they did it.Central to this dispute about intent has been the purpose of the “quick reaction force” and the role that antifa played in Mr. Rhodes’s decision to employ them not only on Jan. 6, but also at the Million MAGA March in November and at another pro-Trump rally in December.Indeed, prosecutors began on Thursday by showing the jury an “ops plan” that Mr. Caldwell, a former naval officer, had drafted in advance of a rally in Washington on Dec. 12, 2020.Fearing there might be trouble from antifa, Mr. Caldwell advised his compatriots in the plan to bring “striking weapons” to the rally, suggesting a specific brand of tomahawk called the “Zombie Killer.”Mr. Caldwell also recommended the militia’s leaders should consider bringing firearms as well, especially those that could not be traced to any members. The guns — and each of their bullets — should be wiped down thoroughly before the event, Mr. Caldwell wrote, and discarded after use.While Mr. Caldwell’s plan clearly stated that it was meant to detail steps for confronting “antifa and other criminal elements,” prosecutors suggested that it showed a proclivity for violence that was ultimately turned on members of Congress.“If we’d had guns I guarantee we would have killed 100 politicians,” Mr. Caldwell wrote that evening in a Facebook message that prosecutors showed the jury Thursday. “They ran off and were spirited away through their underground tunnels like the rats they were.” More

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      Elon Musk’s Twitter Will Be a Wild Ride

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      His deal to buy the company is back on. Here are six predictions about Twitter under Musk’s control, if it happens.Buckle up.Elon Musk, who for months has been strenuously trying to back out of a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, now appears ready to buy the company after all. In a surprise letter to Twitter on Monday night, Mr. Musk offered to take Twitter private at his originally proposed price — $54.20 per share — marking a possible end to one of the most dramatic legal feuds in Silicon Valley history.It’s worth noting that the deal could still fall apart — Mr. Musk is famously subject to 11th-hour mood shifts — but the most likely outcome now is that the world’s richest man will in fact become Twitter’s new owner, possibly as soon as this week.Much is unknown about what Mr. Musk will do with Twitter if he acquires it. The mercurial billionaire has made only the vaguest of public statements about his plans for the company and its products.But we now know, thanks in part to a bevy of text messages released as part of the protracted legal battle, that it will be nothing like business as usual. And there are at least six predictions I feel confident making, if the deal does in fact close.He’s going to clean house, starting with firing Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal.A juicy set of text messages between Mr. Musk and his friends and business associates emerged last week, as part of the legal battle. In them, Mr. Musk made clear that he was unhappy with Twitter’s current leadership — in particular with Parag Agrawal, the chief executive, who took over last year from Jack Dorsey.The texts revealed that Mr. Agrawal had initially sought to work constructively with Mr. Musk, and that the two even had a friendly dinner near San Jose, Calif., in March. But the men eventually clashed. Mr. Agrawal, at one point, told Mr. Musk via text message that his habit of tweeting things like “Is Twitter dying?” was “not helping me make Twitter better.”“What did you get done this week?” Mr. Musk shot back. “This is a waste of time.”From reading Mr. Musk’s texts, it’s clear he believes that Twitter’s leadership is weak and ineffective, and lacks the ability to carry out his vision for the company. If Mr. Agrawal doesn’t immediately resign once the deal is complete, I’d expect Mr. Musk to fire him on Day 1 and name himself or a close ally as a replacement.Mr. Musk has also expressed displeasure with other Twitter executives, and it’s hard to see how he could fire Mr. Agrawal without also clearing out most or all of the company’s top leadership and installing his own slate of loyalists.Parag Agrawal, the chief executive of Twitter, may be at risk of losing his job if Mr. Musk takes control of the company.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesEmployees will revolt.Another easy prediction to make about Mr. Musk’s takeover is that it will generate enormous backlash among Twitter’s rank-and-file employees.Twitter, more so than other social media platforms, has a vocally progressive work force and many employees who are deeply invested in the company’s mission of promoting “healthy conversation.” Those employees may believe — for good reason! — that under Mr. Musk’s leadership, Twitter will abandon many of the projects they care about in areas like trust and safety. Or they may simply not want to deal with the drama and tumult of a Musk regime, and start looking for jobs elsewhere.What Happened to Elon Musk’s Twitter DealCard 1 of 9A blockbuster deal. More

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      Don Bolduc Indicates He Has Not Entirely Turned His Back on Election Denial

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      All through his primary, Don Bolduc, a far-right Senate candidate in New Hampshire, said the 2020 election was stolen. A day after his victory was called, he reversed course. But eight days after that?He indicated on a podcast that he had not completely turned his back on the stolen-election movement, conveying that he found it unclear why his election-denial message had not been resonating with voters in the battleground state.“The narrative that the election was stolen, it does not fly up here in New Hampshire for whatever reason,” Mr. Bolduc said in a Sept. 23 appearance on The Mel K Show, a podcast aligned with the QAnon conspiracy movement.Then he renewed his false claim there had been fraud in the election.“What does fly” in New Hampshire, Mr. Bolduc said, “is that there was significant fraud and it needs to be fixed.”For about five minutes on the podcast, Mr. Bolduc attacked the expansion of mail-in voting during the pandemic and said voters in New Hampshire should be forced to present identification at the polls. He further stated his opposition to college students from out of state voting in New Hampshire.Shortly after winning his primary, Mr. Bolduc struck a far different tone in a Fox News interview, saying, “I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen.”“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said in the interview.Mr. Bolduc’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.He is challenging Senator Maggie Hassan, whose underwhelming job approval ratings have emboldened Republicans in New England. The race could help determine whether Republicans gain control of the Senate in the November elections. More

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      Giorgia Meloni Leads Voting in Italy, in Breakthrough for Europe’s Hard Right

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      ROME — Italy appeared to turn a page of European history on Sunday by electing a hard-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni, whose long record of bashing the European Union, international bankers and migrants has sown concern about the nation’s reliability in the Western alliance. Early projections based on a narrow sampling of precincts, as well as exit polls, on Sunday night suggested that Ms. Meloni, the leader of the nationalist Brothers of Italy, a party descended from the remnants of fascism, had led a right-wing coalition to a majority in Parliament, defeating a fractured left and a resurgent anti-establishment movement. The final results would not be clear until Monday, and it will still be weeks before the new Italian parliament is seated and a new government is formed, leaving plenty of time for political machinations. But Ms. Meloni’s strong showing, with about 25 percent of the vote, the highest of any single party, makes her the prohibitive favorite to become the country’s first female prime minister. While she is a strong supporter of Ukraine, her coalition partners deeply admire Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and have criticized sanctions against Russia.“From the Italians has arrived a clear indication,” Ms. Meloni, known for her crescendoing rhetoric and cult of personality, said in a measured victory speech at nearly 3 a.m., “for the center-right to guide Italy.”After saying she had suffered through a “violent electoral campaign” filled with unfair attacks, Ms. Meloni spoke about “reciprocal respect” and recreating “trust in the institutions.” She posed flashing a victory sign. “We are at the starting point,” she said, adding, “Italy chose us, and we will never betray it.”The victory, in an election with lower turnout than usual, comes as formerly taboo and marginalized parties with Nazi or fascist heritages are entering the mainstream — and winning elections — across Europe. This month, a hard-right group founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads became the largest party in Sweden’s likely governing coalition. In France this year, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen — for a second consecutive time — reached the final round of presidential elections. In Spain, the hard-right Vox, a party closely aligned with Ms. Meloni, is surging.But it is Italy, the birthplace of fascism and a founding member of the European Union, that has sent the strongest shock wave across the continent after a period of European-centric stability led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who directed hundreds of billions of euros in recovery funds to modernize Italy and helped lead Europe’s strong response to Russia. Giorgia Meloni preparing to cast her vote at a polling station in Rome on Sunday.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“This is a sad day for the country,” Debora Serracchiani, a leader of the Democratic Party, which will now lead the opposition, said in a statement early Monday morning.Ms. Meloni’s victory showed that the allure of nationalism — of which she is a strong advocate — remained undimmed, despite the breakthroughs by E.U. nations in coming together to pool sovereignty and resources in recent years, first to combat the coronavirus pandemic and then Mr. Putin’s initiation of the largest conflict in Europe since World War II.How, and how deeply, a right-wing coalition in Italy led by Ms. Meloni could threaten that cohesion is now the foremost concern of the European establishment.Ms. Meloni has staunchly, and consistently, supported Ukraine and its right to defend itself against Russian aggression. But her coalition partners — Matteo Salvini, the firebrand leader of the League, and the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — have clearly aligned themselves with Mr. Putin, questioning sanctions and echoing his propaganda. That fracture, and the bitter competition between the right-wing leaders, could prove fatal for the coalition, leading to a short-lived government. But some political analysts say Ms. Meloni, having attained power, may be tempted to soften her support for sanctions, which are unpopular in much of Italy. If she does, there is concern that Italy could be the weak link that breaks the European Union’s strong united position against Russia.Ms. Meloni had spent the campaign seeking to reassure an international audience that her support of Ukraine was unwavering. She sought to allay concerns by condemning Mussolini, whom she once admired, and Italy’s Fascist past. She also made more supportive noises about Italy’s place in the European Union and distanced herself from Ms. Le Pen and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, whom she had previously emulated. But that pivoting was more for international markets than Italian voters, who didn’t much care about her past, or even her affinity for illiberal democracies. The Italian electorate had not moved to the right, political scientists said, but instead again resorted to a perennial desire for a new leader who could possibly, and providentially, solve all its ills. Ms. Meloni found herself in the right place at the right time. Hers was virtually the only major party to remain outside Mr. Draghi’s national unity government, allowing her to soak up an increasing share of the opposition. Her support surged from 4 percent to nearly about 25 percent.After a revolt by a party in Mr. Draghi’s broad unity government in July, the right-wing parties, eager to go to elections they were favored to win, sensed opportunity and bolted, with Ms. Meloni in the pole position.There is little concern in the Italian establishment that she will undermine Italian democracy — she has been a consistent advocate for elections during unelected technocratic governments and has long served in Parliament. There is also a widespread belief that Italy’s dependence on hundreds of billions of euros in relief funds from the European Union will force Ms. Meloni and her government to follow the spending plans, reforms and overall blueprint established by Mr. Draghi. The money comes in tranches and the plans have to meet strict criteria. If she reverses course, Italy could lose out on billions of essentially free euros as rising energy prices and inflation — much of it stemming from the sanctions against Russia — are expected to worsen in coming months.Giorgia Meloni, addressing supporters during a rally in Piazza Duomo in Milan earlier this month.Piero Cruciatti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut there is concern about Ms. Meloni’s lack of experience and her party’s lack of technical expertise, especially in running the eurozone’s third-largest economy, and Mr. Draghi has kept in close touch with her, both to ensure her support for Ukraine and, insiders say, to help find someone who can provide economic continuity.Nevertheless, Ms. Meloni represents a historic break at the top of Italian government. She came of political age in a post-Fascist, hard right that sought to redefine itself by seizing on new symbols and texts, especially “The Lord of the Rings” and other works by the British writer J.R.R. Tolkien, to distance itself from the taboos of Fascism. She grew up with a single mother in a working-class area of Rome, and being a woman, and mother, has been central to her political identity. She once ran for mayor while pregnant because she said powerful men had told her she couldn’t. Her most famous speech includes the refrain “I am a woman. I am a mother.” Being a woman has also distinguished her, and marked a major shift, from her coalition partners, especially Mr. Berlusconi, the subject of endless sex scandals.But Ms. Meloni, Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Salvini share a hard-right vision for the country. Ms. Meloni has called for a naval blockade against migrants and spread fears about a “great replacement” of native Italians. The three share populist proposals for deep tax cuts that economists fear would inflate Italy’s already enormous debt, and a traditionalist view of the family that liberals worry will at least freeze in place gay rights and which could, in practice, roll back abortion rights.Despite the constraints of an Italian Constitution that is explicitly anti-Fascist and designed to stymie the rise of another Mussolini, many liberals are now worried that the right-wing coalition will erode the country’s norms. There was concern that if the coalition were to win two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, it would have the ability to change the Constitution to increase government powers. From left to right, Matteo Salvini, Silvio Berlusconi, and Giorgia Meloni attending the final rally of the center-right coalition in Rome on Thursday.Alessandra Tarantino/Associated PressOn Thursday, during one of Ms. Meloni’s final rallies before the election, she exclaimed that “if the Italians give us the numbers to do it, we will.”But the coalition appeared not to hit that mark. The main party of the left, the Democratic Party, all but guaranteed its defeat by failing to heal its differences with other liberal and centrist parties, including a new group of moderates. The moderates, backed by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and attracting some former leaders of Mr. Berlusconi’s party, who were disillusioned with his following of the hard right, did better than expected, but still seemed to remain in the single digits.What really held the right back from a landslide were their former governing partners, the Five Star Movement, the once anti-establishment movement that triggered the collapse of Mr. Draghi’s government when it revolted in July.In 2018, the party’s burn-down-the-elite rhetoric led it to become the country’s most popular party and largest force in Parliament. Years of governing — first with the hard-right Mr. Salvini, and then with the Democratic Party, and then under Mr. Draghi — exposed its incompetence and infighting and it imploded. It seemed on the brink of extinction. But during the campaign, led by former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, the party surged in the country’s underserved south.That development was mainly because Five Star passed a broad unemployment benefit known as the “citizen’s income,” which though roundly criticized by moderates and the right as a handout to the lazy and a disincentive to work, has become a cherished benefit.As a result, Five Star appeared to be becoming the party of the south.“This is what is emerging,” said Angelo Tofalo, himself a southerner and a leader in the party, as he cheered Mr. Conte, at a rally in Rome on Friday. He said the party had laid down deep roots in the south, but acknowledged, “the citizen’s income is a factor.”That unexpected strength ate into Ms. Meloni’s support, while she devoured the backing of the League party of Mr. Salvini. Only years ago he was the country’s most popular populist. Now he appeared to sink to single digits. Mr. Berlusconi, once the hinge upon which the coalition turned, and who legitimized the marginalized post-Fascists and secessionist League in the 1990s, also registered a modest result.But together they had enough to govern and Ms. Meloni had the clearest claim on the office of prime minister during negotiations and consultations with Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, which will take place over the next month. The new government is likely to be seated in late October or early November.But the message of the end of a period of European taboos, and of new change, has already been sent.Ms. Meloni said in one of her last interviews before the election that her victory would be “a redemption” for all the people who “for decades had to keep their heads down” and who had an “alternative vision from the mainstream of the system of power.”Elisabetta Povoledo More

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      Italy May Get a Leader With Post-Fascist Roots

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      With the hard-right candidate Giorgia Meloni ahead before Sunday’s election, Italy could get its first leader whose party traces its roots to the wreckage of Fascism.ROME — Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s hard-right leader, resents having to talk about Fascism. She has publicly, and in multiple languages, said that the Italian right has “handed Fascism over to history for decades now.” She argued that “the problem with Fascism in Italy always begins with the electoral campaign,” when the Italian left, she said, wheels out “the black wave” to smear its opponents.But none of that matters now, she insisted in an interview this month, because Italians do not care. “Italians don’t believe anymore in this garbage,” she said with a shrug.Ms. Meloni may be proved right on Sunday, when she is expected to be the top vote-getter in Italian elections, a breakthrough far-right parties in Europe have anticipated for decades.More than 70 years after Nazis and Fascists nearly destroyed Europe, formerly taboo parties with Nazi or Fascist heritages that were long marginalized have elbowed their way into the mainstream. Some are even winning. A page of European history seems to be turning.Last week, a hard-right group founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads became the largest party in Sweden’s likely governing coalition. The far-right leader Marine Le Pen — for a second consecutive time — reached the final round of French presidential elections this year.But it is Italy, the birthplace of Fascism, that looks likely to be led not only by its first female prime minister in Ms. Meloni but the first Italian leader whose party can trace its roots back to the wreckage of Italian Fascism.“People have become used to them,” said John Foot, a historian of Fascism and the author of a new book, “Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism.” “The taboo is long gone.”A supporter of the Brothers of Italy party, which Ms. Meloni leads, this month in Cagliari, Sardinia.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThe indifference of Italian voters to the past, however, may have less to do with Ms. Meloni’s own personal appeal or policies than with Italy’s perennial hunger for change. But there is another force at work: Italy’s long postwar process — even policy — of deliberate amnesia to unify the nation that began essentially as soon as World War II ended.Today that process has culminated in Ms. Meloni’s arrival on the precipice of power, after several decades in which hard-right elements were gradually brought into the political fold, legitimized and made familiar to Italian voters.“The country has not moved to the right at all,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political scientist at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, who said that voters had little sense or interest in Ms. Meloni’s history and simply saw her as the new face of the center right. “They don’t see her as a threat.”But in having long preferred to forget their past are Italians setting themselves up to repeat it? The concern is not academic at a moment when war again rages in Europe and democracy appears embattled in many nations around the globe.Unlike Germany, which was clearly on the wrong side of history and made facing and remembering its Nazi past a national project woven inextricably into the postwar fabric of its institutions and society, Italy had one foot on each side, and so had a claim to victimization by Fascism, having switched allegiances during the war.After Rome fell to the Allies, a civil war raged between the resistance and a Nazi puppet state of Mussolini loyalists in the north. When the war ended, Italy adopted an explicitly antifascist Constitution, but the political emphasis was on ensuring national cohesion in a country that had succeeded in unifying only a century earlier.There was a belief, the Italian writer Umberto Eco wrote in his classic 1995 essay “Ur Fascism,” or “Eternal Fascism,” that the “memory of those terrible years should be repressed.” But repression “causes neurosis,” he argued, and even if real reconciliation took place, “to forgive does not mean to forget.”Italian civilians lined the streets as Allied soldiers entered Rome in June 1944. In the years that followed, Italy adopted an antifascist Constitution.FPG/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesItaly had ignored much of that advice during its postwar amnesty program that soughtto incorporate post-Fascist elements. But it also kept the party established by the former Fascists, the Italian Social Movement — which pushed for a strong state, tough on crime and opposed to abortion and divorce — away from power in the following decades.Meanwhile, Italy’s left, dominated by the largest Communist Party in Western Europe, had the advantage of being anti-Fascist, which allowed its leaders to have institutional roles, political influence and cultural dominance, which they used to wield the “Fascist” label against any range of political enemies until the term was drained of much of its meaning.That wobbly status quo came crashing down after a sprawling bribery scandal in the early 1990s toppled Italy’s power structure — and with it the barriers that had kept the post-Fascists out of power.It was around that time that Ms. Meloni entered politics, becoming active in the Youth Front of the Italian Social Movement, the heirs to Italy’s post-Fascist legacy.She sought new symbols and heroes to distance the party from its unapologetically Fascist forbearers, but also to correct what she considered politicized history.Memory was a political priority.In her memoir, Ms. Meloni proudly tells of going into bookstores and stamping pages of books that she considered “biased” with left-wing propaganda: “Fake. Do not buy.” She helped persuade the party’s members of Parliament to buy out of circulation all of the books they had stamped, but insisted that they never “burned those books.”“I could never stand those who use history for political purposes,” Ms. Meloni wrote in her memoir. But it was not until 1994, when the conservative media mogul Silvio Berlusconi entered politics, that Ms. Meloni and her fellows in the post-Fascist milieu got their real breakthrough.Silvio Berlusconi voting in Italy’s general elections in 1994. He would go on to be the country’s prime minister for four governments. Massimo Sambucetti/Associated PressAn early innovator of the now-common practice of center-right parties forming politically convenient alliances with the far right, Mr. Berlusconi turned to the support of the marginalized parties.He formed a governing coalition with the secessionist Northern League, now led by the populist firebrand Matteo Salvini, and the National Alliance, which eventually made Ms. Meloni the vice president of the Lower House of Parliament and then the country’s youngest government minister. The party eventually collapsed and was reborn in 2012 as the Brothers of Italy, with Ms. Meloni as its leader.“We let them in,” Mr. Berlusconi explained during a political rally in 2019. “We legitimized them.”Nearly 30 years later, Ms. Meloni is poised to take charge.Her proposals, characterized by protectionism, tough-on-crime measures and protecting the traditional family, have a continuity with the post-Fascist parties, though updated to excoriate L.G.B.T. “lobbies” and migrants.Many liberals are now worried that she will erode the country’s norms, and that if she and her coalition partners win with a sufficient enough of landslide, they would have the ability to change the Constitution to increase government powers. On Sunday, during one of Ms. Meloni’s final rallies before the election, she exclaimed that “if the Italians give us the numbers to do it, we will.”“The Constitution was born of resistance and anti-Fascism,” the leader of the left, Enrico Letta, responded, saying that Ms. Meloni had revealed her true face, and that the Constitution “must not be touched.”The left sees in her crescendoing rhetoric, cult of personality style and hard-right positions many of the hallmarks of an ideology that Eco famously sought to pin down despite Fascism’s “fuzziness.”She evinces what Eco called an “obsession with a plot, possibly an international one” against Italians, which she expresses in fears of international bankers using mass migration to replace native Italians and weaken Italian workers.She is bathed in the current of traditionalism that traces at least back to Catholic revulsion of the French Revolution. And her use of social media fulfilled Eco’s prediction of an “internet populism” to replace Mussolini’s speeches from the balcony of Piazza Venezia in Rome.Ms. Meloni appeared at a rally on Thursday in Rome with her right-wing coalition partners Matteo Salvini, left, Mr. Berlusconi and Maurizio Lupi.Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse, via Associated PressJust this week, one of the party’s top leaders was caught giving a fascist salute and one of its candidates was suspended for flatteringly comparing Ms. Meloni with Hitler. In the past, members have held a dinner celebrating the March on Rome that brought Mussolini to power 100 years ago.Ms. Meloni has tried to distance herself from what she calls those “nostalgic” elements of her party, and chalks the fears up to the usual electoral scaremongering. “I’ve sworn on the Constitution,” she said, and she has consistently called for elections, saying technocrats had hijacked Italian democracy.Ms. Meloni has also apparently shed a deep suspicion of the United States, rampant in post-Fascism, and staunchly aligned herself with the West against Russia in support of Ukraine.Whereas she used to admire Vladimir V. Putin’s defense of Christian values, she now calls Mr. Putin, Russia’s president, an anti-Western aggressor and, in contrast with her coalition allies, who are Putin apologists, said she would “totally” continue as prime minister to send offensive arms to Ukraine.To reassure Europe that she was no extremist, she has also distanced herself from her previous fawning over Viktor Orban of Hungary, Ms. Le Pen of France and the illiberal democracies in Eastern Europe.The Italian establishment is in fact more worried about her party’s lack of competence than an authoritarian takeover.They are confident that a system built with numerous checks to stop another Mussolini — even at the cost of paralysis — will constrain Ms. Meloni, as will the realities of governing, especially when backsliding could cost Italy hundreds of billions of euros in pandemic recovery funds from the European Union.Ms. Meloni’s biggest imprint may be in a less concrete battlefield, what Mr. Foot, the historian, called Italy’s “long-term memory war.”She has refused to remove as her party symbol the tricolor flame that many historians say evokes the torch over the tomb of Mussolini, and historians wonder if she, as prime minister, would condemn the anniversary of the March on Rome on Oct. 28, or if she would on April 25 celebrate Liberation Day, which commemorates the victory of the resistance against the Nazis and its Italian Social Republic puppet state. Italian democracy might be safe, but what about the past?“A historical judgment,” of Mussolini and Fascism, Ms. Meloni said in an interview last month, could be done only by “putting everything on the table — and then you decide.” More

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      The Midterm Election’s Most Dominant Toxic Narratives

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      Ballot mules. Poll watch parties. Groomers.These topics are now among the most dominant divisive and misleading narratives online about November’s midterm elections, according to researchers and data analytics companies. On Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Truth Social and other social media sites, some of these narratives have surged in recent months, often accompanied by angry and threatening rhetoric.The effects of these inflammatory online discussions are being felt in the real world, election officials and voting rights groups said. Voters have flooded some local election offices with misinformed questions about supposedly rigged voting machines, while some people appear befuddled about what pens to use on ballots and whether mail-in ballots are still legal, they said.“Our voters are angry and confused,” Lisa Marra, elections director in Cochise County, Ariz., told a House committee last month. “They simply don’t know what to believe.”The most prevalent of these narratives fall into three main categories: continued falsehoods about rampant election fraud; threats of violence and citizen policing of elections; and divisive posts on health and social policies that have become central to political campaigns. Here’s what to know about them.Misinformation about the 2020 election, left, has fueled the “Stop the Steal” movement, center, and continues to be raised at campaign events for the midterms, right.From left, Amir Hamja for The New York Times, Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times, Ash Ponders for The New York Times Election FraudFalse claims of election fraud are commanding conversation online, with former President Donald J. Trump continuing to protest that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.Voter fraud is rare, but that falsehood about the 2020 election has become a central campaign issue for dozens of candidates around the country, causing misinformation and toxic content about the issue to spread widely online.“Stolen election” was mentioned 325,589 times on Twitter from June 19 to July 19, a number that has been fairly steady throughout the year and that was up nearly 900 percent from the same period in 2020, according to Zignal Labs, a media research firm.On the video-sharing site Rumble, videos with the term “stop the steal” or “stolen election” and other claims of election fraud have been among the most popular. In May, such posts attracted 2.5 million viewers, more than triple the total from a year earlier, according to Similarweb, a digital analytics firm.More recently, misinformation around the integrity of voting has metastasized. More conspiracy theories are circulating online about individuals submitting fraudulent ballots, about voting machines being rigged to favor Democrats and about election officials switching the kinds of pens that voters must use to mark ballots in order to confuse them.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Inflation Concerns Persist: In the six-month primary season that has just ended, several issues have risen and fallen, but nothing has dislodged inflation and the economy from the top of voters’ minds.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate candidate in Georgia claimed his business donated 15 percent of its profits to charities. Three of the four groups named as recipients say they didn’t receive money.North Carolina Senate Race: Are Democrats about to get their hearts broken again? The contest between Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, and her G.O.P. opponent, Representative Ted Budd, seems close enough to raise their hopes.Echoing Trump: Six G.O.P. nominees for governor and the Senate in critical midterm states, all backed by former President Donald J. Trump, would not commit to accepting this year’s election results.These conspiracy theories have in turn spawned new terms, such as “ballot trafficking” and “ballot mules,” which is used to describe people who are paid to cast fake ballots. The terms were popularized by the May release of the film “2000 Mules,” a discredited movie claiming widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. From June 19 to July 19, “ballot mules” was mentioned 17,592 times on Twitter; it was not used before the 2020 election, according to Zignal.In April, the conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk interviewed the stars of the film, including Catherine Engelbrecht of the nonprofit voting group True the Vote. Mr. Kirk’s interview has garnered more than two million views online.“A sense of grievance is already in place,” said Kyle Weiss, a senior analyst at Graphika, a research firm that studies misinformation and fake social media accounts. The 2020 election “primed the public on a set of core narratives, which are reconstituting and evolving in 2022.”.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-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs 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.The security of ballot drop boxes, left; the search for documents at Mar-a-Lago, center; and the role of the F.B.I., right, are being widely discussed online in the context of the midterm elections. From left, Marco Garcia for The New York Times, Saul Martinez for The New York Times, Kenny Holston for The New York TimesCalls to ActionOnline conversations about the midterm elections have also been dominated by calls for voters to act against apparent election fraud. In response, some people have organized citizen policing of voting, with stakeouts of polling stations and demands for information about voter rolls in their counties. Civil rights groups widely criticize poll watching, which they say can intimidate voters, particularly immigrants and at sites in communities of color.From July 27 to Aug. 3, the second-most-shared tweet about the midterms was a photo of people staking out a ballot box, with the message that “residents are determined to safeguard the drop boxes,” according to Zignal. Among those who shared it was Dinesh D’Souza, the creator of “2000 Mules,” who has 2.4 million followers on Twitter.In July, Seth Keshel, a retired Army captain who has challenged the result of the 2020 presidential election, shared a message on Telegram calling for “all-night patriot tailgate parties for EVERY DROP BOX IN AMERICA.” The post was viewed more than 70,000 times.Anger toward the F.B.I. is also reflected in midterm-related conversations, with a rise in calls to shut down or defund the agency after last month’s raid of Mr. Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.“Abolish FBI” became a trending hashtag across social media, mentioned 122,915 times on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and news sites from July 1 to Aug. 30, up 1,990 percent from about 5,882 mentions in the two months before the 2020 election, according to Zignal.In a video posted on Twitter on Sept. 20, Representative Andrew Clyde, Republican of Georgia, implied that he and others would take action against the F.B.I. if Republicans won control of Congress in November.“You wait till we take the House back. You watch what happens to the F.B.I.,” he said in a video captured by a left-leaning online show, “The Undercurrent,” and shared more than 1,000 times on Twitter within a few hours. Mr. Clyde did not respond to a request for comment.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, center, is among the politicians who have spread misinformation about gay and transgender people, a report said.From left: Todd Heisler/The New York Times, Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times, Todd Heisler/The New York TimesHot-Button IssuesSome online conversations about the midterms are not directly related to voting. Instead, the discussions are centered on highly partisan issues — such as transgender rights — that candidates are campaigning on and that are widely regarded as motivating voters, leading to a surge of falsehoods.A month after Florida passed legislation that prohibits classroom discussion or instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, which the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed into law in March, the volume of tweets falsely linking gay and transgender individuals to pedophilia soared, for example.Language claiming that gay people and transgender people were “grooming” children for abuse increased 406 percent on Twitter in April, according to a study by the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.The narrative was spread most widely by 10 far-right figures, including midterm candidates such as Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, according to the report. Their tweets on “grooming” misinformation were viewed an estimated 48 million times, the report said.In May, Ms. Boebert tweeted: “A North Carolina preschool is using LGBT flag flashcards with a pregnant man to teach kids colors. We went from Reading Rainbow to Randy Rainbow in a few decades, but don’t dare say the Left is grooming our kids!” The tweet was shared nearly 2,000 times and liked nearly 10,000 times.Ms. Boebert and Ms. Taylor Greene did not respond to requests for comment.On Facebook and Instagram, 59 ads also promoted the narrative that the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community and allies were “grooming” children, the report found. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, accepted up to $24,987 for the ads, which were served to users over 2.1 million times, according to the report.Meta said it had removed several of the ads mentioned in the report.“The repeated pushing of ‘groomer’ narratives has resulted in a wider anti-L.G.B.T. moral panic that has been influencing state and federal legislation and is likely to be a significant midterm issue,” said David Thiel, the chief technical officer at the Stanford Internet Observatory, which studies online extremism and disinformation. More