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    Trump Embraces Extremism as He Seeks to Reclaim Presidency

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    As he gets his presidential campaign underway, Donald J. Trump has aligned himself with forces that used to be outside the mainstream of American politics.WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump made clear on Thursday night exactly where he stands in the conflict between the American justice system and the mob that ransacked the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power nearly two years ago.He stands with the mob.Mr. Trump sent a video statement of support to a fund-raiser hosted by a group calling itself the Patriot Freedom Project on behalf of families of those charged with attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “People have been treated unconstitutionally, in my opinion, and very, very unfairly, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” he said. The country, he warned, “is going communist.”The video underscored just how much the former president has aligned himself with forces that used to be outside the mainstream of American politics as he seeks to reclaim the White House through a rematch with President Biden in 2024. With the Justice Department targeting him as well as some of his violent allies, Mr. Trump’s antigovernment jeremiads lately sound like those once relegated to the outer edges of the political spectrum.He has embraced extremist elements in American society even more unabashedly than in the past. The video comes as Mr. Trump has been using music sounding like a QAnon theme song at recent rallies and hosting for dinner Kanye West, a rap star under fire for antisemitic statements, and Nick Fuentes, a prominent white supremacist.And it comes just two days after the conviction of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, placed Mr. Trump at the spiritual heart of a seditious conspiracy to illegitimately keep power in a way that is unparalleled in American history.Mr. Trump’s acceptance, if not outright courtship, of the militant right comes as the Republican establishment blames him for the party’s failure to do better during the November midterm elections. Republican officeholders, led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party leader in the upper chamber, argue that Mr. Trump’s promotion of candidates based on fidelity to his false claims about the 2020 election cost them seats.“Trump is doubling down on his extremist and cult leader profile,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present” and a history professor at New York University. “For someone of Trump’s temperament, being humiliated by people turning away from him will only make him more desperate and more inclined to support and associate with the most extremist elements of society. There is no other option for him.”His former dinner guests fanned the flames on Thursday with fresh incendiary comments on the Infowars show of Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist. “I like Hitler,” said Mr. West, who now goes by the name Ye, adding that “Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities.” He added that “we got to stop dissing Nazis all the time,” and he denied that the Holocaust happened.At another point, Mr. Fuentes voiced his support for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, calling himself “very pro-Putin” and “very pro-Russia.” Ye agreed: “I am also.”The verdict in the Oath Keepers case underscored Mr. Trump’s alignment with a right-wing militia deemed a danger by the government. The trial effectively established that there was an illegal plot to keep Mr. Trump in power despite his defeat in the 2020 election, whether the former president was directly involved or simply inspired it through the lies he spread.What to Know About Donald Trump TodayCard 1 of 4Donald J. Trump is running for president again, being investigated by a special counsel again and he’s back on Twitter. Here’s what to know about some of the latest developments involving the former president:Documents case. More

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      Outrage Over Trump’s Dinner With Antisemites

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      More from our inbox:Inciting Mass ShootingsThe Supreme Court, in TroubleClimate and the G.O.P.Long Lines to VoteFormer President Donald J. Trump addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition’s conference in Las Vegas on a video call this month.Mikayla Whitmore for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Jewish Allies of Trump Recoil After He Hosts 2 Antisemites” (front page, Nov. 29):Your article about Jewish Republican supporters “slowly peeling away” from Donald Trump raises the question, Why has it taken this long?In the days after he was elected, spray-painted swastikas appeared all over the country. It’s been five long years since the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., during which hordes of white supremacists chanted “Jews will not replace us!” and Mr. Trump infamously said there were “very fine people on both sides.”As Jews, we of all people should know better than to let the fervor (and denying) mount for this long. We know the consequences.Nora ZelevanskyBrooklynTo the Editor:Donald Trump’s recent dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist leader, is another example of the former president’s proclivity to grant an audience to anyone who feeds his ego.Mr. Trump did much for the Jewish people and Israel during his presidency. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved our embassy to this ancient city. The Abraham Accords are the most significant peace development in the Middle East since Camp David in the 1970s. On a personal level, the president’s daughter Ivanka is a convert to Judaism.But apparently, all it took were a few kind words of flattery for Mr. Trump to grant an audience with two notorious antisemites. Leaders from Russia, China and North Korea will undoubtedly exploit this personal tendency of Mr. Trump’s to their advantage should he regain office.In 2024, voters must ask themselves if they can stomach Mr. Trump’s transactional notion of “friendship” for another four years.David WedenDover, Mass.To the Editor:A few Republican politicians are speaking out against the former president’s dinner with two men with offensive views. Is this because those politicians are suddenly aware of Donald Trump’s previous antisemitic statements, or because he is apparently beginning to lose voter approval?Joann Green BreuerBostonTo the Editor:Very few topics infuriate me as an American Jew more than hearing prominent American Jews defending Donald Trump, particularly in the wake of his latest foray into antisemitic behavior. Mr. Trump made blatant antisemitism acceptable after he indirectly lauded those chanting “Jews will not replace us!” in Charlottesville.His bigotry is not confined to Jews, and his vitriol has led to sharp increases in violence against Asian Americans, Black people and Latino immigrants. His track record of bigotry and hatred violates everything Judaism teaches, and his cozy dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes should not, cannot, be glossed over and tolerated.I am a Jew, but I am an American first and foremost, and I care about the values that our leaders espouse and display to the world.The near-universal disdain that Mr. Trump is viewed with around the world should tell you everything you need to know about this dangerous man. I would classify him as a clown, but there is really nothing funny about him.Bill GottdenkerMountainside, N.J.Inciting Mass ShootingsPhotos of the victims of the Club Q attack were placed at a memorial near the scene. Joanna Kulesza for The New York TimesTo the Editor:America is experiencing a contagion of mass shootings that gun rights advocates repeatedly assert is due to mental illness. But the rates of mental illness are much the same throughout the developed world, while countries such as Britain and Australia, with strict gun controls, have almost no such incidents.Even a casual look at the genocides of the 20th century and current events demonstrates that human beings are capable of extremes of brutality and cruelty. These are kept in check by a thin patina of civilized values that may prove no more protective than a tinfoil hat under the relentless incitement of politicians who use bigotry and hate as political tools.Gail Collins reminds us (column, Nov. 24) that Donald Trump went after Glenn Youngkin, governor of Virginia and a potential rival for the Republican nomination, by saying: “Youngkin … Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?” What relevance could the sound of Mr. Youngkin’s name possibly have other than as a dog whistle cue to the next bigotry- and hatred-laden loner waiting in the shadows, angry with Asians for being … well, Asian?Constant calumny against Nancy Pelosi leads to calls for her death and a break-in and assault on her husband. Derision of the L.G.B.T.Q. community spews from extremist mouths, disinhibiting and inciting the susceptible to horrific massacres.“Good guys with guns” have shown us that they cannot stop the shooting while bad guys with big mouths go on fomenting it.Harold I. SchwartzWest Hartford, Conn.The writer, a psychiatrist, served on the Connecticut governor’s Sandy Hook Advisory Commission.The Supreme Court, in Trouble“I think that every justice should be worried about the court acting as a court and functioning as a court,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in 2006.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Roberts’s Early Court Agenda: A Study in Disappointment,” by Adam Liptak (Sidebar, Nov. 22):The aspiration of Chief Justice John Roberts — to preserve the legitimacy of the Supreme Court as a venerated institution and to safeguard the credibility of its decisions — has been seriously undermined by the majority of justices currently on the court. His disappointment can be traced to two overarching factors.The conservative justices, despite their earlier assurances, have abandoned their respect for precedent, the bedrock of any worthy judicial system. That same conservative majority also ignores the time-honored mandate of the court, to decide only issues raised by the litigants and to decide them as narrowly as practicable.This court has an obvious agenda, which it pursues by reaching out for issues beyond the scope of cases being considered — the very essence of judicial activism — and then promulgates decisions that unnecessarily overturn firmly rooted constitutional protections.When the public perceives that the court’s decisions are detached from enduring legal principles and seem only to reflect the political preferences of individual justices, respect for the court is shattered and the rule of law is put in dire danger.Gerald HarrisNew YorkThe writer is a retired New York City Criminal Court judge.Climate and the G.O.P.Finding shade in cement pipes for construction in Allahabad, India, on May 31.Sanjay Kanojia/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Extreme Heat Will Change Us” (news article, Nov. 25):The parched land and heat-stressed people described in this article are the heartbreaking reality our children and grandchildren will soon face everywhere. The resulting migrations to escape the worst effects will become a tsunami.I do not understand why Republicans and others unwilling to invest in the infrastructure and lifestyle changes necessary to mitigate the severity of this outcome haven’t figured out that unless we address the climate crisis, the waves of immigrants pressing our borders in years to come will dwarf the current border “crisis” they decry.Judith Farris BowmanBennington, Vt.Long Lines to Vote Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle, via Associated PressTo the Editor:Now that this election is over, can we please stop arguing over giving water to people standing in line to vote and instead discuss why there are such long lines to vote, and what we can do about it? Seems to me that waiting in line for more than 15 or 20 minutes should not be acceptable.J. Danton SmithHamilton, N.J. More

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      Republicans Hate Everything About Trump’s Dinner With Ye and Fuentes Except Trump

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      There was a pattern with Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election. He would say or do something outrageous and often quite offensive. Most people condemned him and the remarks themselves. Republicans took a different approach. They condemned the remarks, but avoided an attack on Trump the person.You saw this in full effect during the Republican primary season, when Trump refused to disavow support from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and Republican candidate for senator and governor in Louisiana. Both leaders of the Republican Party in Congress, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, condemned Duke.“If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games,” Ryan said. “They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices.”“There has been a lot of talk in the last 24 hours about one of our presidential candidates and his seeming ambivalence about David Duke and the K.K.K., so let me make it perfectly clear,” McConnell said. “That is not the view of Republicans who have been elected to the United States Senate, and I condemn his views in the most forceful way.”As for Trump, who led the field for the nomination? “My plan is to support the nominee,” Ryan said. McConnell was not ready to commit at that point, but in short order, he bent the knee too.Trump is once again running for the Republican presidential nomination. Once again, though this time as the former president of the United States, he has the automatic support of a large part of the Republican Party base, as well as a large faction of Republican politicians, from state lawmakers to top members of the House of Representatives. And once again he has forced members of his party to make a choice about his rhetoric and behavior: Will they condemn his actions and cast him out or will they criticize his choices but allow him the privilege of leadership within the party?The offense this time? As you may have heard, Trump held a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with Kanye West, who has turned himself into arguably the nation’s most prominent antisemite, and Nick Fuentes, a far-right provocateur whose supporters, called groypers, were among the crowd that stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Trump, for his part, claims he knew nothing about Fuentes, who is an antisemite, a Holocaust denier and a white supremacist. “This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said in a statement on Friday. “Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about.”This is hard to believe. Trump has had links to the far right going back to his first presidential campaign. Whether out of belief or, more likely, out of his extreme narcissism, he has refused to disavow his supporters on the fringes of American politics. And as we all know, he encouraged them outright in his attempt to hold on to power after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Trump may not have known about Fuentes in particular — although I think that is doubtful, given Fuentes’s proximity to Republican politics — but he certainly knows the type.It took Republican leaders a few days to muster the energy to respond to the meeting. But on Monday afternoon, a cascade of high-level Republican officeholders criticized Trump for meeting with Fuentes.Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, made a stern statement: “President Trump was wrong to give a white nationalist, an antisemite and a Holocaust denier a seat at the table. I think he should apologize for it, and he should denounce those individuals and their hateful rhetoric without qualification.”Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said, “President Trump hosting racist antisemites for dinner encourages other racist antisemites.”John Thune, the Senate minority whip, said that the dinner was “just a bad idea on every level. I don’t know who was advising him on his staff but I hope that whoever that person was got fired.” And Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters: “The meeting was bad, he shouldn’t have done it. But again, you know, there’s a double standard about this kind of stuff.”You’ll notice, in all of this, that while Republicans are willing to condemn Fuentes and Ye and Trump’s decision to eat dinner with them, they are not willing to go so far as to draw any conclusions about Trump himself. Even Pence — who had, in this group, the strongest words for Trump — took care not to impute any malice to his former boss. “I don’t believe Donald Trump is an antisemite. I don’t believe he’s a racist or a bigot,” he said. “I think the president demonstrated profoundly poor judgment in giving those individuals a seat at the table.”One of the few Republicans to condemn Trump as a person and a political figure was Mitt Romney, who, notably, no longer has any national ambitions beyond the Senate. “There’s no bottom to the degree to which he’s willing to degrade himself, and the country for that matter,” said Romney, who also called the dinner “disgusting.”Among those Republicans who have been silent on the matter so far, the most conspicuous is Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, where the dinner took place. DeSantis is often eager to jump into national political controversies. But he’s also Trump’s rival for control of the Republican Party and eager to court (and win) the former president’s supporters.Recently, there has been quite a bit of talk about the extent to which Republicans are leaving Trump behind and how they’ve tried to ignore his complaints and keep their distance. But this episode demonstrates the extent to which that distance — the distance between Trump and the Republican establishment — is overstated.Trump can still force the rest of the party to respond to him; he can still force it to contend with his rhetoric and his actions. And most important, his influence still constrains the behavior of other Republicans — rivals, allies and everyone in between. Trump is still at the center of the Republican political universe, exerting his force on everybody around him.I have no doubt that Republican elites want to rid themselves of Trump, especially after their poor performance — historically poor — in the midterm elections. But what we’re seeing right now is how that is easier said than done; how even in the face of the worst transgressions, Trump still has enough power and influence to make the party hesitate before it attempts to take action — and pull punches when it does. It’s the same hesitation and fear that helped Trump win the nomination in 2016. And if Republicans cannot overcome it, it will help him win it again in 2024.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Jan. 6 Defendant Coordinated Volunteers to Help Glenn Youngkin

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      In the election last fall that sent Glenn Youngkin to the Virginia governor’s office and propelled him to G.O.P. stardom, the state and local Republican Party tasked Joseph Brody with coordinating volunteers to knock on doors of potential Youngkin voters in the state’s strategically crucial northern suburbs.But eight months earlier, Mr. Brody had been immersed in the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol, according to the F.B.I., which said that he assaulted a police officer with a metal barricade and breached several restricted areas, including the Senate floor and the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Now, Mr. Brody, 23, who the F.B.I. said was associated with the white nationalist group America First, is facing felony and misdemeanor charges for his role. The candidate he would go on to help, Mr. Youngkin, tried during his campaign to keep himself at arm’s length from former President Donald J. Trump, and he called the Jan. 6 riot a “blight on our democracy.”Shortly after Mr. Brody’s arrest last month, an image scraped from the internet by online sleuths who call themselves “Sedition Hunters” showed a man in a MAGA hat holding a high-powered rifle in front of a Nazi flag, with a bandanna concealing his face. The group, which has provided information that has helped law enforcement officials make hundreds of arrests related to Jan. 6, said the man in the photo was Mr. Brody.A public defender listed for Mr. Brody did not respond to several requests for comment. Messages sent to an email account for Mr. Brody went unanswered. There was no answer at a phone number listed for him.Mr. Youngkin’s office referred questions about Mr. Brody to Kristin Davison, a political consultant for the governor, who said in an email on Friday that Mr. Brody “did not work for or with the Youngkin campaign.”The Fairfax County Republican Committee twice listed Mr. Brody, who is from Springfield, Va., in Fairfax, as helping to coordinate a volunteer effort to knock on doors for “Team Youngkin.” When asked about those online listings, Ms. Davison said, “Those are not posts from the Youngkin campaign.”.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.Mr. Youngkin’s campaign logo appeared on both pages, which included an official email address associated with the Republican Party of Virginia for Mr. Brody.“Mr. Brody was employed by the party as a door-knocker for one month last fall,” Ellie Sorensen, a state G.O.P. spokeswoman, said in an email on Monday. “He has not been employed by the Republican Party of Virginia for over a year.”Ms. Sorensen did not comment further about the charges against Mr. Brody or what had led to the end of his employment with the party.The Fairfax Republicans did not respond to multiple requests for comment.According to a criminal affidavit, Mr. Brody recorded and photographed senators’ desks during the Capitol attack, in which he wore a neck gaiter with an American flag pattern. Later, he “assisted another rioter in using a metal barricade against a Capitol Police officer, knocking the officer back as he attempted to secure the north door,” an F.B.I. agent said in the affidavit.Federal investigators said Mr. Brody had previously met four other men who were recently charged in the attack at an event held by America First, whose followers are known as Groypers. The movement’s leader, Nicholas J. Fuentes, a white supremacist who has been denounced by conservative organizations as a Holocaust denier and a racist, was issued a subpoena by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.In one photograph that a group of Sedition Hunters said it had obtained of Mr. Brody, a young political canvasser holds a campaign sign for Mr. Youngkin. The group contrasted that image with other postings it said were from Mr. Brody’s social media accounts, some of which showed Nazi symbols and diatribes against women.Luke Broadwater More