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    ‘El Estados Unidos de Trump’: el regreso que señala un país diferente

    La semana pasada, en su mitin de clausura en la Elipse, Kamala Harris despreció a Donald Trump como un caso atípico que no representaba a Estados Unidos. “Eso no es lo que somos”, declaró.De hecho, resulta que eso es exactamente lo que somos. Al menos la mayoría de nosotros.La suposición de que Trump representaba una anomalía que por fin sería relegada al montón de cenizas de la historia fue arrastrada el martes por la noche por una corriente republicana que barrió con los estados disputados y con la comprensión de Estados Unidos alimentada durante mucho tiempo por su élite dirigente de ambos partidos.La clase política ya no puede desechar a Trump como una interrupción temporal de la larga marcha del progreso, un caso fortuito que de algún modo se coló en la Casa Blanca con una estrafalaria y única victoria en el Colegio Electoral hace ocho años. Con este regreso ganador para recuperar la presidencia, Trump se ha establecido como una fuerza transformadora que está rehaciendo Estados Unidos a su imagen y semejanza.El desencanto populista con la dirección de la nación y el resentimiento contra las élites demostraron ser más profundos y más hondos de lo que muchos en ambos partidos habían reconocido. La campaña de Trump, impulsada por testosterona, aprovechó la resistencia a elegir a la primera mujer presidenta.Y aunque decenas de millones de electores siguieron votando contra Trump, este volvió a aprovechar la sensación de muchos otros de que estaban perdiendo el país que conocían, asediado económica, cultural y demográficamente.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Her absentee ballot never arrived. So she flew from Chicago to Pennsylvania to vote.

    Helen Wu, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Chicago, requested a mail-in ballot from her home in Montgomery County, Pa., on Sept. 10.It never arrived. For nearly two months, she went back and forth with election officials in Pennsylvania in increasing desperation, filing additional requests, until this Monday, when she spent hundreds of dollars on a last-minute plane ticket to Pennsylvania to cast her vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.She is not alone. The New York Times spoke with two other voters in Montgomery County, and a third in Philadelphia, who had similar experiences and had to rush back to Pennsylvania at the last minute to vote.Ms. Wu provided 12 emails documenting her efforts to obtain a mail-in ballot, as well as screenshots from Pennsylvania’s voter portal. They show that she requested her ballot on Sept. 10, that it was marked as sent, and then that it was marked as “CANC – UNDELIVERABLE.”She requested another one, but the request was rejected because she had already requested the first, “undeliverable” one. That happened multiple times. After several attempts to contact the Montgomery County voter services offices, she heard back from someone who told her she needed to file a form to cancel the first request. She did that on Oct. 28 — less than five hours after being told to — but did not receive confirmation that the cancellation form had been received until Oct. 30.On Monday, Nov. 4, now thoroughly panicked, she tried to contact the county voter services office again. This time, she received a response that her ballot would arrive within “24 to 48 hours” — too late for her to return it in time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Kamala Harris Wears a Dark Suit and Weary Smile in Concession Speech

    In her concession speech, Kamala Harris offered an image for a long fight.Kamala Harris speaking at Howard University was to be an image for history: a record of the first female president, not to mention the first Black female president and the first president of South Asian descent, giving her victory speech. Instead, what turned out to be her concession speech became the coda to an unprecedented election; the end of one story, rather than the beginning of another.That did not mean that Ms. Harris was any less a pioneer, or a role model, in the moment. Even if what she was modeling was how to make over the public face of defeat.Standing before the red bricks and the white columns that provide the backdrop for Howard commencements, Ms. Harris wore a businesslike pantsuit in a muddy burgundy that read, through the screen, as almost purple (interpret that as you will). The jacket was buttoned, an American flag pin bright against one lapel, and the pants were cut with a bit of a flare at the calf. With it, she wore her usual pumps, pearl earrings and a satin blouse in the same eggplant shade, complete with a cravat, or ascot-like tie. If there was a telling detail, that was it.The cravat is a cousin of the floppy bow Ms. Harris has often worn at major public occasions — the one that seemed to symbolize both tradition and subversion, men’s wear and a woman’s place, and to acknowledge that despite the fact that she had never put gender at the center of her candidacy, it was there all the same.Ms. Harris paired her suit with a cravat, an accessory that hearkened back to history.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesIn the context of her concession speech, the cravat hearkened back to history — her own and that of the women and the politicians who came before her — and in that context, it represented, as she said in that speech, the idea that some fights were long. That this one had been going on for decades (even centuries) and would continue afterward. It was, in that way, a symbol of both a promise and a lament.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Role Covid May Have Played in Trump’s 2024 Election Win

    Covid cost Trump the presidency in 2020, and it may have cleared the path for his return.The day after an election can bring an uncanny quiet.After months — even years — of frenzied campaign activity, nonstop ads and raucous campaign rallies, comes a day when the nation looks into the mirror and into its future.My colleagues on the Politics desk and across The Times worked through the night and on into the morning to bring you coverage of President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory, a return to power that has already plunged this country into a new era of uncertainty. In picking Trump, voters have elevated a once-banished political figure who has promised to govern as a strongman and upend the nation’s handling of the economy, public health and foreign affairs — and they probably helped to keep him out of prison.There is a lot to process, no matter which outcome you wanted.If there is one image that sticks in my mind as I sift through all of it — one image that is most important to understanding how and why Trump is returning to power — it’s not a picture of the president-elect. Rather, it’s this graphic, which shows how much better he did across much of the country last night, compared with his failed presidential bid in 2020.Early Results Show a Red Shift Across the U.S.Of the counties with nearly complete results, more than 90 percent shifted in favor of former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential election.This is a country going through a big change.It will be a long time before we can say exactly why a country that decisively rejected Trump four years ago welcomed him back last night — and the answer is going to be complicated. But it is possible, I think, that the same thing that cost Trump the presidency in 2020 played at lease some role in clearing a path for his return in 2024: the pandemic.In 2020, Covid-19 upended American life, killing 385,000 people in a year and sending the American economy into a recession. Trump’s chaotic and dismissive handling of a public health crisis that had made life almost unrecognizable is part of why voters rejected him that year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Trump’s America’: His Comeback Victory Signals a Different Kind of Country

    In her closing rally on the Ellipse last week, Kamala Harris scorned Donald J. Trump as an outlier who did not represent America. “That is not who we are,” she declared.In fact, it turns out, that may be exactly who we are. At least most of us.The assumption that Mr. Trump represented an anomaly who would at last be consigned to the ash heap of history was washed away on Tuesday night by a red current that swept through battleground states — and swept away the understanding of America long nurtured by its ruling elite of both parties.No longer can the political establishment write off Mr. Trump as a temporary break from the long march of progress, a fluke who somehow sneaked into the White House in a quirky, one-off Electoral College win eight years ago. With his comeback victory to reclaim the presidency, Mr. Trump has now established himself as a transformational force reshaping the United States in his own image.Populist disenchantment with the nation’s direction and resentment against elites proved to be deeper and more profound than many in both parties had recognized. Mr. Trump’s testosterone-driven campaign capitalized on resistance to electing the first woman president.And while tens of millions of voters still cast ballots against Mr. Trump, he once again tapped into a sense among many others that the country they knew was slipping away, under siege economically, culturally and demographically.To counter that, those voters ratified the return of a brash 78-year-old champion willing to upend convention and take radical action even if it offends sensibilities or violates old standards. Any misgivings about their chosen leader were shoved to the side.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump jugó con el miedo y la inseguridad económica. Los votantes pasaron por alto sus escándalos

    La victoria de Donald Trump lo convierte, a sus 78 años, en el hombre de más edad elegido presidente de EE. UU.Donald Trump, en la imagen acompañado de Melania Trump, celebra su triunfo en la noche electoral. Trump volverá a Washington con su partido firmemente en control del Senado tras cuatro años en la minoría. Doug Mills/The New York TimesDonald Trump derrotó a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris, subido a una ola de inquietud por la inflación y la inmigración ilegal para llevar a la Casa Blanca una política de hombre fuerte, y convirtiéndose en el primer expresidente en más de 120 años que gana un segundo mandato tras una derrota en la reelección.Los votantes eligieron a Trump como el líder más fuerte para tiempos inciertos y como alguien a quien veían como un campeón económico comprobado. Pasaron por alto su condena por 34 delitos graves, su papel inspirador de un asalto al Capitolio y sus imputaciones por cargos de intento de subvertir las elecciones de 2020 y de retención de documentos clasificados.La victoria de Trump en una de las campañas más tumultuosas que se recuerdan —incluidos dos intentos fallidos de asesinato— lo convierte, a sus 78 años, en el hombre de más edad elegido presidente de EE. UU.Dirigiéndose a sus partidarios en Palm Beach, Florida, a primera hora de la mañana, Trump declaró: “Este será recordado para siempre como el día en que el pueblo estadounidense recuperó el control de su país”.Volverá a Washington con su partido firmemente en control del Senado tras cuatro años en la minoría. Eso facilitará su presión para instalar a leales de probada eficacia en su gabinete y en otros puestos de alto nivel del gobierno.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More