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      It’s Not Your Father’s Democratic Party. But Whose Party Is It?

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      Has the left’s half-century struggle to return the Democratic Party to its working-class roots become an exercise in futility? This is perhaps the most vexing question facing the party of liberal America.It is not an easy one to answer. In recent years, the Democratic electorate has moved in two directions.First: The percentage of Democrats with a college degree has almost doubled, growing to 41 percent in 2019 from 22 percent in 1996.Second: While the percentage of Democrats who are non-Hispanic and white has fallen to 59 percent from 76 percent over the same period, according to Pew Research, nonwhite Democrats — Black, Hispanic, Asian American or members of other minority groups — have grown to 41 percent from 24 percent.In terms of the entire U.S. population (as of July 2022), those described by the census as “white alone, not Hispanic or Latino” made up 58.9 percent of the United States — down from 69.1 percent in 2000 — while the percentage of Black, Hispanic, Asian American and other minorities increased to 41.1 percent from 30.9 percent over the same period.Have American politics reached a tipping point?Eitan Hersh and Sarang Shah, political scientists at Tufts and Berkeley, contended in their Aug. 1 paper, “The Partisan Realignment of American Business,” that both the Democratic and the Republican Parties have undergone radical reorientations:The ongoing development of the Democratic Party as a party not of labor but of socioeconomic elites, and the ongoing development of the Republican Party as a party not of business but of working-class social conservatives, represents a major, perhaps the major, American political development of the 21st century.In an email, Hersh elaborated on their analysis: “This is one of the most important developments in recent American political history because we seem to be in the midst of a realignment, and that doesn’t happen every day or even every decade.”One reflection of this trend, according to Hersh, is the growing common ground that cultural liberals and corporate America are finding on social issues:A company taking a position on L.G.B.T.Q. rights may at first seem like it’s a company not staying in its lane and getting into political questions unrelated to its core business. But if the company needs to take a position in order to satisfy its work force or because potential new hires demand political activism, then the decision is no longer just social; it’s economic.Another example: For a while it looked like the Republican Party could appeal to social conservatives but maintain the economic policy supported by business elites. But now, you start to see real attempts by Republican thought leaders to be more assertive in meeting the economic needs of their constituencies.As a result of this realignment, Hersh argued, a crucial battleground in elections held in the near future will be an intensifying competition for the support of minority voters:Democrats can win with college-educated whites plus nonwhite voters. They can’t win with more defection from nonwhite voters. The Republicans are making the argument that their cultural and economic values are consistent with working-class Americans and that their positions transcend racial categories.If the Republican Party “could move beyond Trump and focus on this vision (which, of course, is impossible with Trump there making everything about Trump), they’d be presenting a set of arguments and policies that will be very compelling to a large number of Americans,” Hersh wrote.Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has long argued that Democrats need to regain support from white voters without college degrees and to stop defections among working-class Black and Hispanic voters, argued that the socioeconomic elite — well-educated, largely white liberals — are imposing damaging policies on the Democratic Party.In a recent essay, “Brahmin Left vs. Populist Right,” Teixeira wrote:The fact is that the cultural left in and around the Democratic Party has managed to associate the party with a series of views on crime, immigration, policing, free speech and, of course, race and gender that are quite far from those of the median working-class voter (including the median nonwhite working-class voter).Instead, Teixeira contended:Democrats continue to be weighed down by those whose tendency is to oppose firm action to control crime or the southern border as concessions to racism, interpret concerns about ideological school curriculums and lowering educational standards as manifestations of white supremacy and generally emphasize the identity politics angle of virtually every issue. With this baggage, rebranding the party — making it more working-class oriented and less Brahmin — is very difficult, since decisive action that might lead to such a rebranding is immediately undercut by a torrent of criticism.I asked Teixeira whether the changing Democratic Party has reached a point of no return on this front, and he emailed back:A good and big question. In the short run it looks very difficult for them to shed much of their cultural radicalism and generally make the party more attractive to normal working-class voters. Over the medium to long term, though, I certainly think it’s possible, if there’s an internal movement and external pressures/market signals consistent with the need for a broader coalition. That is, if enough of the party becomes convinced their coalition is too narrow and therefore some compromises and different approaches are necessary. That may take some time.Michael Podhorzer, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., agreed that “There is no way to define ‘socioeconomic elites’ in which it isn’t obvious that both parties are dominated by socioeconomic elites.” He added that “since the 1970s, both left and right parties now represent different factions within the socioeconomic elites.”In the process, Podhorzer argued, “Labor and working people have been demoted from a seat at the table to a constituency to be appealed to.”The idea that the Democratic Party is a pro-business party, Podhorzer wrote, “is hardly a bulletin. It’s been pro-business since Carter. Deregulation (including Glass-Steagall, holding companies, communications, etc.) as well as trade agreements (NAFTA, China W.T.O., proposed T.P.P., etc.) are all Democratic Party ‘accomplishments.’”Podhorzer, however, took sharp issue with Hersh, Shah and Teixeira. “I find Teixeira’s constant harping on Democratic elites, as well as Hersh’s and others’ use of the term to be playing with fire at this moment,” he told me.The focus on cultural elitism, in Podhorzer’s view, masksbillionaires’ collective influence over the political process or the ways in which their success is responsible for immiseration and what we call inequality. This enables fascist politicians to shift the blame to intellectual and cultural elites, like liberals or people with college degrees, redirecting the inevitable resentments of the losers in the winner-take-all economy.For that reason, Podhorzer continued,centrist commentators and Democratic strategists who have aggressively and continuously diagnosed the party’s capture by a woke elite unwittingly — and without justification — affirm the fascist worldview in which cultural, rather than economic or political, elites are the source of their disappointments.However these disputes are resolved, there is clear evidence of the demographic realignment of the Democratic Party.Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts, writing by email, demonstrated the evolution of the Democratic and Republican electorates by citing data from the Cooperative Election Study, which he oversees:We ask workers what industries they work in, and just between 2014 and 2020 we saw some notable shifts, depending on the category. In 2014, 42 percent of people working in construction identified as Republican, and 38 percent called themselves Democrats, a four-point advantage for Republicans. Just six years later, that group was 49 percent Republican and 29 percent Democratic, a 20-point gap. By contrast, Republicans had a nine-point edge among people who work in finance and insurance in 2014 (48 percent Republican, 39 percent Democratic), but by 2020, Democrats held a three-point edge (45 percent Democratic, 42 percent Republican).The Republican advantage among manufacturing workers has grown to 13 points from seven points over those six years, according to Schaffner, and the four-point Democratic advantage among transportation and warehouse workers has turned into an eight-point Republican edge. Workers in professional, scientific and technical industries were evenly split in 2014, but by 2020, Democrats had gained a 15-point advantage. In the education industry, Democrats increased their advantage from a 14-point gap in 2014 to a 22-point advantage in 2020.Schaffner wrote that “these are pretty sizable shifts in partisanship, which fit the narrative that white-collar workers are shifting more Democratic at the same time that blue-collar industries are becoming more Republican.”There are, however, strong arguments that despite the ascendance of well-educated, relatively comfortable Democrats, the party has retained its commitment to the less well off, as evidenced by the policies enacted by the Biden administration.Most of those who challenged the Hersh-Shah thesis did not dispute the ascendance of the well educated in Democratic ranks; instead they argued that the party has retained its ideological commitments to the bottom half of the income distribution and to organized labor.Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, expressed strong disagreement with the Hersh-Shah paper in an email responding to my inquiry.“There is no question that the class profile of Democratic voters has become U-shaped, with both poorer and higher-income voters siding most strongly with the party,” Hacker wrote, but he went on to say:Even as the Democratic Party has come to rely more heavily on affluent suburban voters, its platform, legislative agenda and national elected representatives’ communications via Twitter have all remained highly focused on economic issues. In fact, the national platform and Democratic agenda have become substantially bolder — that is, bigger in scope, broader in policy instruments (e.g., industrial policy), and generally more redistributive overall.Hacker specifically challenged Hersh and Shah’s claim that corporate America is shifting to the Democratic Party, citing evidence of the Republican tilt of contributions by Fortune 1,500 C.E.O.s, by the Forbes Wealthiest 100 and in the distribution pattern of dark money.Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. who is now a political consultant, agreed with Hacker on the pro-labor commitment of the Biden administration, despite the severe weakening of the labor movement in recent decades. Biden, he wrote by email, “has been the most pro-union, pro-worker president we have had in my lifetime.”Rosenthal acknowledged, however, that the union movement has suffered terrible setbacks in recent years, especially in Midwest battleground states:For decades, we’ve been saying both parties are too accommodating to corporate America. Perhaps the biggest change is not in how the parties operate or what they stand for but the decline in the labor movement. In the mid-90s, between 30 and 40 percent of the electorate in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio came from union households, and they were voting 60 percent-plus Democratic. I used to say even back then that the only white working-class voters who were voting Democratic were in unions.Since then, Rosenthal wrote, “their vote share has decreased precipitously, to a low of now something like 14 percent in Wisconsin to the mid-20 percent in the other states.”Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, contended that the Hersh-Shah paper creates a false dichotomy:The partisan business and labor interests are an either-or scenario. The Democratic Party can be the party of labor and the party of socioeconomic elites. The Republican Party can be the party of business and working-class social conservatives.Democrats can support labor interests, Wronski wrote by email,through initiatives to raise the minimum wage and bolster unions and can support the more progressive social issues of socioeconomic elites that relate to D.E.I. initiatives. Republicans can provide tax breaks and the like to businesses while still firmly espousing socially conservative positions on issues related to racial, religious and gender identity. Republicans can be the party of supporting red state businesses, while Democrats can be the party of supporting blue state businesses.Business, Wronski argued, is not so much realigning with the Democratic Party as it is polarizing into different camps based on “cleavages in how businesses interact with the political realm based upon social issues,” with “partisan polarization of businesses based on social issues and the group identities of the company’s stakeholders, employees and clients.”Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State, agreed by email thatthere is definitely a significant change in the party coalitions, though it has occurred slowly rather than in one critical election. The main demographic change is in education among white Americans: College-educated whites are moving toward Democrats, while non-college-educated whites are moving toward Republicans.This has not reversed the traditional class divide of the parties, Grossmann argued, “because high-income, low-education voters are the most Republican and low-income, high-education voters are the most Democratic,” while “nonwhite voters also remain much more Democratic.”Despite these shifts, Grossmann wrote that he does not “see evidence that the Democratic Party has abandoned redistributive politics or changed its positions on business regulation. Instead, they are increasingly emphasizing social issues and combining social concerns with their traditional economic concerns.”David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College, is writing a book with Grossmann. Hopkins argued in an email that “we are in the midst of a realignment, in the sense that the education gap between the two parties (separating degree-holding Democrats from degree-lacking Republicans) is now much larger than the income gap.”But, Hopkins stressed,party change on economic policy is the dog that hasn’t barked here. For all its conspicuously populist style, the Trump presidency’s biggest legislative achievement was a tax reform package that provided most of its benefits to wealthy and corporate taxpayers. And the Democrats show no signs of rethinking their traditional advocacy of an expanded welfare state funded by redistributing wealth downward from rich individuals and businesses — with Biden’s policy agenda ranging from greater education spending to a federal child tax credit to subsidized child care and prescription drug costs.Despite their new source of support among the well-educated affluent, Hopkins continued,Democrats still fundamentally see themselves as the defenders of the interests of the socially underprivileged. And despite their own contemporary popularity among the white working class, Republicans still define themselves as the champions of capitalism and entrepreneurship.Sean Westwood, a political scientist at Dartmouth, cast doubt on Hersh and Shah’s claims in an emailed response to my inquiry: “There are clearly changes in the role of socioeconomic elites in the Democratic Party and the role of the working class in the Republican Party, but the evidence doesn’t show that either party has abandoned its traditional base.”On average, Westwood continued,the Republican Party still maintains a wealthier base than Democrats, and Democrats still capture more support from labor than Republicans. Similarly, Republicans continue to vote for business interests, and Democrats continue to back pro-labor regulation. It is hard to say we are at a turning point in party composition and focus while these things are still true.It is possible, Westwood wrote, that the Hersh-Shah paper “could be prophetic, but a complete picture of American politics suggests it is too early to assess if we have truly seen a major development in American politics.”In the meantime, as the Democratic Party continues to win college-educated white voters by larger and larger numbers, the development of most concern to those determined to maintain the party’s commitment to the less well off is the incremental but steady decline in Democratic support from nonwhite voters.Over the past three presidential elections, according to a detailed Catalist analysis of recent elections, Democratic margins among Black voters without college degrees have steadily fallen: Barack Obama 97 to 3 percent, or a 94-point advantage in 2012; Hillary Clinton 93 to 6 percent, or an 87-point advantage in 2016; and Biden 90 to 8 percent, or an 82-point edge in 2020. The same pattern was true for Hispanic voters without degrees: Obama 70 to 27 percent, or 43 points; Clinton 68 to 27 percent, or 41 points; and Biden 60 to 38 percent, or 22 points.The current Democratic Party may actually be the best coalition that the left can piece together at a time when American politics is notable for contradictory, crosscutting economic, racial and cultural issues. But can the party, with its many factions, outcompete the contemporary Republican Party, a party that has its own enormous liabilities — most notably Donald Trump himself?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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      Republican Midterm Turnout Is a Warning for Democrats in 2024, Report Finds

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      Even though Democrats held the Senate and other key offices, Republican turnout was more robust, and the party showed strength among women, Latinos and rural voters, a new report found.Even though Democrats held off a widely expected red wave in the 2022 midterm elections, Republican turnout was in fact stronger, and the party energized key demographic groups including women, Latinos and rural voters, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.The report serves as a warning sign for Democrats ahead of the 2024 presidential election, with early polls pointing toward a possible rematch between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.Though Democrats maintained control of the Senate, all but one of their governor’s mansions and only narrowly lost the House, the Pew data shows that a larger percentage of voters who supported Mr. Trump in 2020 cast ballots in November than those who backed Mr. Biden did. People who had voted in past elections but sat out 2022 were overwhelmingly Democrats.And for all the Democratic emphasis on finding Republican voters who could be persuaded to buck their party in the Trump era, Pew found that a vast majority of voters stuck with the same party through the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections. Just 6 percent of voters cast ballots for more than one party over those three elections — and those voters were more likely to be Democrats flipping to Republican candidates than Republicans to Democratic candidates.“An eternal debate among political analysts after each election is what was a bigger factor in the outcome — persuading voters to switch their allegiance, or getting more of their core party loyalists to vote,” said Hannah Hartig, one of the authors of the Pew report.Voters who cast a ballot in 2018 but skipped the 2022 midterms had favored Democrats by two to one in the 2018 election.Democrats tried last year to energize these voters, seeking to inflate Mr. Trump’s profile and tie other Republicans to him. Mr. Biden coined the phrase “ultra-MAGA” to describe Republicans in an effort to engage Democratic voters.In the end, what most likely drove Democrats to the polls was less about Mr. Biden’s actions than a broader reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.Dan Sena, a former executive director of House Democrats’ campaign arm, said the Pew results suggested that the key to 2024 would be persuading independent and moderate Republican voters who dislike both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump to support Democrats. Abortion rights, he said, is the issue most likely to do so.“There is a group of persuadable Republicans that the Democrats were able to win over,” Mr. Sena said. “Those voters align very closely with those who see choice and personal freedom on health care in alignment.”Pew’s analysis is based on a panel of over 7,000 Americans whose attitudes and voting behavior the group has tracked through multiple election cycles. Pew also compared voters to state voting rolls to verify that they actually cast ballots in 2022. Taken together, this provides a portrait of the 2022 electorate.In most midterm years, the party that is not in the White House fares well. And while Republicans enjoyed a turnout advantage in 2022, they nevertheless fell short of expectations and did not match Democrats’ turnout advantage in 2018, the first midterm election after Mr. Trump took office.Still, midterm voters historically skew older and whiter than voters in presidential years, a phenomenon that tends to benefit Republicans. The 2018 midterms were, in many ways, the exception to that rule, with increased turnout across age groups, but especially among young people. The 2022 electorate was more in line with historical trends.Much of the narrative around the 2022 election has centered on Democratic energy after the Supreme Court’s abortion decision. And while that played out in key governor’s races in states where abortion was on the ballot, nationally, Democrats appear to have lost ground with a crucial group: women.In the 2018 election cycle, when increased activism — including the Women’s March — fueled record turnout among women, Democrats had an advantage of 18 percentage points. That edge shrunk to just three points in 2022, Pew found.However, the study found that few women actually switched the party they were supporting. Instead, most of the drop for Democrats stemmed from the fact that Republican women voted at a higher rate than Democratic women.Hispanic voters continued to support Democrats overall, but by a much smaller margin than four years earlier. In 2018, Democrats won 72 percent of Hispanic voters, but in 2022 they won only 60 percent. The decline began in 2020, when Democrats also won about 60 percent of Hispanic voters.And Republicans also continued to increase their support from rural voters. The party made gains with them not only through increased turnout, but also among rural voters who had voted for Democrats in the past but cast ballots for Republicans in 2022.“The Trump base continues to be motivated,” said Corry Bliss, a Republican strategist who ran the party’s House super PAC in 2018.Yet, Mr. Bliss added, “In a handful of races that really matter, we had bad candidates, and in all the races that matter, we were dramatically outspent.” More

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      Trump visita la Pequeña Habana y recuerda la corrupción en América Latina

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      Los republicanos han comparado cada vez más los casos judiciales del expresidente con la corrupción y la opresión política en la región.Después de su comparecencia del martes, el expresidente Donald Trump visitó la Pequeña Habana, en Miami, en su más reciente intento de presentarse como un hombre perseguido por sus adversarios políticos.Fue un intento nada sutil de buscar la solidaridad de los latinos de Florida y de otros lugares.La visita de Trump al restaurante Versailles, un punto de referencia emblemático de la diáspora cubana, coincidió con la comparación, cada vez más frecuente, que hacen los republicanos de su caso con la corrupción y la opresión política en los países latinoamericanos.Afuera del juzgado federal de Miami donde se hizo la comparecencia, Alina Habba, abogada y vocera de Trump insinuó que él no era diferente de los disidentes políticos de Latinoamérica.“La persecución y enjuiciamiento de un opositor político importante es el tipo de cosas que se ven en dictaduras como Cuba y Venezuela. En esos sitios, es un lugar común que los candidatos rivales sean juzgados, perseguidos y encarcelados”, señaló.El día previo a su comparecencia, Trump afirmó que los latinos del sur de Florida se solidarizaban con él porque están familiarizados con los gobiernos que persiguen a sus adversarios.“En verdad pueden verlo mejor de lo que lo ven las demás personas”, dijo en una entrevista con Americano Media, un medio conservador en idioma español del sur de Florida.Trump ha contado con un apoyo relativamente fuerte entre las comunidades latinas, sobre todo en el sur de Florida. Eduardo A. Gamarra, profesor de Política y Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad Internacional de Florida que también forma parte del Instituto de Estudios Cubanos, comentó que la narrativa urdida por Trump y sus partidarios, aunque falsa, era astuta.“Se ve reforzada por los medios locales, por mucho de lo que la campaña de Trump y otros republicanos están diciendo: que este gobierno, el de Biden, se está comportando como se comportan las repúblicas bananeras, así que eso ha resonado con mucha intensidad aquí. A nivel político, es buena, pero no es veraz”, afirmó el académico.Gamarra, quien nació en Bolivia, destacó que Trump también había intentado obtener el apoyo de los electores latinos al arremeter contra el socialismo y el comunismo. Lamentó la manera en que Trump y sus aliados habían mencionado a Latinoamérica en muchas ocasiones.“Es una narrativa muy poco afortunada. Creo que solo difunde los estereotipos existentes sobre Latinoamérica. Es mucho más complejo que solo la imagen de la república bananera”, dijo.La breve aparición de Trump en el restaurante fue la más reciente de él y de una larga lista de políticos que incluye a los expresidentes Bill Clinton y George W. Bush. En 2016, el restaurante recibió a Trump y a Rudy Giuliani juntos después del primer debate del exmandatario contra Hillary Clinton.Paloma Marcos, quien ha sido ciudadana estadounidense desde hace 15 años y es oriunda de Nicaragua, llegó al Versalles con una gorra de Trump y un letrero que decía “Estoy con Trump”.Comentó que muchos nicaragüenses como ella tenían afinidad por el expresidente, porque está contra el comunismo. También agregó que la gente como ella, así como los cubanos y venezolanos, habían visto que esa forma de gobierno destrozaba a sus países de origen.“Sabe él que siempre lo hemos apoyado acá. Los latinos estamos bien concientizados”, dijo Marcos. “Hemos podido quitarnos el velo, digamos, un despertar”.La reverenda Yoelis Sánchez, pastora en una iglesia local y oriunda de la República Dominicana, dijo que cuando le pidieron que fuera al restaurante Versalles a orar con Trump no dudó en acudir. Varias personas religiosas, entre evangélicas y católicas, oraban con él mientras su hija cantaba.Comentó que había orado “para que Dios le dé fortaleza y le ayude”, comentó. “Y que toda la verdad salga a la luz”. Y añadió que estaban “preocupados por el bienestar de él”.Sánchez, que vive en Doral, una ciudad que forma parte del condado de Miami-Dade y donde Trump tiene un club de golf, no era ciudadana en 2020. No quiso decir si planea votar por él en 2024.“No creo que haya venido porque le interese el voto latino solamente”, dijo. “Sino el voto de todas las personas que estamos de acuerdo en mantener los valores bíblicos”. Y añadió que como él, “los latinos de por sí nos identificamos con lo que es la familia, la vida”.Trump enfrenta acusaciones penales relacionadas con el mal manejo de documentos clasificados y la posterior obstrucción de los intentos de recuperarlos por parte del gobierno. En Estados Unidos no tiene precedentes el enjuiciamiento federal a un expresidente, pero muchos presidentes latinoamericanos han sido juzgados tras dejar el poder.El actual presidente de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pasó más de un año en la cárcel después de salir de la presidencia la primera vez. El año pasado, la expresidenta de Argentina, Cristina Fernández, fue sentenciada a seis años por corrupción. En Perú, Alejandro Toledo fue extraditado hace poco para enfrentar una acusación de soborno. El exmandatario, Alberto Fujimori, está cumpliendo una condena de 25 años en prisión.Arnoldo Alemán, de Nicaragua, es uno de los pocos expresidentes que fue arrestado en un caso de corrupción a pesar de que su propio partido estaba en el poder.“Es algo que se ve mucho en Latinoamérica, sobre todo en Perú y ahora en El Salvador”, comentó Mario García, un cliente habitual del Versailles a quien le hizo gracia ver a Trump en el restaurante. “Pero en nuestros países, en Latinoamérica, hay justificación porque lo roban todo” los presidentes, explicó García y afirmó que creía que el gobierno estaba persiguiendo a Trump porque no tiene “otra manera de detenerlo”.García señaló que no pensaba que Trump fuera al Versailles en busca de los votos de los latinos. “Los votos de aquí ya los tiene. Es muy bonito rodearse de cariño cuando a uno todo el mundo lo está atacando”.Maggie Haberman More

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      A ‘Rubicon Moment’ for Donald Trump

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      More from our inbox:Affirmative Action: Help or Hindrance?A ‘New’ Beatles SongDonald Trump boarding a plane in Miami after making his court appearance. “I did everything right and they indicted me,” he said in a speech after his arraignment.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Thrives in a Broken System. He’ll Get Us There Soon,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, June 14):Mr. Friedman is exactly right. We are approaching a most dangerous moment. Donald Trump will finally be tried in a federal court of law after being indicted. His lifetime of avoiding comeuppance for outrageous behavior is over.We have to believe that nobody — nobody meaning even an ex-president and possible future president — is above the law.Even though we will trust in the courts to carry out the legal process, a very serious monkey wrench has been thrown into the mix. Almost beyond belief, Judge Aileen M. Cannon has been randomly selected to preside over the court proceedings.Based on her strange and “creative” rulings in his favor several months ago related to the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump has finally found a judge he dare not slander and demean, as he has consistently done in cases in which he has lost.We must hope that Judge Cannon will rise to a level that does not favor anyone in this case, and that perhaps she has learned from being overturned and severely chastised by a higher court.Mr. Trump has arrived at his Rubicon moment, and perhaps it could be his Waterloo as well.Harvey GlassmanBoynton Beach, Fla.To the Editor:I am in strong agreement with Thomas L. Friedman’s conclusion that Donald Trump’s thirst for absolute power represents “a dangerous moment” for our country. And yes, many Republican lawmakers who could have stopped him failed to do so.But Mr. Friedman didn’t mention the fact that 30 to 40 percent of our nation’s citizens have been completely brainwashed by Mr. Trump’s and his ardent supporters’ lies and propaganda. And it is this sizable part of America that continues to provide the oxygen for Mr. Trump’s burn-it-all-down approach to obtaining power.As long as these Americans continue to blindly support Mr. Trump, he will continue his selfish path to destruction of America’s democracy. Thus, the question is: How do the rest of us try to convince Trumpers of the peril that their support of Mr. Trump poses for our nation? And I am afraid that this is the crux of the Trump problem.Michael HadjiargyrouCenterport, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Momentous Scene in Miami as Trump Pleads Not Guilty” (front page, June 14):Former President Donald Trump received a bizarrely warm welcome at a Cuban sandwich shop he popped into after pleading not guilty in response to the 37-count indictment. Embraces all around. “Food for everyone!”What struck me about Mr. Trump amid this sea of worshiping fans, as well as in his earlier court appearance in New York City on hush money charges: Not one family member accompanied him. No wife putting on a brave front, clutching her husband’s hand, however mortifying the circumstances, as they entered the courtroom. No daughter and son-in-law, always center stage in White House photos and his close aides for four years, standing by his side.Unlike so many Republican politicians who continue to offer support to a man whose criminal charges grow by the day, his family seems to have had little difficulty in abandoning him.Cathy BernardNew YorkTo the Editor:Charging the former president with espionage is absurd. Lower the political temperature a little, please. Our country is sick enough. Just consider Mar-a-Lago Mr. Trump’s presidential library.Antonia TamplinBronxTo the Editor:Re “Lock Him Up,” by Bret Stephens (column, June 14):OMG! I never agree with Mr. Stephens, though I enjoy his columns. Today I agree with him completely and unequivocally.I too have read the indictment (I am a lawyer and a former federal prosecutor). It is quite damning. Donald Trump admits that he has secret documents and that he has taken many steps not to return those documents.Do we have the rule of law in the United States? If so, Mr. Trump must be held accountable, and if found guilty, go to prison. That’s how it works.Yes, lock him up.Marc ChafetzWashingtonTo the Editor:Re “The G.O.P. Field Faces a Choice: Law and Order or Loyalty” (Political Memo, June 12):It is not just Republican candidates who must choose. The nature of the charges in Donald Trump’s indictment and the detailed facts set out there, coupled with the former president’s attacks on the special prosecutor and the Department of Justice, confront all of us with a choice.The nation is now divided into two camps: those who believe in the rule of law, and those who oppose it. There is no third alternative.Jonathan J. MargolisBrookline, Mass.Affirmative Action: Help or Hindrance?A protest against school desegregation in 1960. Bettmann Archive/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:“To Understand Affirmative Action Debates, Look to the Past,” by Randall Kennedy (Opinion guest essay, June 11), is unfair to many of us who oppose the current state of affirmative action because we believe that it harms the very people it intends to help.The Center for Equal Opportunity has studied the effects of preferential treatment in admission of Black and Hispanic students at some 80 colleges, law schools and medical schools. These students were, in too many cases, set up to fail.Black and Hispanic students admitted with substantially lower test scores than their white and Asian peers graduated at lower rates and, in medical schools, failed to pass qualifying exams that would allow them to continue their medical studies.For example, research by Richard Sander, a U.C.L.A. law professor, has shown that there would likely be more Black lawyers if race-neutral admissions applied at all law schools.In his most recent analysis, Mr. Sander has shown that Black students who attended law schools where their incoming LSAT scores matched those of their white peers were far more likely to pass the bar when they graduated — even if the schools they attended were less selective.Artificially inflating college admissions rates for Black and brown students who are ill prepared to compete on an equal footing with their white and Asian peers may make college administrators feel good, but it doesn’t solve the problems wrought by years of educational neglect and malpractice.Linda ChavezWashingtonThe writer is the chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity.A ‘New’ Beatles SongPaul McCartney in 2022.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “McCartney Says ‘Last’ Beatles Song Uses A.I.” (Business, June 14):You report that Paul McCartney “did not give the title of the song or offer any clues about its lyrics.”Possible titles:“I Wanna Hold Your Bandwidth.”“Don’t Let Me Download.”“Get Backup.”“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Delete Key.”“A Hard Drive’s Night.”“I Am the Paywall.”David JelinekNew York More

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      Trump Visits Versailles in Miami After Arraignment to Greet Supporters

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      Former President Donald J. Trump visited Little Havana in Miami on Tuesday immediately after his arraignment, his latest attempt to cast himself as a man persecuted by his political enemies.It was a not-subtle attempt to seek the sympathies of Latinos, in Florida and beyond.Mr. Trump’s visit to Versailles Restaurant, a landmark that is emblematic of the Cuban diaspora, came as Republicans have increasingly likened his indictment to corruption and political oppression in Latin American countries.Outside the federal courthouse where the arraignment took place in Miami, Alina Habba, a lawyer and spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, suggested that he was no different than political dissidents from Latin America.“The targeting, prosecution, of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela,” she said. “It is commonplace there for rival candidates to be prosecuted, persecuted and put into jail.”The day before his arraignment, Mr. Trump said he believed Hispanics in South Florida were sympathetic to him because they are familiar with governments targeting rivals.“They really see it better than other people do,” he said in an interview with Americano Media, a conservative Spanish-language outlet in South Florida.Mr. Trump has enjoyed relatively strong support in some Latino communities, particularly those in South Florida. Eduardo A. Gamarra, a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University who is also part of its Cuban Research Institute, said the narrative woven by Mr. Trump and his surrogates, while false, was a shrewd one.“It’s reinforced by local media, by much of what of the Trump campaign and other Republicans are saying: that this administration, the Biden administration, is behaving like the banana republics behave, so that’s resonated very intensely here,” he said. “It’s great politics, but it’s not true.”Mr. Gamarra, who was born in Bolivia, noted that Mr. Trump had also tried to win support from Latino voters by railing against socialism and communism. He lamented the way that Mr. Trump and his allies had repeatedly mentioned Latin America.“It’s a very unfortunate narrative,” he said. “I think it just sort of propagates the stereotypes about Latin America. It’s much more complex than simply the banana republic image.”Mr. Trump’s cameo at the restaurant was the latest for him and a long line of politicians that includes former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In 2016, the restaurant hosted Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani together after Mr. Trump’s first debate against Hillary Clinton.Paloma Marcos, a native of Nicaragua who has been a U.S. citizen for 15 years, rushed to Versailles with a Trump hat and a sign that said, “I stand with Trump.”She said many Nicaraguans like her had an affinity for the former president, because he is against communism. She added that people like her, as well as Cuban and Venezuelans, saw how that form of government destroyed their home countries.“He knows we support him. The Latino community has had an awakening,” Ms. Marcos said. “The curtain has been pulled back.”The Rev. Yoelis Sánchez, a pastor at a local church and a native of the Dominican Republic, said she did not hesitate when asked to go to Versailles Restaurant to pray with Mr. Trump. Several religious people, including evangelicals and Catholics, prayed with him while her daughter sang.“We prayed for God to give him strength and for the truth to come out,” she said. “We are really concerned for his welfare.”Ms. Sánchez, who lives in Doral, Fla., which is part of Miami-Dade County and is where Mr. Trump owns a golf resort, was not yet a citizen in 2020. She would not say whether she plans to vote for him in 2024.“I don’t think he came here just because of the Latino vote,” she said. “He came because he wanted to meet with people who have biblical thinking — he’s pro-life and pro-family and Latinos identify with that.”Mr. Trump is facing criminal charges related to mishandling classified documents and then obstructing the government’s attempts to retrieve them. The federal indictment of a former president is unprecedented in the United States, but many Latin American presidents have been prosecuted after leaving office.Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, served more than a year in prison after he left office the first time. Argentina’s former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced to six years for corruption last year. In Peru, Alejandro Toledo was recently extradited to face a bribery charge. Its former leader, Alberto Fujimori, is serving 25 years in prison.Arnoldo Alemán of Nicaragua is one of the few former presidents who was arrested in a corruption case despite his own party being in power.“This is something you see a lot in Latin America, especially in Peru and now in El Salvador,” said Mario García, a regular at Versailles who was tickled to see Mr. Trump visit the restaurant. “But in those countries, they do it for a good reason: because the presidents get caught robbing money.” Mr. García said he believed the government was targeting Mr. Trump “because they don’t have any other way to get him.”Mr. García said he didn’t think Mr. Trump came to Versailles to court the Latino vote. “The votes here at Versailles are ones he already has,” he said. “He needs support. It’s nice to surround yourself with love when everyone is attacking you.”Maggie Haberman More

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      Gloria Molina, Pioneering Latina Politician, Dies at 74

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      In three elections, she was a “first,” becoming one of the leading Latina politicians in California and the country.Gloria Molina, a groundbreaking Chicana politician at the city, county and state levels in California who was a fierce advocate for the communities she represented, even though that often meant defying entrenched political structures, died on May 14 at her home in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. She was 74.Her family announced her death, from cancer, on her Facebook page.Since she announced she had terminal cancer in March, colleagues, constituents and the California news media had been praising her achievements in articles and on social media. The Los Angeles Metro’s board of directors voted to name a train station in East Los Angeles after her. Casa 0101, a performing arts organization in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, designated its main stage theater as the Gloria Molina Auditorium. Grand Park, in downtown Los Angeles, which she helped bring into being in 2012, is now Gloria Molina Grand Park.“She championed for years to increase access to parks and green spaces,” the park’s overseeing body said in announcing the renaming, “as well as recreational opportunities that engage culture, support well-being and improve the quality of life for everyone in Los Angeles.”The accolades reflected her legacy as one of the leading Latina politicians in the country, with much of her more than three-decade career encompassing a time when few Latinas were in important positions.In 1982, after working on other politicians’ campaigns, including that of Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, who would later be elected to Congress, Ms. Molina became the first Latina elected to the California Assembly. She ran for that seat even though the political leadership of the Eastside area of Los Angeles County had already selected another candidate, Richard Polanco. She beat him in the Democratic primary and easily defeated a Republican opponent in the general election.A similar thing happened in 1987 when she ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council that had been created by redistricting. The political leadership had chosen Larry Gonzalez for the post, but she beat him and a third candidate to become the first Latina council member.Ms. Molina in 1984 campaigning with Walter Mondale, center, who was running for president, and Art Torres, a California state senator.Wally Fong/Associated PressIn 1991, she scored a political hat trick of sorts, becoming the first woman to be elected to the powerful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. (In 1979, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke became the first woman on the board when she was appointed to fill out the term of a retiring member.) Some 1,000 supporters attended her swearing in.“We must look forward to a time when a person’s ethnic background or gender is no longer a historical footnote,” Ms. Molina said at the time. “And this election is another step in that positive path to the American promise.”Ms. Molina, who served on the board until term limits ended her tenure in 2014, was right that her victory was no token; today, all five supervisors are women.Roz Wyman, a groundbreaker herself — in 1953, at 22, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council — once reflected on Ms. Molina’s “firsts.”“We had a saying in those days: ‘Can a woman break the glass ceiling?’” she said. “Not only did she break it, she busted it in every way that you could possibly bust a glass ceiling.”Gloria Molina was born on May 31, 1948, in Montebello, a Los Angeles suburb. Her father, Leonardo, was a construction worker who was born in Los Angeles but raised in Casas Grandes, Mexico, and her mother, Concepción, was a homemaker from Mexico. The couple immigrated in the 1940s, and Gloria was the oldest of 10 children.“She was almost like a second mom in the family,” Ms. Molina’s daughter, Valentina Martinez, said in a video about her mother made in 2020 for the Mexican-American Cultural Education Foundation. “She did everything. She would tell me that she would come home from school every day and make tortillas for her brothers and sisters. She didn’t get to have fun or go to after-school programs. She was always kind of doing the hard work, making sure everyone was taken care of, changing diapers, cooking, doing all of that. So she was a tough lady from the very beginning.”She was, Ms. Molina said, “brought up in a very traditionally Chicano family.”“The expectations were that you were going to get married and have children,” she said in an oral history recorded in 1990 for the Online Archive of California. “You weren’t going to go on to be anything other than maybe what your mom was.”But she told her mother that she didn’t want to get married young; she wanted to travel and work and get her own place.“She thought I was sort of nuts,” Ms. Molina said.She studied fashion design at Rio Hondo College, in Whittier, Calif., and took courses at East Los Angeles College and California State University, Los Angeles, though she did not get a degree because for most of that period she was also working full time to support herself, including as a legal secretary for five years. She joined in the student activism of the 1960s and early ’70s, demonstrating against the Vietnam War and for Chicano rights.One thing she realized, she said in the Cultural Education Foundation video, was that those activism movements were generally led by men and “really didn’t allow the women to have any role whatsoever.” She banded with other Chicana women try to change that culture.“We were Chicana feminists when there weren’t any around,” she said.She was drawn into politics, working for several prominent figures and, in 1982, deciding to seek the assembly seat over the objections of the male political hierarchy. She and her Chicana supporters knew it would be a difficult battle.“We wanted to destroy everything that they had said I could not do,” she recalled in the oral history. “Like I said, we always accepted the fact that we needed to work twice as hard; we really physically went out and did that.”In her career in the State Assembly, she told The Los Angeles Times in 1987, she prided herself on “being a fighter, one who doesn’t just go along with the program because that’s how the pressure is being applied.” That was certainly true for her signature issue during her assembly years — her opposition to a proposal to build a prison in her Eastside district, a plan whose proponents included Gov. George Deukmejian.She won that battle, a significant one.“She stopped the 100-year pattern of dumping negative land-use developments on the Eastside,” Fernando Guerra, the director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said in a phone interview.In the process, she earned a reputation for being tough and uncompromising that stuck with her throughout her political career.“Just listen to her talk,” Sergio Munoz, then the executive editor of the Spanish language daily La Opinion, told The New York Times in 1991, shortly after Ms. Molina won election to the Board of Supervisors. “Listen to her answer questions. You are going to get a direct answer, whether it affects other interests or compromises someone else.”Ms. Molina’s last elected position was on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, where she served for more than two decades.Reed Saxon/Associated PressAfter leaving the Board of Supervisors, Ms. Molina made one more bid for political office, challenging José Huizar, an incumbent, for his Los Angeles City Council seat in 2015. She lost. Mr. Huizar later pleaded guilty to corruption charges.Though no longer in office, Ms. Molina remained active in various causes. In 2018, she was among a group protesting outside an Academy Awards luncheon in Beverly Hills, denouncing the scarcity of Hispanic characters in films.“The movie industry should be ashamed of itself,” she said then.In addition to her daughter, Ms. Molina is survived by her husband, Ron Martinez; her siblings, Gracie Molina, Irma Molina, Domingo Molina, Bertha Molina Mejia, Mario Molina, Sergio Molina, Danny Molina, Olga Molina Palacios and Lisa Molina Banuelos; and a grandson.Professor Guerra noted that Ms. Molina, in her various elections, faced the task of convincing voters to choose her over another Latino candidate.“What she had to show was, of the other Latinos that were running, she was the one who was going to represent them better,” he said. “Her secret sauce was that she came across as incredibly authentic, and she was a populist.”“Her only interest, and it came across,” he added, “was the community.” More

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      ¿Trump o DeSantis? Los evangélicos hispanos entre dos opciones

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      Aunque Donald Trump es el único republicano que ha anunciado su candidatura a la presidencia, el gobernador de Florida también es un contendiente posible. Un enfrentamiento entre los dos podría hacer que los evangélicos latinos emitan un voto determinante.MIAMI — El gobernador de Florida, Ron DeSantis, todavía no ha anunciado que contenderá a la presidencia. Pero entre los bloques de electores de derecha que lo apoyan para que participe en las elecciones primarias de 2024 se encuentran algunos de sus más grandes seguidores: los cristianos evangélicos hispanos.No es que se opongan al expresidente Donald Trump, el único republicano que ya se ha declarado candidato. Pero un enfrentamiento entre los dos titanes de la derecha podría hacer que los evangélicos latinos emitan un voto pendular determinante en Florida, lo cual potenciaría su influencia y centraría una enorme atención nacional en sus iglesias, su política y sus valores.“Si hay elecciones primarias, no hay duda de que habrá fragmentación en el movimiento conservador y de que eso será cierto también para los evangélicos hispanos”, dijo el reverendo Samuel Rodriguez, pastor en Sacramento, California, y presidente de la Conferencia Nacional de Liderazgo Cristiano Hispano. “Conocemos los valores que mantenemos y las políticas que queremos. La pregunta que surge es: ¿quién los reflejará de verdad?”.El grupo de Rodriguez celebró una reunión el mes pasado en Tampa, Florida, con cientos de pastores de todo Estados Unidos, donde los asistentes dijeron que entre cada sesión se hablaba más de política que de las Escrituras.La conversación se resumía a una elección: ¿Trump o DeSantis?Son pocos quienes ya tienen una respuesta, lo que no es sorprendente, dado que falta más de un año para las primeras votaciones de la campaña de 2024. Pero hablar de 2024 (de Trump, quien pasó años cortejando a los evangélicos, y de DeSantis, quien se ha inclinado por las batallas culturales que atraen a muchos cristianos conservadores) mostró tanto las mayores expectativas entre los líderes evangélicos hispanos en Florida como su deseo de demostrar la fuerza de su cristianismo, ahora abiertamente politizado.“Tiene que ver con la moral y hay un partido en este momento que refleja nuestra moral”, dijo Dionny Báez, un pastor de Miami que encabeza una red de iglesias. “No podemos tener miedo de recordarle a la gente que tenemos valores por los que los republicanos están dispuestos a luchar. Tengo la responsabilidad de dejar claro en qué creemos. No podemos seguir haciendo de eso un tabú”.Desde hace mucho tiempo, los evangélicos hispanos han tenido una influencia enorme en Florida, donde los latinos conforman casi un 27 por ciento de la población y el 21 por ciento de los ciudadanos que pueden votar. Aunque los superan los hispanos que son católicos romanos, los evangélicos son mucho más proclives a votar por republicanos. En general, los votantes hispanos en el estado favorecieron a los republicanos por primera vez en décadas en las elecciones de medio mandato de noviembre.DeSantis se fue acercando a los evangélicos hispanos a medida que aumentaba su perfil a nivel nacional.Cuando el año pasado promulgó una ley que prohíbe los abortos después de las 15 semanas de gestación, lo hizo en Nación de Fe, una enorme iglesia evangélica hispana en el condado de Osceola. Declaró el 7 de noviembre, un día antes de las elecciones de medio mandato, como el “Día de las Víctimas del Comunismo”, lo cual hacía referencia no solo a los cubanos en el estado, sino a los inmigrantes venezolanos y nicaragüenses, que han contribuido a llenar los bancos de las iglesias evangélicas de Florida. Sus asesores de campaña hablaron en varias ocasiones con pastores hispanos, para cultivar un apoyo que muchos esperan que DeSantis intente capitalizar en una campaña presidencial.Claro que Trump también puede recurrir a sus leales: Rodriguez habló en su toma de posesión en 2017 y otros líderes evangélicos hispanos lo respaldaron.Simpatizantes latinos de Trump en un mitin en Miami en noviembre. Desde el ascenso político del expresidente en 2016, los republicanos han ganado terreno entre los votantes latinos en Florida.Scott McIntyre para The New York TimesPero DeSantis podría complicar la ecuación en las futuras elecciones primarias republicanas en 2024 debido a la concentración y considerable influencia de los evangélicos hispanos en Florida. Muchos ven a DeSantis como un héroe de la pandemia, ya que lo elogian porque no exigió el cierre de las iglesias ni hizo obligatoria la vacunación.Una batalla por las lealtades evangélicas hispanas solo consolidaría aún más su importancia en Florida y más allá, a medida que se organicen y traten de ejercer el poder con mayor eficacia.En Miami y otros lugares, las iglesias evangélicas hispanas abarcan desde pequeños establecimientos comerciales hasta megaiglesias con bandas de seis músicos y cafeterías con todos los servicios. Ciudadanos estadounidenses de segunda y tercera generación rezan junto a inmigrantes recién llegados de Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Cuba y la República Dominicana. Las misas suelen celebrarse en español, aunque muchos fieles son bilingües y desean que sus hijos hablen inglés y español.Muchos no votaron sino hasta la última década y su primer voto fue por Trump en 2016 o 2020. Su estilo político ha servido de modelo para algunos pastores evangélicos latinos que han avivado la ira por las restricciones del coronavirus. Según los pastores, la asistencia a las iglesias aumentó durante la pandemia.En Segadores de Vida, una iglesia evangélica en Southwest Ranches, al oeste de Fort Lauderdale, donde más de 6000 fieles asisten a los servicios dominicales, el reverendo Ruddy Gracia ha subido al púlpito para criticar las restricciones de la pandemia que cerraron iglesias en otros estados y para menospreciar las vacunas contra la COVID-19, exhortando a los congregantes a confiar en la inmunidad divina.En una entrevista, Gracia dijo que sus prédicas sobre política habían atraído a más miembros, muchos de los cuales, añadió, compartían sus dudas sobre el rumbo económico, político y espiritual de Estados Unidos.“Los principios de los liberales en Estados Unidos son malos según las normas bíblicas, no según mis normas —la Biblia—, y eso antes no era así”, dijo Gracia. “Somos ultraconservadores. Así que cada vez que subimos al púlpito o hablamos, en realidad estamos hablando de política”.Gracia, quien emigró de la República Dominicana cuando era joven y ahora tiene 57 años, se describe a sí mismo como “anticuado” en sus ideas sobre el liderazgo, y pasa tiempo leyendo sobre emperadores y generales famosos. Eso influyó en sus opiniones sobre DeSantis y Trump, dijo.“Siempre he sido un gran admirador de las agallas y de ser agresivo, y ambos tienen ese comportamiento de verdadero líder”, dijo, reflexionando en voz alta sobre si los dos rivales republicanos podrían presentarse en una candidatura conjunta. “Veo en estos dos hombres un empuje y una tensión que son extremadamente necesarios en el tipo de mundo en el que vivimos hoy”.Daniel Garza, director ejecutivo de Libre, un grupo conservador centrado en los hispanos, dijo que había asistido a iglesias evangélicas de todo el país y se había dado cuenta de que los pastores hablaban de manera más abierta de política desde el púlpito. “Siempre hemos tenido una familiaridad, pero lo que vemos ahora es una especie de intimidad que no se había visto en el pasado”, dijo.Los evangélicos siguen siendo una minoría entre el electorado latino, pero las encuestas muestran que son mucho más propensos a votar por republicanos que los católicos o aquellos que no tienen una afiliación religiosa, aunque no son un bloque monolítico de votantes.A menudo están más abiertos a relajar algunas normas migratorias que los líderes republicanos e incluso algunos de los que apoyaron a Trump se desanimaron por sus mensajes antiinmigrantes.Báez celebró un bullicioso servicio en la iglesia H2O de Miami. “Tiene que ver con la moral y hay un partido en este momento que refleja nuestra moral”, dijo en una entrevista.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesCuando Trump comenzó su acercamiento a los evangélicos en su campaña de reelección de 2020, lo hizo en el Ministerio Internacional el Rey Jesús, una enorme congregación hispana de Miami. El pastor de la iglesia, Guillermo Maldonado, aseguró a sus miembros, entre los que hay un gran número de inmigrantes indocumentados de Centroamérica y el Caribe, que no tenían que ser ciudadanos estadounidenses para asistir al mitin.Algunos líderes evangélicos hispanos sienten escalofríos ante la idea de que el grupo represente un bloque de voto unificado que favorezca automáticamente a los republicanos. Los evangélicos hispanos son más proclives a elegir a los demócratas que los evangélicos blancos, señalan. Aun así, incluso esos líderes se muestran entusiastas a la hora de describir al grupo como un voto indeciso por excelencia que no está totalmente comprometido con ninguno de los dos partidos.“Ser evangélico no es una denominación política”, dijo Gabriel Salguero, pastor en Orlando que dirige la Coalición Nacional Evangélica Latina y mantiene sus preferencias políticas en privado por una cuestión de principios. “Se trata de nuestra fe en Cristo y nuestro compromiso con el Evangelio. Así que no ponemos nuestra confianza en la política, pero deberíamos participar”.En todo el país, muchos líderes evangélicos hispanos han adoptado hablar más explícitamente de política en sus sermones.Báez, pastor de la red de iglesias, evitó durante años cualquier mención a la política cuando su púlpito estaba en Filadelfia. Consideraba que su papel en aquel momento estaba por encima de la política. Incluso, rara vez votaba.Pero desde que se mudó a Florida en 2019 y comenzó una nueva congregación que se reúne en un antiguo club nocturno en el centro de Miami, casi nunca duda en hablar sobre temas políticos.Báez bautizando a una integrante de la iglesia durante un servicio en H20 Miami. Después de evitar la política durante muchos años, dijo, ahora rara vez duda en hablar del tema.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesBáez ha contado a los feligreses su decisión de dejar de permitir que sus hijos pequeños vean películas de Disney. Dijo que la compañía había ido demasiado lejos en su apoyo a los derechos de las personas trans, y aplaudió la ley aprobada el año pasado por DeSantis y los republicanos del estado que restringe la instrucción en las aulas sobre orientación sexual e identidad de género.Báez también se ha opuesto abiertamente a las escuelas que educan a los niños sobre la identidad de género.“Ningún profesor debería hablar a los niños pequeños sobre la sexualidad; déjame a mí como padre hacer eso”, dijo, y agregó que se dio cuenta por primera vez de la cuestión durante los debates de la llamada ley de los baños hace años. “Nos hemos pasado a las opiniones extremas al respecto. Tenemos que respetar a los padres, no imponer un punto de vista”.Cada domingo, Báez celebra un bullicioso servicio en H2O Miami, como se conoce a la iglesia, con cientos de personas reunidas alrededor de mesas para cantar junto a una banda de rock cristiano, levantando las manos en señal de alabanza. Cuando terminan los servicios, de dos horas de duración, los feligreses se abrazan y se reúnen al borde del escenario para pedir a Báez y a su esposa que pongan sus manos sobre ellos en oración.Al igual que otros líderes evangélicos hispanos, Báez cuenta con un gran número de fieles simpatizantes tanto en Estados Unidos como en América Latina y casi un millón de seguidores en las redes sociales. Aparece con frecuencia en la televisión en español, por lo general centrándose en mensajes optimistas de esperanza en lugar de menciones explícitas a Jesús o a los valores conservadores.“Hay una razón por la que la mayoría de los latinos son liberales: es lo que ven en la televisión”, dijo mientras desayunaba en el jardín de su casa en Miramar, un suburbio a media hora al norte de Miami. “Queremos dar una visión alternativa a eso”.Jennifer Medina es una reportera de política estadounidense y cubre las actitudes políticas y el poder con énfasis en el oeste de Estados Unidos. Originaria del sur de California, ha pasado varios años cubriendo la región para la sección Nacional. @jennymedina More

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      Hispanic Evangelical Leaders Ask: Trump or DeSantis?

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      In Florida, where Hispanic evangelicals carry outsize influence, many of their pastors view the budding 2024 rivalry as a sign of the potency of their unabashedly politicized Christianity.MIAMI — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida hasn’t announced he’s running for president yet. But among the right-leaning voting blocs that are pulling for him to enter the 2024 primary field are some of his biggest fans: Hispanic evangelical Christians.It’s not that they’re opposed to the one Republican who has already declared himself a candidate, former President Donald J. Trump. But a showdown between the two titans of the right wing could turn Latino evangelicals into a decisive swing vote in Florida — supercharging their influence and focusing enormous national attention on their churches, their politics and their values.“If there is a primary, there’s no doubt there will be fragmentation in the conservative movement, and there’s total certainty that will be true of Hispanic evangelicals as well,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, a pastor in Sacramento, Calif., and the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. “We know the values we keep and the policies we want. The question that arises is, who will really reflect those?”Mr. Rodriguez’s group held a gathering last month in Tampa, Fla., with hundreds of pastors from across the country, where attendees said the hallways buzzed between sessions with more chatter about politics than about Scripture.Much of it, they said, came down to a choice: Trump or DeSantis?Few have settled on an answer yet, not surprisingly given that the first votes of the 2024 campaign are over a year away. But the talk of 2024 — of Mr. Trump, who spent years courting evangelicals, and of Mr. DeSantis, who has leaned into the cultural battles that appeal to many conservative Christians — showed both the heightened expectations among Hispanic evangelical leaders in Florida and their desire to demonstrate the potency of their now unabashedly politicized Christianity.“It is about morals, and there is one party right now that reflects our morals,” said Dionny Báez, a Miami pastor who leads a network of churches. “We cannot be afraid to remind people that we have values that the Republicans are willing to fight for. I have a responsibility to make clear what we believe. We can no longer make that taboo.”Hispanic evangelicals have long had outsize influence in Florida, where Latinos make up roughly 27 percent of the population and 21 percent of eligible voters. Though they are outnumbered among Hispanics by Roman Catholics, evangelicals are far more likely to vote for Republicans. Overall, Hispanic voters in the state favored Republicans for the first time in decades in the midterm elections in November.Mr. DeSantis has courted Hispanic evangelicals assiduously as his national profile has risen.When he signed a law last year banning abortions after 15 weeks, he did so at Nación de Fe, a Hispanic evangelical megachurch in Osceola County. He declared Nov. 7, the day before the midterm election, as “Victims of Communism Day,” appealing not just to Cubans in the state, but also immigrants from Venezuela and Nicaragua, who have helped swell the pews of evangelical churches in Florida. His campaign aides frequently spoke with Hispanic pastors, cultivating support that many expect Mr. DeSantis to try to capitalize on in a presidential campaign.Of course, Mr. Trump, too, can call upon loyalists: Mr. Rodriguez spoke at his inauguration in 2017, and other Hispanic evangelical leaders endorsed him.Latino supporters of Mr. Trump at a rally in Miami in November. Since the former president’s political ascent in 2016, Republicans have made gains among Latino voters in Florida.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesBut Mr. DeSantis could complicate the equation in a potential 2024 Republican primary because of Hispanic evangelicals’ concentration and considerable sway in Florida. Many view Mr. DeSantis as a hero of the pandemic, praising him for not requiring churches to shut down or instituting vaccine mandates.What to Know About Donald Trump TodayCard 1 of 4Donald J. Trump is running for president again, while also being investigated by a special counsel. And his taxes are an issue again as well. Here’s what to know about some of the latest developments involving the former president:Tax returns. More