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      Meet Fabian Nelson, Mississippi’s First Openly L.G.B.T.Q. Legislator

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      Mr. Nelson, 38, won a Democratic primary runoff on Tuesday in a blue district. He talked to The New York Times about the significance of being the first — but why he never focused on it on the trail.Only two states in the nation, Louisiana and Mississippi, have never elected an openly L.G.B.T.Q. lawmaker.Now, there will be only one.On Tuesday, Fabian Nelson won a Democratic primary runoff in Mississippi’s 66th state House district, southwest of Jackson, where Republicans have no candidate on the ballot.Mr. Nelson, 38, was raised in the Mississippi Delta by politically active parents. And while he said he believed having a gay man in the State Legislature was significant, the historic nature of his campaign was never his focus.When he campaigned in South Jackson, he talked about the city’s water crisis and about crime. When he campaigned in rural areas, he talked about broadband access and economic development.“You can’t sit in the Capitol and have the same conversations you were having before we were at the table,” Mr. Nelson said.Lucy Garrett for The New York TimesThe New York Times spoke with Mr. Nelson after his victory. The interview has been edited and condensed.Q. Tell me about yourself — your background, your family, what made you decide to run for office.A. I come from a very politically motivated family. My father is a leader in the community, and he worked with a lot of our elected officials.I remember going to the voting precinct with my mom any time she voted. I saw my parents every single day fighting to help people in the community, whether it was helping people pay their rent, helping people pay their light bills, donating food, donating clothes.When I was in fourth grade, we went to the Mississippi State Capitol, and I remember walking in the galley to look at the floor of the House. I saw these guys in suits and these big, old high-backed chairs. I remember looking down, and I told my teacher, “One of these days I am going to sit down there.”Q. This is your second time running for this seat. What was different this time?A. The first time, I ran in a special election, so I had about a month. I’ve done work in the community, but I’ve mostly done work behind the scenes, so a lot of people didn’t know who I was. Then the special election was right when Covid hit. We really couldn’t get out there, knock on doors, meet people — I wasn’t able to do anything other than social media and put signs up.I said this time I’m going to make sure I do every single thing to get in front of every single person that I possibly can get in front of. I’m going to become a household name. That’s not going to guarantee that people are going to vote for me, but everybody in this district is going to know who Fabian Nelson is.We knocked on everybody’s door five times. The first two times I went around, I was just introducing myself. The third time, that’s when I sat down and developed a platform.Q. Mississippi is one of only two states that have never elected an openly L.G.B.T.Q. legislator. Did you know that when you started your campaign?A. Honestly, I thought Mississippi was the only one. I didn’t know that it was Mississippi and Louisiana. Mississippi, we’re always the last to do the right thing. I said, So we’ve got to beat Louisiana this time so we won’t be No. 50. Now I’m happy to say we’re No. 49.Q. What does it mean to you to be the first in Mississippi?A. I have talked to so many people that say: “We are now hopeful. We feel like we’re in a new place.”What I want people to understand is Mississippi now has somebody that’s going to fight for every single person. I’m going to fight for people in District 66 — those are the people I represent. The issues I’m going to fight for are my platform issues. However, when anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation comes up, which I know it will, I am going to fight that every single day.I’m not only going to the Capitol to fight against anti-L.G.B.T.Q. bills. But we cannot have any group discriminated against. It’s OK to disagree with a person, it’s OK to disagree with a person’s lifestyle, but it is not OK to impose on that person’s civil liberties and civil rights. If we look back in our African American community, slavery was pushed because it’s in the Bible. That’s what was used to keep my people oppressed. And so there’s no room for oppression of any group of people.Q. Politically, this is such a complicated time in that there’s this flood of anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation, and at the same time we’re seeing increased representation in government and public life. How do you navigate that?A. You’ve heard the saying that when you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re what’s for lunch. We’ve been for lunch for so long. The thing is, our politicians can come out and stand on the steps of the Capitol and say, “Oh, we love the community, we’re going to do everything we can to help you, we’re going to fight for you, love, love, love,” then go in the Capitol and close the door — you don’t know what they’re saying. And then the next thing you know, we’ve got a harmful piece of legislation coming out.Now that they have someone sitting at the table, they’re not going to be able to continue along that path. It makes it so much harder. Once we started getting African Americans elected into office, that’s when we started to see things change, because you can’t sit in the Capitol and have the same conversations you were having before we were at the table.Q. Did this come up when you were campaigning? Was it something you talked to people about?A. My campaign was strictly focused on the issues of District 66, because at the end of the day, I represent District 66, and I represent the issues that are germane to District 66. My platform wasn’t, “I’m the first openly gay guy,” because that doesn’t help anybody. It doesn’t make me a better lawmaker or a worse lawmaker. People voted on someone who had experience, people voted on someone who’s going to make a positive impact within our community, and people voted for a fighter.But I come from a family of firsts — my grandmother being the first African American nurse [at a hospital in Yazoo City, Miss.], my dad being one of the first African Americans to graduate dental school from Virginia Commonwealth University.And so I said, I have to raise the bar some type of way. My children are going to have to really raise the bar. More

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      L.G.B.T.Q. in America: ‘We Are Never Going Back to the Closet Darkness’

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      More from our inbox:How No Labels Can Help Fix U.S. PoliticsRadioactive Fallout From the Trinity TestThe Damage Caused by Climate Deniers Jamie WolfeTo the Editor:Re “The Number of L.G.B.T.Q. People Is Rising. So?,” by Jane Coaston (Opinion, July 24):Ms. Coaston’s report reveals both a fearsome and an exciting new world for the L.G.B.T. community. A world where we are seen and, mostly, accepted. This world could not be more different than most older gay Americans’ experience growing up.I recall the very day and hour, at age 6, that I knew I was gay, although I wouldn’t know what that meant for many years. On my first day of kindergarten, at recess, as I was running around the schoolyard with all the other students in my class, I stopped suddenly and said: “Wow! Boys are cool!”Seeing another gay person, or hearing any speck of validation for gay people, would seemingly never come to me in my more-conservative-than-Mississippi community in South Jersey.But we are a community now with many, many straight allies, and no matter what the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world have to say about it, we are never going back to the closet darkness.I will never again be as rare as a five-legged unicorn.We’ve come a long way, baby!Ted GallagherNew YorkTo the Editor:Re “They Checked Out Books to ‘Hide the Pride.’ It Did the Opposite” (news article, July 23):This article, about an anti-L.G.B.T.Q. protest at a San Diego library that backfired, once again emphasizes the difference between “born” and “made.” Reading about the gay “lifestyle” does not make one gay any more than reading about cowboys makes one a cowboy.Little boys as young as 4 know that they are different from their friends. As they grow older, they try to figure out why, and it finally dawns on them as they struggle to find the answer.Once they realize that girls don’t hold the same fascination for them that they do for their buddies, they must then work out what they do with this knowledge. For many it takes a lifetime.Many Americans are finally moving from condemnation to acceptance.Elizabeth KeranenBakersfield, Calif.How No Labels Can Help Fix U.S. Politics Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Joe Manchin Is Dreaming,” by Jamelle Bouie (column, nytimes.com, July 25):I am a longtime supporter of the No Labels mission. The point of No Labels is to support members of Congress who would have the audacity to sit with members of the opposing party and attempt to find common ground, to craft nuanced legislation that can pass, and to find acceptable solutions to the issues that the parties would rather campaign on than solve.The parties have been dominated in recent years by their more extreme members, with the concept of bipartisanship and compromise seen as an evil that must be banished. The Problem Solvers Caucus in the House is an outgrowth of No Labels’ efforts. It is composed of staunch Democrats and Republicans who hold their ideology precious, but realize that in a pluralistic world, a common-sense compromise to move the ball even slightly down the field is better than the vitriolic stagnation we have witnessed over the past decades.No one is pretending that partisanship is not a part of the human condition. Joe Manchin and the rest of us who support No Labels merely see a better way forward. And for that we get pilloried.Bruce GorenLos AngelesTo the Editor:Re “There’s No Escaping Trump,” by Gail Collins and Bret Stephens (The Conversation, July 25):I agree with Ms. Collins about No Labels running a presidential candidate, as any step taken that risks putting Donald Trump back in power is an existential risk for our democracy.However, as a longtime Democrat, I also agree with Mr. Stephens and feel as if I don’t have a political home anymore.I would love to see a socially liberal, economically moderate candidate, and nobody fits that bill these days.I think No Labels needs to do more at the grass-roots level. Put up candidates for county commissioner, school boards, state legislatures, etc., and build long-term support for congressional or presidential candidates.If No Labels plays spoiler in these races, the impacts will not be as catastrophic as electing Donald Trump.John ButlerBroomfield, Colo.Radioactive Fallout From the Trinity Test U.S. Department of DefenseTo the Editor:“Analysis Finds Fallout Spread Much Farther Than Experts Thought” (news article, July 22), about fallout from the test of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico in 1945, is timely and very important. The article describes significant new findings about the extent and severity of the fallout but overlooks a few key issues.A 2019 article in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists presents evidence of a dramatic increase in infant mortality in areas of New Mexico in the months after the Trinity test, although infant mortality in the state had otherwise declined steadily from 1940 to 1960.My own research documents scores of investigations into the Trinity fallout (perhaps 40 studies) over the decades by various U.S. agencies and groups. Many were classified as secret and others were simply quietly buried and received little acknowledgment, but they document scientists’ concerns about residual radioactivity from the Trinity test in the soil, plants and trees in New Mexico.Let us hope that this renewed publicity will help refocus attention on the long overlooked Trinity downwinders.Janet Farrell BrodiePacific Palisades, Calif.The writer is emerita professor of history at Claremont Graduate University and the author of “The First Atomic Bomb: The Trinity Site in New Mexico.”The Damage Caused by Climate Deniers Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:As we all witness the massive destruction to our planet and the hundreds of billions of dollars of damage done each year as a result of climate change, and the regularity of “once in a hundred years” climate disasters, one cannot help but point the finger at those in power who either deny the truth of climate change science, such as Ted Cruz and many others, or who argue that the costs to our economy of taking necessary measures outweigh the benefits (most of the rest of the Republican Party).As to the first group, there are no words other than tell them to look at the science. As to the second group, why don’t you give some thought to the hundreds of billions of dollars of damage that are resulting each year from climate change? That, too, is a “cost” to our economy that should be part of your equation of “costs” and “benefits.”These groups are proving themselves to be little more than lap dogs for right-wing interests, political ideologues who peddle dogma and propaganda over truth, and members of a climate-denying cult who seek to prove their allegiance to the cult by promoting their grotesquely misplaced ideas.These groups are doing more damage to our country, to the world, to citizens of all states (red and blue), races and economic groups than many of the common criminals who spend decades in prison for committing crimes that cause far less damage.David S. ElkindGreenwich, Conn. More

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      Why Ron DeSantis Isn’t Beating Donald Trump

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      As he flails to reverse a polling decline that is beginning to resemble a rockslide, Gov. Ron DeSantis must be feeling a little clueless about why his political fortunes are crumbling so quickly. Attacking wokeness and bullying transgender people seemed to work so well in Florida, so why aren’t national Republicans in awe of the divisions he’s deepened? Making repeated appearances with racial provocateurs never stopped him from getting elected as governor, so why did he have to fire a young aide who inserted Nazi imagery into his own video promoting Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign?But the political bubble inhabited by Mr. DeSantis is so thick — symbolized by the hugely expensive private-plane flights that are draining his campaign of cash, since he and his wife, Casey, won’t sit with regular people in a commercial cabin — that he has been unable or unwilling to understand the brushoff he has received from donors and potential voters and make the changes he needs to become competitive with Donald Trump in the Republican primaries.For years, Mr. DeSantis has created an entire political persona out of a singular crusade against wokeness, frightening teachers and professors away from classroom discussions of race, defending a school curriculum that said there were benefits to slavery, claiming (falsely) that his anti-vaccine crusade worked and engaging in a pointless battle with his state’s best-known private employer over school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. He had the support of the Florida Legislature and state Republican officials in most of his efforts and presumably believed that an image of a more effective and engaged Trump would help him beat the real thing.But it’s not working. A Monmouth University poll published on Tuesday showed Mr. Trump with a 20-point lead over Mr. DeSantis in a head-to-head match, and the advantage grew to more than 30 points when all the other candidates were thrown in. Major donors have started to sour on him, and The Times reported on Thursday that they are disappointed with his performance and the management of his campaign, which he says he will somehow reboot.“DeSantis has not made any headway,” wrote the poll’s director, Patrick Murray. “The arguments that he’d be a stronger candidate and a more effective president than Trump have both fallen flat.”The most obvious fault in his strategy is that you can’t beat Donald Trump if you don’t even criticize him, and Mr. DeSantis has said little about the multiple indictments piling up against the former president or about his character. Granted, there are downsides to a full-frontal attack on Mr. Trump at this point, as other Republicans have become aware, and Mr. DeSantis still needs to establish some kind of identity first. But he can’t become an alt-Trump without drawing a sharp contrast and holding Mr. Trump to account for at least a few of his many flaws. There are graveyards in Iowa and New Hampshire full of candidates who tried to ignore the leader through sheer force of personality, and even if he had one of those, Mr. DeSantis hasn’t demonstrated the skills to use it. Both men will speak Friday night at the Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, and if Mr. DeSantis leaves his rival unscathed, it’s hard to imagine how he goes the distance.The deeper problem, though, is that Mr. DeSantis is peddling the wrong message. Only 1 percent of voters think that wokeness and transgender issues are the country’s top problem, according to an April Fox News poll — essentially a repudiation of the governor’s entire brand. Race issues and vaccines are also low on the list.Lakshya Jain, who helps lead the website Split Ticket, which is doing some really interesting political analysis and modeling, said Mr. DeSantis misinterpreted what Florida voters were saying when they re-elected him by a 19-point margin in 2022.“The economy was doing well in Florida, and Democrats didn’t put up a good candidate in Charlie Crist,” Mr. Jain told me. “I’m not sure the majority of Florida voters really cared what he was saying on wokeness. It’s not really an issue people vote on.”The economy, naturally, is what people care most about, but Mr. DeSantis hasn’t said much about his plans to fight inflation (which is already coming down) or create more jobs (which is happening every month without his help). Clearly aware of the problem, he announced on Thursday that he would unfurl a Declaration of Economic Independence in a major speech in New Hampshire on Monday (a phrase as trite and tone-deaf as the name of his Never Back Down super PAC).That appears to be the first fruit of his campaign reboot, but there are good reasons he doesn’t like to stray from his rigid agenda, as demonstrated by his occasionally disastrous footsteps into foreign policy. Bashing Bidenomics means he’ll immediately have to come up with an excuse for why inflation is so much higher in Florida than the nation as a whole. Though the national inflation rate in May was 4 percent compared with a year earlier, it was 9 percent in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area for the same period and 7.3 percent in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area.The primary reason for that is the state’s housing shortage, an issue that Mr. DeSantis largely ignored during his first term and has only belatedly taken a few small steps to address. When the issue inevitably comes up on the campaign trail, you can bet that Mr. DeSantis will find some way of blaming it on President Biden. That way he can quickly pivot to his preferred agenda of rewriting Black history, questioning science and encouraging gun ownership.He really can’t help himself; just this week he said he might hire the noted anti-vaccine nut Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to work at the Food and Drug Administration or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then he got into an online fight with Representative Byron Donalds, Florida’s only Black Republican member of Congress, over the state’s astonishingly wrong curriculum on slavery, and a DeSantis spokesman called Mr. Donalds a “supposed conservative.”Great way to expand your base. Remind me: When does the reboot start?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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      Far Right May Rise as Kingmaker in Spanish Election

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      A messier political landscape has lent leverage to the extremes, leaving a hard-right party poised to share power for the first time since Franco.If Spain’s national elections on Sunday turn out as most polls and analysts suggest, mainstream conservatives may come out on top but need allies on the political fringe to govern, ushering the first hard-right party into power since the Franco dictatorship.The potential ascent of that hard-right party, Vox, which has a deeply nationalist spirit imbued with Franco’s ghost, would bring Spain into the growing ranks of European nations where mainstream conservative parties have partnered with previously taboo forces out of electoral necessity. It is an important marker for a politically shifting continent, and a pregnant moment for a country that has long grappled with the legacy of its dictatorship.Even before Spaniards cast a single ballot, it has raised questions of where the country’s political heart actually lies — whether its painful past and transition to democracy only four decades ago have rendered Spain a mostly moderate, inclusive and centrist country, or whether it could veer toward extremes once again.Santiago Abascal, the leader of the hard-right party Vox, greeting supporters this month at a rally in Barcelona. Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesSpain’s establishment, centrist parties — both the conservative Popular Party and the Socialists led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — have long dominated the country’s politics, and the bulk of the electorate seems to be turning away from the extremes toward the center, experts note.But neither of Spain’s mainstream parties have enough support to govern alone. The Popular Party, though predicted to come out on top on Sunday, is not expected to win a majority in the 350-seat Parliament, making an alliance imperative. The hard-right Vox is its most likely partner.The paradox is that even as Vox appears poised to reach the height of its power since it was founded a decade ago, its support may be shrinking, as its stances against abortion rights, climate change policies and L.G.B.T.Q. rights have frightened many voters away.The notion that the country is becoming more extremist is “a mirage,” said Sergio del Molino, a Spanish author and commentator who has written extensively about Spain and its transformations.The election, he said, reflected more the political fragmentation of the establishment parties, prompted by the radicalizing events of the 2008 financial crisis and the near secession of Catalonia in 2017. That has now made alliances, even sometimes with parties on the political fringe, a necessity.He pointed to “a gap” between the country’s political leadership, which needed to seek electoral support in the extremes to govern, and a “Spanish society that wants to return to the center again.”In Barcelona this past week. Spain’s establishment, centrist parties, have long dominated the country’s politics.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesJosé Ignacio Torreblanca, a Spain expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the messy process of coalition building in the relatively new Spanish era of the post two-party system lent leverage and visibility to fringe parties greater than their actual support.“This is not a blue and red country, at all,” he said.Other were less convinced. Paula Suárez, 29, a doctor and left-wing candidate for local office in Barcelona with the Sumar coalition, said the polarization in the country was entrenched. “It’s got to do with the civil war — it’s heritage. Half of Spain is left wing and half is right wing,” she said, calling Vox Franco’s descendants.But those who see a mostly centrist Spain use the same historical reference point for their argument. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Later, through the shared traumas of decades of murders by Basque terrorists seeking to break from Spain, the two major establishment parties, the Popular Party and the Socialists, forged a political center and provided a roomy home for most voters.But recent events have tested the strength of Spain’s immunity to appeals from the political extremes. Even if abidingly centrist, Spanish politics today, if not polarized, is no doubt tugged at the fringes.A salon in Barcelona. The Spanish electorate’s traditional rejection of extremes, some experts said, was rooted precisely in its memory of the deadly polarization of the Franco era.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesA corruption scandal in the Popular Party prompted Vox to splinter off in 2013. Then the near secession of Catalonia in 2017 provided jet fuel to nationalists at a time when populist anger against globalization, the European Union and gender-based identity politics were taking off across Europe.On the other side of the spectrum, the financial crisis prompted the creation of a hard left in 2015, forcing Mr. Sánchez later to form a government with that group and cross a red line for himself and the country.Perhaps of greater consequence for this election, he has also relied on the votes of Basque groups filled with former terrorists, giving conservative voters a green light to become more permissive of Vox, Mr. Torreblanca said. “This is what turned politics in Spain quite toxic,” he said.After local elections in May, which dealt a blow to Mr. Sánchez and prompted him to call the early elections that Spaniards will vote in on Sunday, the conservatives and Vox have already formed alliances throughout the country.In some cases, the worst fears of liberals are being borne out. Outside Madrid, Vox culture officials banned performances with gay or feminist themes. In other towns, they have eliminated bike paths and taken down Pride flags.A Pride flag hanging on a house in Náquera, Spain. The newly elected mayor from the Vox party in the town of Náquera has ordered the removal of Pride flags from municipal buildings.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesEster Calderón, a representative of a national feminist organization in Valencia, where feminists marched on Thursday, said she feared that the country’s Equality Ministry, which is loathed by Vox, would be scrapped if the party shared power in a new government.She attributed the rise in Vox to the progress feminists had made in recent years, saying it had provoked a reactionary backlash. “It’s as if they have come out of the closet,” she said.At a rally for Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, an all-woman lineup talked about maternity leave, defending abortion rights and protecting women from abuse. The crowd, many cooling themselves with fans featuring Ms. Díaz in dark sunglasses, erupted at the various calls to action to stop Vox.“Only if we’re strong,” Ms. Díaz said. “Will we send Vox to the opposition.”Yolanda Díaz, the candidate for Sumar, the left-wing umbrella group, at a rally this past week. “Only if we’re strong,” she said, “will we send Vox to the opposition.”Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesBut members of the conservative Popular Party, which is hoping to win an absolute majority and govern without Vox, have tried to assure moderate voters spooked by the prospect of an alliance with the hard right that they will not allow Vox to pull them backward.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, outside Barcelona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights, climate policies or Spain’s close relationship with Europe if his party had to bring in Vox, which he called 30 years behind the times.Vox, he said, was only interested in “spectacle” to feed their base, and would merely “change the name” of things, like gender-based violence to domestic violence, without altering substance.Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Xavier Albiol, the Popular Party mayor of Badalona, said that “100 percent” there would be no backtracking on gay rights, women’s rights or climate policies if his party had to bring in Vox.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York Times“The paradox now,” said Mr. Torreblanca, the political analyst, is that just as Mr. Sánchez entered government with the far left when it was losing steam, the Popular Party seemed poised to govern with Vox as its support was sinking. “The story would be that Spain is turning right. When in fact this is the moment when Vox is at the weakest point.”Recent polls have shown voters turning away from Vox, and even some of its supporters did not think the party should touch the civil rights protections that Spain’s liberals introduced, and that its conservatives supported.Gay marriage “should remain legal of course,” said Alex Ruf, 23, a Vox supporter who sat with his girlfriend on a bench in Barcelona’s wealthy Sarriá district.Mr. Albiol, the mayor of Badalona, insisted that Spain was inoculated, and said that unlike other European countries, it would continue to be.“Due to the historical tradition of a dictatorship for 40 years,” he said, Spain “has become a society where the majority of the population is not situated at the extremes.”That was of little consolation to Juana Guerrero, 65, who attended the left-wing Sumar event.If Vox gets into power, they will “trample us under their shoes,” she said, grinding an imaginary cigarette butt under her foot.In Barcelona this past week. Some experts agreed that if Vox entered the government, it would do so in a weakened position as its support appears to be falling.Maria Contreras Coll for The New York TimesRachel Chaundler More

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      Ron DeSantis Doesn’t Know Whether He’s Coming or Going

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      Gail Collins: Bret, about Ron DeSantis. Last week, I criticized him for weenie stuff like big book advances and questionable road repair materials. At the time, I definitely felt like I was carping.Then his people shared an ad on L.G.B.T.Q. issues that … wow.Bret Stephens: “Wow” just about covers it.Gail: It began with a clip of Donald Trump defending gay rights in days of yore, which was very clearly supposed to make viewers … hate Trump. Followed by praise for Florida laws DeSantis signed that “literally threaten trans existence.” Followed by a super-duper weird montage showing men flexing muscles, Brad Pitt in Trojan-warrior garb and Governor Ron with lightning flashes coming out of his eyes.Pete Buttigieg, who is President Biden’s secretary of transportation and one of the best-known gay figures in politics, rightly pointed out “the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up, shirtless bodybuilders.”Any thoughts?Bret: I guess my main takeaway is that DeSantis isn’t going to be the next president. He makes Trump seem tolerant, Ted Cruz seem likable, Mitch McConnell seem moderate, Lauren Boebert seem mature and Rick Santorum seem cool. Not what I would have expected out of the Florida governor six months ago, but here’s where I confess: You were right about him, and I was wrong.Gail: My other takeaway is that Republicans are focusing more on L.G.B.T.Q. issues now that they’ve come to understand that attacking abortion isn’t a national winner — or even a state winner in most places.In the long run, stomping on gay rights isn’t going to do it either, because such a huge number of people — even conservative Republicans — have friends, family, colleagues who are gay. May take a while to come to grips with that, but once you realize someone you care about is gay, the idea of persecuting them presumably seems way less attractive.Just recalling how my conservative Catholic mother wound up, in old age, riding on a float in Cincinnati’s Gay Pride parade.Bret: As you mentioned last year in that wonderful column you wrote about Allen Ginsberg.Gay bashing is morally intolerable as well as politically inept. But a lot of people — including many Democrats and independents — have honest and serious concerns about some aspects of the trans issue, especially as it concerns the integrity of women’s sports, the morality of drastic medical interventions in teenagers and the anti-scientific denial of basic biology when it comes to questions of sex. I also detest terms like “bodies with vaginas” as a substitute for “women.” It isn’t a sensitive or inclusive use of language; it’s misogynistic and Orwellian.DeSantis could have addressed these issues in a sober and nuanced way. Instead, he went full Trojan, and I suspect his campaign will meet a similar fate to Troy’s.Gail: Full Trojan? Just like Brad Pitt in that ad!Bret: Switching topics, Gail, can we talk about homelessness? The problem just keeps getting worse, particularly out west, and it’s doing real damage to urban life. Your thoughts on what does and does not work?Gail: What works is pretty simple: more housing and outreach for the mentally ill. Both are difficult, of course, ranging from pretty darned to stupendously.Bret: What also works are ordinances forbidding “camping” on public lands so that homeless people are required to use shelter beds, which some liberal judges have blocked cities from doing. One of the problems of our public discussion of the issue is that we treat homelessness as a problem of the homeless only. It’s also a public safety issue and a quality-of-life issue. People ought to have a right to walk down urban sidewalks that haven’t been turned into tent cities and open-air toilets.Gail: New York is still dealing with a flood of new migrants, mainly from Latin America, who have been coming in huge numbers for more than a year. Most of them are ambitious and hopeful, and they could be a great shot to our local economy — if they had permanent places to stay.Bret: Completely agree. I also think the migrant problem is qualitatively different from the kind of homelessness issues that cities like San Francisco or Portland, Ore., are experiencing. Migrants are struggling with poverty but not, generally, mental health or drug-dependency issues. What migrants typically need is a room and a job.Gail: Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has talked about finding some of them homes in the suburbs, where there’s obviously more room and housing prices are sometimes a lot lower. Said suburbs rose up in rage to stop an incursion of needy people. It’s so irritating, although I have to admit that my liberal Manhattan neighborhood — which has plenty of programs for the homeless — consistently rebels against talk of any big new housing projects for any income group.Your turn.Bret: I’m skeptical of the theory that we could solve the crisis just by building a lot more housing. First, because we can’t build quickly and cheaply enough to keep up with the growing number of homeless people. Second, because even when the homeless are housed, they often fall back into the kinds of behaviors that ultimately lead them to return to the streets.My own view is that people living on the street should be required to go into shelters, which can be built much more quickly and cheaply than regular housing, be required to get mental health screenings and be required to be treated if they have drug or alcohol dependencies.Gail: Well, if the mental health treatments were great, that might be an argument. But they often aren’t — just because there’s a terrific shortage of personnel.And the shelters are no picnic either. A lot of the people you see on the street have been, at one time or another, threatened by a mentally troubled co-resident, gotten into a fight as a result of shared emotional problems or in some other way come to feel that living on the street is safer.Bret: The other big story from last week, Gail, is the ruling by a federal judge that forbade the Biden administration to work with social media companies to remove content it didn’t like, mainly connected to alleged Covid misinformation. What the administration was doing seems to me like a serious infringement on people’s freedom of speech, but I’d like to know your view.Gail: Gee, I was under the impression one of the jobs of the executive branch was to make sure people were getting the right information about health issues. And it’s not as if the Biden folks marched in and removed a bunch of posts themselves. Conferring with the social media companies seems like something they ought to do.Bret: One good way of thinking about the issue is putting the shoe on the other foot. For instance, we now know that the Steele dossier was malicious partisan misinformation, secretly and illicitly paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and that some of its most salacious allegations, like the pee-tape stuff, were false. How would you react if you had learned that the Trump administration had been putting heavy pressure on executives at MSNBC to forbid Rachel Maddow from ever mentioning it back when she had her show?Gail: Hey, it’s hot and humid outside. No fair trying to take me down the Hillary Clinton road. Look — the whole world changed with the advent of social media. If you’ve got influencers with millions of followers warning that, say, giving milk to babies is dangerous, you’ve got to do something more than issue a press release.Bret: I’m pretty sure we could get the word out that milk is generally fine for babies or vaccines are generally safe without setting a precedent that the federal government can work with Big Tech to censor individual speech.Gail: Of course I agree with you about freedom of expression. But in the process of protecting it, it’s natural to argue about specific cases with particular details. We will pursue this again soon. Well, forever probably.But let me be boring for a second and ask you about Congress. Just got through that deficit crisis, and another one will be coming around the bend this summer. What’s your long-term advice? Spend less? Tax more? Ignore the whole thing and figure it’ll work out somehow like it always does?Bret: My advice: Talk less, smile more. Seriously, what we need from Congress and the president is to get through the next 18 months without another manufactured domestic crisis. Between the war in Ukraine, Iran’s creeping nuclearization and China’s saber-rattling over Taiwan, we have more than enough to worry about abroad.Gail: Hmm. One writer’s manufactured domestic crisis is maybe another’s reasonable disagreement. And while Congress isn’t always fascinating, it’s at the top of the critical-if-possibly-boring ladder.Bret: Before we go, Gail, I have to put in a word for Penelope Green’s funny, fabulous obituary in The Times of Sue Johanson, a Canadian sex educator who died last month at 92. It has the single most memorable paragraph to appear in the paper for at least a month, if not a year. I have to quote it in full:Is it weird to put body glitter on your boyfriend’s testicles? Is it safe to have sex in a hot tub? Could a Ziploc baggie serve as a condom? If condoms are left in a car and they freeze, are they still good? Answers: No. No (chlorinated water is too harsh for genitals, particularly women’s). Definitely not. And yes, once they’ve been defrosted.I mean, after that, what else is there to say?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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      Ron DeSantis’s Campaign of Contempt

      by

      If you missed the previous newsletter, you can read it here.The version of most politicians that we need to worry about is the one that they don’t want us to see. That’s why campaign reporters dog them; they’re waiting for the veil to slip.But the version of Ron DeSantis that we need to worry about is the one that he proudly shows us. He embraces his meanness. He luxuriates in his darkness. Let other politicians peddle the pablum of inspiration. He prefers to ooze the toxin of contempt.That’s one of the morals of a provocative anti-gay, anti-trans video that the DeSantis campaign shared late last week. The campaign’s promotion of it prompted accusations of homophobia even from some Republicans, and justly so: In an attempt to smear Donald Trump, the video doesn’t just accuse him of coddling L.G.B.T.Q. Americans. It revels in DeSantis’s vilification of them.Initially distributed by a Twitter account called Proud Elephant, it presents a bizarre montage that’s superficially an anti-woke battle cry, pitting a truculent DeSantis against a scourge of degenerates. But while his viciousness comes through precisely as planned, so does something unintended: an undercurrent of homoerotic kink. Up pops a shirtless hunk with a ripped chest. Here’s a glowering Brad Pitt in his “Troy” drag. Are honchos with a Homer fetish some new thing? I need to get out more.But the perversely purposed beefcake is less striking than the way in which the video exultantly spotlights DeSantis’s biggest critics and celebrates their harshest criticism, treating the words with which they’ve described him and his initiatives as the best measures of his mettle. “Most extreme” becomes a trophy, “horrifying” a crown and “evil” a sash.The Florida governor is running one freaky and unsettling presidential campaign. He’s more focused on putting certain Americans in their places than on lifting others to new heights. He’s defined by the scores he pledges to settle instead of the victories he promises to achieve. He casts himself as someone to fear rather than revere. That video actually flashes an image of Christian Bale in “American Psycho” as a flattering DeSantis analogue.Vote DeSantis: He’s a monster, but he’s your monster.How does someone with that pitch possibly bring together and lead an entire diverse country, if he gets that chance, and what does it say about the United States today that he has come this far? Have we put tolerance, grand ideals and optimism so fully to rest? I remember “morning in America.” I guess it’s now midnight.To read deeply and widely about DeSantis is to learn that his cruel politics match a cold personality. He seems to trust almost no one other than his wife, who’s his twin in unalloyed ambition. He’s a collector of slights. He gets an A+ in grudge holding and an F in humility, and he’s taking etiquette pass/fail. He has resting disdain face.When I find pictures of him laughing, his expression is a bad stage actor’s — it’s a labored and spurious guffaw — as if a campaign aide intent on warming him up had just pulled hard on some string embedded in DeSantis’s back. Only his rants have a genuine air. He looked perfectly comfortable on Fox News recently saying that anyone who cut through a border wall between Mexico and the United States to traffic fentanyl would “end up stone cold dead.” He’s out to out-Trump Trump, who reportedly wondered aloud about a water-filled border trench stocked with snakes and alligators. I’m counting the minutes until DeSantis’s proposal for a moat stocked with great white sharks.Raising questions about illegal immigration and border security is necessary and just. But what’s served by doing so with such bloodthirstiness?Establishing guidelines for the age at which it’s appropriate for children in public schools to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity is legitimate. But what’s gained by inviting the word “groomers” into the conversation and casting yourself as a pulchritudinous gladiator who will teach them a pitiless lesson?DeSantis mistakes spite for spiritedness, bullying for strength. I hope voters don’t do likewise.Forward this newsletter to friends …… and they can sign up for themselves here. It’s published every Thursday.For the Love of SentencesErin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Supremes sure made lots of news lately, so let’s start with them. In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick parsed the generosity from billionaires that Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have so richly enjoyed: “A #protip that will no doubt make those justices who have been lured away to elaborate bear hunts and deer hunts and rabbit hunts and salmon hunts by wealthy oligarchs feel a bit sad: If your close personal friends who only just met you after you came onto the courts are memorializing your time together for posterity, there’s a decent chance you are, in fact, the thing being hunted.” (Thanks to Robert E. Gordon of Sarasota, Fla., for nominating this.)In The Washington Post, Alexandra Petri mined that material by mimicking the famous opening line of “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American billionaire, in possession of sufficient fortune, must be in want of a Supreme Court justice.” (Nicole Seligman, Sag Harbor, N.Y.)And in The Times, Tyler Austin Harper contextualized the battle over affirmative action: “Civil rights leaders did not endure the dogs and the cold baptism of the fire hoses in the hopes that one day their children’s children could become Ivy-minted venture capitalists and management consultants.” (Adam Fix, Minneapolis)Also in The Times, Farhad Manjoo discussed the futility of debating Robert Kennedy Jr.: “He starts with a few sprinkles of truth — Ohio’s vote was run by a partisan official, some vaccines have serious side effects — and then swirls them up with enough exaggerations, omissions and leaps of logic to create a veritable McFlurry of doubt.” (James Brockardt, Pennington, N.J.)Kim Severson noted how buffets struggled to emerge from the pandemic: “A model of eating based on shared serving spoons and food seasoned with the breath of strangers seemed like a goner.” (Elise Magers, Chicago)Alex Halberstadt introduced readers to the Oregon winemaker Maggie Harrison: “Warm, funny and observant in person, she cultivates a persona of a curmudgeon, the way an octopus might disguise itself as a rock to throw off sand sharks.” (Michael T. Reagan, Ottawa, Ill.) Also, of a tasting room of Harrison’s with an unappealing entrance: “The scene was so hushed and civilized-looking, after the dinginess of the exterior, that it was like entering a chapel through the back of an airport Cinnabon.” (Robert Mugford, Scottsdale, Ariz., and Tricia Chatary, Middlebury, Vt., among others)And Ligaya Mishan described a magical dessert from her Hawaiian childhood made by a frozen-treat wizard named Kon Ping Young: “He’d sneak in one of the whole plums, which he’d cover with more slush. I’d find it buried deep, a shriveled prize, so tangy that when I sucked on it, the world condensed to that one flavor, a tiny neutron star of sweet-sour-salt.” (Cindy Kissin, New Haven, Conn.)In The Washington Post, T.A. Frank traced the arc of Mike Pence: “When he was a radio host, Pence liked to call himself ‘Rush Limbaugh on decaf,’ a mild concoction even then, to say nothing of an era when even Limbaugh on meth would be too laid back for some of today’s partisans.” John Hitzeroth, Wilmington, Ohio, and Doug Sterner, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)In The Ringer, Roger Sherman imagined how hard it was for N.B.A. teams to decide which of the 6-foot-6, identical Thompsons, Amen and Ausar, to draft first: “Normally, you can identify the evil twin by looking for the one with the handlebar mustache, but neither had one, making this a tough assignment for scouts.” (Marshall Sikowitz, Bassano del Grappa, Italy)And in The Boston Globe, Odie Henderson was rattled by moments in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” when a digitally de-aged Harrison Ford didn’t look quite right: “For the love of Ponce de León, stop using this technology until it’s perfected, Hollywood!” (Pat Isgro, Greenwich, N.Y.)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.What I’m Watching, Reading and Listening ToSarah Lancashire in “Happy Valley.”James Stack/Lookout Point/AMCI wish I could say that I loved the third (and, apparently, final) season of the British crime drama “Happy Valley” as much as I loved the first one nine years ago, but this great series did what many great series do: It fell a bit too much in love with its main characters and the superb actors who played them. I refer to Sarah Lancashire as a grief-haunted police sergeant and James Norton as the perversely charismatic thug who had a heavy hand in her grief. The latest season, whose American airing wrapped up a little more than a week ago, seems intent on giving them tricky or intensely emotional scenes in which to show their acting chops, and they deliver and then some. But the trade-off is a sometimes sluggish pace and lugubrious air. Regardless, if you never found your way to “Happy Valley,” correct that. The whole of it is undeniably worth watching. (It’s streaming on AMC+ and Acorn TV; you can also purchase episodes or seasons, as I did, through Apple TV+. There’s more information here.)The Gay Pride month of June this year seemed to yield a particular bounty of reflections on what it means to be gay or queer, possibly because of a backlash in the United States right now against L.G.B.T.Q. people. The essay that most intrigued and delighted me appeared here in Times Opinion. It was Richard Morgan’s “As a Gay Man, I’ll Never Be Normal,” whose standout passages could have filled the entire For the Love of Sentences section this week. (Joan Vohl Hamilton, South Hadley, Mass., and Sarah Patrick, Carbondale, Ill., among others, nominated sentences from the essay.)Another recent article in The Times that I especially loved was Elisabeth Egan’s 25-years-later look at the phenomenon — and impact — of “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” It, too, is a gold mine of spirited prose, along with acute observations.Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post is a treasure (and appears frequently in For the Love of Sentences), and this recent article of hers about the friendship of the former tennis rivals Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert is a gem, also with sterling sentences galore about two women who “exemplify, perhaps more than any champions in the annals of their sport, the deep internal mutual grace called sportsmanship.” (Rebecca Howey, Detroit, and Tom Fortner, Point Clear, Ala., among others)I’ve retired the occasional newsletter feature that delved into great songs and song lyrics but will mention popular music randomly and occasionally in this space. A Pandora station of mine just introduced me to the young singer-songwriter Ilsey and “No California,” a relatively new single of hers. She has an album due in October, according to this article in Variety, which also embeds the song, so you can listen. Despite its love-lost subject matter, it’s buoyant, summery and very, very catchy.On a Personal Note (Odd Neighborhood Names)Errol Flynn in the 1938 film “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”Everett CollectionYou’ve been excellent about sending me examples of strangely or strikingly named streets, neighborhoods and towns, a subject that I first wrote about in January and revisited in this newsletter, this one and this one. Today’s Odd Neighborhood Names installment will be the last — we’ll find other fun topics to commune over — and I apologize to the many of you who have submitted unused material. Thanks to your generosity. I’ve had more options than space for them.Almost all have fallen into one of three categories. I think of the first as “let’s pretend we’re somewhere we’re not.” Jane Houssiere of Boulder, Colo., wrote: “I live on the interface where the Rocky Mountains meet the semiarid high plains. We are nowhere near any ocean.” But, she added, “developers must have been homesick for the coast.” Behold, in this mountainous interior, Barnacle Street, Starboard Drive, Driftwood Place, Sandpiper Circle, Beachcomber Court, Outrigger Court, Jib Court and more. It’s a high tide of nautical nomenclature.The second category is the motif-a-palooza, whereby the namers of streets work a theme as aggressively as my Regan does her favorite bones. Rob Boas of Atlanta alerted me to that city’s “Sherwood Forest” neighborhood, where the streets include Robin Hood Road, Friar Tuck Road, Lady Marian Lane, Nottingham Way and Little John Trail.John FX Keane of New Providence, N.J., noted that his childhood home of Binghamton, N.Y., has byways that pay homage to classical composers: Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert, Wagner and more.The motifs can be … unexpected. Mary Beth Norton noted that Ithaca, N.Y., has a grouping of streets seemingly named for cigarette and cigar brands: Winston Court, Salem Drive, Tareyton Drive and Muriel Street. Lest that seem eccentric, Barbara Lerner wrote that in the Gibson section of Valley Stream, N.Y., where she used to live, there is a profusion of roads with cigarette- or liquor-related appellations: Marlboro, Munro (an English gin), Carstairs (a blended whiskey), Gordon (gin), Dubonnet (vermouth). The Gibson, of course, is the martini’s cousin, garnished with a pickled onion rather than an olive.The third category: utter failures of imagination. Into this group falls what was probably your most nominated street name, Toronto’s soul-crushingly prosaic, spectacularly redundant Avenue Road. But Sheila Gerstenzang of Las Vegas wrote in with another fine example: Overthere Lane in North Las Vegas.Beyond those categories are street, neighborhood and town names that just don’t seem like such names at all. In Ipswich, Mass., there’s Labor in Vain Road, as a former Ipswich resident, Douglas Atkins, and a current one, Tamsin Venn, pointed out.And the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador is known for its amusing place names, including Dildo, Witless Bay, Blow Me Down, Tickle Harbour, Tickle Cove, Come by Chance and Heart’s Content. Thanks to Patricia Maher of Vancouver, B.C., for drawing attention to those. More

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      It’s Not America’s Unhappiest Birthday

      by

      Bret Stephens: Gail, happy almost Independence Day. In the spirit of the holiday: Is America toast?Gail Collins: Well, gee, Bret, happy almost Independence Day back. Hope you’re not planning to celebrate by, um, shooting things off.Bret: Only my mouth. As usual.Gail: Seriously, please elaborate. If you’re thinking of the Supreme Court, I’m happy to join in any hand-wringing. But somehow I suspect you’ve got a different vision of doom.Bret: It won’t surprise you that I’ve been pretty happy with the court’s rulings this term, which I’m sure we’ll get to in a moment. But what I mean is the brokenness of almost every institution I can think of, a thought I’m borrowing from Alana Newhouse, the editor of Tablet magazine. Congress: broken. Public education: broken. The I.R.S.: broken. The Roman Catholic Church: broken. The immigration system: broken. Cities: broken. Civil discourse: broken. Families: broken. Race relations: broken.And the most broken thing of all: public trust. Trust in government, in news media, in police, in the scientific establishment. There’s a ton of scholarly research showing that when societies become low-trust, like in Lebanon or Brazil, they tend to fare poorly.Gail: I know that many very smart people are in the throes of despair, but I just can’t get there. People have been complaining about the schools since the beginning of time — and that’s a good thing; you certainly don’t want to be complacent about education.Bret: Did you know that The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1944 for reporting on how shockingly ignorant American college freshmen were about U.S. history? And them wuz the good ol’ days.Gail: The I.R.S. is broken only to the extent that Republicans in Congress are refusing to supply funding to make the tax system work.Bret: And because the agency runs with the sort of peerless efficiency we generally expect from federal bureaucracies.Gail: And let’s see — as a longtime fallen-away Catholic, I don’t think the church is going to fix itself until we have both women priests and married priests. But it’s not as if it’s more broken now than it was throughout my life.Bret: I defer to you on this one. Just trying to think of the last time I read a story about a Catholic priest that didn’t involve child molestation or an effort by the church hierarchy to cover it up.Gail: The cities: They aren’t broken — most of them just need a whole lot more federal aid for housing and public safety. And gee, federal gun laws that crack down on villains from buying weapons down South and illegally shipping them to gun-control states like New York.I could go on, but I don’t want to monopolize our civil discourse. Are you really so superpessimistic?Bret: It’s easy to get carried away with gloom, and America has a history of bouncing back from bouts of depression and disorder. But I find it really hard to feel any optimism when Donald Trump seems to be cruising to the Republican renomination and Joe Biden is generating excitement among Democrats the way a colonoscopy generates excitement among people turning 50: something your doctor says you must do but only because the potential alternative is lethal.Gail: Oh, gosh, Bret, now whenever I look at Joe Biden, I’m going to think “colonoscopy president.”You know I’m very sorry he decided to run again and put a damper on all the promising younger Democrats who might have been great options to replace him. But still, he’s been a good president. Our problem isn’t really on the Democratic side. The Trump-remodeled Republican Party is one thing I’d put on a list of national disasters.Bret: Don’t forget it’s also an international disaster.Gail: Know you’re as down on Donald as I am. Should we talk Supreme Court? The big decisions — affirmative action, gay rights, student loans. Am I right guessing you agreed with all three?Bret: Well, don’t forget the court striking down the independent state legislature theory in Moore v. Harper, in which three conservative judges joined with three liberals to uphold the right of state judiciaries to have a say in how state legislatures draw congressional districts and conduct elections. Or the Counterman v. Colorado case, in which four conservative justices joined Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson in a 7-to-2 decision protecting free-speech rights. This may be a conservative court, but it’s not a MAGA court.Gail: Can see the Trump campaign calls …Bret: Regarding the cases you mentioned, I think even the Biden administration knew deep down that its effort to forgive billions in student loans without action from Congress was legally doubtful. And I don’t have to agree with a web designer’s religious beliefs about same-sex marriage to accept that she has a free-speech right not to participate in something she finds morally objectionable.Gail: How would you feel about a wedding dress designer who refused to take business from a mixed-race couple because her own moral beliefs are against Black people being able to marry white people?Bret: Well, obviously I’d find it abhorrent. But this current case is different, because it turned on whether a business owner could be obliged to design a website for a same-sex couple. That’s clearly a matter of speech, not the identity of the customer.Gail: This case comes out of Colorado, which has a very specific state law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Once again our Supremes have made it clear that they’re only going to rule for stuff they like — to hell with details like legality.Bret: I don’t think either of us questions the right of the Supreme Court to overturn any state laws that violate fundamental constitutional rights, even if we don’t like the views of the people claiming those rights. As for the affirmative action case, I think it was one of the best decisions in the court’s history. I know you, um, dissent ….Gail: We had a big argument about that one last week. Having a diverse student body or workplace isn’t just a good goal; it’s critical to building and maintaining a truly free and equal society.Bret: Sure, provided diversity isn’t achieved by giving advantages to some racial groups at the expense of others. In the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases, Asian Americans were put at a significant disadvantage in the admissions process simply on account of their race.Gail: I’m still hopeful business leaders and school administrators will be able to work to the same end by concentrating on other factors — like, say, looking for applicants who have been able to overcome an impoverished upbringing.Bret: We agree on this. And as our colleague David French pointed out in a terrific column last week, Harvard could have long ago redesigned its admissions process to favor students on account of socioeconomic status rather than race and achieved roughly the same kind of diversity without putting race at the center of its admissions calculus.Gail: We’ll see. Still hate the idea that striving to have a student body or work force that’s racially diverse is some kind of mortal sin.Can we talk presidential politics for a minute? Feel kinda guilty for bringing it up, given that the nominating conventions are still more than a year away, but it does continue to fascinate me.Bret: By all means …Gail: I noticed that the proudly middle-middle-class governor Ron DeSantis got $1.25 million for his political memoir. Also that he just signed a bill allowing Florida roads to be built with a radioactive material.Bret: Phosphogypsum, a byproduct of making fertilizer, which is now kept in mountainous stacks across Florida. Used for construction in Europe, Australia and Japan, to no apparent ill effect. As for the memoir, Andrew Cuomo, a former New York governor, got $5.1 million for his book, shortly before he completely disgraced himself. I’d say the Florida governor’s advance is pretty modest, in the scheme of things.Gail: I retreat. For the moment. Anyhow, the DeSantis stories are just silly details in a race when the Republican front-runner keeps getting charged with major crimes. Now, this is supposed to be your flock, Bret. How do you keep focused?Bret: Gail, I read about the Republican Party the way I would about a former friend with whom I was once close but who tragically turned to a life of debauchery and crime in his demented old age.Gail: Is that why you’re feeling so down on everything, from the cities to religion?Bret: Might be. Hard to feel optimistic, politically, when you don’t really have a team to root for. But maybe you’re right and I’m too depressed about America. Still would much prefer to live here than in Britain, with its sky-high inflation. Or France, with its riots. Or Mexico, with its corruption and creeping authoritarianism. Or Canada, with its Justin Trudeau.So I’m back where we started. Happy Fourth of July!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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      DeSantis Uses L.G.B.T.Q Issues to Attack Trump in Twitter Video

      by

      The Florida governor sought to contrast his record opposing gay and transgender rights in a video highlighting comments made by the former president during the 2016 campaign — but has gotten some pushback.Gov. Ron DeSantis’s campaign shared a provocative video on Friday attacking the record of former President Donald J. Trump regarding L.G.B.T.Q. people that was widely condemned as homophobic, including by a prominent group representing gay and lesbian Republicans.The video, posted on Twitter by the “DeSantis War Room” account, opens by showing Mr. Trump proclaiming, “I will do everything in my power to protect our L.G.B.T.Q. citizens.” Mr. Trump made those remarks at the Republican National Convention in July 2016, after invoking the horror of the Pulse nightclub shooting the previous month. The massacre, at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, in Mr. DeSantis’s home state of Florida, left 49 people dead.The video goes on to show Mr. Trump expressing support for transgender people using the bathrooms of their choice. It then attempts to contrast Mr. Trump’s position with the hard-line stance of Mr. DeSantis, abruptly transitioning into a jarring series of images of Mr. DeSantis (including one with lasers shooting out of his eyes) that are interspersed with right-wing internet memes (the smiling, heavily muscled man known online as “GigaChad”), news headlines (“Pride event in St. Cloud canceled after DeSantis signs ‘Protection of Children Act’ into law”) and pop culture references (among them shots of the titular character from the film version of the serial killer narrative “American Psycho”).The DeSantis team shared the video the same day that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Christian web designer who refused to create wedding websites for same-sex couples, putting the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people on shaky legal footing.Mr. DeSantis has frequently cast himself as a lightning rod for unfair criticism by liberals and has used such attacks to rally support from his political base. The video, compiled by another Twitter user, seemed intended, in part, to attract more liberal outrage at a time when he is struggling to gain traction in polls against Mr. Trump.It was the type of move — devised to provoke a reaction — that Mr. Trump often deployed from his Twitter account during the 2016 campaign.Earlier in his career, as a congressman, Mr. DeSantis did not seem consumed by combating the L.G.B.T.Q. community. At the time, he privately told a counterpart he didn’t care about people’s sexuality.And when he first ran for governor five years ago, Mr. DeSantis suggested he would take a more moderate approach on some L.G.B.T.Q. rights issues, saying that Republicans needed to move beyond debating which bathrooms transgender people should use. “Getting into bathroom wars, I don’t think that’s a good use of our time,” he said at a Republican candidate forum in 2018.But in this campaign for the Republican nomination, Mr. DeSantis has sought to highlight — and expand — his ultraconservative credentials in an effort to position himself to the right of his chief rival.The new video drew criticism not only from Democrats but also from some in his own party, including the Log Cabin Republicans, which describes itself as the nation’s largest organization for “L.G.B.T. conservatives and allies.” The group, which endorsed Mr. Trump in 2019 and has used his Mar-a-Lago club for events, called the video “divisive and desperate” and said it “ventured into homophobic territory.”Sarah Longwell, a moderate Republican political strategist, wrote on Twitter: “The consultants who think this kind of ‘running to Trump’s right’ is going to be effective should be sacked.” And Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman and Trump critic, said, “Outrage after outrage is the only way these guys know how to campaign.”Mr. DeSantis’s campaign shared the video on Twitter with the text: “To wrap up ‘Pride Month,’ let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it,” referring to Mr. Trump.Former President Donald J. Trump, who spoke this week at an event in New Hampshire, is well ahead of Mr. DeSantis in national polls.John Tully for The New York TimesMr. Trump, who grew up in liberal New York and was a businessman for decades, was seen during his 2016 campaign by some Republicans as more open to the L.G.B.T.Q. community. But he also chose Mike Pence, then the governor of Indiana and a staunch conservative who had signed into a law a religious freedom act that was seen as hostile to L.G.B.T.Q. people, as his running mate. As president, Mr. Trump systematically dismantled L.G.B.T.Q. protections put into effect by President Barack Obama, particularly those concerning transgender people. The video shared by the DeSantis campaign reflects a race to the right on a number of issues in the primary. In Florida, Mr. DeSantis has signed bills restricting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, punishing businesses that admit minors to “adult live performances” such as drag shows and making it a misdemeanor trespassing offense for people to use bathrooms in public buildings that do not correspond to their sex at birth.And with its barrage of references to obscure right-wing memes, the video also shows how heavily Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has leaned into the brash and provocative parlance of fringe online conservatives. The Florida governor, who is running well behind Mr. Trump in national polls, signaled from the beginning of his campaign that he hoped to connect with right-wing voters online, including by announcing his candidacy in a glitchy livestream event on Twitter with Elon Musk.But by openly courting such insular conservative communities, Mr. DeSantis, who has told donors that he is the only Republican who can beat President Biden, may risk alienating the more moderate voters he will most likely need in a general election.The video also risks putting off some Republican donors, some of whom are more moderate on issues like L.G.B.T.Q. rights and are watching to see how Mr. DeSantis progresses before committing to his candidacy.In addition to implicitly comparing Mr. DeSantis to Christian Bale’s homicidal character in “American Psycho,” who in the book is a mega-fan of then-businessman Donald J. Trump, the video — set to a thrumming bass — without much explanation also highlights Leonardo DiCaprio’s role as a hedonistic, drug-addicted financial fraudster in the film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” as well as Brad Pitt’s depiction of Achilles in “Troy.” (Achilles, the hero of “The Iliad,” was often portrayed in later Classical Greek literature as the lover of his male companion, Patroclus.)For his part, Mr. Trump noted last month, sounding pleased, that the issue of limiting rights for transgender people had become a major animating force for conservative Republican voters.“It’s amazing how strongly people feel about that,” Mr. Trump said during a speech in North Carolina in June. “I talk about transgender, everybody goes crazy. Five years ago, you didn’t know what the hell it was.” More