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      ‘La French Tech’ Arrives Under Macron, but Proves No Panacea

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      The president has brought innovation, jobs and growth. Still, resentments fester on the eve of the presidential election.PARIS — In full Steve Jobs mode, President Emmanuel Macron of France donned a black turtleneck in January and took to Twitter to celebrate the creation in France of 25 “unicorn” start-ups — companies with a market value of over 1 billion euros, or almost $1.1 billion.He declared that France’s start-up economy was “changing the lives of French people” and “strengthening our sovereignty.” It was also helping to create jobs: Unemployment has fallen to 7.4 percent, the lowest level in a decade.The start-up boom was a milestone for a young president elected five years ago as a restless disrupter, promising to pry open the economy and make it competitive in the 21st century.To some extent, Mr. Macron has succeeded, luring billions of euros in foreign investments and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs, many in tech start-ups, in a country whose resistance to change is stubborn. But disruption is just that, and the president has at the same time left many French feeling unsettled and unhappy, left behind or ignored.As Mr. Macron seeks re-election starting on Sunday, it is two countries that will vote — a mainly urban France that sees the need for change to meet the era’s sweeping technological and economic challenges, and a France of the “periphery,” wary of innovation, struggling to get by, alarmed by immigration and resentful of a leader seen as embodying the arrogance of the privileged.Which France shows up at voting booths in greater numbers will determine the outcome.Campaign posters on display this month in the northeastern French town of Stiring-Wendel.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesIn many Western societies, the simultaneous spread of technology and inequality has posed acute problems, stirring social tensions, and France has proved no exception. If the disenchanted France prevails, Marine Le Pen, the perennial candidate of the nationalist right, will most likely prevail, too.Worried that he may have lost the left by favoring start-up entrepreneurship and market reforms, Mr. Macron has in the past week been multiplying appeals to the left, resorting to phrases like “our lives are worth more than their profits” to suggest his perceived rightward lurch was not the whole story.He told France Inter radio that “fraternity” was the most important word in the French national motto, and said during a visit to Brittany that “solidarity” and “equality of opportunity” would be the central themes of an eventual second term.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionThe run-up to the first round of the election has been dominated by issues such as security, immigration and national identity.On the Scene: A Times reporter attended a rally held by Marine Le Pen, the far-right French presidential candidate. Here is what he saw.Challenges to Re-election: A troubled factory in President Emmanuel Macron’s hometown shows his struggle in winning the confidence of French workers.A Late Surge: After recently rising in voter surveys, Jean-Luc Mélenchon could become the first left-wing candidate since 2012 to reach the second round of the election.A Political Bellwether: Auxerre has backed the winner in the presidential race for 40 years. This time, many residents see little to vote for.The pledges looked like signs of growing anxiety about the election’s outcome. After several months in which Mr. Macron’s re-election had appeared virtually assured, the gap between him and Ms. Le Pen has closed. The leading two candidates in Sunday’s vote will go through to a runoff on April 24.The election will be largely decided by perceptions of the economy. In Mr. Macron’s favor, the country has bounced back faster than expected from coronavirus lockdowns, with economic growth reaching 7 percent after a devastating pandemic-induced recession.Marine Le Pen speaking this month in Stiring-Wendel.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe most significant cultural transformation has come in the area of tech, where Mr. Macron’s determination to create a start-up culture centered around new technology has brought changes the government considers essential to the future of France.Cédric O, the secretary of state for the digital sector, wearing jeans and a white dress shirt, no tie, admits to being obsessed. Day after long day, he plots the future of “la French tech” from his spacious office at the Finance Ministry.Five years ago, that may have seemed quixotic, but something has stirred. “It’s vital to be obsessed because the risk France and Europe are facing is to be kicked out of history,” Mr. O, 39, said, borrowing a line often used by Mr. Macron. “We have to get back into the international technological race.”Toward that end, Mr. Macron opened Station F, a mammoth incubator project in Paris representing France’s start-up ambitions, and earmarked nearly €10 billion in tax credits and other inducements to lure research activity and artificial intelligence business. A new bank was created to help finance start-ups.The president wined and dined multinational chief executives, creating an annual gathering at Versailles called “Choose France.”Since 2019, France has become the leading destination for foreign investment in Europe, and more than 70 investment projects worth €12 billion have been pledged by foreign multinationals at the Versailles gatherings, said Franck Riester, France’s foreign trade minister.In the past four years, IBM, SAP of Germany and DeepMind, the London-based machine learning company owned by Google’s parent, Alphabet, have increased investment in France and created thousands of jobs.Station F, a mammoth project in Paris that represents France’s start-up ambitions.Roberto Frankenberg for The New York TimesFacebook and Google have also bolstered their French presence and their artificial intelligence teams in Paris. Salesforce, the American cloud computing company, is moving ahead with over €2 billion in pledged investments.“Macron brought a culture shift where France was suddenly open to the world of funders,” said Thomas Clozel, a doctor by training and the founder in 2016 of Owkin, a start-up that uses Artificial Intelligence to personalize and improve medical treatment. “He made everything easy for start-up entrepreneurs and so changed the view of France as an anticapitalist society.”François Hollande, Mr. Macron’s Socialist Party predecessor, had famously declared in 2012: “My enemy is the world of finance.” As a result, Mr. Clozel said, securing funds as a French start-up was so problematic that he chose to incorporate in the United States.No longer.“Today, I am thinking of reincorporating in France,” he said. “The ease of dealing with the government, the consortium of start-ups helping one another, and the new French tech pride are compelling.”Among the start-ups that have had a significant effect on French life are Doctolib, a website that allows patients to arrange for medical appointments and tests online, and Backmarket, an online market for reconditioned tech gadgets that just became France’s most valuable start-up, at $5.7 billion.They began life before Mr. Macron took office, but have grown exponentially in the past five years.“I have made 56 investments in the last two years, and 53 of them are in France,” said Jonathan Benhamou, a French entrepreneur who founded PeopleDoc, a company that simplifies access to information for human resources departments.Now funding new ventures and focusing on a new start-up called Resilience in the field of personalized cancer care, Mr. Benhamou credits Mr. Macron with “giving investors confidence in stability and creating a virtuous cycle.”Talented engineers no longer go elsewhere because there is an “ecosystem” for them in France, Mr. O said.Yellow Vest protesters blocking a road in Caen, in France’s Normandy region, in November 2018.Charly Triballeau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Macron has insisted that opening the economy is consistent with maintaining protections for French workers and that the arrival of la French tech does not mean the embrace of the no-holds-barred capitalism behind the churn of American creativity.Despite the president’s overhauls, France remains one of the most expensive countries for payroll taxes, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with hourly labor costs of nearly €38, close to levels seen in Sweden, Norway and other northern European countries.“We know that we have to go further,” Mr. Riester, the foreign trade minister, said in a recent interview. “We still have some brakes that could be taken off the economy, and we have to cut some red tape in the future.”Who Is Running for President of France?Card 1 of 6The campaign begins. 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      For Macron, France’s Troubled Industries Hit Home

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      President Emmanuel Macron vowed an economic revival, but as he seeks re-election, a Potemkin factory in the town where he was raised shows just how hard that can be.AMIENS, France — During the last presidential campaign, the troubled Whirlpool factory in the northern city of Amiens became the setting for frantic, dueling appeals for support by Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival, Marine Le Pen.Mr. Macron promised to save the plant — which happens to be in his hometown — and once he was elected, his government poured millions in subsidies toward the factory’s reinvention, as a showpiece of his commitment to reviving French industry.As Mr. Macron seeks re-election, he and Ms. Le Pen are preparing to square off once again as the front-runners before the first round of voting in presidential elections on Sunday. But the fate of the plant has proved much the opposite of what Mr. Macron had hoped for.Today, the plant is an example of the difficulty of rehabilitating ailing French industries and of the president’s challenge in winning the confidence of French workers, who have been gravitating for years to the far right.The mammoth plant in Amiens, where weeds have pushed through asphalt and the cafeteria’s menu is frozen on sausage fricassee, is deserted and lifeless, except for three last Whirlpool workers who spend their days huddling around the coffee machines in a few small rooms.The plant’s new operator was convicted in February of misuse of funds, after a year of taking money from the government and Whirlpool and doing precious little with it. Workers say they spent idle days as next to nothing rolled off the assembly line. Instead, they kept busy killing time, taking extended cigarette breaks or lying inside their cars fidgeting on their smartphones.Frédéric Chantrelle, left, one of the last three workers still employed at the plant in Amiens, and Christophe Beaugrand, a former employee.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times“Two or three times, when someone important visited, we had to pretend to work or hide,” recalled Mariano Munoz, 49, who was in charge of janitorial services. “The welders welded all sorts of things and hammered away. One or two tinkered with a car. Me, I’d take the street cleaner and I’d sweep the entire parking lot.”Mr. Macron was elected as a change agent five years ago, with plans to disrupt the heavily unionized industrial sector that had stagnated as owners feared the rising cost of French workers who were guaranteed years of ample benefits and were notoriously difficult to fire. For years, unemployment hovered chronically at 8 percent or more as the industrial sector atrophied.Initially, Mr. Macron attempted to overhaul France’s economy by pushing through business-friendly changes, like cutting taxes, especially for the wealthy. In his first years as president, he took on some of France’s toughest unions, provoking the biggest strikes the country had seen in years as he revamped France’s voluminous labor code, making it easier to hire and fire workers.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionThe run-up to the first round of the election has been dominated by issues such as security, immigration and national identity.Suddenly Wide Open: An election that had seemed almost assured to return President Emmanuel Macron to power now appears to be anything but certain.On Stage: As the vote approaches, theaters and comedy venues are tackling the campaign with one message: Don’t trust politicians.Behind the Scene: In France, where political finance laws are strict, control over the media has provided an avenue for billionaires to influence the election.A Political Bellwether: Auxerre has backed the winner in the presidential race for 40 years. This time, many residents see little to vote for.Private Consultants: A report showing that firms like McKinsey earned large sums of money to do work for his government has put President Emmannuel Macron on the defensive.But even as the overall economy has bounced back strongly from the pandemic, Mr. Macron’s efforts to reindustrialize France have proved decidedly mixed, economists say, as evidenced by the nation’s trade deficit of 84.7 billion euros, about $93 billion, last year — a record — as well as the plant in Amiens, which had made tumble dryers for Whirlpool and did not survive despite nearly €10 million in subsidies.Amiens North, an area inhabited by many descendants of North Africans recruited to work in factories in the 1960s and ’70s.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesFor Mr. Macron, the plant’s long, agonizing death has complicated every trip back to his hometown, about 80 miles north of Paris. It reinforced the impression of Mr. Macron, a former investment banker, as the president of the rich, someone cut off from ordinary French people — like the nearly 300 workers who lost their jobs when the plant finally did close in 2018.Many of the laid off workers went on to join the Yellow Vest movement, whose ranks were filled with working-class French struggling under high taxes and a lack of earning power, ushering in the biggest political crisis of Mr. Macron’s presidency.Burned by the Yellow Vest protests, Mr. Macron’s government spent massively to offset the economic shock of the pandemic, and unemployment is now at its lowest in a decade. Still, it is service-sector jobs that have continued to increase, while industrial employment declines.Thomas Grjebine, an economist at CEPII, a research center in Paris, said that the fate of the Amiens plant was “symptomatic” of the difficulties of reviving the industrial sector. “In fact, the government is somewhat powerless before the closings of plants,” Mr. Grjebine said. “But many promises are made during campaigns.”During Mr. Macron’s campaign for the presidency in 2017, 11 days before the final vote, Mr. Macron met with union leaders in town, while Ms. Le Pen paid a surprise visit to the plant’s parking lot and was greeted warmly by striking employees — forcing a reluctant Mr. Macron to follow.Patrice Sinoquet, another of the last remaining workers at the plant, showed a photograph of Mr. Macron visiting the factory in 2019.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesHeckled and jostled by the hostile crowd, Mr. Macron tried to catch up with Ms. Le Pen, whose party, then called the National Front, had won the department that includes Amiens in the first round of voting that year.“You think it doesn’t hurt me in the gut that people vote for the National Front on my soil?” Mr. Macron said to the crowd. Later, he promised a “real Marshall Plan for the reindustrialization of our economically lost territories.”Half a year after his election victory, that promise seemed in sight. A prominent local businessman, Nicolas Decayeux, was selected to take over the plant with a project to manufacture refrigerated lockers and small vehicles. He took on 162 of the 282 laid-off Whirlpool workers and received €2.6 million in subsidies from the government and €7.4 million from Whirlpool.During a celebratory visit to the plant, Mr. Macron was accompanied by Mr. Decayeux. In a follow-up letter to Mr. Decayeux, the president wrote that the businessman’s “beautiful entrepreneurial project” would “contribute to our industrial recovery.”“I really had stars in my eyes because here is a young president who wants to reform France,” recalled Mr. Decayeux, who named his company WN.It was a rare piece of good news for Amiens, a picturesque town of more than 130,000 that straddles the Somme River.Like much of northern France, it had been hit by deindustrialization for two generations as successive national governments considered a shift toward a consumer-driven economy a sign of modernization, witnessed in the Amazon warehouses that have opened in Amiens and elsewhere.An Amazon facility near Amiens. The shift toward a consumer-driven economy was seen by successive national governments as a sign of modernization.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times“This drop in social standing, the sentiment of being abandoned and of not mattering, eased the way for extremism,” said Brigitte Fouré, the center-right mayor of Amiens.In an interview with a French magazine last year, Mr. Macron said that growing up in Amiens, he had witnessed the “full force of deindustrialization” in his region. Still, he acknowledged that he himself had enjoyed a sheltered upbringing, living in a “rather happy bubble, and even a bubble in a bubble.”The son of two medical doctors, Mr. Macron grew up in Amiens’s richest neighborhood, Henriville, and attended the city’s most prestigious school, a private Jesuit establishment called La Providence. “He’s from Henriville, and when you say, ‘Henriville,’ it’s Versailles,” said M’hammed El Hiba, the longtime head of Alco, a community center in Amiens North, an area inhabited by the descendants of North Africans recruited to work in factories in the 1960s and 1970s.Mr. Macron grew up in Amiens’s richest neighborhood, Henriville, and attended the city’s most prestigious school, a private Jesuit establishment called La Providence. Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesAt the former Whirlpool plant, the optimism faded quickly. Former workers said that Mr. Decayeux’s plans to build lockers and small vehicles never took off.“Nothing was happening,” said Christophe Beaugrand, 44, a welder who was hired by Mr. Decayeux after being laid off by Whirlpool. “People were in the cafeteria with their phones and chargers. When the prefect visited, we had to make noise or hide.”Who Is Running for President of France?Card 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

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      There Are Glimmers of Hope for Biden. Or Maybe Slivers.

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      Despite the terrible reality of the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and record gas prices, a faint ray of sunshine has fallen on Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. According to strategists for both parties, the Democrats now have a 50-50 chance of retaining control of the Senate in the midterm elections, crucial for the appointment of federal judges, but nowhere near enough electoral strength to give them a shot at keeping their House majority.Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, agrees that “Biden is finally getting some good news after a long period of horrible events,” but those pluses stand against the more sustained setbacks the president has experienced.Ayres argued in an email that Bidendrove his own job approval down by hanging onto an obviously hopeless BuildBackBetter, muddying his bipartisan success on the infrastructure bill. He ran as a center-left moderate but tried to govern as a progressive. That had two results: raising the hopes of liberals, when it was obvious he was never going to get Manchin or Sinema, before dashing those hopes, leaving liberals demoralized. On top of that, he left a bunch of people who voted for him thinking they were sold a bill of goods. Along with the fiasco of the Afghanistan withdrawal, he squandered majority job approval.Ayres noted:It’s hard to imagine Republicans not winning the House, given historical trends and Biden’s lousy job approval ratings. Control of the Senate depends on the kinds of candidates Republicans nominate. Nominate sane governing Republicans like Rob Portman, Richard Burr and Pat Toomey, and the Senate is theirs. Nominate far-right wing-nut cases and the Senate stays in the hands of the Democrats.Still, Biden has had some significant success and Republicans face serious obstacles.On the plus side for Democrats: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in February, employers added 678,000 new jobs and unemployment fell to 3.8 percent. Meanwhile, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection disclosed on March 3 that it has “has a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”Politico reported on March 8:President Joe Biden’s approval rating is on the rise — for now — in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Biden’s State of the Union address last week. Multiple surveys over the past week, including a new Politico/Morning Consult poll out Tuesday, show a modest-to-moderate uptick in voters’ views of Biden’s job performance, up from his low-water mark earlier this year.And then there is the setback that never materialized: While many predicted the post-2020 census redrawing of congressional districts would be a disaster for Democrats, in practice the new congressional lines are a wash. “We now estimate Democrats are on track to net 4 to 5 more House seats than they otherwise would have won on current maps, up from two seats in our previous estimate,” David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report wrote on Feb. 24.On the negative side for Republicans: Donald Trump’s admiration for and long courtship of Vladimir Putin has begun to backfire, causing conflict within Republican ranks; and these intraparty tensions have been compounded by Mike Pence’s growing willingness to challenge Trump, as well as by an internal strategy dispute between Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, and Senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. who now heads The Organizing Group, a political consulting firm, contended in an email that the Biden administration has done a poor job promoting its successes:We’ve been canvassing white working-class voters in Southwestern PA and in the Lehigh Valley. They have no idea what the president and the Democrats in Congress have already done that directly impacts the issues they raise. When they hear about Biden sending $7 billion to PA for their roads, bridges and schools, they’re moved by it. This isn’t rocket science.“It’s a volatile environment,” Rosenthal adds: “Covid, war in Ukraine, inflation — and a lot can happen between now and November. But I definitely like the hand the Democrats are playing better this week than last. For now, let’s take it one week at a time.”Dean Baker, a co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank, made a similar case in his emailed response to my inquiries:On the economic front, President Biden and the Democrats really need to up their game in pushing their record and their agenda. We have had record job growth since Biden took office, and somehow the economy is supposed to be a liability for the Democrats? If the shoe were on the other foot, the Republicans would be plastering the job numbers across the sky. This is the best labor market in more than half a century. Workers can leave jobs they don’t like for better ones; that is a really great story.In Baker’s view:Biden and the Democrats really need to move forward on what they can get from his Build Back Better agenda. This means sitting down with Senator Manchin and figuring out what he will go for. It is kind of mind-boggling that they didn’t do this last spring.The point, Baker argued, “is to get something that will have as much benefit as possible — climate tops the list — and push it through quickly.”Baker wrote that he has “no idea if the Democrats can hold one or both chambers in November, but things are looking somewhat better,” especially in the Senate, where “the Republicans are having trouble getting strong candidates in many potential swing states like New Hampshire, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and possibly even Ohio. This raises the possibility of the Democrats picking up seats.”Control of the House, where Democrats hold a slim 222-211 majority, will be another matter after the coming election.Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, made the case in an email thatIt would be a major historical anomaly if Democrats retain control of the House in 2022. One of the most predictable features of American politics is the loss of seats in Congress for the president’s party at the midterm. Even presidents with majority public approval still almost always see losses for their party in Congress. With Democrats’ margin so narrow, the party just cannot spare any losses.Biden’s favorability rating, currently averaging 41.6 percent according to Real Clear Politics, would have to rise “above 60 percent — like George W. Bush in 2002 or Bill Clinton in 1998 — before it would become reasonable to expect Democrats to avert a loss of House control,” Lee observed. “Since the advent of public opinion polling, all presidents with approval ratings below 60 percent have seen losses of congressional seats at the midterm, in every case more than the 5 seats that Democrats can spare in 2022.”Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm, provided historical data to The Times based on Gallup polling and House election outcomes in nonpresidential contests from 1962 to 2018. When the president’s approval rating was 60 percent or higher, the president’s party gained one seat; when the rating was in the 49 percent to 59 percent range, the president’s party lost an average of 12 seats; when the favorability rating fell below 49 percent, the average loss was 39 House seats. Biden, with eight months until the midterms, is well below that mark.The picture, according to Lee,is not entirely bleak. The employment recovery is strong; the pandemic seems to be abating. The battle for the Senate is more evenly matched, and Republicans have come up short in some high-profile candidate recruitment efforts. But Democrats have no margin for error. Any losses given a 50-50 balance will tip Senate control to Republicans. In a midterm year, one would have to rate that outcome as the more likely outcome.Lee suggested that “the more plausible question for Biden is how bad things are likely to get for Democrats.”She pointed out:Thirty House Democrats have already retired rather than run for re-election. Inflation is expected to be running well above Federal Reserve targets through the rest of 2022. Even though Biden has been able to rally the democratic world in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, few experts expect a favorable outcome of the conflict on any near-term horizon. The pandemic has defied predictions to date, and public patience is wearing thinner.Charlie Cook, founder of the Cook Political Report, argued in an email that Biden is in a deep hole very difficult to climb out of:Between the Mexican border, not anticipating a rush across the border when Trump left town, being caught flat-footed, Kabul made the fall of Saigon look fairly dignified, ignoring/dismissing inflation. The worst sin for most voters, inflation, hurts 100 percent of people, a totally unrealistic legislative agenda, party line vote on coronavirus package, 7.5 months to get half of what they wanted on infrastructure, he has pretty much soiled his nest. Republican voters are hyper-motivated, Democratic voters lethargic, independents alienated, doesn’t sound terribly promising to me.Alex Theodoridis, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, is pessimistic about Democratic prospects, but less so than Cook.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Theodoridis wrote by email, “is an awkward one for GOP elites and voters. They have spent the last few years downplaying the nefariousness of Putin’s regime and portraying Ukraine as a hopelessly corrupt hotbed of profiteering for the Biden family.”This message, he continued, hastrickled down to the Republican rank-and-file. UMass Poll data from 2020 and 2021 show that Republicans, on average, rate Democrats, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and even people who vote for Democrats, as greater threats to America than Vladimir Putin and Russia. In the weeks before the invasion, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump, among others, peddled takes flattering to Putin. This stance has grown uncomfortable as Russia and Putin have clearly played the role of unprovoked aggressor and Ukrainians and Zelensky emerge as both sympathetic and heroic.But, in Theodoridis’s view, the “positive signs for Biden and Democrats over the last couple weeks” do not “yet rise to the level of changing the expectation that 2022 will likely follow the historical pattern of midterm loss for the president’s party. And, Democrats have precious little margin with which to sustain any loss of seats.”There are still major uncertainties to be resolved before Election Day, Nov. 8. These include the possibility that Trump will be embroiled in criminal charges and the chance that Trump himself will become an albatross around the neck of the Republican Party.The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a Mississippi case that could unwind Roe and bar access to abortion for millions of women with the political response quite likely to cost the Republican Party a significant number of votes. Trump’s legal status, in turn, will be determined by prosecutors in Georgia, New York and possibly the United States Justice Department.Finally, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a wild card, giving rise, among other things, to mounting speculation about Trump’s judgment and his fitness for office.On Feb. 22, the day after Putin said he would recognize the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk, two regions in eastern Ukraine, Trump remarked, “This is genius”— a comment in line with Trump’s history of fulsomely praising Putin.On March 2, Trump tried to cut his losses and abruptly told Maria Bartiromo of Fox News that the invasion amounted to a “holocaust” and Russia must “stop killing these people.” He condemned the Russian military: “They’re blowing up indiscriminately, they’re just shooting massive missiles and rockets into these buildings and everybody is dying​.”On March 5, speaking at a meeting of top Republican donors in New Orleans, Trump wandered farther afield, suggesting, however insincerely, that the United States should paste Chinese flags on F-22s and “bomb the [expletive] out of Russia.”On Feb. 27, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas was clearly discomfited by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” when Stephanopoulos, speaking of Trump, noted:Last night, he finally condemned the invasion, but he also repeated his praise of Putin, calling him smart.Earlier in the week, he called him pretty smart. He called him savvy. He says NATO and the U.S. are dumb.Are you prepared to condemn that kind of rhetoric from the leader of your party?Pressed repeatedly, Cotton ducked repeatedly:George, if you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic, I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.Mike Pence, on the other hand, has determined that his best strategy as he continues to explore a presidential bid is to defy Trump.“Ask yourself, where would our friends in Eastern Europe be today if they were not in NATO?” Pence asked the Republican National Committee donors on March 4. “Where would Russian tanks be today if NATO had not expanded the borders of freedom? There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin.”The biggest unknown on the political horizon is the repercussions of the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies on Russia, which are certain to raise energy and food costs, exacerbating the administration’s continuing difficulties with rising prices.“War and sanctions means higher inflation,” The Economist warned on March 5. “Things could get much worse should sanctions expand in scope to cover energy purchases or if Russia retaliates against them by reducing its exports.” On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced that it was banning Russian oil imports.“JPMorgan Chase,” The Economist went on,projects that a sustained shut-off of the Russian oil supply might cause prices to rise to $150 per barrel, a level sufficient to knock 1.6 percent off global G.D.P. while raising consumer prices by another 2 percent. The stagflationary shock would carry echoes of the Yom Kippur war of 1973, which sparked the first of the two energy crises of that decade.A political minefield lies ahead and negotiating this terrain will require more tactical and strategic skill than the Biden administration has demonstrated in its 14 months in office.This is especially relevant in the context of another explosive unknown, the possibility of the largest land war in Europe since 1945 metastasizing into a global conflict.In an essay he posted on Monday, “The Nuclear Threat Is Back,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the recipient of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize and the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, argues that “beyond the bloodshed and needless destruction, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also increased the risk of radiation leaks and even nuclear war” — events, it is almost needless to say, that would create mind-boggling suffering, throw current electoral calculations into disarray and raise the stakes of every political decision we make.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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      Kathy Hochul Gives Her First State of the State Speech

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged $10 billion to boost the state’s decimated health care work force, proposed a new transit line, and directed funds to combat gun violence.In her first State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $10 billion pledge to fortify New York’s health care work force and outlined her economic recovery plan.Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesALBANY, N.Y. — In her first State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday outlined her vision for shepherding New York State through its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, while vowing to open a new chapter of ethical, more transparent government.In her most ambitious proposal, Ms. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, called for spending $10 billion to bolster the state’s health care work force, which has been devastated by the pandemic. She also pushed initiatives to support small businesses and to lure new investments, vowing to position New York as the most “business-friendly and worker-friendly state in the nation.”The annual address, typically as much a declaration of politics as policy, provided Ms. Hochul her most expansive opportunity yet to define her agenda. She faces a contested Democratic primary in June, her first election since she unexpectedly ascended to the state’s highest job after former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly resigned in August amid allegations of sexual misconduct.In the speech, Ms. Hochul, a moderate from outside Buffalo, sought to balance competing political challenges: She wants to court more liberal urban voters in the party’s primary, but not so much that she becomes vulnerable to Republicans hoping to make electoral gains in November’s general election.She offered some left-leaning measures like a “jails-to-jobs” program, and others aimed at the political center, including tax cuts for middle-class New Yorkers and several initiatives meant to curb a spike in gun violence, which is likely to be a contentious election-year issue.“My fellow New Yorkers, this agenda is for you,” Ms. Hochul said at the State Capitol. “Every single initiative is filtered through the lens of how it’ll help you and your families, because I know you’re exhausted. I know you want this pandemic to be over. I know you’re worried about the economy, inflation, your kids, their education and what the future holds.”The state faces immense challenges: The unemployment rate in New York City is 9.4 percent, more than double the national average. In the past year, New York’s population declined by more than 300,000 people — more than any other state in the country. The economic struggles underscore the state’s gravest loss: 60,000 lives since the pandemic began.Ms. Hochul outlined a lengthy list of proposals intended to appeal to a constellation of constituencies, including business leaders, homeowners and influential unions representing teachers and construction workers, all of whom could play a crucial role in her campaign.Wearing suffragist white, Ms. Hochul stressed that she would be different from Mr. Cuomo, declaring that she would pursue a more collaborative relationship with Democrats who control the Legislature and with Eric Adams, New York City’s new mayor. She positioned herself as a champion of good government, proposing to overhaul the state ethics commission and to institute term limits on governors. The latter measure, which would curb her own power, was seen as a not-so-subtle rebuke of the outsize influence Mr. Cuomo amassed over more than a decade in office.“For government to work, those of us in power cannot continue to cling to it,” Ms. Hochul said, speaking before a sparse crowd of about 50 people.The package of ethics and government reforms were meant to hold accountable elected officials in a State Capitol with a long history of graft and corruption.One of her boldest proposals called for abolishing the embattled ethics commission, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, whose members are appointed by the governor and state lawmakers. Instead, under Ms. Hochul’s plan, a rotating, five-member panel of law school deans or their designees would oversee ethics enforcement.The address, typically a lively affair that attracts crowds of activists and lobbyists to the Capitol, was tinged with decidedly 2022 touches: masks, testing requirements and attendance limits that meant many lawmakers watched remotely. The Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, was absent, because of Covid-19 concerns. Outside the Capitol, a throng of protesters waving American flags crowded the lawn and railed against vaccine mandates.Keenly aware of potential attacks from Republicans, Ms. Hochul focused part of her remarks on new efforts to combat a surge in gun violence, including financing for more police officers and prosecutors, investments in neighborhoods where violent crime is common and money earmarked for tracing the origin of illegal guns.“Time and time again, New Yorkers tell me that they don’t feel safe,” Ms. Hochul said during the half-hour speech. “They don’t like what they see on streets and things feel different now, and not always for the better.”Members of her party’s ascendant left wing were pleased to hear the governor express support for the Clean Slate Act, which is meant to seal certain crimes on the records of formerly incarcerated people to help them find jobs and housing.But some of her proposals were not as far-reaching as some left-leaning Democrats had hoped. Ms. Hochul’s plan to expand child care would increase access for 100,000 families, well short of the more expansive Universal Childcare Act recently introduced in the Legislature. She made no reference to longstanding efforts to advance universal health care, or to institute a carbon tax.Ms. Hochul offered a five-year plan to build 100,000 units of affordable housing and, with the state’s moratorium on evictions set to expire this month, she proposed a program that would provide free legal assistance to poor renters facing eviction. But she was silent on demands to enshrine in state law a requirement limiting the ability of landlords to evict tenants and raise rents. The housing plan was applauded by the state’s influential real estate lobby, but criticized by a group of democratic socialist legislators for not doing enough to address the affordability crisis. A leading coalition of tenant activists, Housing Justice for All, called Ms. Hochul “Cuomo 2.0” in a statement.Most notably, Ms. Hochul sidestepped an explosive ideological wedge issue that is bound to come up this year: potentially amending the bail reform legislation passed in 2019. Embracing such a move could put her at odds with many lawmakers in her party. The legislation, which was meant to address inequities in the criminal justice system by abolishing cash bail for most crimes, has since been attacked by Republicans, who argue that the changes released violent criminals and cited the reforms in successful campaigns against Democrats last November.Republicans criticized Ms. Hochul’s plans, saying they would do little to address rising inflation or to lower taxes.“Our state’s oppressive tax burden drives businesses and families away in record numbers because, year after year, New Yorkers have been forced to pick up the tab for the out-of-control spending habits of liberal politicians,” said Will Barclay, the Assembly’s Republican leader.A Guide to the New York Governor’s RaceCard 1 of 6A crowded field. More

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      Canada Goose workers vote to unionize in Winnipeg.

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      Workers at three plants owned by the luxury apparel-maker Canada Goose in Winnipeg, Manitoba, have voted overwhelmingly to unionize, according to results announced by the union on Wednesday.Workers United, an affiliate of the giant Service Employees International Union, said it would represent about 1,200 additional workers as a result of the election.Canada Goose, which makes parkas that can cost more than $1,000 and have been worn by celebrities like Daniel Craig and Kate Upton, has union workers at other facilities, including some in Toronto, and has frequently cited its commitment to high environmental and labor standards. But it had long appeared to resist efforts to unionize workers in Winnipeg, part of what the union called an “adversarial relationship.”The company denied that it sought to block unionization, and both sides agree that it was neutral in recent weeks, in the run-up to the election. The union said 86 percent of those voting backed unionization.“I want to congratulate the workers of Canada Goose for this amazing victory,” Richard A. Minter, a vice president and international organizing director for Workers United, said in a statement. “I also want to salute the company. No employer wants a union, but Canada Goose management stayed neutral and allowed the workers the right to exercise their democratic vote.”Reacting to the vote, the company said: “Our goal has always been to support our employees, respecting their right to determine their own representation. We welcome Workers United as the union representative for our employees across our manufacturing facilities in Winnipeg.”Canada Goose was founded under a different name in the 1950s. It began to raise its profile and emphasize international sales after Dani Reiss, the grandson of its founder, took over as chief executive in 2001. Mr. Reiss committed to keeping production of parkas in Canada.The private equity firm Bain Capital purchased a majority stake in the company in 2013 and took it public a few years later.The union vote came after accusations this year that Canada Goose had disciplined two workers who identified themselves as union supporters. Several workers at Canada Goose’s Winnipeg facilities, where the company’s work force is mostly immigrants, also complained of low pay and abusive behavior by managers.The company has denied the accusations of retaliation and abuse and said that well over half its workers in Winnipeg earned wages above the local minimum of about 12 Canadian dollars (about $9.35).Workers United is also seeking to organize workers at several Buffalo-area Starbucks stores, three of which are in the middle of a mail-in union election in which ballots are due next week.Nearly 30 percent of workers are unionized in Canada, compared with about 11 percent in the United States. More

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      Una despedida esperanzada para los lectores

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      Mi vida se transformó cuando tenía 25 años y entré nervioso a una entrevista de trabajo en la imponente oficina de Abe Rosenthal, el editor legendario y volátil de The New York Times. En un momento, no estuve de acuerdo con él, así que esperé a que se enojara y llamara a seguridad. En cambio, me tendió la mano y me ofreció un trabajo.La euforia me desbordó: ¡era muy joven y había encontrado a mi empleador para el resto de la vida! Estaba seguro de que la única manera en que dejaría el Times sería muerto.Sin embargo, esta es mi última columna para el diario. Estoy dejando un trabajo que amo para postularme como gobernador de Oregón.Es sensato cuestionar mi decisión. Cuando le preguntaron a mi colega William Safire si dejaría su columna en el Times para ser secretario de Estado, contestó: “¿Y por qué bajar un escalón en mi carrera?”.Así que, ¿por qué estoy haciéndolo?Voy a llegar a eso, pero primero quiero compartir unas cuantas lecciones de mis 37 años como reportero, editor y columnista del Times.En especial, quiero dejar claro que, aunque pasé mi carrera en la primera línea del sufrimiento y la depravación humana, cubriendo genocidio, guerra, pobreza e injusticia, salí de ahí con la firme creencia de que podemos lograr un progreso real si logramos convocar la suficiente voluntad política. Somos una especie magnífica, y podemos hacer las cosas mejor.Lección 1: A un lado de lo peor de la humanidad, encontrarás también lo mejor.El genocidio en Darfur me marcó y horrorizó. Para cubrir la matanza, crucé fronteras sin ser visto, escapé de puestos de control, y me congracié con asesinos en masa.Fue difícil no llorar mientras entrevistaba a niños traumatizados que habían recibido balazos, habían sido violados o quedado huérfanos. Era imposible reportear en Darfur y no oler la maldad en el aire. Pero, junto con los monstruos, invariablemente encontré a héroes.Había adolescentes que se ofrecieron para usar sus arcos y flechas para proteger a sus aldeas de los milicianos que llevaban armas automáticas. Había trabajadores humanitarios, en su mayoría locales, que arriesgaron sus vidas para dar asistencia. Y sudaneses de a pie, como Suad Ahmed, una mujer de 25 años de Darfur que conocí en un campo de refugiados.Suad y su hermana Halima, de 10 años, estaban recogiendo leña cuando vieron que los yanyauid, una milicia genocida, se dirigían hacia ellas a caballo.“¡Corre!”, le dijo Suad a su hermana. “Debes correr y escapar”.Suad creó una distracción para que el yanyauid la persiguiera a ella en lugar de a Halima. Atraparon a Suad, la golpearon brutalmente y la violaron en grupo; la dejaron demasiado herida para caminar.Suad restó importancia a su heroísmo, y me dijo que si hubiera corrido, la habrían capturado de todos modos. Dijo que el hecho de que su hermana escapara hizo que el sacrificio valiera la pena.Incluso en un panorama de maldad, las personas más memorables no son los Himmler ni los Eichmann sino las Anne Franks y Raoul Wallenberg, y las Suad Ahmeds, quienes son capaces de una bondad inspiradora frente al repugnante mal. Ellas son la razón por la que no dejé el frente de batalla deprimido sino inspirado.Lección 2: En general, sabemos cómo mejorar el bienestar en el país y fuera de él. Lo que falta es voluntad política.Hay cosas buenas que suceden a nuestro alrededor sin que nos demos cuenta de ellas, y son el resultado de una comprensión más profunda de lo que funciona para hacer la diferencia. Eso puede parecer sorprendente viniendo de un columnista apesadumbrado, que ha cubierto el hambre, las atrocidades y la devastación climática. Pero el hecho de que los periodistas solo cubran las noticias de los aviones que se estrellan, y no los que aterrizan con éxito, no significa que todos los vuelos terminen en tragedia.Considera esto: históricamente, casi la mitad de los humanos murieron en la infancia; ahora solo muere el 4 por ciento. En los últimos años, hasta la pandemia de la COVID-19, 170.000 personas en todo el mundo salían de la pobreza extrema todos los días. Otras 325.000 personas obtienen electricidad cada día. Unas 200.000 personas lograron tener acceso a agua potable. La pandemia ha sido un gran revés para el mundo en desarrollo, pero la tendencia más general de logros históricos permanecerá; esto es, si aplicamos las lecciones aprendidas y redoblamos los esfuerzos al encarar las políticas climáticas..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Aquí, en Estados Unidos, hemos logrado aumentar las tasas de graduación de la secundaria, reducir a la mitad el número de personas sin hogar entre los veteranos y disminuir el embarazo adolescente en más del 60 por ciento desde su momento más alto en 1991. Estos éxitos deberían inspirarnos a hacer más: si sabemos qué hacer para reducir la carencia de vivienda de los veteranos, podemos aplicar las mismas lecciones para reducirla en los niños.Lección 3: El talento es universal, aunque las oportunidades no lo sean.El mayor recurso del mundo sin explotar es el enorme potencial de las personas que no han sido completamente impulsadas o educadas. Se trata de un recordatorio de lo mucho que podemos ganar si tan solo hacemos mejores inversiones en el capital humano.La médica más excepcional que he conocido no estudió en la Escuela de Medicina de Harvard. De hecho, ella nunca ha ido a una escuela de medicina o a escuela alguna. Mamitu Gashe, una mujer etíope que no sabía leer, padeció una fístula obstétrica y fue sometida a tratamientos prolongados en un hospital. Mientras estaba allí, comenzó a ayudar.Los médicos estaban desbordados y se dieron cuenta de que era muy inteligente y capaz, y empezaron a darle más responsabilidades. Con el tiempo, ella misma comenzó a realizar cirugías de fístulas y, después, se convirtió en una de las cirujanas de fístulas más distinguidas del mundo. Cuando profesores de obstetricia de Estados Unidos iban a su hospital para aprender a corregir fístulas, su maestra a menudo era Mamitu.Pero, por supuesto, hay muchos otros casos, personas igual de extraordinarias y hábiles que Mamitu, que nunca tienen una oportunidad.Hace unos años, me enteré de un niño sin hogar que nació en Nigeria, asistía al tercer grado y acababa de ganar el campeonato de ajedrez del estado de Nueva York para su grupo de edad. Visité al niño, Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi, y a su familia en un refugio para personas sin hogar y escribí sobre ellos. Eso derivó en donaciones de más de 250.000 de dólares para los Adewumi, un coche, becas completas para asistir a escuelas privadas, ofertas de trabajo para los padres, ayuda legal pro bono y vivienda gratuita.Lo que vino después fue quizás aún más conmovedor. Los Adewumi aceptaron el hospedaje pero pusieron el dinero en una fundación para ayudar a otros inmigrantes sin hogar. Mantuvieron a Tani en su escuela pública como forma de agradecimiento a los trabajadores que les condonaron las cuotas del club de ajedrez cuando era el niño recién comenzaba.Tani ha seguido creciendo en el mundo del ajedrez. Ahora, a sus 11 años, ganó el campeonato de ajedrez de Norteamérica para su grupo de edad y es un maestro con una calificación de la Federación de Ajedrez de Estados Unidos de 2262.Pero ganar campeonatos estatales de ajedrez no es un método escalable para resolver la falta de vivienda.La generosidad deslumbrante en respuesta al éxito de Tani es conmovedora, pero debe ir acompañada de políticas públicas generosas. Los niños deberían tener vivienda incluso si no son prodigios del ajedrez.No construimos el Sistema de Autopistas Interestatales con voluntarios ni vendiendo pasteles. Para dar soluciones sistémicas al fracaso educativo y la pobreza se necesita, como pasó con la construcción de autopistas, de una inversión pública rigurosa, sustentada tanto en datos como en la empatía.En Estados Unidos, a menudo somos cínicos ante la política, a veces nos parece ridícula la idea de que los líderes elegidos democráticamente marcan una gran diferencia. Pero durante décadas he escrito sobre manifestantes a favor de la democracia en Polonia, Ucrania, China, Corea del Sur, Mongolia y otros lugares, y ellos me han contagiado parte de su idealismo.Un amigo chino, un contador llamado Ren Wanding, pasó años en prisión por su activismo, e incluso escribió un tratado de dos volúmenes sobre la democracia y los derechos humanos con los únicos materiales que tenía a su disposición: papel higiénico y la punta de un bolígrafo desechado.En 1989, en la plaza de Tiananmén, vi a soldados del gobierno chino abrir fuego contra los manifestantes que pedían democracia. Y luego, en una demostración extraordinaria de valentía, conductores de rickshaws pedalearon con sus carritos hacía ellos para recoger los cuerpos de los jóvenes que habían muerto o habían resultado heridos. Un conductor corpulento, con lágrimas en los ojos, se desvió y pasó a mi lado pedaleando lento para que yo pudiera ser testigo de lo sucedido, y me pidió que le contara al mundo lo que veía.Esos conductores de rickshaws no eran cínicos ante la democracia: estaban arriesgando sus vidas por ella. Después de ver esa valentía en el mundo me entristece aún más advertir que hay personas en este país que están socavando nuestras instituciones democráticas. Pero los manifestantes como Ren me inspiraron a preguntarme si debería participar de manera más plena en la vida democrática de Estados Unidos.Es por esta razón que estoy dejando el trabajo que amo.He escrito con regularidad sobre las tribulaciones de mi amada ciudad natal, Yamhill, Oregón, que ha lidiado con la pérdida de buenos trabajos para la clase trabajadora y la llegada de la metanfetamina. Todos los días llegaba a la escuela primaria de Yamhill, y luego a la secundaria Yamhill-Carlton, a bordo del autobús número 6. Pero hoy, más de una cuarta parte de mis amigos del antiguo autobús han muerto por las drogas, el alcohol o el suicidio. Son muertes por desesperación.El sistema político les falló. El sistema educativo les falló. El sistema de salud les falló. Y yo les fallé. Era el niño en el autobús que ganó becas, recibió una gran educación y luego me fui a cubrir genocidios al otro lado del mundo.Aunque estoy orgulloso de la atención que le di a las atrocidades en el mundo, me puso mal regresar de las crisis humanitarias en el extranjero y encontrar una en casa. Cada dos semanas, perdemos a más estadounidenses por las drogas, el alcohol y el suicidio que en 20 años de guerra en Irak y Afganistán. Y esa es una pandemia que ni los medios de comunicación han cubierto de la mejor manera ni nuestros líderes han abordado adecuadamente.Mientras procesaba esto, la pandemia de covid empeoró la situación. Una amiga que había dejado de consumir drogas recayó al inicio de la pandemia, se quedó sin hogar y durante el año siguiente tuvo 17 sobredosis. Temo por ella y por su hijo.Amo el periodismo, pero también amo a mi estado natal. Sigo pensando en el dicho de Theodore Roosevelt: “El que cuenta no es el crítico, ni el hombre que señala el modo en el que el fuerte tropieza”, dijo. “El mérito pertenece al hombre que está ahí, en el ruedo”.Estoy resistiendo el impulso periodístico de mantenerme al margen porque me lastima ver lo que han soportado mis compañeros de escuela y siento que es el momento adecuado para pasar de cubrir los problemas a tratar de solucionarlos.Espero convencer a algunos de ustedes de que el servicio público en el gobierno puede ser un camino para ejercer responsabilidad por las comunidades que queremos, por un país que puede hacer las cosas mejor. Incluso si eso significa renunciar a un trabajo que amo.¡Adiós, lectores!Nicholas Kristof fue columnista del Times durante 20 años. Ha sido galardonado con dos premios Pulitzer por su cobertura de China y del genocidio de Darfur. Puedes seguirlo en Instagram. Su libro más reciente es Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope. @NickKristof | Facebook More

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      A Farewell to Readers, With Hope

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      My life was transformed when I was 25 years old and nervously walked into a job interview in the grand office of Abe Rosenthal, the legendary and tempestuous editor of The New York Times. At one point, I disagreed with him, so I waited for him to explode and call security. Instead, he stuck out his hand and offered me a job.Exhilaration washed over me: I was a kid and had found my employer for the rest of my life! I was sure that I would leave The Times only feet first.Yet this is my last column for The Times. I am giving up a job I love to run for governor of Oregon.It’s fair to question my judgment. When my colleague William Safire was asked if he would give up his Times column to be secretary of state, he replied, “Why take a step down?”So why am I doing this?I’m getting to that, but first a few lessons from my 37 years as a Times reporter, editor and columnist.In particular, I want to make clear that while I’ve spent my career on the front lines of human suffering and depravity, covering genocide, war, poverty and injustice, I’ve emerged firmly believing that we can make real progress by summoning the political will. We are an amazing species, and we can do better.Lesson No. 1: Side by side with the worst of humanity, you find the best.The genocide in Darfur seared me and terrified me. To cover the slaughter there, I sneaked across borders, slipped through checkpoints, ingratiated myself with mass murderers.In Darfur, it was hard to keep from weeping as I interviewed shellshocked children who had been shot, raped or orphaned. No one could report in Darfur and not smell the evil in the air. Yet alongside the monsters, I invariably found heroes.There were teenagers who volunteered to use their bows and arrows to protect their villages from militiamen with automatic weapons. There were aid workers, mostly local, who risked their lives to deliver assistance. And there were ordinary Sudanese like Suad Ahmed, a then-25-year-old Darfuri woman I met in one dusty refugee camp.Suad had been out collecting firewood with her 10-year-old sister, Halima, when they saw the janjaweed, a genocidal militia, approaching on horseback.“Run!” Suad told her sister. “You must run and escape.”Then Suad created a diversion so the janjaweed chased her rather than Halima. They caught Suad, brutally beat her and gang-raped her, leaving her too injured to walk.Suad played down her heroism, telling me that even if she had fled, she might have been caught anyway. She said that her sister’s escape made the sacrifice worth it.Even in a landscape of evil, the most memorable people aren’t the Himmlers and Eichmanns but the Anne Franks and Raoul Wallenbergs — and Suad Ahmeds — capable of exhilarating goodness in the face of nauseating evil. They are why I left the front lines not depressed but inspired.Lesson No. 2: We largely know how to improve well-being at home and abroad. What we lack is the political will.Good things are happening that we often don’t acknowledge, and they’re a result of a deeper understanding of what works to make a difference. That may seem surprising coming from the Gloom Columnist, who has covered starvation, atrocities and climate devastation. But just because journalists cover planes that crash, not those that land, doesn’t mean that all flights are crashing.Consider this: Historically, almost half of humans died in childhood; now only 4 percent do. Every day in recent years, until the Covid-19 pandemic, another 170,000 people worldwide emerged from extreme poverty. Another 325,000 obtained electricity each day. Some 200,000 gained access to clean drinking water. The pandemic has been a major setback for the developing world, but the larger pattern of historic gains remains — if we apply lessons learned and redouble efforts while tackling climate policy.Here in the United States, we have managed to raise high school graduation rates, slash veteran homelessness by half and cut teen pregnancy by more than 60 percent since the modern peak in 1991. These successes should inspire us to do more: If we know how to reduce veteran homelessness, then surely we can apply the same lessons to reduce child homelessness.Lesson No. 3: Talent is universal, even if opportunity is not.The world’s greatest untapped resource is the vast potential of people who are not fully nurtured or educated — a reminder of how much we stand to gain if we only make better investments in human capital.The most remarkable doctor I ever met was not a Harvard Medical School graduate. Indeed, she had never been to medical school or any school. But Mamitu Gashe, an illiterate Ethiopian woman, suffered an obstetric fistula and underwent long treatments at a hospital. While there, she began to help out.Overworked doctors realized she was immensely smart and capable, and they began to give her more responsibilities. Eventually she began to perform fistula repairs herself, and over time she became one of the world’s most distinguished fistula surgeons. When American professors of obstetrics went to the hospital to learn how to repair fistulas, their teacher was often Mamitu.But, of course, there are so many other Mamitus, equally extraordinary and capable, who never get the chance.A few years ago, I learned that a homeless third grader from Nigeria had just won the New York State chess championship for his age group. I visited the boy, Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi, and his family in their homeless shelter and wrote about them — and the result was more than $250,000 in donations for the Adewumis, along with a vehicle, full scholarships to private schools, job offers for the parents, pro bono legal help and free housing.What came next was perhaps still more moving. The Adewumis accepted the housing but put the money in a foundation to help other homeless immigrants. They kept Tani in his public school out of gratitude to officials who waived chess club fees when he was a novice.Tani has continued to rise in the chess world. Now 11, he won the North American chess championship for his age group and is a master with a U.S. Chess Federation rating of 2262.But winning a state chess championship is not a scalable way to solve homelessness.The dazzling generosity in response to Tani’s success is heartwarming, but it needs to be matched by a generous public policy. Kids should get housing even if they’re not chess prodigies.We didn’t build the Interstate System of highways with bake sales and volunteers. Rigorous public investment — based on data as well as empathy — is needed to provide systemic solutions to educational failure and poverty, just as it was to create freeways.In this country we’re often cynical about politics, sometimes rolling our eyes at the idea that democratic leaders make much of a difference. Yet for decades I’ve covered pro-democracy demonstrators in Poland, Ukraine, China, South Korea, Mongolia and elsewhere, and some of their idealism has rubbed off on me.One Chinese friend, an accountant named Ren Wanding, spent years in prison for his activism, even writing a two-volume treatise on democracy and human rights with the only materials he had: toilet paper and the nib of a discarded pen.At Tiananmen Square in 1989, I watched Chinese government troops open fire with automatic weapons on pro-democracy demonstrators. And then in an extraordinary display of courage, rickshaw drivers pedaled their wagons out toward the gunfire to pick up the bodies of the young people who had been killed or injured. One burly rickshaw driver, tears streaming down his cheeks, swerved to drive by me slowly so I could bear witness — and he begged me to tell the world.Those rickshaw drivers weren’t cynical about democracy: They were risking their lives for it. Such courage abroad makes me all the sadder to see people in this country undermining our democratic institutions. But protesters like Ren inspired me to ask if I should engage more fully in America’s democratic life.That’s why I am leaving a job I love.I’ve written regularly about the travails of my beloved hometown, Yamhill, Ore., which has struggled with the loss of good working-class jobs and the arrival of meth. Every day I rode to Yamhill Grade School and then Yamhill-Carlton High School on the No. 6 bus. Yet today more than one-quarter of my pals on my old bus are dead from drugs, alcohol and suicide — deaths of despair.The political system failed them. The educational system failed them. The health system failed them. And I failed them. I was the kid on the bus who won scholarships, got the great education — and then went off to cover genocides half a world away.While I’m proud of the attention I gave to global atrocities, it sickened me to return from humanitarian crises abroad and find one at home. Every two weeks, we lose more Americans from drugs, alcohol and suicide than in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan — and that’s a pandemic that the media hasn’t adequately covered and our leaders haven’t adequately addressed.As I was chewing on all this, the Covid pandemic made suffering worse. One friend who had been off drugs relapsed early in the pandemic, became homeless and overdosed 17 times over the next year. I’m terrified for her and for her child.I love journalism, but I also love my home state. I keep thinking of Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum: “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,” he said. “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”I’m bucking the journalistic impulse to stay on the sidelines because my heart aches at what classmates have endured and it feels like the right moment to move from covering problems to trying to fix them.I hope to convince some of you that public service in government can be a path to show responsibility for communities we love, for a country that can do better. Even if that means leaving a job I love.Farewell, readers!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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      in Elections

      Trump Missed the Part About No Do-Overs

      by

      Bret Stephens: Gail, I know we don’t typically talk about office politics, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid — as when our friend and colleague Nick Kristof leaves us to run for governor of his home state of Oregon. Our readers ought to know what an incredible guy he is behind the scenes.Gail Collins: Bret, I am extremely proud to say that when I was the editor of this section, I lured Nick over from the news side to be a columnist.One of his early projects was to write about the vile goings-on in a remote African country. I can’t remember all the details. But it involved a short plane ride that cost about $10,000 because he was barred from entry and had to be flown in by a brave pilot who claimed to be transporting a barrel of wheat.Bret: Now you’re going to see Nick’s opponents accuse him of flying private.Gail: I was of course impressed by the work, but the small, evil part of my brain thought, “Wow, this guy is going to cost me a fortune.” Then I started getting his bills for the long trek through Africa that followed, and they were like, hotel: $2; dinner: $1.25.Bret: Nick is one of the few people I know who actively seeks out opposing points of view, which only makes him hold his own with greater depth and zero rancor. He and I probably disagree on 95 percent of policy issues (OK, Oregon lefties, make that 100 percent). But I never missed his columns because there was always something important and interesting to learn from them.Also, accounts of Kristof family holidays fill me with a sense of both awe and deep parental inadequacy.Moving from the inspiring to the debased, what do you think the chances are that Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy will ever challenge Donald Trump on his claims of election fraud?Gail: Well, about the same as my chances of competing in the next Olympics.Bret: Your chances are better.Gail: Watching the rally Trump had recently in Iowa, I was sort of fascinated by his apparent inability to focus on anything but the last election. Don’t think a 2020 do-over is at the top of anybody else’s list of priorities.Bret: It would be nice to think that his obsession with 2020 is solely a function of his personal insecurities. But there’s a strategy involved here, which is hard to describe as anything less than sinister. Within the Republican Party, he’s making the stolen-election fantasy a litmus test, which Republican politicians defy at the peril of either being primaried by a Trump toady or losing vital Trump voters in close elections. At the national level, he’s creating a new “stab in the back” myth to undermine the legitimacy of democracy itself.Of course Joe Biden’s job performance so far isn’t helping things.Gail: About our current commander in chief: Biden’s moving into troubled waters — through no fault of his own — as chances grow of strikes or some kind of work stoppage everywhere from the cereal industry to tractor factories. He’s vowed to be “the most pro-union president” in history. Am I right in guessing that’s not something you’d look forward to?Bret: Anyone remember a certain politician from the late 1970s named James Callaghan? He was the U.K.’s Labour prime minister during the “Winter of Discontent,” when the country seemed to be perpetually on strike. Those strikes were the proximate cause of Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979, which is something the Biden administration might bear in mind before getting too close to the unions.Gail: Did I ever tell you that long ago, in days of yore, I was president of the union at a small paper in Milwaukee? We only formed it because the publisher was a truly evil guy who’d threaten to write editorials denouncing local businesses unless they invested in advertising. Went on strike and the publisher closed down the whole operation.Bret: He sounds like Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons.” You went on to bigger and better things.Gail: This is a prelude to saying that I think unions are critical to protecting the nation’s workers, but well aware that they don’t protect everybody who needs it.Bret: I still think the most pro-worker thing the White House can do is get the infrastructure bill passed. Biden dearly needs a political victory, especially one like infrastructure that will divide Republicans while keeping Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on the Democratic side, as opposed to the social spending bill that unites Republicans and alienates those two.Gail: I’ll refrain from pointing out that Sinema appears to be the captive of big-donor business interests and that the climate change part of Biden’s bill is now under pressure because of Manchin’s ties to Big Coal.Instead, remind me how you came around to be on the side of Big Spending.Bret: I love your concept of “refraining.”In my perfect world, the federal government would be about one-third the size that it is today and we would privatize and regulate functions like the Post Office, Amtrak and Social Security. But we live with the reality of big government and a Democratic presidency, so I’d prefer my tax dollars to go into investments that produce blue-collar jobs in the short term and long-term returns in public utilization. Plus, a lot of our infrastructure could really use a major upgrade: Just think of New Jersey.Gail: Ah, New Jersey. Sending you sympathy, which you’ll have time to appreciate while caught in traffic jams and train backups.Bret: In the meantime, it looks like the commission Biden appointed to study reforms for the Supreme Court was divided on the idea of adding new justices. The commission also seemed lukewarm on other ideas, like term limits for justices. Personally, I’m pretty relieved, but some of my liberal friends seem to think this was a lost opportunity.Gail: I’d like to be on your side when it comes to court appointments. Having one arm of government that takes an apolitical, long-term view of the world is definitely desirable.I hate to say one more time that I remember when …But I remember when both parties regarded Supreme Court appointments as something special; everybody tried to join hands in search of candidates who were wise and willing to rise above short-term partisan concerns.Well, at least that’s what they said. And even pretending to be bipartisan is better than nothing.Bret: Forty years ago, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ronald Reagan’s first nominee, was confirmed by the Senate in a vote of 99-0. The vote for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Bill Clinton’s first nominee, was 96-3. Since then, things have pretty much gone to hell.Gail: Mitch McConnell ruined the tradition by refusing to hold hearings on Barack Obama’s nominees. I truly doubt we’ll ever be able to return to the old ways. And if so, we should do some reorganizing. That might include term limits of maybe 18 to 20 years.Bret: I would quarrel a bit about whether the blame lies solely with Mitch. Some of us remember Harry Reid, when he was Senate majority leader, blocking qualified judges nominated by George W. Bush. But I also think a 20-year term-limited appointment to the high bench wouldn’t be the worst thing.Gail: By the way, speaking of long-running arguments, I see the New York City Council is thinking about tossing Thomas Jefferson’s statue out of City Hall. We’ve talked about this before, but any change in your feelings about whether we should withdraw that kind of honor from founding father slaveholders?Bret: My mind’s unchanged. If you’re going to get rid of Jefferson’s statute on that account, then why not get rid of the statues of George Washington, since he was also a slaveholder? For that matter, why not start a campaign to rename both the national capital and the state? This is the kind of dumb, symbol-chasing leftism that can only wind up helping Trump.Gail: Not arguing for renaming all the George Washington stuff, but it’d be nice to have a state named after, say, Susan B. Anthony.Bret: Anthony’s home state of Massachusetts should consider it. It would relieve the commonwealth of the sin of cultural appropriation and is also a lot easier to spell.We should be able to see our founders’ profound flaws while also honoring the fact that they established a republic in which the principle of human liberty and equality were able to take root and flourish as nowhere else, and in which the concept of a “more perfect union” is written into the Constitution. In the context of the late 18th century, that was an extraordinary step forward.Gail: Jefferson’s always been one of my least-favorite founders — his attitude toward women could be creepy even by 18th-century standards.Bret: Him and J.F.K. and a few other presidents I could mention.Gail: My rule is that big names of the past should be honored on the basis of their main thing — I’m OK with giving Columbus a holiday to commemorate his life as an explorer, as long as we spend a good part of it recalling his slaughter of Native Americans.Bret: Agree entirely. And preserve the names of Ohio’s capital and the Upper West Side’s premier institution of higher learning in the bargain.Gail: What bothers me about the Virginia founding fathers is that although they made inspiring speeches about liberty, most of them were focused on protecting their state institutions from federal intervention. Particularly plantation life and culture, which included slaves.The New-York Historical Society may be willing to take Jefferson’s statue on a “loan” and that seems like a good plan.Bret: That’ll give us something to keep arguing about.Gail: In the meantime, I’ll honor Jefferson for the Declaration of Independence. Always appreciate somebody who’s good with words. Which is why I enjoy our conversations, Bret. Bet I wouldn’t have nearly as much fun going back and forth with Thomas J.Bret: Nor I with Susan B.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