Liberalism (US Politics)

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      Can Liberalism Save Itself?

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      Liberalism is under siege. It is not just a problem for America’s Democratic Party, which once again may face either losing an election to Donald Trump or claiming victory with a bare majority. Around the world, the entire outlook of political liberalism — with its commitments to limited government, personal freedom and the rule of law — is widely seen to be in trouble.It wasn’t long ago that liberals were proclaiming the “end of history” after their Cold War victory. But for years liberalism has felt perpetually on the brink: challenged by the rise of an authoritarian China, the success of far-right populists and a sense of blockage and stagnation.Why do liberals find themselves in this position so routinely? Because they haven’t left the Cold War behind. It was in that era when liberals reinvented their ideology, which traces its roots to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution — and reinvented it for the worse. Cold War liberalism was preoccupied by the continuity of liberal government and the management of threats that might disrupt it, the same preoccupations liberals have today. To save themselves, they need to undo the Cold War mistakes that led them to their current impasse and rediscover the emancipatory potential in their creed.Before the Cold War, President Franklin Roosevelt had demanded the renovation of liberalism in response to the Great Depression, emphasizing that economic turmoil was at the root of tyranny’s appeal. His administration capped more than a century in which liberalism had been promising to unshackle humanity after millenniums of hierarchy — dismantling feudal structures, creating greater opportunities for economic and social mobility (at least for men) and breaking down barriers based on religion and tradition, even if all of these achievements were haunted by racial disparities. At its most visionary, liberalism implied that government’s duty was to help people overcome oppression for the sake of a better future.Yet just a few years later, Cold War liberalism emerged as a rejection of the optimism that flourished before the mid-20th century’s crises. Having witnessed the agonizing destruction of Germany’s brief interwar experiment with democracy, liberals saw their Communist ally in that battle against fascism converted into a fearful enemy. They responded by reconceptualizing liberalism. Philosophers like the Oxford don Isaiah Berlin emphasized the concept of individual liberty, which was defined as the absence of interference, especially from the state. Gone was the belief that freedom is guaranteed by institutions that empower humanity. Instead of committing to make freedom more credible to more people — for example, by promising a bright future of their own — these liberals prioritized a fight against mortal enemies who might crash the system.This was a liberalism of fear, as another Cold War liberal intellectual, the Harvard professor Judith Shklar, said. In a way, fear was understandable: Liberalism had enemies. In the late 1940s, the Communists took over China, while Eastern Europe fell behind an Iron Curtain. But reorienting liberalism toward the preservation of liberty incurred its own risks. Anyone hostage to fear is likely to exaggerate how dangerous his foes actually are, to overreact to the looming threat they pose and to forsake better choices than fighting. (Ask Robert Oppenheimer, who signed up to beat the Nazis only to see paranoia spoil the country he volunteered to save.)During the Cold War, concern for liberty from tyranny and self-defense against enemies sometimes led not just to the loss of the very freedom liberals were supposed to care about at home, it also prompted violent reigns of terror abroad as liberals backed authoritarians or went to war in the name of fighting Communism. Millions died in the killing fields of this brutal global conflict, many of them at the hands of America and its proxies fighting in the name of “freedom.”Frustratingly, the Soviet Union was making the kinds of promises about freedom and progress that liberals once thought belonged to them. After all, in the 19th century liberals had overthrown aristocrats and kings and promised a world of freedom and equality in their stead. Liberals like the French politician and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, though concerned about possible excesses of government, imagined democracy as a form of politics that offered startling new opportunities for equal citizenship. And while such liberals placed too much faith in markets both to emancipate and to equalize, they eventually struggled to correct this mistake. Liberals like the English philosopher John Stuart Mill helped invent socialism, too.The Cold War changed all that. It wasn’t just that socialism became a liberal swear word for decades (at least before Senator Bernie Sanders helped revive it). Liberals concluded that the ideological passions that led millions around the world to Communism meant that they should refrain from promising emancipation themselves. “We must be aware of the dangers which lie in our most generous wishes,” the Columbia professor and Cold War liberal Lionel Trilling explained.The Cold War transformation of liberalism wouldn’t matter so profoundly now if liberals had seized the opportunity to rethink their creed in 1989. The haze of their geopolitical triumph made it easy to disregard their own mistakes, in spite of the long-run consequences in our time. Instead, liberals doubled down. After several decades of endless wars against successor enemies and an increasingly “free” economy at home and around the world, American liberals have been shocked by blowback. History didn’t end; in fact, many of liberalism’s beneficiaries in backsliding new democracies and in the United States now find it wanting.A great referendum on liberalism kicked off in 2016, after Mr. Trump’s blindsiding election victory. In books like Patrick Deneen’s best-selling “Why Liberalism Failed,” there was an up-or-down vote on the liberalism of the entire modern age, which Mr. Deneen traced back centuries. In frantic self-defense, liberals responded by invoking abstractions: “freedom,” “democracy” and “truth,” to which the sole alternative is tyranny, while distracting from their own errors and what it would take to correct them. Both sides failed to recognize that, like all traditions, liberalism is not take it or leave it. The very fact that liberals transformed it so radically during the Cold War means that it can be transformed again; liberals can revive their philosophy’s promises only by recommitting to its earlier impulses.Is that likely? Under President Biden’s watch, China and Eastern Europe — the same places where events shocked Cold War liberals into their stance in the first place — have attracted a Cold War posture. Under Mr. Biden, as under Mr. Trump before him, the rhetoric out of Washington increasingly treats China as a civilizational threat. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has once again made Eastern Europe a site of struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of repression. Some like to claim that the war in Ukraine has reminded liberals of their true purpose.But look closer to home and that seems more dubious. Mr. Trump is the likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee (if not the potential winner of the election). Yet liberals seem to be betting their success less on a positive vision for America’s future and more on the ability of courts to protect the nation. Even if one of Mr. Trump’s many prosecutors manages to convict him, this will not rescue American liberalism. The challenge cuts deeper than eliminating the current enemy in the name of our democracy if it is not reimagined.Since his election in 2020, Mr. Biden has been championed by some pundits — and by his administration itself — as the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt. But Roosevelt warned that “too many of those who prate about saving democracy are really only interested in saving things as they were. Democracy should concern itself also with things as they ought to be.”Mr. Biden, despite an ambitious agenda of so-called supply-side liberalism, doesn’t seem to have internalized the message. And for their part, voters do not yet seem fully convinced. A liberalism that survives must resonate with voters who want something to believe in. And liberalism once had it, revolving not around fear of enemies but hope in institutions that lead to what Mill called “experiments in living.” He meant that people everywhere would get the chance from society to choose something new to try in their short time. If their hands are forced — especially by a coercive and unequal economic system — they will lose what is most important, which is the chance to make themselves and the world more interesting.If there is any silver lining in the next phase of American politics, which Mr. Trump continues to define, it is that it provides yet another opportunity for liberals to reinvent themselves. If they double down instead on a stale Cold War ideology, as they did after 1989 and 2016, they will miss it. Only a liberalism that finally makes good on some of its promises of freedom and equality is likely to survive and thrive.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.Samuel Moyn is a professor at Yale and the author of the forthcoming book “Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times.” More

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      Are the Elite Anti-Trumpers the ‘Bad Guys’?

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      Readers react to David Brooks’s suggestion that the elite are partly to blame for Trumpism.To the Editor:Re “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?,” by David Brooks (column, Aug. 4):I am sick and tired of people like Mr. Brooks telling me that I am the problem or the “bad guy” because I am educated (and no, I was not educated at an Ivy League school, and neither of my parents finished high school) to justify the fact that 35 percent of the population are fervent supporters of Donald Trump, no matter what he says or does.Moreover, Mr. Trump is also part of the elite, but his supporters simply ignore this. This is not because he identifies with them in any way (as a golden-haired billionaire living in a mansion), but because Fox, Newsmax, and other right-wing TV and radio media outlets, right-wing militias and Trump puppet politicians in Congress essentially brainwashed them with their daily dose of propaganda about how the “left wing socialists and communists,” “elites,” the “woke,” etc., are all conspiring to take their country and only Donald Trump can stop them.In my opinion, this is the biggest problem, Mr. Brooks, not educated Americans who as you correctly state are “are earnest, kind and public spirited.”So, let’s not beat ourselves up because the other side has been completely brainwashed, does not accept facts, scientific and otherwise, is obsessed with conspiracies and lives in a right-wing echo chamber.Michael HadjiargyrouCenterport, N.Y.To the Editor:While I grew up in a small Midwestern town in a middle-class family, education has offered me a satisfying life with a secure retirement. Many of my classmates who chose a more blue-collar life path have endured more struggles, starting with military service in Vietnam. I am quite confident that many of them today support Donald Trump, at least partly for the reasons that David Brooks suggests.Mr. Brooks’s column was a brilliant, moving description of the unspoken arrogance of many of us who are left-leaning. I believe that some sincere humility and understanding with regard to the concerns of many who feel left behind would go a long way to healing some of our divisions. Thanks to Mr. Brooks for his insight.David MahanSebring, Fla.To the Editor:Fine: I’ll accept David Brooks’s plea that we not blame the logic-defying viability of Donald Trump on the wrongheadedness of tens of millions of Americans. I get the class resentment. I share the rage against excessive political correctness and the feeling that immigration is unchecked and overwhelming. I see his point that the elite stoke these resentments by voicing our support for the nonelite while spending most of our energy and resources protecting our own class privilege.But let’s not gloss over the main factor here: Mr. Trump is the latest version of a leader who is little more than a self-obsessed expert at exploiting and inflaming the fear and resentments of the masses to benefit his own power and ego. Such a leader cares nothing about those who harbor these resentments, and certainly does not share the same fears.On a more practical note, those who resent wokeism are shooting themselves in the foot by supporting someone who so many Americans, elite and otherwise, would vote for over their proverbial dead bodies.Brian SmithDayton, OhioTo the Editor:The irony behind the case that David Brooks makes for Donald Trump’s support is that this support is based entirely on words (primarily offensive) and not actions. What did Mr. Trump do as president to help his supporters and make their lives better?His major accomplishment was the tax reform enacted in 2017, which heavily favored the rich and elites (including himself). His supporters love the way he attacks his “enemies” and anyone who disagrees with him and feel he speaks for them. The lack of actual benefits they have enjoyed seems not to matter.Ellen S. HirschNew YorkTo the Editor:Donald Trump, as loathsome as he is, has done one significant service for this country. He has made clear the great social divide that David Brooks describes in his excellent column. Now, how to fix it?As a former naval officer and Vietnam veteran, I would suggest universal national service, with almost no exemptions. Being forced to live with, eat with, work with people from all over the country would teach all of us to be more tolerant. This would not just be military service; it would include working in national parks, teaching in underserved schools, and many other forms of service to the nation.The only thing standing in the way is a timid Congress. Is there anyone in Congress brave enough to take this on?Jeffrey CallahanClevelandTo the Editor:David Brooks makes a familiar and not unreasonable argument about how the fear, resentment and sense of alienation that fuel the cult of Trumpism proceed from economic and cultural realities for which liberal elites are, in large part, responsible.When Mr. Brooks asks, however, whether anti-Trumpers should consider whether they are the “bad guys,” he embarks on an analysis that completely excludes millions of people like me who find Donald Trump and Trumpism appalling, without being “elite” at all.I was raised in a row home in northeast Philly by a single mom who was a cop. My dad was a union construction worker. I’ve been a musician and a bartender for most of my adult life. In short, I’m hardly part of the elite class that Mr. Brooks seems to equate with the anti-Trump movement, and yet I’m passionately anti-Trump!Maybe this particular piece simply wasn’t aimed at people like me, and that’s fine. But all too often I see this oversimplified, false duality that leaves out all the decent working-class people who have themselves been hurt by neoliberal policies and narratives, and yet would never channel their frustration into an odious movement like Trumpism. When we condemn Mr. Trump and his followers, we do so with a clean conscience.James A. LeponeTelford, Pa.To the Editor:David Brooks identifies the privileges enjoyed by the highly educated class and the resentment of the less educated class that might cause them to be ardent supporters of Donald Trump. Mr. Brooks concludes with a warning that history is the graveyard of classes with preferred caste privileges.What he fails to consider is that in the United States his identified “upper” class encourages, both by words and action, members of the “lower” class to join it. Nothing would make those with college or graduate degrees happier than if every capable child joined their class. This differs very much from any true caste system.Jack SternSetauket, N.Y.To the Editor:David Brooks’s column gave me a new perspective regarding why people support this obvious con man named Donald Trump. Although Mr. Brooks makes excellent points regarding the anger that people feel, is it not the Democrats who advocate and pass legislation regarding the minimum wage, infrastructure, child care, education, the environment, middle-class tax relief, financial assistance with community colleges and technical schools, etc., all for the benefit of working- and middle-class Americans?Mr. Trump and the current crop of Republicans have done nothing to help these people. In light of this, isn’t propaganda from Mr. Trump and his followers, as well as the cynical right-wing media, also to blame for this misplaced anger and anti-democratic sentiment?We’re not the bad guys. Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are.Phillip L. RosenVenice Beach, Calif.To the Editor:David Brooks does an excellent job of setting up a straw man to bring down. Most liberals aren’t part of the “elite,” no matter how many right-wingers parrot that lie.Exit polls from 2020 found that Joe Biden outpaced Donald Trump significantly among voters making less than $100,000 a year, while Mr. Trump did better among those making $100,000 or more. Mr. Trump is no friend to the working class, and polls like these give me confidence that a majority of the working class recognizes this. And any member of the working class who supports him or today’s extreme-right Republican Party is going against their own best interests.It’s liberals and Democrats (usually but not always the same) who support policies to empower workers and reduce economic inequality, and the other side doesn’t give a damn. Liberals are not the elite and are not the enemy of the working class.Trudy RingBend, Ore. More

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      Republican Attacks on ‘Woke’ Ideology Falling Flat With G.O.P. Voters

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      New polling shows national Republicans and Iowa Republican caucusgoers were more interested in “law and order” than battling “woke” schools, media and corporations.When it comes to the Republican primaries, attacks on “wokeness” may be losing their punch.For Republican candidates, no word has hijacked political discourse quite like “woke,” a term few can define but many have used to capture what they see as left-wing views on race, gender and sexuality that have strayed far beyond the norms of American society.Gov. Ron DeSantis last year used the word five times in 19 seconds, substituting “woke” for Nazis as he cribbed from Winston Churchill’s famous vow to battle a threatened German invasion in 1940. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, speaks of a “woke self-loathing” that has swept the nation. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina found himself backpedaling furiously after declaring that “‘woke supremacy’ is as bad as white supremacy.”The term has become quick a way for candidates to flash their conservative credentials, but battling “woke” may have less political potency than they think. Though conservative voters might be irked at modern liberalism, successive New York Times/Siena College polls of Republican voters nationally and then in Iowa found that candidates were unlikely to win votes by narrowly focusing on rooting out left-wing ideology in schools, media, culture and business.Instead, Republican voters are showing a “hand’s off” libertarian streak in economics, and a clear preference for messages about “law and order” in the nation’s cities and at its borders.The findings hint why Mr. DeSantis, who has made his battles with “woke” schools and corporations central to his campaign, is struggling and again show off Mr. Trump’s keen understanding of part of the Republican electorate. Campaigning in Iowa in June, Mr. Trump was blunt: “I don’t like the term ‘woke,’” he said, adding, “It’s just a term they use — half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.”It was clearly a jab at Mr. DeSantis, but the Times’s polls suggest Mr. Trump may be right. Social issues like gay rights and once-obscure jargon like “woke” may not be having the effect many Republicans had hoped“Your idea of ‘wokeism’ might be different from mine,” explained Christopher Boyer, a 63-year-old Republican actor in Hagerstown, Md., who retired from a successful career in Hollywood where he said he saw his share of political correctness and liberal group think. Mr. Boyer said he didn’t like holding his tongue about his views on transgender athletes, but, he added, he does not want politicians to intervene. “I am a laissez-faire capitalist: Let the pocketbook decide,” he said.“Your idea of ‘wokeism’ might be different from mine,” said Christopher Boyer, a 63-year-old Republican actor in Hagerstown, Md.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesWhen presented with the choice between two hypothetical Republican candidates, only 24 percent of national Republican voters opted for a “a candidate who focuses on defeating radical ‘woke’ ideology in our schools, media and culture” over “a candidate who focuses on restoring law and order in our streets and at the border.”Around 65 percent said they would choose the law and order candidate.Among those 65 and older, often the most likely age bracket to vote, only 17 percent signed on to the “anti-woke” crusade. Those numbers were nearly identical in Iowa, where the first ballots for the Republican nominee will be cast on Jan. 15.Mr. DeSantis’s famous fight against the Walt Disney Company over what he saw as the corporation’s liberal agenda exemplified the kind of economic warfare that seems to fare only modestly better. About 38 percent of Republican voters said they would back a candidate who promised to fight corporations that promote “woke” left ideology, versus the 52 percent who preferred “a candidate who says that the government should stay out of deciding what corporations should support.”Christy Boyd, 55, in Ligonier, Pa., made it clear she was no fan of the culture of tolerance that she said pervaded her region around Pittsburgh. As the perfect distillation of “woke” ideology, she mentioned “time blindness,” a phrase she views as simply an excuse for perpetual tardiness.But such aggravations do not drive her political desires.“If you don’t like what Bud Light did, don’t buy it,” she added, referring to the brand’s hiring of a transgender influencer, which contributed to a sharp drop in sales. “If you don’t like what Disney is doing, don’t go. That’s not the government’s responsibility.”Indeed, some Republican voters seemed to feel pandered to by candidates like Mr. DeSantis and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, whose book “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” launched his political career.Lynda Croft, 82, said she was watching a rise in murders in her hometown Winston-Salem, N.C., and that has her scared. Overly liberal policies in culture and schools will course-correct on their own, she said.“If anyone actually believes in woke ideology, they are not in tune with the rest of society,” she said, “and parents will step in to deal with that.”In an interview, Mr. Ramaswamy said the evolving views of the electorate were important, and he had adapted to them. “Woke” corporate governance and school systems are a symptom of what he calls “a deeper void” in a society that needs a religious and nationalist renewal. The stickers that read “Stop Wokeism. Vote Vivek” are gone from his campaign stops, he said, replaced by hats that read “Truth.”“At the time I came to be focused on this issue, no one knew what the word was,” he said. “Now that they have caught up, the puck has moved. It’s in my rearview mirror as well.”Law and order and border security have become stand-ins for “fortitude,” he said, and that is clearly what Republican voters are craving.(The day after the interview, the Ramaswamy campaign blasted out a fund-raising appeal entitled “Wokeness killing the American Dream.”)DeSantis campaign officials emphasized that the governor in recent days had laid out policies on border security, the military and the economy. Foreign policy is coming, they say. But they also pointed to an interview on Fox News in which Mr. DeSantis did not back away from his social-policy focus.Along with several other Republican-led states, Florida passed a string of laws restricting what G.O.P. lawmakers considered evidence of “wokeness,” such as gender transition care for minors and diversity initiatives. Mr. DeSantis handily won re-election in November.“I totally reject, being in Iowa, New Hampshire, that people don’t think those are important,” he said of his social policy fights. “These families with children are thanking me for taking stands in Florida.”For candidates trying to break Mr. Trump’s hold on a Republican electorate that sees the former president as the embodiment of strength, the problem may be broader than ditching the term “woke.”As it turns out, social issues like gender, race and sexuality are politically complicated and may be less dominant than Mr. Trump’s rivals thought. The fact that Mr. Trump has been indicted three times and found legally liable for sexual abuse has not hurt him. Only 37 percent of Republican voters nationally described Mr. Trump as more moral than Mr. DeSantis (45 percent sided with Mr. DeSantis on the personality trait), yet in a head-to-head matchup between the two candidates, national Republican voters backed Mr. Trump by 31 percentage points, 62 percent to 31 percent.The Times/Siena poll did find real reluctance among Republican voters to accept transgender people. Only 30 percent said society should accept transgender people as the gender they identify with, compared with 58 percent who said society should not accept such identities.But half of Republican voters still support the right of gay and lesbian people to marry, against the 41 percent who oppose same-sex marriage. Fifty-one percent of Republican voters said they would choose a candidate promising to protect individual freedom over one guarding “traditional values.” The “traditional values” candidate would be the choice of 40 percent of Republicans.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, responded simply: “Americans want to return to a prosperous nation, and there’s only one person who can do that — President Trump.”Mr. Boyer, who played Robert E. Lee in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” bristled at having to make a choice: “It’s hardly an either-or: Why wouldn’t I want someone to fight for law and order and against this corrupt infiltration in our school systems?” he asked.But given a choice, he said, “the primary job of government is the protection of our country and there’s a tangible failure of that at our border.” More

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      Mailbag: Does Trump Represent Half the Country?

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      Settling a marital dispute, and a question that gets at a tension within today’s conservatism — in this month’s reader mailbag.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressHelp settle a disputeNate, help me settle a marital dispute. My wife contends that 50 percent of the country are Trump supporters, while I believe the number is closer to 35-40 percent. Knowing that there is not a definitive answer — are we talking about all people, registered voters, etc. — who do you think is closer to being right? — Phil StevensonWhenever possible, it’s important for both partners to feel good with the settlement of a marital dispute. So let me suggest that the answer depends on your preferred definition of a “Trump supporter.”If a Trump supporter is someone who voted for Donald J. Trump or, alternately, someone who will vote for him over President Biden in the next election, I think the answer is closer to your wife’s 50 percent tally. After all, Mr. Trump won 47 percent of voters in 2020 and 46 percent in 2016. I’m open-minded about what he could win in 2024, but if the election were held today it’s reasonable to think he’d win something closer to 50 percent than 37.5 percent, the midway point of your 35-40 percent range.But if being a Trump supporter requires something more than merely preferring him over Mr. Biden, the number of Trump supporters is probably closer to your 35-40 percent range. To take one simple measure: Mr. Trump has around a 40 percent national favorability rating. Another option: Only 35 percent said they wanted him to run for president in an NBC poll taken in April.A.I. and pollingI am curious to know if you think A.I. has a place in the future of polling. — Brian BakerAt the moment, I’m more concerned that A.I. might claim an unintended place in the present of polling: by making it even easier for bots to contaminate online panels. I’m not sure that common data quality measures — like open-ended responses — will work for long.A boost for Haley?Does DeSantis’s decline offer any hope to Nikki Haley— David NewbergerThis is like asking whether the decline of the Mets — one of baseball’s best teams last year — gives any hope to the Washington Nationals (currently the National League’s worst team, but now just 6.5 games behind the Mets!). I suppose it must be good news for the Nats at some level, but the Mets weren’t really their problem. At the moment, Ms. Haley is not plainly outpacing the likes of Tim Scott, Chris Christie or Mike Pence. Ron DeSantis isn’t really her problem.What about Asa?Would love to hear your thoughts on the way Asa Hutchinson’s candidacy may play out. — Merideth TomlinsonWho? I’m joking of course (he’s the former Arkansas governor), but he’ll need to find a way to break out of obscurity in a big field. I would guess he’ll need to dazzle in the debates to even earn a look from most voters. I’m not sure you should count on it, but you never know.Books by candidatesI previously mentioned that I don’t read books by aspiring presidential candidates. Is that always a good idea?I was interested in your description of how you prepare yourself when evaluating candidates. What you do clearly makes sense, EXCEPT you immediately reminded me how I decided to support Barack Obama in 2008. I thought he was not a strong candidate, but he was an interesting person, so I read “Dreams From My Father” … and became a big Obama fan! I imagine I am not the only voter who had this experience. Of course, someone is unlikely to read a book by a candidate unless they are somewhat interested in that person. — Angie BoyterWhen I wrote that I don’t read a presidential candidate’s book, I was mainly thinking about the genre of political books written by someone just about to run for president. These books often weave biographical detail, policy proposals and a political message into a preview of a coming campaign. They largely go unread, but they offer an excuse for TV producers to book a presidential hopeful on their shows. Mr. Obama’s 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” falls into this category.Why don’t I want to read a book like this? I want to know the message a candidate emphasizes in speeches, advertisements and interviews, not the one that makes it into a 100,000-word book.Your experience with “Dreams From My Father” — a literary autobiography — is quite different. The book was widely read, and the content was distinct from what Mr. Obama talked about on the campaign trail. This is pretty unusual; J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” is the only recent example that comes to mind of something like it. Perhaps that’s a case where there’s a better argument for reading the book.On DeSantis and freedomThis isn’t really a question, but it’s an interesting observation that gets at a tension within conservatism nowadays:He’s been popular with Democrats and Republicans alike in Florida for his freedoms, not restrictions. Limiting people’s freedoms, regardless of the topic, will definitely harm him. — John FahrenwaldMr. DeSantis rose to prominence by fighting for freedom from coronavirus restrictions, and this remains an important part of his brand. His budget is branded as a “Framework for Freedom.” His book — which by now you may have guessed I have not read — is titled “The Courage to Be Free.”But as Mr. DeSantis’s fight for freedom has transitioned to a fight against “woke,” his orientation toward “freedom” has become a bit more complicated. He signed a six-week abortion ban. He’s used his authority as governor to crack down on “woke” corporations, and he’s expressed skepticism about giving tax breaks to companies who go on to advance the left’s values. This is emblematic of a broader turn on the intellectual right in which many want to use the power of the government to defend what they say are traditional values and fight the influence of the left in academia, the media and corporate America.This is sometimes called “post-liberal” conservatism. Here, liberal is meant in the classical sense of supporting liberty, free markets and limited government (as it is still used in Europe), not the American sense of liberal: a regulated market economy with a welfare state. In this context, the Republican Party has represented a liberal conservatism for most of the last half-century. The post-liberal conservatives prioritize conserving traditional values over conserving liberty.This post-liberal turn among a segment of conservative intellectual elites may reflect genuine fears of the threat posed by the left to traditional values, but it’s hard to see a political winner here. America is fundamentally a liberal country — again, in the classical, lower-case-l sense. It’s hard to think of anything more deeply embedded in traditional American values than individual liberty and freedom. It is not Hungary. I would guess that the constituency for an explicitly post-liberal conservatism is pretty small; perhaps that’s why Mr. DeSantis continues to brand himself as someone fighting for freedom, even as he increasingly supports measures that arguably restrict it. More

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      For Progressive Democrats, New Momentum Clashes With Old Debates

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      A push and pull between progressive and moderate Democrats is shaping the party’s policies and politics.Progressive victories in Wisconsin and Chicago have injected new momentum into the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party. But those recent electoral successes are masking deeper internal tensions over the role and influence of progressives in a party President Biden has been remaking in his moderate image.Interviews with more than 25 progressive and moderate Democratic leaders and strategists — including current and former members of Congress and directors of national and statewide groups — revealed a behind-the-scenes tug of war over the party’s policy agenda, messaging and tactics. As the party looks toward next year’s elections, its key constituencies have undergone a transformation. Once mostly white, working-class voters, Democrats now tend to be affluent, white liberals, Black moderates and a more diverse middle class.On some fronts, progressives — a relatively young, highly educated and mostly white bloc that makes up about 12 percent of the Democratic coalition and is the most politically active — have made inroads. Their grass-roots networks, including several headed by Black and Latino leaders, have grown sharply since the heights of the widespread resistance to the Trump administration. Beyond the high-profile victories in Chicago and Wisconsin, they have won under-the-radar local and state races across the country. And many of their views have moved into the mainstream and pushed the government to expand the fight against child poverty, climate change and other social ills.“We as a movement helped articulate these things, to do these things,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal, the Washington State Democrat who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus.Yet at the same time, the activist left wing remains very much on the defensive.The negotiations with the White House on some of the most sweeping legislation fell short of the bold, structural change many of their members sought. And progressives remain locked in an old debate with their moderate counterparts — as well as themselves — over how to communicate progressive ideas and values to voters at a time when slogans like “defund the police” have come under attack by Republicans and moderate Democrats.“In 2018, our party seemed to react to Donald Trump winning in 2016, and the reaction was to go further and further left,” said Cheri Bustos, a former Illinois congresswoman who is a moderate and was a leader of the House Democrats’ campaign arm. “When politics swings far to the left or far to the right, there always seems to be a reckoning.”As Mr. Biden has signaled that he plans to run for re-election in 2024, he has been emphasizing the moderate roots he has embodied throughout much of his roughly 50 years in politics. He has replaced a key ally of the left in the White House — Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s former chief of staff — with Jeffrey D. Zients, who some progressive groups see as too friendly to corporate interests. And he has been clashing with activists who have accused him of backsliding on his liberal approaches to crime, statehood for the District of Columbia, climate issues and immigration policy.Progressive is a label that encompasses various factions within the American left and can mean different things to different people. Broadly, progressives tend to believe the government should push for sweeping change to solve problems and address racial and social inequities. Like moderate and establishment Democrats, they support strong economic and social safety net programs and believe the economic system largely favors powerful interests.But points of tension emerge between moderates and progressives over tactics: Progressives tend to call for ambitious structural overhauls of U.S. laws and institutions that they see as fundamentally racist over incremental change and more measured policy approaches.In an interview with the socialist political magazine Jacobin, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the most prominent progressive Democrats in the House, highlighted the tension by criticizing the president for making a “lurch to the right.”“I think it is extremely risky and very perilous should the Biden administration forget who it was that put him over the top,” she told the magazine, referring to the high turnout in the 2020 presidential election of young people and communities of color.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is the rare Democratic member of Congress to publicly criticize the president. Several other progressives said they had accepted their role as having a seat at the table, though not necessarily at the head of it. Some said they believed Mr. Biden would serve as a bridge to new generation of progressive leaders, even if for now they are caught in a waiting game.Progressive Democrats helped give Brandon Johnson a narrow victory in the mayor’s race in Chicago.Evan Cobb for The New York Times“Right now, the progressives are sort of building power — it is like a silent build that is just going to explode in a post-Biden world,” said Representative Ro Khanna of California, a co-chairman of Senator Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign. “I just can’t conceive of a situation where progressives aren’t dominating presidential elections over the next 15 years after Biden.”The victories in Wisconsin and Chicago followed a similar playbook: Thousands of volunteers knocked on doors, made calls, wrote postcards, fired off mass texts and canvassed college campuses. They shied away from slogans and divisions among Democrats and emphasized the threat of an anti-democratic, Trumpian movement on the right. They turned out diverse coalitions of voters.In Chicago that allowed progressives to propel Brandon Johnson, a once little-known county commissioner and union organizer, to clinch a narrow victory in the mayor’s race over his more conservative Democratic opponent, Paul Vallas, who ran on a tough-on-crime platform and was endorsed by a police union. In Wisconsin, where Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, won a high-stakes race for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court, it allowed Democrats to lean into issues that the establishment wing of the party once tended to avoid in Republican and heavily contested areas: increased access to abortion and collective bargaining rights.“I couldn’t feel more proud or feel more vindicated that the type of politics we argued for are where more Americans are at,” said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, a grass-roots organization that often works with progressive Democrats and mobilized voters in Chicago and Wisconsin.Progressives have also been increasing their ranks in other places. Members of their wing now hold the mayor’s office in Los Angeles and a majority on the board of aldermen in St. Louis. They have swept into statehouses in Colorado, Connecticut and Wisconsin, where two Democratic Socialists this year revived a socialist caucus inactive since the 1930s. At the federal level, the House’s Congressional Progressive Caucus added 16 new members, bringing the total number of the organization to 102 — one of the largest ideological caucuses in Congress.But as they build their organizing power, progressives are contending with a financial framework at the mercy of boom-and-bust cycles. Major gifts from donors or progressive attention to a cause du jour can draw sudden revenue windfalls and then dry out. In the Trump years, some grass-roots groups had explosive growth as progressives rushed to combat Trump policies, elevate a younger and more diverse crop of candidates and help fuel a national reckoning with racism. By the 2022 midterms, some progressive candidates and groups were having to rewrite budgets, considering laying off staff members and triaging outreach programs and advertising as donations slowed.In Georgia, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, which focuses on mobilizing Asian American voters, went from having six full-time employees and a budget of roughly $95,000 in 2018 to a staff of 14 and a budget of $3 million in 2022. Its executive director, Aisha Yaqoob Mahmood, said the boom allowed the group to run better programs but also made those projects harder to sustain when donations ran low. The group was among several in swing states that struggled in 2022 to get political canvassing efforts off the ground as major Democratic donors cut back on their political giving.“We lost momentum, and we lost the vast majority of people who tuned into politics and tuned into elections, many maybe for the first time in their lives, because there was this villain who needed to be defeated,” Mrs. Yaqoob Mahmood said.Political analysts also warned against reading too much into progressive gains in areas that already lean liberal. During the midterms, the candidates who won tough midterm contests in purple places like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada largely adopted more moderate positions. And more progressive nominees who beat moderates in a number of House primaries lost in the general election.“The whole name of the game is creating a majority, and the majority makers are the moderates,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist organization. Referring to progressives, he said: “They can win occasionally. But for the most part, they lose because what they’re selling isn’t what Dems want to be buying.”Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, defeated a conservative opponent for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAs Mr. Trump vies for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, with multiple investigations hanging over his campaign, both moderate and progressive Democrats said they were forming a united front against a common foil and on issues where there is less division within their party, like abortion and protecting democracy. But for progressives, that has still meant a delicate dance about who they are.In Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, successfully campaigning for Senate last year, argued that he was not a progressive but “just a Democrat.” In Virginia, Jennifer McClellan, who became the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress, has called herself a “pragmatic progressive,” emphasizing her decades of working across the aisle.The stakes are especially high for progressives in Arizona, where a fierce race is expected over Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s seat, after she left the Democratic Party in December to become an independent. Ms. Sinema flipped a Republican-held seat by hewing to the center and relying on progressive groups that turned out a large coalition of Democratic and independent voters.Now, Representative Ruben Gallego of Phoenix, a member of the progressive congressional caucus, is running for the seat.In some ways, Mr. Gallego is a bona fide progressive. He has been promoting policies like expanding affordable health care, enacting a permanent child tax credit and increasing wages. In other ways, he is reluctant to openly embrace the progressive brand, preferring instead to talk about his vision for Arizona or his experience as a Marine combat veteran and former construction worker as a way to help bring those working-class Latinos who now vote Republican back into the Democratic fold.Asked if he sees himself as a progressive, Mr. Gallego said, “I see myself as someone who has been a worker and a fighter for working-class families.” He added, “We are not going to be focusing on D.C. labels.”Susan Campbell Beachy More

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      This Philosopher Wants Liberals to Take Political Power Seriously

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      America today faces a crisis of governance. In the face of numerous challenges — from climate change, to housing shortages, to pandemics — our institutions struggle to act quickly and decisively. Democratic processes often get captured by special interests or paralyzed by polarization. And, in response, public faith in government has reached a new low.For the political philosopher Danielle Allen, this crisis requires a complete transformation of our democratic institutions. “Representation as designed cannot work under current conditions,” she writes. “We have no choice but to undertake a significant project of democracy renovation.” Allen’s most recent book — “Justice By Means of Democracy” — puts forth a sweeping vision of what she calls “power-sharing liberalism,” which aims to place political equality, power and participation at the center of liberal thinking.[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]But Allen isn’t just a theorist of liberal governance; she’s actively applying her insights in the real world. As the director of Harvard’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics, she’s convened interdisciplinary groups to tackle a range of challenges from building Covid-19 testing infrastructure to innovating in A.I. governance. She was co-chair of the “Our Common Purpose” commission, which put forward over 30 specific policy recommendations for reinventing American democracy. She even ran for governor of Massachusetts.So this is a conversation about what it would mean to build a better, more responsive and inclusive government — and the numerous challenges standing in the way of doing that. Along the way, we discuss liberals’ failure to take power seriously, Colorado’s experiments with “plural voting,” Seattle’s efforts to publicly finance elections through “democracy bucks,” Taiwan’s groundbreaking innovations in deliberative democracy, whether most citizens actually want deeper participation in government — or just better results from it, what it would mean to democratically govern AI development and much more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Courtesy of Danielle AllenThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld, Kristin Lin, and Roge Karma. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Mixing by Jeff Geld. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Kristina Samulewski. More

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      After His Arraignment, Trump Lashes Out

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      More from our inbox:‘A Great Day for Liberals’ in Wisconsin and ChicagoA Renewed Interest in Freudian PsychoanalysisLos cargos contra Trump representan la culminación de una investigación de casi cinco años de duración.Dave Sanders para The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Charged With 34 Felonies” (front page, April 5):After Judge Juan M. Merchan warned at Donald Trump’s arraignment that all parties must refrain from making statements about the case with the potential to incite violence and civil unrest, what does the former president who can’t keep his mouth shut do during his speech a few hours later?He says hateful things about Judge Merchan and his family, and vilifies District Attorney Alvin Bragg, District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia and the special counsel Jack Smith.And one of the former president’s sons put a photograph of Judge Merchan’s daughter on social media — a clear invitation to violence.It’s time for the former president to be gagged. And when he speaks out with hateful words again, a contempt order and jail time may put a sock in his mouth. About time.Gail ShorrWilmette, Ill.To the Editor:Crowd size has always been important to Donald Trump. It is the metric he uses, along with TV ratings, to measure his impact, to gauge his popularity, to feed his ego.The crowd that showed up Tuesday at his arraignment was hardly composed overwhelmingly of Trump supporters. It looked as if the media and anti-Trump people more than countered his base.No matter how Mr. Trump spins it, no matter how many times at his future rallies he proclaims an overwhelming showing of support in New York City, the camera doesn’t lie.It was good to see him cut down to size Tuesday. For the first time in his adult life he could not control the narrative. He called for a massive protest, he predicted “death and destruction” if he was charged, and he got neither.Len DiSesaDresher, Pa.To the Editor:The April 5 front-page headline “Even as Biden Has Oval Office, Predecessor Has the Spotlight” is a statement that is true only because your newspaper and other media outlets allow Donald Trump to occupy center stage.This behavior of the media has been mentioned many times before, and many believe that the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of free publicity provided to Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign contributed to his winning the election.It is now 2023 and we are facing an election that could well decide the future of America. I am therefore requesting that The Times stop paying so much attention to Mr. Trump (we’ve heard everything he has to say many times before) effective immediately.David SommersKensington, Md.To the Editor:I felt a real jolt seeing the photo of former President Donald Trump seated at the table in a Manhattan courtroom. It was the jolt of the norms of American justice falling back into alignment.Christopher HermanWashington‘A Great Day for Liberals’ in Wisconsin and ChicagoJanet Protasiewicz, the liberal candidate in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, during her election night party in Milwaukee on Tuesday. She ran on her open support of abortion rights.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Liberal Wins Wisconsin Court Race, in Victory for Abortion Rights Backers” (news article, April 5):While New York and the nation were fixated on the circus that was Donald Trump’s arraignment, a special election was held in Wisconsin that decided whether conservatives or liberals would control that state’s Supreme Court. Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, won the race and gave liberals control of the highest court in Wisconsin.Wisconsin is an important swing state, and this new balance of power in the court will have dramatic effects on abortion rights, potential election interference and how election districts are drawn. Conservatives, who have had control of the Supreme Court, will no longer be able to gerrymander voting districts to favor Republicans, nor will they be able to successfully challenge the results of a free and fair election.While this is only one state, we may see similar results in other swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and, yes, even Texas. Donald Trump is to Democrats the gift that just keeps on giving.Henry A. LowensteinNew YorkTo the Editor:Three news stories from your newspaper indicate that Tuesday was a great day for liberals and progressives: “Trump Charged With 34 Felonies,” “Liberal Wins Wisconsin Court Race, in Victory for Abortion Rights Backers” and “Rejecting a ‘Republican in Disguise,’ Chicago Voters Elect Johnson as Next Mayor.”While conservative Republicans are obsessed with culture wars and MAGA, progressives are making political headway. Let’s hope that we continue on this march to liberalism till our nation is free from prejudices, curbs on reproductive and gender freedoms, relentless gun-related violence, etc.Michael HadjiargyrouCenterport, N.Y.A Renewed Interest in Freudian Psychoanalysis Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Back to the Couch With Freud” (Sunday Styles, March 26):It is true that people “see what they want in Freud.” Thus, a younger generation might think Freud “gay friendly” because a 1935 letter declared, “Homosexuality is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation.”However, the article omits that Freud went on to describe homosexuality in that same letter as an “arrest of sexual development.”Freud’s theory that gay people suffered from psychological stunted growth rationalized many decades of discrimination in which openly gay men and women were refused psychoanalytic training because they were “developmentally arrested.” Only in 1991 did the American Psychoanalytic Association change its policies refusing admission to gay candidates.I am glad that Freud is having a renaissance. However, any reading or interpretation of his work should not ignore the historical context in which he lived and the ways, for better or worse, in which some of his theories have been used to discriminate.Jack DrescherNew YorkThe writer, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, is the author of “Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man.”To the Editor:I was pleased to see New York Times coverage of the “Freudaissance,” which I have been a joyful participant in for more than a decade now, both personally and professionally.One of the understandings I have come to, having spent countless hours on both sides of the proverbial couch, in both psychoanalytic and cognitive behavioral contexts, is that these two approaches do not really diverge from each other as much as many tend to assume that they do.I see the C.B.T. founder Aaron Beck’s three levels of cognition (automatic thoughts, core beliefs and cognitive schemas) mapping neatly onto Freud’s topographical model of the mind (the conscious, preconscious and unconscious, respectively).And I see the dialectic behavioral therapy founder Marsha Linehan’s construct of the “wise mind” as an integration of the rational and emotional minds matching Freud’s structural model of the ego as a synthesis of superego and id.Different terms resonate differently in different generations and with different individuals, but rather than disproving or undermining Freud’s theories, I see today’s evidence-based approaches as indications that the father of modern psychology was apparently onto something more than a century ago.Rachel N. WynerWest Hempstead, N.Y.The writer is a clinical psychologist. More

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      A Colossal Off-Year Election in Wisconsin

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      Lauren Justice for The New York TimesConservatives have controlled the court since 2008. Though the court upheld Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, last year it ruled drop boxes illegal, allowed a purge of the voter rolls to take place and installed redistricting maps drawn by Republican legislators despite the objections of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. More