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      Fed Up With Democratic Emails? You’re Not the Only One.

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      Donald Trump seemed to usher in a new era of Democratic grass-roots engagement. More than four million people marched in the streets the day after his inauguration. Several thousand chapters of Indivisible, one of the biggest new “Resistance” organizations, sprung up, covering every congressional district. On the Democratic fund-raising platform ActBlue, the number of donors more than quadrupled in roughly four years, reaching 15 million during the 2020 election cycle.But less than two years later, Democrats and national progressive organizations seem to have done very little to translate that energy into a lasting movement. What happened?National Democratic and progressive groups together burned through the surge of liberal organizing under Mr. Trump, treating impassioned newcomers like cash cows, gig workers and stamp machines to be exploited, not a grass-roots base to be tended. Worse, research by academics and political professionals alike suggests many of the tactics they pushed to engage voters proved ineffective.Some may even have backfired. Millions of dollars and hours were wasted in 2018 and 2020. And yet, as the party stares down a bleak midterm landscape, with abortion rights on the line, the Democratic establishment and progressive organizations alike are doubling down on the same old tactics.For all the conflict between mainstream Democratic and progressive leaders, most share a common way of thinking about electoral politics. To the “Beltway Brain,” as we think of it, voters are data points best engaged via atomized campaigns orchestrated from afar.The core role of supporters is to be whipped into panicked giving by messages like this one from Nancy Pelosi on April 28: “I asked — several times. Barack Obama told you the stakes. Joe Biden made an urgent plea,” she said. “I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll be blunt: All these top Democrats would not be sounding the alarm if our democracy wasn’t in immediate danger of falling to Republicans in this election. I need 8,371 patriots to step up before time runs out, rush $15, and help me close the fund-raising gap before the End of Month Deadline in 48 hours.”Inside Democratic fund-raising circles, this tactic is known as “churn and burn”: a way of squeezing money out of individual donors that reliably produces brief spikes in donations but over the course of an election cycle overwhelms their willingness to keep giving. Even worse, these apocalyptic messages fuel despair. If “democracy is in the balance” and then Democrats fail to pass restorative measures, voters inevitably must wonder, why keep trying?The notion that digitally targeted, professionally scripted, just-in-time voter contacting is the best use of volunteer energy became conventional wisdom among Democratic campaign gurus after Barack Obama’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton in 2008. People who cut their teeth on that campaign now dominate Democratic politicking. After the 2016 election, establishment Democrats and new “Resistance” groups alike pioneered new tactics, encouraging volunteers not just to cold-call swing voters across the country and sign up for shifts knocking doors in faraway swing districts, but to send semi-automated texts and handwritten postcards, as digital tools for “distributed organizing” made such microtargeted anonymous contacting ever cheaper.Recent studies show that the effectiveness of such approaches varies from small to nil to negative. People who volunteer on campaigns are often nothing like other Americans in their politics. The gulf is particularly wide on the Democratic side, where infrequent and swing voters of all ethnicities, ages and life experiences tend to encounter highly educated, liberal and white volunteers.In elections where voters are already getting bombarded with ads, the odds that a volunteer contact can help get people to the polls may be canceled out by the odds the contact will turn them off entirely. One study found that handwritten postcards supporting state legislative candidates in 2018 actually reduced turnout. Meanwhile, Sister District Action Network found that a postcard campaign they coordinated in 2019 had a “marginally significant negative effect” on turnout in primaries, and no impact in the general election.Yet national groups continue to push this approach. This year, Vote Forward aims to have volunteers print and send some 10 million heavily scripted voter turnout letters. With most of the personalization gone and the risks of counterproductive freelancing clear, one could well ask why these groups are using volunteers at all. Are “letters to voters” just chum to draw in small-dollar donors? A gig-economy scheme that works only because volunteers pay for their own stamps?There’s a better way. One of us, Dr. Putnam, has been observing progressive infrastructure in Pittsburgh’s once ruby-red northern suburbs since 2017, when ordinary voters appalled by Donald Trump came together by the dozens and then hundreds, hoping to contest every seat, in every election. In 2017 they helped elect the first Democrat within memory to the North Allegheny school board; in 2018 they helped flip a State Senate seat and oust an incumbent Republican congressman. In 2019 they battled for town council seats.Each year, they gained experience and had more political conversations that were within their own community, but outside their own bubble. They heard firsthand their neighbors’ reactions to national Democrats’ sound bites. They learned not to overestimate the impact of anonymous contacting.For 2021, they recruited four school board candidates, intentionally choosing people whose profile and networks did not just echo those of activists. Rather than spamming voters via distant digital volunteers, the team primarily sent the candidates themselves and trusted endorsers (community leaders and popular local incumbents) to knock on doors. Volunteers instead focused on hyperlocal fund-raising and house parties, capitalizing on their existing ties rather than ignoring them.Dr. Putnam handed out cards for the candidates on Election Day, watching as the campaign team executed a turnout effort reminiscent of an old-fashioned party machine. In the face of a huge infusion of Republican cash and attacks on mask mandates, Covid policies and “critical race theory,” two of the four were elected, and one of them is thought to be the first African American ever to serve on the North Allegheny school board. Their supporters are already at work on the next election.Doubters may ask if this kind of retail politics can scale up. But the real question is, how have national Democrats and progressives fooled themselves into believing a party can survive without it? Logistics experts know the last mile of a delivery is generally the most expensive and that the rest is worthless without it. A container truck is not going to get a package into a cul-de-sac and up the steps to the porch, no matter how sophisticated the routing software, without an actual local person involved.A political party that has few, if any, year-round structures in place to reach voters through trusted interlocutors — and learn from how they respond — can do no more than lurch from crisis to crisis, raising money off increasingly apocalyptic emails, with dire warnings “sounding the alarm” about a democracy in “immediate danger of falling.”Republicans, of course, also treat the news as an endless series of crises. But their calls to oppose socialism or critical race theory or transgender-inclusive bathrooms generate energy that flows into local groups that have a lasting, visible presence in their communities, such as anti-abortion networks, Christian home-schoolers, and gun clubs. Right-wing activists are encouraged to run for local office by overlapping regional, statewide and national personal networks that conservatives have built with decades of sustained investment. When not connected to such networks, Democrats receiving apocalyptic messages can feel more battered than activated, leading to demoralization and despair.If democracy is indeed on fire, the thing to do is to stop asking people to buy water bottles and organize them into fire brigades instead. Neither the national Democratic Party nor progressive leaders seem to have learned that lesson. They aren’t wrong to call the next election the most important in our lifetimes. And abortion bans and the Jan. 6 committee hearings may well recharge their base. But it’s what the base manages to build with that energy that will matter.Lara Putnam (@lara_putnam) is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Micah L. Sifry (@Mlsif) is the author of “The Big Disconnect: Why the Internet Hasn’t Transformed Politics (Yet).” He writes The Connector, a newsletter about democracy, organizing and tech.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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      Why Boris Johnson Will Be Tested in UK by Local Elections

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      The British prime minister is under fire for lockdown-breaking parties. But many voters are skeptical that the opposition can solve issues such as soaring prices.BURY, England — Oliver Henry tries not to talk politics at his barbershop to avoid inciting arguments among his customers. But when Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain was fined recently by the police for breaking his own coronavirus laws, the bickering at Chaps Barbers was unavoidable.“Some people despise him, and other people really love him,” he said, referring to Mr. Johnson, whose Conservative Party faces an important electoral test Thursday as the prime minister battles a swirling scandal over parties in Downing Street that flouted lockdown rules.As he trimmed a client’s hair last week, Mr. Henry said he voted for Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives in the last general election, in 2019, and, grateful for government financial support during the pandemic, was not planning to abandon the prime minister yet.Whether millions of others feel the same when they vote Thursday in elections for local municipalities could determine Mr. Johnson’s fate. His leadership is again on the line, with his own lawmakers mulling a no-confidence motion that could evict him from Downing Street — and a poor result could tip them over the edge.Bury, England. Millions voting in local elections on Thursday could determine Mr. Johnson’s fate.Mary Turner for The New York TimesOne thing that has saved Mr. Johnson so far is his reputation as an election winner, someone able to reach out to voters in places like Bury, the so-called red wall regions of the north and middle of England. These areas traditionally voted for the opposition Labour Party but largely supported Brexit and turned to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election. What happens in them on Thursday will be watched closely.Elections are taking place only in some parts of the country, with around 4,400 seats being contested in more than 140 municipalities. Voting is also taking place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Conservatives are braced for losses. They are trailing Labour in opinion polls, the prime minister is mired in scandal and voters are feeling the pain of spiking energy, food and other prices.But things may still not be as easy for Labour as they might seem. Many of the seats contested on Thursday were last up for grabs in 2018, when Labour did well, giving it limited room to advance.Voting is for elected representatives known as councilors in municipalities that control issues like garbage collection, highway maintenance and planning rules. Turnout will most likely be low, and many of those who cast a ballot will be thinking more about potholes than Downing Street parties.A statue of Robert Peel, a 19th century Conservative prime minister, in his hometown, Bury.Mary Turner for The New York TimesLabour is also struggling to make a big breakthrough and win back its old heartland “red wall” areas, like Bury, the birthplace of Robert Peel, a 19th century Conservative prime minister. In recent decades, the area has suffered from deindustrialization.In Bury South, it elected Labour lawmakers to Parliament for years before 2019, when the Conservatives narrowly snatched the seat. But the winner, Christian Wakeford, recently defected to Labour. James Daly, a Conservative, won the other parliamentary seat, Bury North, in 2019 by a margin of just 105 votes.If Labour is ever going to fully regain control over Bury, now should be a good time. At the Brandlesholme Community Center and Food Bank, close to Chaps Barbers, its chairwoman, Jo Warburton, sums up the situation locally in a word: “diabolical.”Meat and poultry stalls at Bury Market. Many people there are struggling with high prices.Mary Turner for The New York TimesSoaring energy bills are forcing some people to choose between eating and heating, she said, adding, “Nobody can afford to live.” Ms. Warburton recently put out a plea for additional donations after having almost run out of food to offer. Even people with jobs are increasingly in need of groceries, including one person who said she had been surviving on soup for a week, Ms. Warburton added.Because the food bank is a charity, Ms. Warburton tries to keep out of politics. But she said that while local Labour Party politicians support the center, she has had little contact with Conservatives. As for the government in London, “they haven’t got a clue about life,” she said.Across town, one Bury resident, Angela Pomfret, said she sympathized in particular with those who have young families. “I don’t know how people are able to survive,” she said. “I am 62, and I am struggling.”Ms. Pomfret said she had been unable to visit her mother, who died during the coronavirus pandemic, because of Covid restrictions, so she was at first annoyed by news about illicit parties taking place in Downing Street at the same time.But while Ms. Pomfret says she will vote for Labour, she bears no grudge against Mr. Johnson and says she is not against him personally.Polling station signs in a Bury community center that also houses the Brandlesholme food bank ahead of elections.Mary Turner for The New York TimesNor is there much hostility toward him at Bury Market, where Andrew Fletcher, serving customers at a meat and poultry stall, acknowledges that trade is a little depressed at present but does not blame the government. “I will be voting Tory,” he said. “I don’t think Labour could do any better.”Trevor Holt, who has spent 39 years as an elected member of Bury Council for the Labour Party and twice served as the town’s mayor, is convinced that Mr. Johnson is a big liability for the Tories.“I think Boris Johnson is very unpopular, people think he’s either a fool or a crook — and he’s probably both, isn’t he?” he said with a laugh, drinking tea in a cafe at a building he opened as mayor in 1997. The cost of living is also eroding support for the Conservatives, he added. His expectations are cautious, however, and he thinks that Labour will “gain some seats” rather than sweep to a big victory.Trevor Holt, who has spent 39 years as an elected member of Bury Council for the Labour Party and twice served as the town’s mayor, is convinced that Mr. Johnson is a big liability for the Tories.Mary Turner for The New York TimesLabour currently controls Bury Council, and that means that it takes the blame for many things that go wrong locally as well as for some unpopular policies.Moves to build more homes on green spaces have provoked opposition, as have plans for a clean air zone, a proposal — now being reconsidered after protests — that would charge for journeys in some more polluting vehicles.To complicate matters, there is also a fringe party campaigning for more support for an area of Bury called Radcliffe. In the Royal Oak pub, Mike Smith, a councilor for the party, Radcliffe First, who is running for re-election, describes his patch as “an archetypal forgotten ‘red-wall’ town,” comparing it to Springfield, the fictional setting of “The Simpsons.”“If they need to build a sewage works, they’ll try to put it in Radcliffe,” he said.Campaigners and candidates for the Radcliffe First political party at the Royal Oak pub in Bury after canvassing for votes.Mary Turner for The New York TimesAt another table in the pub, which filled steadily before a soccer match was screened, Martin Watmough described Mr. Johnson as “an absolute charlatan,” and said he would support Labour in the local elections, adding that the Conservatives had lost the trust of many voters.But Nick Jones, the leader of the Conservatives on Bury Council, is bullish, considering the political headwinds against his party generated by the lockdown party scandal. He is hoping to win a handful of seats.Mr. Jones is campaigning not so much for the prime minister as against Labour’s record locally. Speaking in another pub in Bury, he highlighted issues including the clean air zone plan, the state of the highways (“a disgrace,” in his opinion) and the frequency of refuse collections.Nick Jones, leader of the Conservatives on Bury Council, is bullish and hoping to win a handful of seats. Mary Turner for The New York TimesWhen the conversation turns to Mr. Johnson, who visited Bury last week, Mr. Jones is careful to be loyal.But his political pitch has little to do with a scandal-prone prime minister, whose immediate fate could depend on results of elections like these.The message to the voters in Bury, Mr. Jones said, is: “We are not talking about Downing Street, we are talking about your street.” More

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      The Tennessee Law Making School Board Culture Wars Even Worse

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      FRANKLIN, Tenn. — “What happens when a child sounds out the word ‘lesbian’ and turns to their teacher and asks, ‘What is a lesbian?’”Trisha Lucente, the mom of a local kindergartner, has come before the Williamson County school board to voice her distress over the district’s continued use of Epic, a digital library app containing more than 40,000 children’s books and videos. Ms. Lucente and like-minded parents have complained about several titles that they consider inappropriate. Anything touching on race, gender or sexuality can set off alarms in conservative circles here. (A book on sea horses came under fire recently. The fact that male sea horses get pregnant was seen as promoting the idea of gender fluidity.)In response, the school system temporarily shut down access to the library to conduct a review — prompting an outcry from supporters of the app — then reinstated it while allowing parents to opt out their kids.Ms. Lucente finds the compromise unacceptable. What happens when a child who has been opted out overhears the lesbian question, she demands. “What position does that put our teachers in? What are they supposed to say to that?” The Epic situation, she contends, is just another example of how the board and administration are dividing the community and “failing our children and our teachers.”Ms. Lucente is not the only one with strong feelings on the matter. Multiple parents and teachers at the meeting rise to praise Epic. One teenager, a junior at Franklin High School, asserts that “censorship is stupid” and scolds adults who would “shield” students from learning about racism, antisemitism and other uncomfortable aspects of history and humanity.Welcome to Williamson County, a hot spot in the ongoing culture war engulfing America’s public schools. An affluent, highly educated, politically conservative enclave just south of Nashville, Williamson has seen its share of school-related drama over the years. In 2015, for instance, conservatives here were fired up about a seventh-grade social studies unit that some viewed as Islamic indoctrination.The trauma of the Covid pandemic has driven tensions to a new level. Last August, the district drew national attention after a mob of parents, protesting the board’s vote to impose a temporary mask mandate, turned feral. One pro-mask dad was swarmed, cursed at and threatened as he made his way from the meeting back to his car. “You can leave freely, but we will find you!” a protester raged in a video that went viral.The district has since sought to curtail the hostilities. The 25 residents who signed up to speak at this month’s meeting were allowed precisely one minute each, with a timer keeping everyone on track. Officials warned at the outset that disruptive speakers would have their remarks terminated and that those who felt unsafe could have a sheriff’s deputy escort them to their vehicles.Williamson County is obviously not the only community dealing with such frictions. School boards across the nation are being dragged onto the front lines of partisan battles. Vaccination requirements, diversity and inclusion efforts, books that make certain people feel icky — these issues and more have prompted ugly, overheated confrontations, some of them violent. Outside groups are fanning the flames, as are cynical politicians looking to juice their careers. (See: DeSantis, Ron, governor of Florida.) The day-to-day concerns of running a school district (boring stuff like budgeting and approving contracts for vendors) are increasingly being overshadowed by partisan agendas.Many people would look at the spiraling circus and think: This is bad. Low-level, nonpartisan school boards are not where these radioactive political issues should be hashed out. Someone should find a way to reduce the heat on these public servants.Instead, Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature went the other way: passing a law last fall that allows for partisan school board elections, setting up a system that not only codifies the existing toxicity but also promises to exacerbate it. So much for putting students first.The overwhelming majority of school board races around the country are nonpartisan. This was the case in Tennessee until Republican lawmakers, during an emergency session called to deal with Covid-related issues, rammed through legislation permitting county parties to hold primary elections to select school board nominees, who can then list their party affiliations on the general election ballots. It was a controversial move, and the opposition included state Democrats, droves of educators and school board officials and even some Republicans.The law’s supporters insist that partisan contests will give voters a clearer sense of school board candidates and their values and, more broadly, that they will increase involvement and public interest in what are typically low-profile races.Critics of the new system counter that the law will change the fundamental nature of the position — and not in a good way. Among their biggest fears: To win their party’s primaries, candidates will need to focus more on hot-button issues that appeal to base voters, leading to more and fiercer culture clashes. Campaigns will require more money and more partisan brawling, discouraging many people from running. Those who skip the primaries and run in general elections as independents will be at a disadvantage. (America’s two-party system is not kind to independent candidates at any political level.) And as time goes on, the pool of people who choose to run will be composed less of civic-minded parents than of partisan warriors and careerist politicians.Not all of the county parties opted to hold school board primaries this cycle, and many voters are likely not yet aware of the change. But even at this early stage, there are signs that the new law’s supporters and its detractors are both right.Pretty much everyone plugged into this drama acknowledges that the newly partisan contests have increased interest and participation in school board races.Jim Garrett is the chair of the Davidson County Republican Party, which is holding primaries for its candidates running for the Metropolitan Nashville school board. Nashville is among Tennessee’s bluer regions, where Democrats have an electoral edge. Even so, with the new system, he says, more Republicans are running, and they are raising more money. “It looks like the cost of a campaign is going to be about double what it used to be,” he estimates.The local G.O.P. is also investing more in these races. For the first time, Davidson Republicans are arranging training sessions for school board candidates. These races weren’t a focus in previous elections, says Mr. Garrett. “They are a focus now.”There hasn’t yet been special training on the Democratic side. But the county party is happy to connect candidates to campaign vendors and other resources, says its chairwoman, Tara Houston. The party has also tasked a special committee to come up with a platform outlining its basic values on public education, which Democratic school board hopefuls will be expected to support.In Williamson County, where having a D next to one’s name is a scarlet letter of sorts, most of the primary action has been on the Republican side. In multiple districts, more conventional conservatives are facing off against contenders from the party’s Trumpier wing. Outside groups have lined up behind their champions, providing financial and other support. The most prominent of these is Williamson Families, a political action committee dedicated to protecting the county’s “conservative roots” and “Judeo-Christian values.” The PAC is led by Robin Steenman, who also heads the local branch of Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit based in Florida that champions parental rights and “liberty-minded” leaders nationwide. Williamson Families has endorsed a slate of superconservatives — after weeding out the RINOs, of course.Multiple parents and teachers in Williamson complain that, as predicted, some of the campaigns and contenders seem focused less on concrete education issues than on culture-war talking points. One middle-school teacher vents to me that some candidates are bragging about their love of Donald Trump and decrying the decline of traditional families and the godlessness of today’s youth.Meagan Gillis, whose two young daughters attend county schools, says the whole situation has turned to “chaos.” She points to a social media post by a conservative candidate promoting the child furries myth: the wacky online claim that teachers are being forced to cater to students who identify as cats, to the point of putting litter boxes in classrooms and meowing at the children. “I’m like, are you kidding me?” Ms. Gillis marvels. Things are getting so absurd, she says, that her family is seriously considering moving out of the area.Similar concerns and complaints can be heard from other corners of the state. Virginia Babb has loved her time on the Knox County school board and was planning to run for re-election — until the shift to partisan races. Now she will step down at the end of her term rather than get sucked into the slime. She initially ran for the board as “a very involved parent” without strong partisan leanings, she tells me, noting: “I don’t like either party. They are too much controlled by their extremes.”So down the partisan rabbit hole Tennessee school boards are being nudged — with other states possibly to follow. Missouri, Arizona, Florida and South Carolina are among the states where lawmakers toyed less successfully with similar legislation this year. Some bills made it farther than others, and the idea is likely to keep popping up. The conservative American Enterprise Institute favors listing school board candidates’ party affiliations on ballots. A collection of conservative leaders has been exploring other ways to bring school board races more into line with other types of elections, according to Politico.All of which would indeed most likely earn school board campaigns more attention and resources and make candidates easier to ideologically sort. But at what cost to America’s children?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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      If Biden’s Plan Is Like a ‘New Deal,’ Why Don’t Voters Care?

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      RICHMOND, Va. — As Chris Frelke surveyed the Thomas B. Smith Community Center, he conceded that the beige-and-green cinder block structure was not much to look at. But Mr. Frelke, the parks director in Virginia’s capital, spoke with excitement describing the image in his mind’s eye: One day, there would be a pristine new complex capable of providing services from child care to community college classes.That dream complex is not some remote fantasy. The city of Richmond intends to build it in the next few years using $20 million from the American Rescue Plan, President Biden’s trillion-dollar coronavirus-relief law. Richmond will receive a total of $155 million, a cash infusion that its Democratic mayor, Levar Stoney, called “a once-in-a-lifetime sort of investment.”“This is akin to our New Deal,” Mr. Stoney said.Unlike the New Deal, however, this $1.9 trillion federal investment in American communities has barely registered with voters. Rather than a trophy for Mr. Biden and his party, the program has become a case study in how easily voters can overlook even a lavishly funded government initiative delivering benefits close to home.Mr. Biden’s popularity has declined in polls over the past year, and voters are giving him less credit for the country’s economic recovery than his advisers had anticipated. In Virginia, Democrats got shellacked in the 2021 off-year elections amid the country’s halting emergence from the depths of the pandemic.Ambivalence among voters stems partly from the fact that many of the projects being funded are, for now, invisible.At Richmond’s Southside Community Center, slated to balloon in capacity with the help of rescue plan funding, Linda Scott, a 75-year-old pickleball enthusiast, said she had heard nothing of the coming upgrades.“I know that we’re getting lots of money,” said Ms. Scott, a self-described independent who voted for Mr. Biden. “But what we’re doing with it, I’m not sure.”Thirteen months after Mr. Biden signed the emergency package, that money is starting to fuel a wave of investment on city infrastructure, public services and pilot programs unlike any in decades.“You tell them about the American Rescue Plan,” Mr. Biden has said to House members, “and they say, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’”Doug Mills/The New York TimesCity and county leaders are spending confidently, boasting of the generational improvements they are making with the help of Mr. Biden’s legislation.The city of Richmond plans to use $78 million to create four activity centers, overhauling two existing facilities and building two. Rescue plan money will also fund more than $30 million on affordable housing initiatives and smaller amounts on public safety and health.Mr. Stoney allowed that it was not clear how much voters had processed that barrage of spending when the projects were far from completion. In cities like his, the money must make its way through city councils and contract-bidding processes; in some states, the path to deploying funds has been even longer as governors wrangle with conservative legislatures.“I wish we could snap our fingers and say: Oh, there’s a new community center right here today!” Mr. Stoney said.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Other initiatives will kick in faster but affect fewer people: In Richmond, the mayor’s office has endorsed a grant of about $350,000 to Daily Planet Health Services, clinics for low-income residents, to expand capacity to care for people without homes.Richmond plans to use more than $30 million from federal rescue plan funds on affordable housing initiatives.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York TimesDr. Patricia Cook, the organization’s chief medical officer, said the money could be applied quickly: “We’d be able to fill the rooms that day.”Getting voters excited about the American Rescue Plan is a tall order when so many are preoccupied with the price of gasoline and the cost and availability of other basic goods — concerns the emergency-spending bill was not designed to address.A Gallup poll in March found that more Americans said they worried a great deal about inflation than any other issue. Crime and homelessness, both targets of rescue spending, were not far behind.The American Rescue Plan, which also funded direct relief payments to voters and health programs like vaccine distribution, has been criticized by Republicans and some economists for pumping too much money into the economy and probably contributing to inflation.Mr. Stoney said he had encouraged the White House to work with mayors and treat them as the “tip of the spear” in promoting its aid. Many Americans were still in a gloomy mood because of the pandemic, the mayor said, and Democrats had not done a very good job of communicating about the plan.“Not just the president, but it’s difficult even for us sometimes to break through some of the noise that’s out there,” he said.Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond says that if Democrats don’t find a way to effectively convey their role in the rescue plan to voters, then Republicans would take credit for spending the money.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York TimesOnce in a LifetimeThe political predicament confronting Mr. Biden and his party was embedded in the structure of the American Rescue Plan. Within the $1.9 trillion law, a $350 billion fund for state and local governments was designed to meet a dire set of circumstances along the lines of the Great Recession: a potentially catastrophic short-term budget shortfall followed by a slow economic recovery.Mr. Biden declared it would help states and municipalities rehire all “those laid-off police officers, firefighters, teachers and nurses.”The $350 billion in rescue funds would be handed out by 2022 in increments, with recipients given until 2026 to spend it. That timeline was meant to gird states and cities against another economic slowdown, said Gene Sperling, the presidential adviser overseeing the rescue plan.Yet rather than limping through a recovery, the country enjoyed the fastest economic growth in nearly four decades and saw the unemployment rate plummet. Government revenues surged across much of the country, and governors of once-beleaguered states, like California and Minnesota, announced proposals to give residents tax cuts or one-time rebates.Some state and local government payrolls are smaller than they were before the pandemic; many municipalities face a backlog in services from courts to coroners’ offices, and they are not immune to inflation and fuel shocks.The rescue spending still represents something of an insurance policy against a new recession. But for state and local leaders, the money is clearly something more than that.As government revenues began returning, the Treasury Department issued guidance encouraging cities and counties to treat rescue funding as a flexible resource that could be deployed for purposes faintly related to Covid-19.Some initiatives will kick in faster but affect fewer people: In Richmond, the mayor’s office has endorsed a grant of about $350,000 to Daily Planet Health Services, a network of clinics for low-income residents.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York TimesIf municipalities could make the case that a social problem worsened because of the pandemic, then they could probably use rescue plan funding.Under the federal legislation, Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz knows that Toledo, Ohio, is due $180 million over two years, a colossal sum for a city of about 270,000 people.His administration outlined a combination of short- and long-term improvements, including demolishing blighted buildings, creating affordable housing projects and targeted spending on public safety and child care.Mr. Kapszukiewicz is a rare Democrat who may have been helped politically by the funding. The mayor won re-election by a wide margin in November; in his victory speech, he cited the American Rescue Plan as a reason for his city to be optimistic.“None of us in public life have ever had an opportunity like this,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said.Cities and counties cannot enact programs that would go bankrupt once the money expires. That has encouraged governments to use it on one-time investments that could be completed by the 2026 deadline — and underwrite policy experiments on a limited scale.Construction on a home that will be offered for sale through the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust in Richmond.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York TimesMayor Michelle Wu of Boston, a progressive Democrat, has pledged to spend hundreds of millions on affordable housing initiatives. Ms. Wu, who campaigned on eliminating fares for mass transit, is using about $8 million of rescue plan money — from more than half a billion allotted to her city — to make three bus lines free for two years.She hopes demonstrating the value of free transit will create momentum to enact the policy without federal money.“Our goal is to resist the temptation to divvy up these funds into 10,000 photo ops,” Ms. Wu said, “and instead truly focus on transformational change.”Ms. Wu said she had been up front with her constituents that the federal money made her transit policy possible, but she said many were not focused on its origins.“I think if you talk to people out and about, living their lives in our neighborhoods, they don’t care where the funding comes from,” she said.The potential of these programs is unproven, and in many cases years away — a challenge for Democrats who would like to run on a record of concrete accomplishments this fall.“You tell them about the American Rescue Plan,” Mr. Biden said to House members, “and they say, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’”Linda Scott said she had heard nothing of the coming upgrades to Richmond’s Southside Community Center. “I know that we’re getting lots of money, but what we’re doing with it, I’m not sure,” she said.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York TimesChris Frelke, Richmond’s parks director, said the city would spend $78 million creating four community centers.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York Times‘It Just Does Not Connect’A short drive from Richmond’s Thomas B. Smith Community Center is where the city of Richmond ends and Chesterfield County begins. A historically Republican suburb that is wealthier and whiter than Virginia’s capital city, Chesterfield County has already received more than $34 million through the American Rescue Plan. A second installment of that size is due later.The Republican-led county board has announced a major upgrade of parks and other construction projects, including a school and police station.The county’s finances remained sturdy throughout the pandemic and are now so robust that the board of supervisors approved a reduction in the real estate tax. The rescue plan funding allowed the county to accelerate some projects, local officials said, but they would likely have undertaken many of them without federal help.Christopher Winslow, the Republican chair of the county board, said the projects would have a “long-lasting and significant effect on citizens.” But in a fiscally robust county like his, Mr. Winslow said, the funding was less a rescue than a “bonanza.”By the time the first tranche of rescue money arrived, Mr. Winslow said, there was “a sense that the real pain was largely behind us.” That view is shared by many Republicans in Congress, who criticized the original price tag of the legislation and proposed clawing back some of the money.During a recent meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, several White House officials, including Mitch Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor, urged city leaders to do more to promote the rescue money — or risk seeing Congress redirect some of the funding elsewhere.After shedding its conservative roots to back Mr. Biden for president in 2020, Chesterfield County shifted back to the right to support a Republican, Glenn Youngkin, for governor.Lashrecse Aird, a former Democratic state legislator who represented a slice of Chesterfield County, said the rescue plan was of “no value whatsoever” to Democrats in Virginia’s 2021 elections. Ms. Aird, who lost her seat in the House of Delegates in November, said voters were scarcely aware of the federal aid.“It just does not connect. That is just the honest to goodness truth,” Ms. Aird said. “Even when you’re talking about schools, so much of this stuff is so far down the line before it’s anything you can see.”Richmond’s Southside Community Center is slated to balloon in size and capacity.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York Times More

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      Georgia and Voting Rights: Deep Distrust Over a Plan to Close Polling Places

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      As legislation to expand voting rights was blocked in Washington, local residents debate a plan from officials in Lincoln County, Ga., who say they want to streamline and modernize their system.LINCOLN COUNTY, Ga. — The showdown over voting rights in the U.S. Senate may be over for now. But the issue is still smoldering in a stretch of Northeast Georgia countryside where local officials recently introduced a plan to close seven polling sites and consolidate them into one.The proposal in Lincoln County has attracted the attention and ire of major voting rights groups and suspicion among some Black residents who say the effort is just the latest example of voter suppression in a state where Republicans recently passed a restrictive new law. Hundreds of upset residents have filed protest petitions that could cause local officials to scale it back.But local officials say the current polling spots are in need of modernization — and that in a county where about two-thirds of the 7,700 residents are white, the plan is simply an effort to make it easier to manage elections. The remaining site would be located close to the polling place that currently serves the county’s one majority-Black precinct.“They seem to think that I’m trying to stop Black people from voting,” said the elections director, an African American woman named Lilvender Bolton. She would administer the plan that was under consideration last week by a mostly Republican-appointed board of two Black members and three white ones.In Georgia, a state where razor-thin voting margins have helped swing the White House and control of the Senate, any effort to change the process of voting has become fiercely contested. And after recent efforts by Republicans in Georgia and around the country to restrict voting, suspicions are high.Lilvender Bolton, who leads the Board of Elections, supports a plan to consolidate voting into one location.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesFor decades, a proposal like Lincoln County’s would have been subject to review from the Department of Justice to determine whether it was discriminatory, a step mandated by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and often referred to as “preclearance.” But this system was effectively gutted by a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, and has not returned since, despite efforts to revive it like last week’s Senate debate.David J. Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the failure to reinstitute preclearance this year was a missed opportunity.Mr. Becker was careful to note that he could not tell whether Lincoln County’s consolidation plan was politically motivated or well-intentioned. But with preclearance, he said, residents of areas like Lincoln County would at least have had a sense that a third party had taken a hard look at whether a proposed change to voting in their community would make it harder for minority groups to vote.“Preclearance was a stamp of approval that elections officials could use to tamp down exactly this kind of divisive rhetoric that’s going around,” he said.In 2019, the Leadership Conference Education Fund, a civil rights nonprofit based in Washington, issued a report analyzing the areas formerly subject to federal review and found a loss of 1,173 polling places between the 2014 and the 2018 midterm elections.Fully understanding the “potentially discriminatory impact of these closures,” the report’s authors wrote, would require “precisely the kind” of analysis “that the DOJ conducted under preclearance.”Even voting rights groups acknowledge that there are sometimes legitimate reasons for closing polling places: Populations shift, and sometimes the way people cast their vote changes, too. More voters may begin choosing to vote by mail or at early voting locations rather than their precinct.Officials want all voting to take place in Lincolnton, the county seat.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesIn Lincoln County, Ms. Bolton, the county elections director, argues that the change would make it easier for her to manage Election Day. Her tiny staff is stressed, she said, by the responsibility of setting up and breaking down the complicated electronic voting machines in seven locations spread around the county’s 257 square miles.The failure of the voting overhaul effort in Washington comes after Republican state lawmakers, in the wake of former President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in 2020, have moved to overhaul election systems in dozens of states, including Georgia, often in the name of protecting against dubious allegations of voter fraud promulgated by Mr. Trump and his allies.The Georgia legislature has also handed control of some or all appointments to local election boards in six counties to conservative judges or Republican-controlled county commissions.Given these recent developments, and the long history of racist disenfranchisement of Black voters in the South, some Lincoln County voters say they would be foolish not to suspect that they are being targeted.“How could you not see it as a pattern?” said Charlie Murray, 68, a Black resident who votes at a nearby church far from the county seat.“They’re making it harder for people to vote,” said another Black resident, Franklin Sherman, 29, a truck driver who usually votes in the same spot.Franklin Sherman, 29, opposes consolidating the precincts: “They’re making it harder for people to vote.”Nicole Craine for The New York TimesLincoln County was among the six Georgia counties in which the rules for selecting members of the local elections board were recently changed by the state legislature.County officials originally asked legislators for the change because they wanted to be able to stagger the members’ terms, said Walker T. Norman, the longtime chair of the county commission and a Republican.Another change — ending the tradition of letting the Democratic and Republican Parties each choose one board member — was prompted by a State Supreme Court ruling, which has been interpreted to hold that private entities cannot appoint members to government bodies, he said.The legislation mandating the changes was sponsored by State Senator Lee Anderson, a Republican who co-sponsored last year’s restrictive Georgia voting bill. He also publicly supported a baseless and unsuccessful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia and three other states. In a recent interview, Mr. Anderson said that in making the changes to the local elections board, he was simply responding to the wishes of Lincoln County officials.Mr. Norman is something of a legend in the county: The community gym proposed as the sole new voting site bears his name — “I got a road named after me too,” he said — and two years ago he changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican because he said it had become too hard to get elected as a Democrat. In an interview, he dismissed the idea that Black voters would be discriminated against by a consolidation. He noted that in all but one precinct, white voters outnumber Black ones.“You can see that they’re not for all the people,” Charlie Murray, 68, said of Lincoln County officials.Nicole Craine for The New York Times“So if we’re suppressing anybody, I’m afraid we’re suppressing the white vote,” he said. “But that’s not our intent, to suppress any vote.”Mr. Norman said that in recent elections, a majority of participants have voted early at a centralized location in Lincolnton. He also described a litany of problems with the current system: Three polling places are within about two and a half miles of one another. Some of the facilities are antiquated. Consolidation, he said, will require less equipment. “We don’t have to use but about half of the voting machines,” he said.But opponents, both Black and white, expressed more concern for the convenience of voters than for that of the voting officials and poll workers.Racy Smith, 56, the owner of a Lincolnton antique and curio shop, said it seemed “ridiculous” to close rural polling places in a county with limited public transportation. “My 86-year-old mom can still drive,” said Mr. Smith, who is white, “but there are so many that aren’t that active who live out in the county.”The Rev. Denise Freeman, a former member of the school board and an activist leading the fight against the consolidation, expressed skepticism about the board’s true motivation. “I think it’s the good ol’ boys flexing their muscle for more power and more control,” she said.On Thursday, Ms. Freeman gave a tour of some of the more remote areas of the county, a few miles from the J. Strom Thurmond reservoir, named for the Republican senator who was known as a segregationist but ended up voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.Ms. Freeman talked about her role in the other major racially charged issue that rocked the county in recent decades: an allegation, in the early 1990s, that Black children had been told to sit in the back of a school bus by a driver.The Rev. Denise Freeman, a local activist, outside the proposed site for the new polling station, a gymnasium named after the longtime chair of the county commission. Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBlack parents discussed keeping their children out of school. Ms. Freeman spoke up about this issue and other perceived injustices, earning her share of enemies.Eventually, she said, an outside group came in to broker a sort of peace: the Department of Justice.Three decades later, the residents of Lincoln County will most likely need to sort out their disagreement over polling places on their own. On Tuesday, Ms. Bolton’s office was in the process of verifying hundreds of protest petitions from voters in two precincts. Under Georgia law, those two polling places will have to stay open if the petitioners amount to 20 percent or more of the total electors in each precinct.But Jim Allen, a board member, does not believe that the plan is dead. Some form of consolidation, he said, was likely to be considered eventually.Michael Wines More

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      Steve Bannon sabe algo

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      En Politics Is for Power, el libro de 2020 de Eitan Hersh, politólogo de Tufts, retrató con gran nitidez (e intensidad) un día en la vida de muchos sujetos obsesionados con la política.Actualizo las historias de Twitter para mantenerme al tanto de la crisis política del momento, luego reviso Facebook para leer noticias ciberanzuelo y en YouTube veo un collage de clips impactantes de la audiencia más reciente ante el Congreso. A continuación, me quejo con mi familia de todo lo que no me gustó de eso que vi.En opinión de Hersh, eso no es política. Podría decirse que es una “afición por la política”. Lo cierto es que casi se trata del pasatiempo nacional en Estados Unidos. “Una tercera parte de los estadounidenses dicen que le dedican por lo menos dos horas al día a la política”, escribe. “De estas personas, cuatro de cada cinco afirman que ni un solo minuto de ese tiempo invertido se relaciona con algún tipo de trabajo político real. Solo son noticias televisadas, algunos pódcast, programas de radio, redes sociales y elogios, críticas y quejas compartidas con los amigos y la familia”.Hersh considera que es posible definir el trabajo político real como la acumulación intencional y estratégica de poder al servicio de un fin determinado. Es acción al servicio del cambio, no información al servicio de la indignación. Tengo esta distinción en la cabeza porque, al igual que muchas otras personas, toda la semana pasada le di muchas vueltas al golpe frustrado del 6 de enero, sumido en furia contra los republicanos que pusieron la lealtad a Donald Trump por encima de la lealtad al país y los pocos pero cruciales demócratas del Senado que demuestran a diario su convicción de que el filibusterismo —una táctica obstructiva en el Congreso— es más importante que el derecho al voto. Debo confesar que los tuits y columnas que redacté en mi mente eran muy mordaces.Por desgracia, la furia solo sirve como combustible. Necesitamos un plan B para la democracia. El plan A era aprobar los proyectos de ley H.R. 1 y de Promoción del Derecho al Voto John Lewis. En este momento, parece que ninguno de esos proyectos llegará al escritorio del presidente Biden. He constatado que si adviertes de esto provocas un enojo peculiar, como si admitir el problema fuera su causa. Temo que la negación ha dejado a muchos demócratas estancados en una estrategia nacional con pocas esperanzas de éxito a corto plazo. Si quieren proteger la democracia, los demócratas deben ganar más elecciones. Para lograrlo, necesitan asegurarse de que la derecha trumpista no corrompa la maquinaria electoral local del país.“Quienes piensan estratégicamente cómo ganar las elecciones de 2022 son quienes más están haciendo por la democracia”, dijo Daniel Ziblatt, politólogo de Harvard y uno de los autores de Cómo mueren las democracias. “He oído a algunas personas decir que los puentes no salvan a la democracia, pero el derecho al voto sí. El problema es que, para que los demócratas se encuentren en posición de proteger la democracia, necesitan mayorías más numerosas”.Algunas personas ya trabajan en el Plan B. Esta semana, casi de broma le pregunté a Ben Wikler, presidente del Partido Demócrata en Wisconsin, qué se sentía estar en las primeras líneas de defensa de la democracia estadounidense. Me respondió, con toda seriedad, cómo se sentía. Cada día lo consume una tremenda obsesión por las contiendas a las alcaldías de poblados de 20.000 habitantes, porque esos alcaldes se encargan de designar a los secretarios municipales que toman la decisión de retirar los buzones para las boletas enviadas por correo, y pequeños cambios en la administración electoral podrían ser la diferencia entre ganar el escaño del senador Ron Johnson en 2022 (y tener la posibilidad de reformar la democracia) y perder esa contienda y el Senado. Wikler está organizando a voluntarios que se encarguen de centros telefónicos para convencer a personas con fe en la democracia de convertirse en funcionarios municipales de casilla, pues la misión de Steve Bannon ha sido reclutar a personas que no creen en la democracia para que trabajen en casillas municipales.Tengo que reconocerle esto a la derecha: se fijan muy bien dónde radica el poder dentro del sistema estadounidense, algo que la izquierda a veces no hace. Esta táctica, que Bannon designa “estrategia de distrito electoral”, le está funcionando. “De la nada, personas que nunca antes habían mostrado interés alguno en la política partidista comenzaron a comunicarse a las oficinas generales del Partido Republicano local o a asistir en grandes números a las convenciones de condado, dispuestas a servir en un distrito electoral”, según informa ProPublica. “Aparecieron por igual en estados que ganó Trump y en estados que perdió, en áreas rurales profundamente republicanas, en suburbios de voto pendular y en ciudades populosas”.La diferencia entre quienes se organizan a nivel local para moldear la democracia y aquellos que hacen rabietas nada productivas en vista del retroceso democrático (entre los cuales me incluyo) me recuerdan aquel antiguo adagio sobre la guerra: los aficionados debaten sobre estrategia; los profesionales, sobre logística. En este momento, los trumpistas hablan de logística.“No tenemos elecciones federales”, dijo Amanda Litman, cofundadora de Run for Something, organización dedicada a ayudar a candidatos primerizos a identificar los cargos por los que pueden competir y que colabora con ellos para montar su campaña. “Tenemos 50 elecciones estatales y miles de elecciones de condado. Cada una de ellas cuenta para darnos resultados. Si bien el Congreso puede fijar, hasta cierto punto, reglas o límites en torno a la administración de las elecciones, las legislaturas estatales deciden quién puede votar y quién no puede hacerlo. Condados y pueblos toman decisiones como la cantidad de dinero asignada a su gasto, la tecnología que utilizan o las normas para determinar qué candidatos pueden participar”.Un análisis de NPR reveló que 15 republicanos que compiten en la elección de secretario de estado en 2022 dudan de la legitimidad de la victoria de Biden. En Georgia, el republicano Brad Raffensperger, secretario de estado en funciones, quien se mantuvo firme ante las presiones de Trump, enfrentará en las primarias a dos competidores que afirman que Trump fue el verdadero ganador en 2020. Trump expresó su respaldo a uno de ellos, el representante Jody Hice . También ha respaldado a candidatos a secretario de estado en Arizona y Michigan que lo apoyaron en 2020 y están listos para hacer lo propio en 2024. Como hizo notar NPR en tono prosaico: “Las responsabilidades de un secretario de estado varían, pero en la mayoría de los casos es el funcionario electoral de mayor rango en el estado y se encarga del cumplimiento de las leyes electorales”.Tampoco todo se reduce a los secretarios de estado. “Existe la supresión del voto en todos los niveles de gobierno en Georgia”, me dijo la representante Nikema Williams, presidenta del Partido Demócrata en Georgia. “Tenemos 159 condados y, por lo tanto, 159 maneras distintas de elegir a los consejos electorales y celebrar elecciones. Así que hay 159 líderes diferentes que controlan la administración electoral en el estado. Hemos visto a esos consejos restringir el acceso mediante cambios en el número de buzones para boletas. En general, en estos consejos hacen a un lado a nuestros miembros negros”.La frustrante estructura política de Estados Unidos crea dos disparidades que fastidian a los posibles defensores de la democracia. La primera de estas disparidades es de índole geográfica. El país ataca elecciones celebradas en Georgia y Wisconsin, y si vives en California o Nueva York, te quedas con una sensación de impotencia.Pero eso suena a ilusión y también evasión. Una queja constante entre quienes trabajan para ganar estos cargos es que los progresistas donan cientos de millones a campañas presidenciales y apuestas improbables contra los republicanos mejor posicionados, mientras que los candidatos locales de todo el país no reciben financiamiento.“A los principales donadores demócratas les gusta hacer aportaciones para las cosas ostentosas”, me explicó Litman. “Contiendas presidenciales y para el Senado, super PAC o anuncios de televisión. Amy McGrath puede recaudar 90 millones de dólares para competir contra Mitch McConnell en una contienda perdida, pero el número de candidatos al concejo municipal y el comité escolar en Kentucky que pueden recaudar lo necesario es…”. Frustrada, se detuvo.La segunda disparidad es de carácter emocional. Si temes que Estados Unidos se esté inclinando hacia el autoritarismo, deberías apoyar a candidatos, organizar campañas y hacer donaciones a causas que directamente se centren en la crisis de la democracia. Por desgracia, pocas elecciones locales se organizan como referendos sobre la gran mentira de Trump. Se concentran en la recolección de basura y regulaciones sobre la emisión de bonos para recaudar dinero, en el control del tráfico, el presupuesto y la respuesta en caso de desastre.Lina Hidalgo se postuló para el cargo de juez de condado en el condado de Harris, Texas, tras las elecciones de 2016. La campaña de Trump la dejó consternada, así que quería hacer algo. “Me enteré de este cargo al que nadie le había prestado atención en mucho tiempo”, me dijo. “Era el tipo de escaño que solo cambiaba de ocupante cuando la persona en funciones moría o era encarcelada por haber cometido un delito. No obstante, tenía control sobre el presupuesto para el condado. El Condado de Harris casi es del mismo tamaño que Colorado en términos de población, y es más grande que 28 estados. Se ocupa del presupuesto para el sistema hospitalario, los caminos, puentes, bibliotecas, la prisión. Y también incluye el financiamiento para el sistema electoral”.Hidalgo no desarrolló su campaña como una progresista instigadora deseosa de defender a Texas de Trump. Me explicó que ganó gracias a que se concentró en los problemas que más les importaban a sus vecinos: las constantes inundaciones que sufría el condado, pues una serie de tormentas violentas arrolló la infraestructura deteriorada. “Pregunté: ‘¿Quieren una comunidad que se inunde cada año?’”. Ganó y, después de su victoria, decidió con sus colegas invertir 13 millones de dólares más en la administración electoral y permitirles a los residentes votar en cualquier casilla que les resultara conveniente el día de las elecciones, aunque no fuera la que les habían asignado.La idea de proteger a la democracia respaldando a funcionarios de condado o alcaldes de pueblos pequeños, en particular aquellos que se ajustan a la política de comunidades más conservadoras, puede sonar a que nos diagnosticaron insuficiencia cardiaca y nos recomendaron que lo mejor era revisar nuestras declaraciones fiscales y las de todos nuestros vecinos.“Si alguien quiere luchar por el futuro de la democracia estadounidense, no debería pasarse todo el día hablando sobre el futuro de la democracia estadounidense”, dijo Wikler. “Estas contiendas locales que determinan los mecanismos de la democracia estadounidense son el conducto de ventilación de la estrella de la muerte republicana. Estas contiendas no reciben ninguna atención nacional. Apenas reciben atención local. En general, la participación es de menos del 20 por ciento. Eso quiere decir que las personas involucradas en realidad tienen un superpoder. Un solo voluntario dedicado podría hacer llamadas y visitar a suficientes electores para conseguir la victoria en unas elecciones locales”.O cualquiera puede simplemente ganarlas. Eso es lo que hizo Gabriella Cázares-Kelly. Cázares-Kelly, quien pertenece a la nación Tohono O’odham, aceptó encargarse de una caseta de registro de electores en el colegio universitario en el que trabajaba, en el condado de Pima, Arizona. Le asombró escuchar las historias que relataban sus estudiantes. “Culpamos una y otra vez a los estudiantes de no participar, pero en realidad es muy complicado registrarse para votar si no tienen licencia para conducir, la oficina más cercana de trámite de licencias está a una hora y media de distancia y no tienen auto”, me explicó.Cázares-Kelly se enteró de que gran parte del control sobre el registro de electores estaba en manos de una oficina de la que ni ella ni sus conocidos sabían nada: la Oficina de Registro del condado, con facultades sobre varios tipos de registros, desde escrituras hasta registros electorales. Tenía facultades que nunca había considerado siquiera. Podía colaborar con la administración de correos para colocar formularios de registro en las oficinas de correos de las tribus, o no hacerlo. Si llamaba a un votante para verificar una boleta y escuchaba un mensaje de contestadora en español, podía darle seguimiento en español, o no.“Empecé a contactar a la oficina de registros para hacerles sugerencias y preguntas”, dijo Cázares-Kelly. “Eso lo hice durante mucho tiempo, y no tenía muy contento al funcionario de registros. Hablaba con tanta frecuencia que el personal comenzó a identificarme. No tenía ningún interés en postularme, pero entonces escuché que el funcionario anterior planeaba retirarse, y lo primero que pensé fue: ‘¿Qué va a pasar si se postula un supremacista blanco?’”.Así que, en 2020, Cázares-Kelly participó en la contienda y ganó. Ahora es la funcionaria encargada de los registros en una jurisdicción con casi un millón de personas y más de 600.000 votantes registrados, en un estado bisagra. “Algo que de verdad me sorprendió cuando empecé a involucrarme en la política es cuánto poder tenemos a la mano si solo asistimos a los eventos que hay”, dijo. “Si te encantan las bibliotecas, estas tienen juntas de consejo. Asiste a la junta pública. Observa en qué gastan el dinero. Se supone que debemos participar. Si quieres involucrarte, siempre hay una manera de hacerlo”.Ezra Klein se unió a Opinión en 2021. Fue el fundador, editor jefe y luego editor general de Vox; el presentador del pódcast, The Ezra Klein Show; y el autor de Why We’re Polarized. Antes de eso, fue columnista y editor de The Washington Post, donde fundó y dirigió la vertical Wonkblog. @ezraklein More

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      Proud Boys Regroup Locally to Add to Ranks Before 2022 Midterms

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      The far-right nationalist group has become increasingly active at school board meetings and town council gatherings across the country.They showed up last month outside the school board building in Beloit, Wis., to protest school masking requirements.They turned up days later at a school board meeting in New Hanover County, N.C., before a vote on a mask mandate.They also attended a gathering in Downers Grove, Ill., where parents were trying to remove a nonbinary author’s graphic novel from public school libraries.Members of the Proud Boys, the far-right nationalist group, have increasingly appeared in recent months at town council gatherings, school board presentations and health department question-and-answer sessions across the country. Their presence at the events is part of a strategy shift by the militia organization toward a larger goal: to bring their brand of menacing politics to the local level.For years, the group was known for its national profile. The Proud Boys were prominent at the rallies of Donald J. Trump, at one point offering to serve as the former president’s private militia. On Jan. 6, some Proud Boys members filmed themselves storming the U.S. Capitol to protest what they falsely said was an election that had been stolen from Mr. Trump.But since federal authorities have cracked down on the group for the Jan. 6 attack, including arresting more than a dozen of its members, the organization has been more muted. Or at least that was how it appeared.Away from the national spotlight, the Proud Boys instead quietly shifted attention to local chapters, some members and researchers said. In small communities — usually suburbs or small towns with populations of tens of thousands — its followers have tried to expand membership by taking on local causes. That way, they said, the group can amass more supporters in time to influence next year’s midterm elections.“The plan of attack if you want to make change is to get involved at the local level,” said Jeremy Bertino, a prominent member of the Proud Boys from North Carolina.The group had dissolved its national leadership after Jan. 6 and was being run exclusively by its local chapters, Mr. Bertino said. It was deliberately involving its members in local issues, he added.That focus is reflected in the Proud Boys’ online activity. On the encrypted messaging app Telegram, the Proud Boys’ main group in the United States has barely budged in number — with about 31,000 followers — over the last year. But over a dozen new Telegram channels have emerged for local Proud Boys chapters in cities such as Seattle and Philadelphia over that same period, according to data collected by The New York Times. Those local Telegram groups have rapidly grown from dozens to hundreds of members.Other far-right groups that were active during Mr. Trump’s presidency, such as the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, have followed the same pattern, researchers said. They have also expanded their local groups in states such as Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan and are less visible nationally.“We’ve seen these groups adopt new tactics in the wake of Jan. 6, which have enabled them to regroup and reorganize themselves,” said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab who researches domestic extremist groups. “One of the most successful tactics they’ve used is decentralizing.”Members of the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters did not respond to requests for comment.The Proud Boys were founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice. Enrique Tarrio, an activist and Florida director of Latinos for Trump, later took over as leader. The group, which is exclusively male, has espoused misogynistic, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has designated it as a hate group.By the 2020 election, the Proud Boys — who often wear distinctive black-and-yellow uniforms — had become the largest and most public of the militias. Last year, Mr. Trump referred to them in a presidential debate when he was asked about white nationalist groups, replying, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”Enrique Tarrio during a Proud Boys rally last September. He was arrested in January.Mason Trinca for The New York TimesAfter the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the group grew disillusioned with Mr. Trump. The president distanced himself from the riot and declined to offer immunity to those who were involved. The Proud Boys have also experienced a leadership vacuum, after Mr. Tarrio was arrested two days before the Capitol attack on charges of property destruction and illegally holding weapons.That was when the Proud Boys began concentrating on local issues, Mr. Holt said. But as local chapters flourished, he said, the group “increased their radical tendencies” because members felt more comfortable taking extreme positions in smaller circles.Many Proud Boys’ local chapters have now taken on causes tied to the coronavirus pandemic, with members showing up at protests over mask mandates and mandatory vaccination policies, according to researchers who study extremism.This year, members of the Proud Boys were recorded at 145 protests and demonstrations, up from 137 events in 2020, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a nonprofit that monitors violence. But the data most likely understates the Proud Boys’ activities because it doesn’t include school board meetings and local health board meetings, said Shannon Hiller, the executive director of the Bridging Divides Initiative, a nonpartisan research group that tracks political violence.Ms. Hiller said the Proud Boys have shown consistently high levels of activity this year, unlike last year when there was a spike only around the election. She called the change “concerning,” adding that she expected to see the group’s appearances intensify before the midterms.On the Proud Boys’ local Telegram channels, members often share news articles and video reports about students who were barred from schools for refusing to wear a mask or employees who were fired over a vaccine requirement. Some make plans to appear at protests to act as “muscle,” with the goal of intimidating the other side and attracting new members with a show of force, according to the Telegram conversations viewed by The Times.The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4U.S. nears 800,000 Covid deaths. More

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      A South African Town Lacks Water and Electricity. But Mayors? It Has Two.

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      Dysfunctional and collapsing rural towns may test voters’ loyalty to the ruling African National Congress party in nationwide municipal elections on Monday.LICHTENBURG, South Africa — Walking through what could be the charming tree-lined streets of Lichtenburg in South Africa’s rural heartland, pedestrians skirt around piles of uncollected trash. Shop fronts darkened by electricity blackouts line the main road. A recently built community center has been stolen, brick by brick.Mayor Daniel Buthelezi believes he can turn the town around. So does Mayor Tsholofelo Moreo.Two men simultaneously claim to be the mayor of Lichtenburg, a community of about 182,000 people 150 miles west of Johannesburg. Both are members of the African National Congress, or the A.N.C., the party that rules South Africa and this neglected town. More