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      Biden’s Bid for Re-election, and His Age

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      More from our inbox:Mr. Lloyd Webber, Don’t Blame Labor UnionsChina and the Population Ponzi Scheme Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Biden Declares 2024 Bid; Possible Rematch in Sight” (front page, April 26):When Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee for president in 2020, I reluctantly gave him my vote. If he is the party’s nominee again in 2024, he will have it again.However, I encourage the president to remember that many who will be voting for him see him not as their preferred choice, but rather the drastically lesser of two evils — and that he should use that knowledge as motivation for action.The uncomfortable truth is that our country is broken and politics as usual will simply no longer suffice.In what will hopefully be his second term, Mr. Biden must use the power of his office to address issues that actually affect everyday Americans: income inequality; food insecurity; reproductive, gender and civil rights; gerrymandering and voter restrictions; gun violence; health care; bloated defense spending; predatory business practices; a radicalized Supreme Court. The list is unfortunately long, and requires that the American people deliver him a Democratic majority in Congress.His first term has shown glimpses that Mr. Biden can be a transformative leader. Now, if given the opportunity of four more years, he must truly commit to his promise of saving the soul of America, for it is battered, bruised and long awaiting its champion.Gabe DowneySouthfield, Mich.To the Editor:President Biden may correctly frame the issue in the 2024 elec­tion as “whether in the years ahead we have more free­dom or less free­dom, more rights or fewer.” But while his as yet unknown opponent cannot be measured against these criteria, we do know that the hallmarks of this administration have been extraordinary exercises in presidential power (often reined in by the courts), an increasingly muscular administrative state and a vast expansion in the size and scope of government.Some may agree with the goals underlying these actions, but they plainly represent the antithesis of “more freedom.”Kenneth A. MargolisChappaqua, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Biden Should Take Voters’ Concerns About Age Seriously” (editorial, April 23):So what if “Mr. Biden’s overall energy level has declined, and he continues to stumble over words in his public appearances”? He is not running any marathons or competing on “Jeopardy!” The most important trait for a president is sound judgment, and there is no evidence that his judgment is impaired.The main reason that people are concerned about his age is that the media keeps talking about it.Ira D. CohenNorth Bergen, N.J.To the Editor:I am a Democrat who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and would vote for him again in 2024. Yes, I am concerned about his age and ability, but I, and I think most of the populace, would be a lot less concerned if he had a different running mate.Judith PetrizzoSan Jose, Calif.To the Editor:As one approaching 80 years, but who still actively practices law and carries his own bag on the golf course, I would like to see President Biden as a one-term president. That’s not because I do not like what he has done to date, but because I view him as too old for a second term.Some octogenarians have been luckier than others vis-à-vis their cognitive and physical skills, and should appreciate that luck.While I must concede that I was impressed by Mr. Biden’s recent trip to Ireland and his eloquence before the Irish Parliament, my overall sense is that he’s ebbing. Being president is a taxing, pressure-cooker job that requires a sharp intellect, unless you’re Donald Trump, and great stamina, which I believe neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump possesses.A Biden-Trump rematch would make us a laughingstock. Is this the best we can do?Louis J. MaioneNew YorkTo the Editor:Shame on you, New York Times! Joe Biden at 80 has navigated one of the most divisive and difficult times in our history with dignity and political acumen. To suggest that we throw that away simply because he is older is a capitulation to the current bias against older people.Lisa SerradillaNew YorkMr. Lloyd Webber, Don’t Blame Labor Unions Andrew Kelly/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Closing of ‘Phantom,’ the Loss of My Son and the Future of Broadway” (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, April 17):The musicians of New York City join the Broadway theater community in extending heartfelt condolences to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber following the death of his son. As he stated, there is nothing more tragic for a parent than the death of their child.Mr. Lloyd Webber then turns to the subject of his megahit, “Phantom of the Opera,” which closed on April 16, noting that this past season was the show’s “best ever.”But he then inexplicably pulls out the long disproved cliché about labor unions driving up ticket prices: “The way multiple union contracts drive up the costs of Broadway shows is unsustainable.”This attack on unions is nonsensical. Individual theatrical failures are determined by a variety of factors. Few, if any, of them are attributable to unions.Mr. Lloyd Webber’s theatrical hits helped create the current focus on expensive blockbusters aimed at tourists. Producers mitigate their “risk” by offering safer, already branded projects that might hopefully recoup any Broadway losses when they perform on the road. This is very dissimilar to the Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince classics he praises.“Phantom of the Opera” generated 35 years of financial security for Mr. Lloyd Webber, his investors and thousands of union workers who were fortunate enough to bring it to life. More important, the show brought pleasure to audiences all over the world. That kind of success cannot be replicated by simply cutting wages.Tino GagliardiNew YorkThe writer is president of the New York City musicians’ union (American Federation of Musicians Local 802).China and the Population Ponzi SchemeA family cradling their child at a park in Beijing. China’s death rate surpassed its birth rate for the first time in decades this year.Gilles Sabrie for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Shrinking Population in China Affects All” (news article, April 20):No doubt, China’s shrinking population will create economic challenges that will require creative solutions. But aren’t economic challenges preferable to the environmental ones China would face if its population continued growing well past its current 1.4 billion?To declare it a crisis that China will have fewer people to manufacture the products (including the useless junk) that we in the Western world consume at unsustainable levels is to ignore the fact that we live on a planet that is being smothered to death by our plastic trash.To fret over diminishing demand for ugly high-rise apartment buildings is to imply that we should keep sprawling, replacing nature with buildings, roads and utilities, wildlife habitats be damned.Financial security at the individual level doesn’t necessarily require a growing G.D.P. or a growing population. When women have fewer children, they spend more time in the paid work force; they also tend to have healthier, better educated children who grow up to be more productive adults. We should enthusiastically embrace ending the population Ponzi scheme.Marian StarkeyFalmouth, MaineThe writer is vice president for communications at Population Connection. More

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      Democratic Convention Gives Chicago, Staggered by Pandemic, a Chance to Shine

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      Republicans have cast Chicago as a metropolis of crime and dysfunction, but with the 2024 Democratic convention, Chicagoans are eager to prove them wrong.CHICAGO — Word had just leaked Tuesday that the Democratic Party had chosen the nation’s third-largest city for its 2024 national convention when Republicans began trotting out warnings about crime infestations and the necessity of bulletproof vests.But no political trash talk seemed to dampen the excitement of a metropolis less in need of a pick-me-up than a little validation for the comeback it is sure is coming.“It’s definitely a shot in the arm to the city,” said Sam Toia, a longtime Chicago booster and the president of the Illinois Restaurant Association, adding, “We are a world-class city,” an oft-used phrase here that projects Chicagoans’ time-honored self-doubt.It would be dishonest to say Chicago, which last hosted the Democratic convention in 1996, has recovered all of its swagger since the coronavirus laid it low. Then-President Donald J. Trump was already denouncing Chicago as some sort of national embarrassment even before the virus reached American shores. Its violent crime, though receding from its post-pandemic high by some measures, is still “a cancer that’s eating the soul of this city,” said Arne Duncan, a former secretary of education whose new venture addresses violence in Chicago’s worst neighborhoods.Hotel and retail traffic is back to 85 percent of 2019 levels while public transit is at 73 percent, according to the Chicago Loop Alliance. But Chicago’s downtown late last year was only at half the activity it hosted before the pandemic, 48th among the 62 North American cities the University of Toronto measured.Brandon Johnson campaigning with supporters in February in Chicago, before his eventual victory.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesThe surprise mayoral triumph last week of a young, untested liberal, Brandon Johnson, has brought with it a nervous excitement — the hope of a fresh face but the worry that comes with inexperience. Still, with the sun out, temperatures in the 70s and the summer festival season on its way, Chicagoans were already feeling optimistic. “It gives us an opportunity to feature the best of the best, in a space where there is a lot of energy and a lot of hope,” said Representative Delia Ramirez, a progressive in her first term in Congress from Chicago’s near northwest side. “This is a truly new day, with a brand-new mayor-elect, the youngest, most progressive, most diverse City Council ever, our first Latina in Congress — it’s a magical place and it’s ready.”Chicago beat out its biggest competitor, Atlanta, with three basic appeals. It’s in a state with a Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, who also happens to be a billionaire with deep and wide-open pockets. It has powerful unions who pressed the pro-labor occupant of the White House to choose a city with unionized hotels, unionized convention and entertainment sites and unionized restaurants. And it’s in a state whose progressive policies contrasted sharply with Georgia’s abortion ban, open-carry gun law and “right-to-work” labor requirements.Chicago’s proximity to the “Blue Wall” states that President Biden will need for his re-election — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — may have been a factor, but Georgia is no less important a swing state in 2024. The people who made the pitch were far more intent on emphasizing that no conventioneers would have to cross picket lines to crawl into their nonunion hotel beds or deal with openly armed protesters.“Illinois really does represent the values of the Democratic Party, from A to Z, especially the labor piece,” said Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.Mr. Johnson’s victory was something of a bonus, along with the landslide election last week of a liberal judge to Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court, just to the north.“Chicago had the clear advantage of a Democratic governor, a governor who was intimately involved in the bid and also a political race where a progressive Democrat just won a really tough race,” said Shirley Franklin, a former Atlanta mayor who was part of the public campaign to bring the convention to the South.Had Mr. Johnson’s much more conservative rival, Paul Vallas, prevailed, Democratic Party officials would have had to figure out how — or whether — to embrace a mayor whom many of them had spent months painting as a secret Republican who used fear tactics and crime to garner support from Chicago-area Republicans.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois was instrumental in bringing the Democrats’ convention to Chicago.Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesThe city’s liberal leaders hope convention organizers will elevate Mr. Johnson, as they try to energize young voters who have been supercharged by issues like abortion and guns but have not quite warmed to their octogenarian president.“Democrats need to show that we have people on the mic, front and center, that excite people, that unite people and give them hope that we can come together,” Ms. Ramirez said.Party officials are unsure what role the new mayor might play at the convention. Mr. Johnson may not have all the internal party baggage that Mr. Vallas had, but he did openly discuss “defunding” the police during the civil rights protests that followed the murder of George Floyd. More than a year before the actual convention, Republicans are already latching onto Chicago’s reputation for criminal violence and political dysfunction.“What’s the bigger concern, sirens drowning out nominating speeches or what items attendees must leave at home to make room for their bulletproof vest in their suitcase?” quipped Will Reinert, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.The right-wing website Breitbart blared, “Democrats Choose Chicago, America’s Murder Capital.”Jeffrey Blehar, a Chicago-based contributor for the conservative National Review, predicted, “Democratic conventioneers are in for an entirely new experience in either highly militarized downtown security or exciting street-crime adventure.”If, by the summer of 2024, crime rates are improving and Chicago’s police force is amply funded, Mr. Johnson may well be center stage. If trends go otherwise, he may not be.What is clear, city boosters say, is that Chicago will be ready, with Michelin-starred restaurants within walking distance of the arena, gracious hotels scrubbed of their pandemic dust and city residents eager to prove their detractors wrong.“Are there things we need to snap into place post-pandemic? Sure,” Mr. Reiter said. “This event helps us clinch that.” Maya King More

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      5 Reasons Democrats Picked Chicago for Their 2024 Convention

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      Party leaders said the choice reflected their momentum in the Midwest. But the political map was only one factor behind the decision.President Biden’s decision to host the Democratic National Convention in Chicago represents the triumph of practicality over sentimentality.He picked a major Midwestern city with ample labor-friendly hotels, good transportation and a billionaire governor happy to underwrite the event. That combination overpowered the pull Biden felt from runner-up Atlanta, the capital of a state Mr. Biden won for Democrats in 2020 for the first time in a generation.Chicago — unlike the last four Democratic convention cities — is not in a presidential battleground. But it is the cultural and economic capital of the American Midwest. The United Center, the convention arena, sits about an hour away from two critical presidential battleground states, Wisconsin and Michigan, with sometimes-competitive Minnesota nearby.Democrats used the choice to highlight their commitment to protecting the “blue wall” of Midwestern states that have been critical to their White House victories. But the electoral map wasn’t the only factor. Here are the top reasons Chicago was selected.Last week, Chicago elected Brandon Johnson, a progressive Democrat, as the new mayor.Evan Cobb for The New York TimesLaborMr. Biden said during his first year in office that he would be “the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history.”So it would have been politically tricky at best for him to send a national political convention to Atlanta, a city with comparatively few unionized hotels in a so-called right-to-work state.An Atlanta convention could have prompted organized labor to limit its financial contributions, or even orchestrate outright boycotts. When President Barack Obama took the Democratic convention to Charlotte in 2012, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers skipped the event.“Some of our labor members have felt that they’ve been left behind,” said Lonnie Stephenson, who retired as president of the I.B.E.W. last year. “I think this shows the commitment of the Democratic Party to support that part of the country.”Money and J.B. PritzkerConventions are expensive and the money to pay for them can be hard to come by. The nominee does not want to divert dollars for campaigning in battleground states to an elaborate party. And the Democratic base is increasingly hostile to many of the large corporations that have historically underwritten conventions.Enter J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, a billionaire who also happens to have been a former top party fund-raiser.“We have a very generous local bunch of corporate leaders and corporations in the Fortune 500,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said.Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesMr. Pritzker was central to Chicago’s bid. He personally lobbied Mr. Biden. And before the announcement Tuesday, he privately pledged fund-raising for the convention, which is a relief to party officials..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“We have a very generous local bunch of corporate leaders and corporations in the Fortune 500,” Mr. Pritzker said in an interview on Tuesday. “I’m, of course, personally committed to engage in the fund-raising that’s necessary.”Implicit in that promise is that Mr. Pritzker, who spent more than $300 million on his two campaigns for governor, will serve as a financial backstop if outside money does not materialize.Political geographyDemocrats were quick to talk about other factors. They held up the selection of Chicago as a symbol of the party’s investment in the Midwest, and the central role the region will play in Mr. Biden’s path to victory in 2024.“The Midwest reflects America,” said Jaime Harrison, the party chairman.Republicans had the same idea. They announced last August that their convention would be in Milwaukee in July 2024, meaning that the two conventions will be within driving distance. (The Democrats will meet in August.)But the reality is that the political implications for the host city and state are often overblown.Democrats hosted in North Carolina (2012) and Pennsylvania (2016), and still lost those states. Republicans hosted in Minnesota (2008) and Florida (2012), and lost both times. And in 2016, Republicans hosted Donald J. Trump’s nominating convention in Cleveland but the event divided the party’s Ohio leadership. The Republican governor, John Kasich, and its senator, Rob Portman, largely stayed away, then Republicans went on to win the state anyway.Still, the decision stung in Georgia, where Democrats had made a strong political case for hosting.Mayor Andre Dickens of Atlanta called Georgia “the battleground that will decide the 2024 election.”And Erick Allen, a former state representative who is the party chairman in suburban Cobb County, said Democrats were making a mistake.“I think they got it wrong,” he said. “There’s an opportunity to use the convention in Atlanta as a regional win for the Democratic Party. And I think that’s now going to be harder.”Logistics, logistics, logisticsConventions are international events that require tens of thousands of hotel rooms and a transportation and law enforcement network that can involve dozens of local, state and federal agencies.Chicago here had an advantage in the number of hotel rooms, 44,000, within a reasonable distance of the convention site, along with a public transit network that has three train lines that have stops within a few blocks of the arena.“The bottom line is Chicago can hold a convention of this size in a very centrally located, easy to get around way,” said Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat.More compelling to the Democratic National Committee was the fact that Chicago’s United Center sits on a plot of 45 acres of privately owned land, making it easier to secure and control activities outside. The arena also has twice as many suites as Atlanta’s State Farm Arena, which would have hosted the convention there. Those suites will serve as magnets for the party’s high-dollar donors.Crime and local politicsIt’s pretty clear how Republicans will portray Mr. Biden’s convention city.A spokesman for the campaign arm of House Republicans, Will Reinert, mocked the selection: “What’s the bigger concern: sirens drowning out nominating speeches or what items attendees must leave at home to make room for their bulletproof vest in their suitcase?”(Republicans notably did not mention crime rates when they selected Milwaukee, which had a higher homicide rate than Chicago in 2022.) Democrats answered that pandemic-era spikes in crime were easing, in Chicago and across the country. As a political issue, the tough-on-crime messaging may also be losing its power. The city this month elected a new mayor, Brandon Johnson, who defeated a more conservative rival backed by the local police unions who focused his campaign on the issue of addressing the city’s crime.“The truth is that things have gotten better and better,” Mr. Pritzker said. “It’s a recovery across the nation in major cities that includes a recovery on the issue of crime. Things are better than they were.”Maya King More

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      United Auto Workers Usher In New Era of Leadership

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      Shawn Fain, who ousted the incumbent president, is presiding over a convention to chart the union’s approach in contract talks this year.The United Auto Workers union has opened a new chapter in its storied history, and it may end up looking a lot like its combative past.Over the weekend, the 88-year-old union confirmed that an outsider, Shawn Fain, had prevailed in a hotly contested election for president, ousting the incumbent. An electrician whose father and grandfathers were also U.A.W. members, Mr. Fain has promised to take a tough negotiating line for increased wages in contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.“It is a new day for the U.A.W.,” Mr. Fain said on Monday at the start of a three-day convention, where hundreds of delegates will hammer out priorities and strategies for the contract talks that will formally open this summer.“We are here to come together for the war against our one and only true enemy — the multibillion-dollar corporations and employers who refuse to give our members their fair share,” Mr. Fain said.He opened his address by shouting, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” — drawing out the final word in the style of the famed boxing ring announcer Michael Buffer.Mr. Fain, 54, won by a razor-thin margin after prolonged vote-counting and more than two weeks of wrangling over some 1,600 challenged ballots. With the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes — 483 more than the incumbent, Ray Curry. Mr. Fain was declared the victor, and Mr. Curry conceded, when the margin exceeded the number of ballots still under challenge.The election was the first in the U.A.W.’s history in which the president and the union’s other senior executives were chosen through direct balloting of members. In the past, the leadership was chosen by delegates, a system in which favors and favoritism played a heavy role.T-shirts on display at the convention showed support for the union faction led by Mr. Fain. Rebecca Cook/ReutersThe democratic election had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the U.A.W.’s efforts to carry out anti-corruption reforms. The monitor was appointed as part of a 2021 settlement of a federal investigation that found that top union officials had embezzled more than $1.5 million from membership dues and $3.5 million from training centers, and had spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials, including two former presidents, pleaded guilty.Mr. Curry was not a target of the corruption investigation but many members saw him as linked to the establishment that had been running the union for years.Mr. Fain takes office along with several other outsiders running on his slate who were elected to senior posts by convincing margins. They won support from members who were angered over the corruption scandals and wanted an executive team that would push harder for higher wages and other demands in contract talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the automaker formed through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A.Decades ago, the U.A.W. had more than 1.5 million members and the power to influence presidential elections and demand steady increases in wages and benefits. When the manufacturers resisted, it called strikes that shut down a large part of the industry. Over the years, the U.A.W.’s gains helped lift wages and living standards for a broad swath of manufacturing workers across the United States.But its influence declined as the Detroit automakers struggled. When G.M. and Chrysler were reorganized in bankruptcy court in 2009, the union made concessions on wages and benefits that it has not won back, and it has had to weather the closing of dozens of plants. It now has about 400,000 members.The contract talks come after years in which G.M., Ford and Stellantis have been reporting record results and have paid significant sums to workers in profit-sharing bonuses. In 2022, for example, G.M. made a profit of $9.9 billion and paid a bonus of $12,750 to each of its U.A.W. workers.Members want Mr. Fain to fight for wage increases to offset inflation, an end to a two-tier wage system that pays newer workers significantly less than veterans and assurances that new plants will be built in the United States rather than abroad.At the convention, the rank and file appeared to back Mr. Fain, despite his narrow margin of victory.“I’m ready to strike,” said Romaine McKinney III, an electrician at a Stellantis stamping plant in Warren, Mich. “We have to show these companies that we are ready to walk out.”Jamonty Washington, a worker at a Detroit plant where Stellantis makes Jeeps, said he started his job 12 years ago making just under $16 an hour — working next to a colleague making $31 an hour. He has worked his way up to $30 an hour, he said, but thinks the union has to fight to eliminate such differences in pay.“Equal pay for equal work,” he said. “It’s time for this union to get back to being militant — not asking but demanding.” More

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      Chicago’s Mayoral Race Pits the Teachers Union Against the Police Union

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      In a city known for its unions, two loom over the Paul Vallas-Brandon Johnson race, and no labor leader is as significant as the incendiary president of the Fraternal Order of Police.CHICAGO — When Bobby L. Rush, the Black Panther turned congressman turned elder statesman of this city’s South Side, stood last week to endorse Paul Vallas for mayor, the first question he confronted featured his own words.How could a man who just two and a half years ago called Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police “the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness by police in the land” stand behind Mr. Vallas, the candidate endorsed by that police union?“I have no patience for their leadership,” whom “I detest,” Mr. Rush said, thronged by supporters with Mr. Vallas by his side. But, he added, “I had my son killed by street violence. I cannot be antipolice.”In a city where organized labor remains a powerful symbolic and organizational force, two unions have loomed over the race for Chicago mayor, which ends with a fiercely contested runoff election on April 4: Chicago’s Lodge 7 of the Fraternal Order of Police, which backs the more conservative Democrat in the race, Mr. Vallas, and the Chicago Teachers Union, which backs the Cook County commissioner Brandon Johnson, a C.T.U. member and former teacher.Both unions offer considerable muscle, which could prove vital if turnout remains around the 36 percent who came out for the first round of voting on Feb. 28. The teachers union has put $1.2 million behind Mr. Johnson, with a further $1 million coming from the national and Illinois federations of teachers. Armies of door knockers and phone bankers are pitching in, while the police union presses its members to volunteer for the final Vallas sprint.But no other union in the nation’s third-largest city carries the same liabilities either. An 11-day teachers strike near the beginning of the 2019 school year pitted the educators’ union against City Hall and many parents. Then schools shut again last year with the teachers union again at loggerheads with the city, this time over coronavirus policies as parents prepared to send their children back to in-person instruction.John Catanzara, president of Chicago’s Lodge 7 of the Fraternal Order of Police, which has backed Mr. Vallas. Mr. Johnson’s campaign has tried to tie Mr. Vallas’s tough-on-crime talk to the incendiary views of Mr. Catanzara.Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressStill, there is nothing quite like Chicago’s relationship with the Fraternal Order of Police, especially with its president, John Catanzara, who expressed sympathies for the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, called Muslims “savages” who “all deserve a bullet” and retired from the police force in 2021 rather than face potential disciplinary actions. He punctuated his retirement papers with a handwritten note, “Finally!!! Let’s go Brandon,” a stand-in phrase for a more vulgar insult against President Biden.“When they talk about the F.O.P., they’re talking about me, which is hilarious,” Mr. Catanzara said in an interview, conceding, “If I got paid a dollar every time I was called a racist, I’d be an independently wealthy man.”In a mayoral campaign that has revolved around the two candidates’ very different stances on policing and public safety, Mr. Johnson’s campaign has tried to tie Mr. Vallas’s tough-on-crime talk to the incendiary views of Mr. Catanzara. One recent flier aimed at Latino neighborhoods compared Mr. Johnson’s promises — “Brandon will train and promote 200 new detectives” — to a single aspect of Mr. Vallas’s public safety record: “Vallas is endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police.”Mr. Catanzara’s Facebook post about Muslims has been a talking point in the multicultural quarters of this racially, ethnically and religiously diverse metropolis. And Johnson campaign workers are quick to link Mr. Vallas to the extended comments that Mr. Catanzara made to a Chicago public radio reporter about the Capitol rioters, which included, “There was no arson, there was no burning of anything, there was no looting, there was very little destruction of property. It was a bunch of pissed-off people that feel an election was stolen, somehow, some way.”Mr. Rush’s endorsement of Mr. Vallas, a potential boost for the white candidate facing skepticism among some Black voters, elicited reminders from the Johnson campaign of an interview in Politico where Mr. Rush said the police union “stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ku Klux Klan.”The broader aim is to convince Chicagoans that Mr. Vallas is some kind of secret Republican in a city dominated by Democrats. Linking him with Mr. Catanzara, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, is a key to that strategy, Johnson campaign aides said. Mr. Johnson did not have to name names during a debate last Tuesday night when he accused his opponent of hanging out with people in the “extreme Republican Party who did not believe the pandemic was real.” (Mr. Catanzara urged police officers in 2021 to defy the city’s vaccine mandate.)Paul Vallas speaks to supporters after advancing to the April runoff last month.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesLittle wonder that Mr. Rush, who retired from the House last year, spent his initial comments on Tuesday vouching for Mr. Vallas as “a lifelong Democrat” and a “South Side Democrat” who “ain’t nothing but a Democrat.”In Chicago, unions stretch well beyond teachers and police, and organized labor — facing two starkly different candidates in a contest that has already sunk the incumbent mayor, Lori Lightfoot — is as divided as the city itself. Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers has backed Mr. Vallas after its preferred candidate, Representative Jesús G. García, failed to make the runoff. So have union locals representing firefighters, ironworkers, elevator constructors, plumbers and electricians.Beyond the teachers unions, Mr. Johnson’s union backers include service workers, nurses and government employees.But Mr. Catanzara is a presence like none other, so much so that Mr. Vallas has made a show of not taking money from the Fraternal Order of Police or accepting any formal organizing muscle. When Ja’Mal Green, a 27-year-old activist who tried and failed to make the mayoral runoff, surprised the city by endorsing Mr. Vallas, he made a point of posting a video pressing his chosen candidate to say he is not beholden to the police union.“I’m not beholden to anybody,” Mr. Vallas responded.Mr. Catanzara is not lying low. He predicted that 800 to 1,000 Chicago police officers would leave the force if Mr. Johnson wins, adding to hundreds of vacancies already awaiting the next mayor.“If this guy gets in we’re going to see an exodus like we’ve never seen before,” he said, predicting “blood in the streets.”Mr. Catanzara was particularly hard on the teachers union and its “Manchurian candidate.”“They’re definitely pushing all their chips into the pot here,” he said.As for those who cast him as a bigoted bomb thrower, Mr. Catanzara just waved his hands. “I don’t waste my breath with them,” he said. “Like I tell everyone, read the book, not the cover.”Brandon Johnson, the Cook County commissioner, is a former teacher and member of the Chicago Teachers Union, which has endorsed him.Jim Vondruska for The New York TimesHis presence is especially troubling for Black Chicagoans, who must balance their concern over violent crime against their troubles with a police department that has been laboring under a federal consent decree after the Justice Department found routine use of excessive force. Mr. Johnson is Black. Mr. Vallas is white. And race has been a dividing line in Chicago politics since the city elected its first Black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983.Last week, Paris Walker and her sister Emma gathered with others in Chicago’s historic Bronzeville neighborhood to march with Mr. Vallas and Mr. Rush to the storefront Beloved Community Church of God in Christ, where the former congressman was to bestow his blessing. Paris Walker shrugged off Mr. Vallas’s ties to the police union and said Mr. Johnson lacked the experience to run a city of Chicago’s size and complexity.Emma Walker was not as sure as she recounted menacing traffic stops, unwarranted violence and general intimidation from the Chicago police.“It bothers me,” she said of Mr. Vallas’s police union ties. “The police need a lot of cleaning up.” More

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      President Is Ousted in United Auto Workers Election

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      Shawn Fain, an insurgent, edged Ray Curry after calling for a harder line in contract talks. The union has been dogged by corruption scandals.An insurgent candidate has won the presidency of the United Auto Workers union, potentially setting the organization on a more confrontational path as it heads into contract talks this year with the three Detroit automakers.Shawn Fain, a 54-year-old electrician who has been a member of the union for almost three decades, defeated the incumbent, Ray Curry, after a monthslong election battle in which Mr. Fain’s allies won seats across the union’s executive board.Mr. Fain claimed victory on Saturday, and Mr. Curry conceded, as a court-appointed election monitor neared the end of the vote count.Mr. Curry, a 57-year-old former assembly line worker with a master’s degree in business administration, was appointed president in 2021 after a broad federal investigation into a series of corruption scandals. He had carried out a number of reforms but ultimately was seen by many members as not enough of a break with previous presidents and executives linked to wrongdoing.Ray Curry was appointed president of the United Auto Workers in 2021.Carlos Osorio/Associated PressWith the count nearly complete, Mr. Fain had 69,459 votes, or 50.2 percent, and Mr. Curry had 68,976, according to an unofficial tally. The count had gone on for weeks, prolonged by the inspection of challenged ballots.Mr. Curry said Mr. Fain would be sworn in on Sunday and would preside over a convention to hammer out plans for the contract talks.The vote was a runoff after a contest in November in which Mr. Curry collected about 600 more votes than Mr. Fain but neither man reached the 50 percent threshold to be declared the winner.“The winds of change run strongly through this election,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, who has followed the U.A.W. for more than three decades. “It defines the direction of the U.A.W. going forward.”Mr. Fain said he intended to be more confrontational in contract negotiations, a position that appealed to members after years of concessions on wages and benefits and following corruption scandals that ended with two former presidents serving time in prison.“This is the end of company unionism, where the companies and the union work together in a friendly way, because it hasn’t been good for our members,” he said in an interview as the vote count neared completion. “These companies have enjoyed record profits for a decade, and our workers are still regressing and struggling to get by.”Insurgents aligned with him won a majority of offices on the union’s international executive board — an outcome widely seen as reflecting the members’ desire for significant change at the top of the union.But Mr. Fain and the new administration have little experience in running the union’s operations.It was the first election open to all members of the union, and had been mandated by a court-appointed monitor who has been overseeing the union’s efforts to wipe out corruption. Previously, the union’s presidents and other senior officials were chosen by delegates to a convention, in which the result was often determined by favors and favoritism and did not always reflect the sentiments of rank-and-file workers.“I knew our members were fed up,” Mr. Fain said. “It was just a matter of whether they were willing to vote for change, because they’ve never been able to do that before.”The shake-up comes as the U.A.W. is about to start talks with General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis on four-year labor contracts. The talks come as the automakers are again earning significant profits. G.M. reported profits of $9.9 billion for 2022. Ford reported a loss, but its North American operation remains its main profit generator. Stellantis, which was formed by a merger of Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA in 2021, made 17 billion euros, with a large share coming from North America.It also occurs as the automakers are making the transition from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric ones, which have fewer moving parts and require less labor.“The union is in the midst of a most important transition since the introduction of the assembly line with the move toward electric vehicles, and that could result in the loss of a lot of automotive jobs,” Professor Shaiken said. “How the new leadership navigates that will impact the U.A.W. and the labor movement.”For decades after its founding in 1935, the U.A.W. had the power to influence presidential elections and consistently won middle-class wages and benefits that set the standard for workers in many industries across the country. At its peak, in 1979, it had 1.5 million members.But the U.A.W.’s membership and influence steadily declined as the Detroit automakers faced increasing competition from Toyota and other foreign automakers that were building nonunion plants across the South. As those rivals gained a greater foothold, the American companies reduced their payrolls and shut factories.The 2009 bankruptcy filings by G.M. and Chrysler — which is now part of Stellantis — forced the union into major concessions, including a wage system that left newcomers earning substantially less than veteran workers.While diminished, the U.A.W. still has influence. “The union can still turn out voters in critical states like Michigan and Ohio and other states that can determine a presidential election,” Professor Shaiken said.The U.A.W. now has about 400,000 active members, including college teaching assistants and casino workers as well as auto manufacturing workers. Both active members and the union’s 600,000 retirees were eligible to vote in the elections. For the last several years the U.A.W. has been reeling from a federal corruption investigation that eventually found a number of schemes in which senior officials embezzled millions of dollars from union coffers. They spent some of the money on expensive cigars, wines, liquor, golf clubs, apparel and luxury travel.In total, federal investigators found that $1.5 million had been siphoned from membership dues, and $3.5 million from union training centers. More than a dozen U.A.W. officials pleaded guilty, and two former presidents, Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, were sentenced to prison. Each was released after serving nine months.As part of a consent decree settling the investigation, the U.S. District Court in Detroit appointed an outside monitor to oversee the implementation of democratic and transparency reforms. One of the mandated reforms was a one-person-one-vote election. More

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      In Chicago Mayor’s Race, a Former Teacher Rises With Union Support

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      CHICAGO — Brandon Johnson had a problem. In a crowded Chicago mayoral race full of established liberal politicians — a sitting congressman, the incumbent mayor, two City Council members — many voters had never heard of Mr. Johnson, a county commissioner from the West Side.But he had something those other contenders did not: the Chicago Teachers Union.Loved and loathed, the teachers’ union has emerged over the last dozen years as a defining voice on Chicago’s political left, putting forth a progressive vision for the city that extends well beyond its classrooms. After highly public fights with the last two mayors that led to work stoppages, union leaders see in Mr. Johnson a chance to elect one of their own, a former teacher who shares a goal of rebuilding Chicago by spending more on schools and social programs.Boosted by the union’s endorsement — and perhaps more critically, its money — Mr. Johnson, a paid C.T.U. organizer since 2011, faces Paul Vallas, a former public school executive who has far more conservative views on policing and education, in an April 4 runoff. With the two finalists coming from opposite ideological ends of the Democratic Party, the runoff will test whether voters prefer Mr. Vallas’s plan to crack down on crime, hire more police officers and expand charter schools, or Mr. Johnson’s call to spend more on public education and social services, add new taxes and look to neighborhood schools as an engine for broader social change.“Our school communities really are a microcosm of all of the political problems that exist,” said Mr. Johnson, who taught social studies to middle schoolers in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing complex, and who frequently refers to the time a student raised her hand and told him that he should be teaching at a good school, not hers.“It was in that moment where I recognized how much our system has failed, where our students and our families can recognize quality, but do not believe that they deserve it,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview. “And so where I am today is the result of that moment.”Mr. Johnson, second from right, traveled to Selma, Ala., this month as a guest of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, seated, for the annual commemoration of Bloody Sunday. Andi Rice for The New York TimesMr. Johnson, who is on leave from his job with the teachers’ union, entered the field in October with low name recognition and a daunting path to electoral relevance. One early poll showed him with about 3 percent support. But as the weeks went by, he shot up in the polls, introducing himself to voters with 15-second TV spots and surprising competitors who focused their early attack lines on better-known candidates.Mr. Johnson, 46, who is Black, came in second in a first round of balloting last month. He performed especially well in liberal, mostly white wards along the city’s northern lakefront and in areas northwest of downtown with large Hispanic populations. Mr. Vallas, 69, who is white, came in first place, running up large margins around downtown and also carrying majority-white areas on the Northwest and Southwest Sides. Mr. Johnson’s rapid ascent was fueled by his gift for retail politics, a message that resonated with the city’s sizable bloc of liberal voters and large donations from labor unions. State records show that of the more than $5.6 million in contributions Mr. Johnson’s campaign reported between the start of 2022 and earlier this month, more than $5.2 million came from organized labor, including significant sums from the Chicago Teachers Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and branches of the Service Employees International Union. Since last fall, the Chicago Teachers Union and its political action committee have contributed more than $1 million to the Johnson campaign.Stacy Davis Gates, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, which has more than 20,000 members, said there was no expectation that Mr. Johnson would be in lock step with the union if elected. But she said the possibility of having a mayor who understood the struggles of classroom educators and would listen to their concerns had motivated teachers to support him.“It’s been difficult for my members over the course of these few years,” said Ms. Davis Gates, whose union engaged in work stoppages in 2012, 2019 and, after a dispute with Mayor Lori Lightfoot over Covid-19 protocols, again in 2022. “They have not been respected or treated as the stakeholder that they are in this city,” Ms. Davis Gates added. “They’re looking for partnership.”Paul Vallas, a former public school executive who has far more conservative views on policing and education, will face Mr. Johnson in the April 4 runoff. Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesMr. Johnson’s close ties to the teachers’ union can be helpful: Liberal politicians covet the union’s endorsement, and in a 2019 poll reported by The Chicago Sun-Times, 62 percent of voters said they had a favorable opinion of C.T.U.But among Vallas supporters, Mr. Johnson’s C.T.U. ties have become a point of criticism. As a C.T.U. member and organizer, Mr. Johnson helped the union exert its influence and challenge the mayor on several issues.“He’s going to do what the union wants to be done,” said Gery Chico, who led Chicago’s school board when Mr. Vallas was the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, and who has endorsed Mr. Vallas for mayor.As the C.T.U.’s political influence has grown over the last 12 years — first as a chief antagonist of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who oversaw school closures, then with Ms. Lightfoot, who fought with the union about work conditions and Covid reopenings — some have questioned its role in Chicago politics. In an interview in 2021, Ms. Lightfoot suggested that both the C.T.U. and the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, which has endorsed Mr. Vallas and whose leaders often support Republicans, had moved beyond the traditional role of labor unions and become more overtly political, creating inevitable conflict.Mayor Lori Lightfoot conceded on Feb. 28 after failing to make the runoff in the first round of balloting.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMr. Johnson, the son of a pastor, plans to end his membership in the teachers’ union if elected mayor. When asked whether there were areas where he expected to have to tell the union no, Mr. Johnson did not provide specific examples.If elected mayor, “my responsibility is to the entire city of Chicago,” he said. “And look, I’m getting new friends every single day. And I have a bunch of old friends that we will have to have hard conversations with.”Mr. Vallas has repeatedly criticized the C.T.U. and tied Mr. Johnson to the union’s reluctance to return to in-person instruction during the pandemic.“Brandon was in part responsible for the shutting down of one of the poorest school systems in the country, with devastating consequences,” Mr. Vallas said during a recent debate, adding that “if you look at the crime statistics, and you look at the violence, and you look at the dislocation and declining test scores, you can see the results.”During the campaign, Mr. Johnson has described a Chicago dogged by inequality, plagued by violence and constrained by schools that lack the resources they need. That worldview, he said, was shaped by his time in Room 309 of Jenner Academy in Cabrini-Green, where he taught from 2007 to 2010, a time when many of his students’ homes were being demolished as part of a citywide push to knock down public housing high-rises.“The children were waking up to bulldozers — literally just bulldozers staring at us all day long,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview in Selma, Ala., where he traveled this month as a guest of the Rev. Jesse Jackson for the annual commemoration of Bloody Sunday. “And there were families where their homes had already been dismantled, so we had students who were taking two buses and a train to come back to the school.”In Cabrini-Green, former colleagues said, Mr. Johnson was a rare Black male teacher at a school where almost all of the students were Black. He revived defunct basketball and flag football teams, gaining a reputation as a nurturing coach with a competitive streak. And he was known as an engaging but demanding teacher who asked students to dress up on days when they gave a presentation.“The discipline that he showed and the love that he showed for the kids, the kids respected him,” said Pat Wade, a school security officer and coach who worked with Mr. Johnson in Cabrini-Green. “And they worked hard because of what he gave to them. A lot of people can’t do that.”Mr. Johnson meeting with voters on the South Side this month.Jim Vondruska for The New York TimesMr. Jackson, a Chicagoan who has endorsed Mr. Johnson’s bid for mayor, emphasized the candidate’s record of working with children in a city where many young people lack opportunity and are caught up in the criminal justice system.“These troubled youth in Chicago,” Mr. Jackson said, “he represents a face of hope for them.”But Mr. Johnson has faced criticism for his views on crime, the biggest issue in the campaign. In 2020, he described defunding the police as a political goal and supported a County Board resolution to “redirect funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement.”As a candidate, Mr. Johnson has tried to distance himself from questions about defunding, and he has called for hiring more police detectives as well as increased funding for mental health services.Mr. Johnson said he saw similarities between the criticisms he has faced on policing and those leveled against Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, 40 years ago.“This is not new to the city of Chicago: Yet another attack on a Black man as an elected leader who is committed to investing in people,” Mr. Johnson said. But just as his ties to the teachers’ union have been seized on by his political opponents, skepticism about Mr. Vallas’s endorsement from the police union could provide an opening for Mr. Johnson.Scott Lewis, a North Side resident, said he agreed with Mr. Vallas that crime was out of control. But he still planned to vote for Mr. Johnson.“Compared to the others, he seems a little too cozy with the F.O.P. for my taste,” Mr. Lewis said of Mr. Vallas. “The police do have an important role, but I think reform is important.”Robert Chiarito More

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      Macron Appears Ready to Tough Out France’s Pension Crisis

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      Amid protests in the streets and in Parliament, the French leader shows no sign of scrapping a law that raises the retirement age.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election program last year was short on detail. His mind seemed elsewhere, chiefly on the war in Ukraine. But on one thing he was clear: He would raise the retirement age in France to 65 from 62.“You will have to work progressively more,” he said during a debate in April 2022 with the extreme-right candidate, Marine Le Pen. She attacked the idea as “an absolutely unbearable injustice” that would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”France heard both candidates. Soon after, Mr. Macron was re-elected with 58.55 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 41.45 percent. It was a clear victory, and it was clear what Mr. Macron would do on the question of pensions.Yet his ramming the overhaul through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself culminated in turmoil, mayhem on the streets and two failed no-confidence votes against his government on Monday, even as polls have consistently shown about 65 percent of French people are opposed to raising the retirement age.Had they not heard him? Had they changed their minds? Had circumstances changed? Perhaps the answer lies, above all, in the nature of Mr. Macron’s victory, as he himself acknowledged on election night last year.Looking somber, speaking in an uncharacteristically flat monotone, Mr. Macron told a crowd of supporters in Paris: “I also know that a number of our compatriots voted for me today not to support the ideas that I uphold, but to block the extreme right. I want to thank them and say that I am aware that I have obligations toward them in the years to come.”“Those ‘obligations’ could only be a promise to negotiate on major reforms,” Nicole Bacharan, a social scientist, said on Tuesday. “He did not negotiate, even with moderate union leaders. What I see now is Macron’s complete disconnection from the country.”Marine Le Pen, center, of the far-right National Rally party, says the pension plan would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOpposition parties on both the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law before the Constitutional Council, which reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French Constitution.“The goal,” said Thomas Ménagé of Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party, “is to ensure that this text falls into the dustbin of history.”But the chances of that appear remote.After a long silence, Mr. Macron is set to address the turmoil on Wednesday. He will try to conciliate; he will, according to officials close to him, portray the current standoff as a battle between democratic institutions and the chaos of the street, orchestrated by the extreme left and slyly encouraged by the extreme right. He has decided to stick with his current government, led by Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, and he will not dissolve Parliament or call new elections, they say.In short, it seems Mr. Macron has decided to tough out the crisis, perhaps offering some blandishments on improving vocational high schools and broader on-the-job training. But certainly no apology appears to be forthcoming for using a legal tool, Article 49.3 of the Constitution, to avoid a full parliamentary vote on a change that has split the country. (Only the Senate, the upper house, voted to pass the bill this month.)This approach appears consistent with Mr. Macron’s chosen tactics on the pension overhaul. Since the debate with Ms. Le Pen 11 months ago, inflation has risen, energy prices have gone up, and the pressures, particularly on the poorer sectors of French society, have grown.French lawmakers held up protest placards after the result of the first no-confidence motion against the French government at the National Assembly on Monday.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersYet, while he has made some concessions, including setting the new retirement age at 64 rather than 65, Mr. Macron has remained remote from the rolling anger. Most conspicuously, and to many inexplicably, after the government consulted extensively with unions in the run-up to January, Mr. Macron has refused to negotiate with the powerful moderate union leader Laurent Berger, who had supported Mr. Macron’s earlier attempt at pension changes in 2019 but opposes him now.“Macron knows the economy better than he knows political psychology,” said Alain Duhamel, a political scientist. “And today, what you have is a generalized fury.”A large number of Macron voters, it is now clear, never wanted the retirement age raised. They heard Mr. Macron during the debate with Ms. Le Pen. They just did not loathe his idea enough to vote for a nationalist, anti-immigrant ideologue whose party was financed in part by Russian loans.Mr. Macron is adept at playing on such contradictions and divisions. Because his presidential term is limited, he is freer to do as he pleases. He knows three things: He will not be a candidate for re-election in 2027 because a third consecutive term is not permitted; the opposition in Parliament is strong but irreconcilably divided between the far left and extreme right; and there is a large, silent slice of French society that supports his pension overhaul.All this gives him room to maneuver even in his current difficult situation.When Mr. Macron opted last week for the 49.3 and the avoidance of a parliamentary vote, he explained his decision this way: “I consider that in the current state of affairs the financial and economic risks are too great.”Protesters in Nantes, in western France, on Tuesday.Loic Venance/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn the face of it, speaking about risks to financial markets while pushing through an overhaul deeply resented by blue-collar and working-class French people seemed politically gauche. It appeared especially so at a moment when Mr. Macron was turning away from the full parliamentary vote his government had unanimously said it wanted.“Saying what he said about finance at that moment, in that context, was just dynamite,” said Ms. Bacharan.It was also an unmistakable wink to the powerful French private sector — with its world-class companies like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — and to the many affluent and middle-class French people who do not like the growing piles of uncollected garbage or the protests in the streets, and who view retirement at 62 as an unsustainable anomaly in a Europe where the retirement age has generally risen to 65 or higher.If Mr. Macron has cards to play, and perhaps broader support than is evident as protesters hurl insults at him day after day, his very disconnection may make it hard for him to judge the country’s mood.Last week, Aurore Bergé, the leader of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party in Parliament, wrote to Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, to request police protection for lawmakers.“I refuse to see representatives from my group, or any national lawmaker, afraid to express themselves, or to vote freely, because they are afraid of reprisals,” she said.It was a measure of the violent mood in France.“If we have had 15 Constitutions over the past two centuries, that means there have been 14 revolutions of various kinds,” Mr. Duhamel said. “There is an eruptive side to France that one should not ignore.”The National Assembly in Paris. Opposition parties on the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law. Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAurelien Breeden More