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      Is Biden Too Old to Run Again?

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      More from our inbox:What to Do About America’s Huge DeficitThe Purpose of TaxesTalking to the Police Pool photo by Saul LoebTo the Editor:Re “Biden’s a Great President Who Shouldn’t Run Again,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, Feb. 7):Ms. Goldberg regrettably parrots the age prejudice coming from the right and, more slyly, from the left. Our culture values a package’s wrappings over its contents, and this is at play here.If we had not begun to confuse Hollywood entertainment with Washington governance decades ago, we would prize the elusive attributes of “character” and “wisdom” and “experience” and vote accordingly, regardless of age.We have been fortunate to have Joe Biden at the helm at this time of multiple threats: war, climate, Covid, the economy, Donald Trump’s weakening of our governmental institutions. Mr. Biden’s political instincts have re-established our stature on the world stage, an enormous feat that insular Americans ought to credit and applaud.Who has both the domestic and international savvy of Mr. Biden at this critical juncture? I do not believe that we should elect someone to the presidency in 2024 who has to learn on the job.Americans tend to embrace change for change’s sake. We need to resist this tendency and instead choose substance and experience.Dorothy NelsonNew OrleansTo the Editor:I am 84 years old. I think President Biden is an excellent president, but I do not want him to run for re-election. If he does, I will vote for a younger candidate in the primary.There is a time, a season, for everything. There is a time when those of us who are old should step aside to allow our younger colleagues to step up. We can still give our opinions on public policy, but we should retire from active duty.Please, President Biden, do not run for re-election.Priscilla AlexanderNew YorkTo the Editor:Michelle Goldberg writes, “In some ways, the more sympathetic you are to Biden, the harder it can be to watch him stumble over his words, a tendency that can’t be entirely explained by his stutter.”As a lifelong stutterer I can say that stuttering is more than just struggling with awkward syllables. Those of us so afflicted can often find our mouths saying things that our brain is not totally connected with. Stumbling over words can be entirely explained by stuttering.Jerome FreedmanBurlington, Mass.To the Editor:I agree with Michelle Goldberg that President Biden has had a many great accomplishments as president but that his age should preclude him from running again, as supported by common sense and polling. The problem is finding an electable alternative.Ms. Goldberg says the Democrats have a “deep bench” but offers only Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has a limited national profile, and Senator Raphael Warnock, who has been a senator for only two years and only narrowly beat the very flawed candidate Herschel Walker.However, very experienced candidates can be found in the U.S. Senate. Such a list would include Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen and Sheldon Whitehouse. I don’t understand why they don’t get more mention as possible great successors to Mr. Biden.Richard GoetzDelray Beach, Fla.To the Editor:A president’s legacy is a precious commodity. President Biden could be the rare one-termer who is looked back upon with affection and admiration. However, his apparent inability to recognize, in Michelle Goldberg’s words, that “the time has come for a valediction” doesn’t mean that Democrats must sit on their hands.A primary challenge by one of the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls could test the proposition that competing against the incumbent for the 2024 nomination would be a bad thing for the party or the country.Someone like Senator Amy Klobuchar, for example, could mount a positive challenge that extols the accomplishments of President Biden’s first term (successes for which she can share claim) without explicitly calling into question his competence or fitness for a second term. Her focus in the Senate on the enforcement and enhancement of antitrust law offers the potential to draw a distinction with Republicans’ deference to big business while building on Mr. Biden’s long commitment to organized labor.The numbers do not lie. Americans are dissatisfied with the political status quo and ready for a change. A challenge to President Biden could address this discontent without dismissing the accomplishments of the man who has led the country so ably during difficult times.After a career in public service that has spanned nearly 50 years, I say, let the Biden legacy begin.Rob AbbotCroton-on-Hudson, N.Y.What to Do About America’s Huge Deficit Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times; photograph by TokenPhoto, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “The Answer to America’s Debt Problem,” by Binyamin Appelbaum (Opinion, Jan. 28):Tax increases as a strategy for deficit reduction would be dead on arrival.Mr. Applebaum rightly identifies the federal deficit as a serious problem facing our country. However, offering tax increases as the silver fiscal bullet is impractical.Politics is the art of the possible. With Republicans controlling one branch of government, any deficit strategy that relies on tax increases is D.O.A.What can be done instead? Start by strengthening the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules to make sure future tax cuts and/or increased spending are paid for. Simultaneously, require Congress to adopt a “real” budget, as state and local governments do — one that includes entitlements and multiyear appropriations, not mainly discretionary expenditures.Facilitating comparisons of budget estimates to actual fiscal performance would, at the very least, hold our federal officials accountable for unrealistic projections.Nothing can alter the course of a Congress intent on runaway spending. But prescribing measures that fly in the face of political reality without offering more practical alternatives only undermines the public’s understanding of the nation’s significant long-term fiscal challenges.Michael GranofMartin J. LubyAustin, TexasMr. Granof is emeritus professor of accounting at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Luby is the associate dean and an associate professor at the L.B.J. School of Public Affairs at the university.To the Editor:I count nobody as being serious about the deficit unless they are willing to look at both sides of the ledger: expenses and revenue. Yes, we spend too much and no doubt some of it unwisely and unnecessarily.But we are also not serious about the revenue issues — failing to collect taxes owed under current law, and countenancing a tax code that only the very wealthy can appreciate, beginning with the failure of Congress to repeal the egregious “carried interest” loophole.If average Americans could truly wrap their heads around this particular abuse, they would be furious.Peter D. NallePhiladelphiaThe Purpose of TaxesTo the Editor:Re “Biden Urges G.O.P. to Work With Him to Build Economy” (front page, Feb. 8):As a Democrat and a liberal, I strongly believe that the government has a role in improving people’s lives and that business entities have obligations to society as well as to their owners. Nevertheless, I regard President Biden’s proposal in his State of the Union address to raise the taxes on corporations’ purchases of their own stock as misguided.These taxes are intended to deter stock buybacks and instead promote investment in new ventures. But in a capitalist society the purpose of tax laws should be to raise revenue, and they should be judged by their fairness and efficacy in doing so. Taxes should not be used to encourage or discourage specific business decisions within the purview of corporate boards.Alma Suzin FleschNew YorkTalking to the Police Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican, via Associated PressTo the Editor:In “Alec Baldwin Didn’t Have to Talk to the Police. Neither Do You” (column, Jan. 26), Farhad Manjoo raises an issue faced by many caught up in an unexpected, often emotionally charged moment.As a criminal investigator over a 35-year career, I have seen how remaining silent cuts both ways. Your right to remain silent is uncontested, but the police may be and often are much more interested in you as a result.The innocent should never put themselves in this position. What’s the harm in waiting for an attorney? If it’s your real estate or tax attorney whose criminal law knowledge is drawn from “Law & Order” reruns, you’re in trouble. And as the column suggests, you might inadvertently admit some wrongdoing.Richard FriedmanPittsburgh More

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      How Much Longer Can ‘Vote Blue No Matter Who!’ Last?

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      Over the past four decades, the percentage of white Democrats who identify themselves as liberal has more than doubled, growing at a much faster pace than Black or Hispanic Democrats.In 1984, according to American National Election Studies data, 29.8 percent of white Democrats identified as liberal; by 2020, that percentage grew to 68.5 percent. Over the same period, the percentage of liberals among Black Democrats grew from 19.1 percent to 27.8 percent, and among Hispanic Democrats from 18 percent to 41 percent.This shift raises once again a question that people have been asking since the advent of Reagan Democrats in the 1980s: What does it mean for a party that was once the home of the white working class to become a coalition of relatively comfortable white liberals and less well off minority constituencies?I posed this and other questions to a range of scholars and political strategists, including William Galston, a senior fellow at Brookings, who recently cited similar (though not identical) trends in Gallup data. In an essay last month, “The Polarization Paradox: Elected Officials and Voters Have Shifted in Opposite Directions,” Galston wrote:In 1994, White, Black and Hispanic Democrats were equally likely to think of themselves as liberal. But during the next three decades, the share of White Democrats who identify as liberal rose by 37 points, from 26 percent to 63 percent, while Black and Hispanic Democrats rose by less than half as much, to 39 percent and 41 percent, respectively.Galston argued in an email that Black Democrats have assumed an unanticipated role in the party:African Americans are now a moderating force within the party. It was no accident that they rallied around the most moderate candidate with a serious chance of winning the nomination in 2020, or that the leader of the pro-Biden forces took the lead in rejecting the “defund the police” slogan.The coalition of upper-middle-class liberals and minority voters, Galston wrote, “has been sustainable because the former believe in the active use of government to fight disadvantage of various kinds and are willing, within limits, to vote against their economic self-interest.”Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, wrote back by email:Underlying the liberal shift among white Democrats is their tendency to hold more liberal racial attitudes. In the Voter Study Group’s Racing Apart report, the percentage of white Democrats that hold the most liberal positions on the standard racial resentment measure has increased over the last decade to such a large extent that their racial resentment views match those of Black Democrats.The Democratic Party, Wronski continued, has becomea coalition of racial minorities (especially Blacks), and whites who are sympathetic to the inequities and challenges faced by minority groups in America. Racial identities and attitudes are the common thread that link wealthier, more educated whites with poorer minority constituencies.The Democrats’ biracial working-class coalition during the mid-20th century, in Wronski’s view, “was successful because racial issues were off the table.” Once those issues moved front and center, the coalition split: “Simply put, the parties are divided in terms of which portion of the working class they support — the white working class or the poorer minority communities.” The level of educational attainment is the line of demarcation between the two groups of white voters.By 2020, the white working class — defined by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis as “whites without four-year college degrees” — voted for Donald Trump over Joe Biden 67-32, according to network exit polls. In the 2022 election, white working-class voters backed Republican House candidates by almost the identical margin, 66-32.The shift of non-college white working class support to the Republican candidates, Wronski wrote,was driven by racial group animus. Trump was particularly able to attract members of the white working class on the basis of racial (and other) group sentiments — with those disliking minority groups being uniquely attracted to Trump, in a continuation of the division of the working class along racial lines.There are those who argue, however, that the contemporary Democratic coalition is more fragile than Wronski suggests. Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard, emailed to say, “If you’re a Democrat, you might worry that the coalition is not stable.”Over the long haul, Enos wrote:College-educated whites, especially those with higher incomes, are not clear coalitional partners for anyone — they don’t favor economic policies, such as increasing housing supply or even higher taxes on the rich, that are beneficial to the working class, of any race. And many college-educated whites are motivated by social issues that are also not largely supported by the working class, of any race. It’s not clear that, with their current ideological positions, socially liberal and economically centrist or rightist college-educated whites are natural coalition partners with anybody but themselves.Enos went so far as to challenge the depth of elite support for a liberal agenda:My sense is that much of the college-educated liberal political rhetoric is focused on social signaling to satisfy their own psychological needs and improve their social standing with other college educated liberals, rather than policies that would actually reduce racial gaps in economic well-being, civil rights protections, and other quality of life issues.Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, is an explicit critic of the left wing of the party. “It is plain to me that the Democrats’ greatest challenge is the progressive left,” Begala wrote in an email:Pew Research shows they are the most liberal, most educated, and most white subgroup in the Democratic coalition. They constitute 12 percent of Democrats and those who lean Democrat — which means 88 percent of us are not on their ideological team.In contrast, Begala continued:Black voters are both the most loyal Democrats and the most sensible, practical, strategic, and moderate voters. This is why it was important, politically and even morally, for President Biden to move the African-American-rich South Carolina primary ahead of overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire.In the November 2021 study of the composition of the Democratic Party that Begala referred to, Pew Research reported:The Progressive Left makes up a relatively small share of the party, 12 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. However, this group is the most politically engaged segment of the coalition, extremely liberal in every policy domain and, notably, 68 percent White non-Hispanic. In contrast, the three other Democratic-oriented groups are no more than about half White non-Hispanic.This disproportionally white wing of the party, as I have previously discussed, provided crucial support for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley when they ran for Congress in 2018, putting them over the top in their first primary victories over powerful Democratic incumbents.A variety of forces is straining the center-left coalition.Bruce Cain, a political scientist at Stanford, replied by email to my inquiries:Many White liberals live in enclaves of affluence, sheltered from the economic and personal insecurity of the low-income communities. They are more strongly motivated by identity issues around gender and race, but are less concerned with poverty or economic insecurity issues than liberals in the sixties.As a result, in Cain’s view:Parts of the Democratic coalition are talking past each other and sometimes clashing. In the case of climate change, white liberals want to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles that most low-income nonwhites cannot afford. During Covid, affluent white liberals could work at home and have food delivered to them by nonwhite workers who left the food packages at their doorstep or who had to go to work and suffer higher rates of illness.When all said and done, “White liberals are still a better deal for nonwhites than the Republican Party,” Cain contended, “but it is revealing that the African Americans in South Carolina preferred Biden to Sanders or Warren.”The liberalism of white Democrats cuts across a wide range of issues. Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts, cited data collected by the Cooperative Election Study:In 2020 white Democrats scored similarly low on racial resentment as Black Democrats. And white Democrats actually have significantly lower levels of sexism than Black or Hispanic Democrats. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Democratic Party was indeed fairly divided on issues of race in particular, but that no longer seems to be the case.Now, Schaffner continued, “white Democrats appear to be the most liberal group in the party on a range of issues, including immigration, climate, crime/policing, abortion, health care, gun control and economic/social welfare.”I asked James Stimson, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, how the meaning of “liberal” changed over the past 40 years. He replied:The term has become infused with racial content. That may be the key to the conversion of educated suburban voters into liberals and Democrats. Trump’s open racism must surely have added greatly to the new meaning of liberalism. Perhaps the L-word has become a way to say, “I am not a bigot.”Along similar lines, Viviana Rivera-Burgos, a political scientist at Baruch College of the City University of New York, pointed out how much the liberal agenda has transformed in a relatively short time:Issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ rights, and immigration have become important ideological cleavages in the past 40 years or so. Being a liberal today means you’re most likely pro-choice, pro-same-sex marriage, pro-expansion of LGBTQ+ rights, and anti-restrictive or punitive immigration laws. These issue positions couldn’t be inferred based on someone’s ideology alone 40 years ago.Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group, argued in an email that there is a danger of overemphasizing the liberal tilt of the Democratic electorate:Although the percentage of Democrats calling themselves liberal has grown over the past three decades, it still remains true that only about half of self-described party members identify that way — in contrast to Republican voters, about 80 percent of whom call themselves conservative. So Democrats have long had and continue to have a more ideologically diverse coalition to assemble, with nearly half of the party calling themselves moderate or conservative.Erickson did not hesitate, however, to describe the party’s educated left wing asoverrepresented in the media, on Twitter, and in positions of power. That group is loud and more culturally liberal, though they often purport to speak or act on behalf of communities of color. Meanwhile, the African American and Latino voters who deliver victories to Democratic candidates in nearly every race have remained much more ideologically mixed.“If we continue to let white liberals on Twitter define what it means to be a Democrat,” Erickson warned her fellow Democrats, “we are going to continue to alienate the voters of color who are essential majority makers in our coalition. While the Twitterati wants to ‘Defund the Police,’ communities of color want their neighborhoods to be safe — both from police violence AND violent crime.”To build her case, Erickson cited that role of minority voters in the last New York City mayoral election: “They elected Eric Adams and rejected the far-left candidates whose voting blocs were made up primarily of white liberals,” noting that “Adams outpaced Maya Wiley by 23 points with Black voters and 10 points with Hispanic voters.”In local elections in 2021, Erickson continued, Black voters “rejected a measure in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, to defund the police: According to ward-level data, the predominantly Black Wards 4 and 5 rejected the Minneapolis ballot measure by wide margins (over 60 percent voted no), while predominantly white wards drove the measure’s support.Erickson suggested that the culturally liberal tilt of the party’s left wing was a factor in declining minority support:Case in point: Democrats dropped nine percentage points with non-college voters of color between 2012 and 2020, falling from 84 percent support in 2012 to 75 percent in 2020, according to Catalist. This was most pronounced with non-college men of color who went from 81 percent Democratic in 2012 to 69 percent in 2020.These losses reflect “a divergence in priorities and values,” Erickson wrote, citing poll data showing thatwhile Democratic primary voters say hard work is no guarantee of success, Black voters disagree — saying most people can get ahead in America if they work hard, and that by a two-to-one margin, Black Americans say it is necessary to believe in God to have good morals. Democratic primary voters of all races disagree with that statement by similar margins.While the party is divided on values and priorities, Erickson pointed out that Democrats in Congress have reached general agreement on many issues that were highly divisive in the past:There is only one pro-life Democrat left in Congress, and today’s moderate Democrats are loudly supportive of reproductive rights. There are no more NRA-endorsed Democrats on the Hill, and if gun safety legislation were brought up tomorrow, every single Democrat in federal office would support it. Similarly, every Democrat not only supported the Respect for Marriage Act but would’ve likely gone further to explicitly codify marriage equality into law at the federal level.The major intraparty conflicts that remain, Erickson wrote,are concentrated around two big questions. One is a process question: Do you believe progress is achieved by incremental steps or revolutionary change? The other is a values question: do you believe that, with some basic policy reforms, our economic system can deliver a good life to those who work hard in this country, or rather that it needs to be torn down and fundamentally rebuilt from the ground up?The transition from a partisan division among white voters based on economic class to one based on level of educational attainment has had substantial consequences for the legislative priorities of the Democratic Party.Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, pointed out in an email that “the class base of the parties has atrophied” with the result that “the party system in the U.S. simply does not represent that ‘haves’ against the ‘have-nots.’ Both parties represent a mix of haves and have-nots in economic terms.”Because the Democratic Party must hold down “a coalition of upper-income whites and minority constituencies across all income groups,” Lee wrote, party leadersare likely to prioritize issues that do not pit the well-off against the poor very directly, such as the rights agenda (e.g., voting rights, abortion, gays and lesbians) and climate/environment. Democrats in government are unlikely to genuinely prioritize the economic interests of low-income and working-class voters, because those voters simply do not represent a majority of their party’s coalition.As an example, Lee wrote, “Current Democrats are much more concerned about forgiving student loans than about the majority of voters who will not or did not go to college.”What, then, is likely to happen in the Democratic ranks?The reality, as summed up by Ryan Enos, is that for all their problems,The Democrats are clearly the majority party and may be a experiencing an unparalleled period of dominance: since 1992, a period of 30 years, Republicans have only won a majority of popular presidential votes once — in 2004 and that was during the extraordinary time of two overseas wars.For the moment, the Democratic coalition — with all its built-in conflicts between a relatively affluent, well-educated, largely white wing, on the one hand, and an economically precarious, heavily minority, but to some degree ascendant electorate on the other — remains a functional political institution.“In this sense,” Enos told me, “it’s important not to overstate the damage that some perceive liberalism as having done to the Democrats’ electoral fortunes.”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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      America Is Breaking Our Hearts

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      Gail Collins: Bret, I have a lot to ask you about government spending and deficits and … all that stuff. But first, we really need to talk about all the recent mass shootings and what to do about them, right?Bret Stephens: In Britain or Germany these sorts of mass shootings are, at most, once-every-other-year events. Over here, hardly a day goes by without something like this happening. And the horror doesn’t just lie in the carnage. It’s that we’ve become accustomed to it. Dostoyevsky wrote, “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!” That’s the state of our nation.Gail: I wondered whether I should even bring the matter up yet again. But we can’t just give up and shrug in silence.Bret: You know I’m in favor of repealing the Second Amendment, not for the sake of banning guns but for making it much harder for just anyone to own them. Otherwise, in a country with more firearms than people, I doubt that ordinary gun control can make a real difference. Your thoughts?Gail: Do love the fact that I converse with a conservative who wants to repeal the Second Amendment. Sign me up.Bret: Don’t get your hopes up that I’m speaking for other conservatives.Gail: It may seem crazy in the face of all this carnage, but I’ve always wondered if we could change the argument to gun pride — that people shouldn’t be allowed to own guns until they prove they can shoot. Just hit a reasonably sized target. Obviously you don’t need a good aim to fire an assault rifle into a church or movie theater, but if we could just come to a consensus on requiring competence, that might be a first step toward rational firearm regulations.Bret: I would design the test differently. Start with a 100-question test on gun use, safety and legal requirements, with a passing grade of 90. Next, a psychological fitness test, conducted in person by trained personnel. Then heavy liability insurance requirements for gun store owners. Oh, and a drug test for purchasers. Anything to hinder disturbed young men, who are most frequently the culprits in the worst of these mass shootings, from getting their hands on rapid-fire weapons.After that, gun owners can boast to their friends that not only can they shoot, but also that they’re smart, sane, solvent and sober. But you wanted to discuss … government spending.Gail: That’s the issue of the moment, right? Congress has to do something about raising the debt ceiling or the economy will collapse somewhere down the line. Or at least that’s the theory.Republicans want to tie the raising of said ceiling to major league cuts in spending. No matter how much Kevin McCarthy swears that won’t involve cuts to Social Security or Medicare, it’s almost impossible to imagine they aren’t on the table. What’s your recommendation?Bret: Well, the Republicans’ current strategy has all the intelligence of Foghorn Leghorn, the Looney Tunes rooster: They’re trying to play a game of chicken with the Biden administration when, deep down, they know they’re the ones who are going to chicken out. It would be economically destructive and politically suicidal to let the federal government default on its debt. So we will probably go through this terrifying charade until a handful of swing-district Republicans break ranks and vote with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling.Gail: I do like that last scenario you mentioned. But don’t you think the bottom line is problematic, too? If Congress cuts spending to balance the budget as some Republicans have suggested, it could mean big cuts to very popular programs like Social Security and Medicare.Bret: Other than trying to find ways to slow the rate of spending growth, I can’t imagine there would be cuts to either program. They’re popular with Republican voters, too, after all. And there’s no way anything is going to happen except on a bipartisan basis. Any suggestions for fixes that don’t involve large tax increases?Gail: Well, some people may regard this as a tax increase, but I want to propose some tax fairness. For some reason, Social Security payroll taxation stops at about $160,000. So a person making a million dollars a year doesn’t pay anything on about $840,000.Let’s get rid of that ceiling, Bret. What do you say?Bret: I wouldn’t object to raising the cap provided Democrats would be willing to push up the retirement age by four or five years. As for Medicare reform, my guess is it will never happen. Instead, I’m betting that in 20 years we’re going to have a terrible but “free” single-payer system for part of the population and an excellent but expensive universe of private providers. As for actual budget cuts, maybe we could end stupid subsidies like the one for ethanol production. But that one is way too popular with farm-state Republicans.Different subject, Gail: Memphis.Gail: Bret, I spent a lot of my early career — way back in the ’70s — hanging out with the chief of police in New Haven, Ed Morrone, who was just so smart. He told my husband Dan, who was a police reporter then, that the most important job of a cop was “to keep people who hate one another apart.”Bret: Oh, it’s like figuring out the seating arrangement at Thanksgiving. Sorry, go on.Gail: In those days, that made so much sense. But in Memphis, the people doing the hating were the police themselves, who apparently got mad because a driver they had targeted for some reason made them run until they were out of breath and then started crying for his mother while they began beating him up.Now we have a dead young man, a bereaved family and a city in turmoil. Every well-run law enforcement organization in the country is going to have to cope with a new level of suspicion. Those cops have ruined their own reputations, deeply wounded community relations, and I am confident they’re going to pay for their terrible misdeeds after criminal trials.Your thoughts?Bret: I was moved by Tyre Nichols’s mom, RowVaughn Wells, when she said she’d pray for the police officers who killed her son, along with their families. It’s a spirit of compassion and dignity the city desperately needs now.Gail: Not just the city, the whole country.Bret: That said, I’m also reluctant to draw sweeping conclusions, either about this case or from it. Memphis has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the country, and the city desperately needs competent and effective policing. Police brutality obviously remains a serious challenge throughout the country. But so do reports of de-policing, in which cops retreat to their precinct stations because they don’t want to be out on their beats, or the equally dangerous trend of demoralized and demonized police departments that have led to serious staffing shortages across the country.Gail, at the end of our conversation last week — sometime after I’d committed the mortal sin of endorsing gas over electric stoves — we promised readers that we would discuss who, among Democrats, would be the best candidate to face Ron DeSantis should he become the G.O.P.’s presidential nominee. Give me some names.Gail: Well gee, I was looking forward to another discussion about kitchen stoves, but OK.Bret: Of all the ways I’ve irritated our readers over the years, who knew that my ignorance of induction cooktops would be the worst?Gail: We both wish Joe Biden would retire and open the door for someone younger, but it sure doesn’t look likely. If he runs, Governor DeSantis, who’s 44, would be a daily reminder that Biden is in his 80s.Bret: If it gets to that, Biden had better hope that Donald Trump brings back Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party to split the conservative vote. Because otherwise, President DeSantis it shall be.Gail: Age isn’t a problem for most of the Democrats who’d be likely to succeed Biden as nominee. And there’s a raft of promising possibilities people are talking about — a half-dozen governors, several senators and a couple of members of Biden’s administration.Some of the names I like hearing are Senator Amy Klobuchar, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, and Josh Shapiro, the newly ensconced governor of Pennsylvania. Kamala Harris, you will note, is not on my list.Bret: I noticed.Gail: The public needs a chance to look all these people over in a serious, long-term way. Which would happen if Biden announced he isn’t running again. Please, Mr. President …Bret: One other strong contender I’d like to mention: Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary and former governor of Rhode Island. She would be the best candidate in a general election because of her strong centrist appeal — and the best president, too. And people ought to start keeping an eye on Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, even though it is probably much too soon for him — or Josh Shapiro, for that matter — to start considering a presidential bid.Gail: Yeah, I guess it’s only fair that people who get elected governor should put in a year or two before they start running for higher office.Bret: Before we go, Gail, I was saddened to read about Victor Navasky’s death this month at 90. I probably disagree with 99 percent of what gets published in The Nation, the magazine he led for so many years. But he was a happy warrior for his causes, wrongheaded as some of them were (like championing the innocence of Alger Hiss). But I’ll take a cheerful opponent over a sour fellow-traveler any day.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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      'My son was calling my name': Tyre Nichols's mother calls for justice – video

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      Tyre Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, has called for justice after her son’s death prompted murder charges against police officers in the latest instance of alleged police brutality in the US. Nichols died three days after a confrontation with five police officers during a traffic stop on 7 January. His mother told reporters he called out for her in his time of need, adding: ‘It’s funny, you know, he always said he was going to be famous one day. I didn’t know this is how, this is what he meant.’

      Biden speaks with Tyre Nichols’s parents ahead of video release – latest updates More

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      Así comenzó el ataque en Brasilia

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      Mientras el autobús se dirigía desde el corazón agrícola de Brasil a la capital, Andrea Barth sacó su teléfono para preguntar a sus compañeros de viaje, uno por uno, qué pensaban hacer cuando llegaran.“Derrocar a los ladrones”, respondió un hombre.“Sacar al ‘Nueve Dedos’“, dijo otro, en referencia al presidente de izquierda de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, quien hace décadas perdió parte de un dedo en un accidente de trabajo sucedido en una fábrica.Mientras los pasajeros describían sus planes de violencia, más de cien autobuses llenos de simpatizantes de Jair Bolsonaro, el expresidente de extrema derecha, también descendían en Brasilia, la capital.Video posted on social media shows dozens of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro arriving in Brasília by bus.Jakelyne Loiola, via TwitterUn día después, el 8 de enero, una turba pro-Bolsonaro desató un caos que conmocionó al país y que dio la vuelta al mundo. Los agitadores invadieron y saquearon el Congreso, el Supremo Tribunal Federal y el palacio de gobierno del país, con la intención, según muchos de ellos, de incitar a los líderes militares a derrocar a Lula, quien había asumido el cargo una semana antes.El ataque caótico tuvo un parecido inquietante con el asalto al Capitolio de Estados Unidos el 6 de enero de 2021: cientos de manifestantes de derecha, alegando que una elección estuvo amañada, entraron a los pasillos del poder.Ambos episodios impactaron a dos de las democracias más grandes del mundo, y casi dos años después del ataque de Estados Unidos, el asalto del domingo de hace un par de semanas mostró que el extremismo de extrema derecha, inspirado por líderes antidemocráticos e impulsado por teorías de la conspiración, sigue siendo una grave amenaza.Lula y las autoridades judiciales actuaron con rapidez para recuperar el control y detuvieron a más de 1150 alborotadores, desalojaron los campamentos donde se refugiaron, buscaron a sus financiadores y organizadores y, el viernes de la semana pasada, abrieron una investigación sobre cómo Bolsonaro pudo haberlos inspirado.The New York Times habló con las autoridades, servidores públicos, testigos y participantes en las protestas y revisó decenas de videos y cientos de publicaciones en las redes sociales para reconstruir lo sucedido. El resultado de la investigación muestra que una turba superó con rapidez y sin esfuerzo a la policía.También muestra que algunos agentes de la policía no solo no actuaron contra los alborotadores, sino que parecían simpatizar con ellos, ya que se dedicaron a tomar fotos mientras la turba destruía el Congreso. Un hombre que fue a ver qué estaba pasando dijo que la policía simplemente le indicó que se dirigiera a los disturbios.El desequilibrio entre los manifestantes y la policía sigue siendo uno de los puntos centrales de la investigación de las autoridades y las entrevistas con los agentes de seguridad han generado acusaciones de negligencia grave e incluso de complicidad activa en el caos. Tras los disturbios, las autoridades federales suspendieron al gobernador responsable de la protección de los edificios públicos y detuvieron a dos altos funcionarios de seguridad que trabajaban para él. More

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      How a Mob Tried to Oust Brazil’s Lula

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      As the bus made its way from Brazil’s agricultural heartland to the capital, Andrea Barth pulled out her phone to ask fellow passengers, one by one, what they intended to do once they arrived.“Overthrow the thieves,” one man replied.“Take out ‘Nine-Finger,’” said another, referring to Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who lost part of a finger decades ago in a factory accident.“You might escape a lightning strike,” another man said, as if confronting Mr. Lula himself. “But you won’t escape me.”As the passengers described their plans for violence, more than a hundred other buses bulging with supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right former president, were also descending on Brasília, the capital.Video posted on social media shows dozens of Bolsonaro supporters arriving in Brasília by bus.Jakelyne Loiola, via TwitterA day later, on Jan. 8, a pro-Bolsonaro mob unleashed mayhem that shocked the country and was broadcast around the world. Rioters invaded and ransacked Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices, intending, many of them said, to spur military leaders to topple Mr. Lula, who had taken office just a week earlier.The chaotic attack bore an unsettling resemblance to the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol: Hundreds of right-wing protesters, claiming an election was rigged, stomping through the halls of power.Each episode rattled one of the world’s largest democracies, and almost two years to the day after the U.S. attack, last Sunday’s assault showed that far-right extremism, inspired by antidemocratic leaders and fed by conspiracy theories, remains a grave threat.Mr. Lula and judicial authorities have moved swiftly to reassert control, arresting more than 1,150 rioters, clearing the encampments that gave them refuge and searching for their funders and organizers.But questions continue to swirl about how a relatively small band of unarmed protesters, who had largely publicized their plans, were able so easily to storm the country’s most important government buildings.The New York Times spoke with law enforcement, government officials, eyewitnesses and protesters, and reviewed dozens of videos and hundreds of social media posts to piece together what happened. The reporting shows that a mob, led by what appeared to be a relatively small group of extremists bent on destruction, swiftly and effortlessly overwhelmed a drastically outnumbered police presence.It also shows that some officers not only failed to take any action against rioters, but, in at least one case, waved a spectator toward Congress.The imbalance between protesters and the police remains a central focus of the authorities’ investigation, and interviews with security officials yielded accusations of gross negligence and even active complicity in the mayhem. After the riot, federal authorities suspended the governor responsible for protecting the buildings and ordered the arrest of two top security officials who worked for him. More

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      Video Shows Brazil Rioters Breaching Inadequate Security

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      It was an unfair fight in front of Brazil’s Congress. On one side of a metal barrier were a few dozen police officers, some armed with pepper spray, others with clubs. On the other was a rapidly growing mob of more than 1,000 angry protesters, falsely convinced that the presidential election had been stolen and dead-set on doing something about it.At 2:42 p.m. on Sunday, almost in unison, protesters at one end of the street easily pulled down the metal barrier, while at the other end, protesters pushed right through a plastic roadblock, according to a video obtained by The New York Times. A few police officers sprayed chemical agents, but within seconds, the crowd was surging through.The moment was the start of a riot that left Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices ransacked and the nation’s democracy under its worst threat in decades. The previously unpublished video of the moment lays bare the woefully inadequate security at some of the nation’s most important institutions, which is now at the center of the wider investigation into how the mayhem could have occurred, despite ample warning signs.Federal authorities have laid much of the blame on the handful of men who run the federal district that includes Brazil’s capital, Brasília. They accuse the district’s governor and security chief of being either negligent or, worse, complicit, and they have already taken action against them.Police inspecting the damage to the Supreme Court on Tuesday in Brasília, the capital.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesIn the hours after the riot, Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice, suspended Ibaneis Rocha, the district’s governor, from his post for at least 90 days. Mr. Moraes then approved an arrest warrant from the federal police for the district’s security chief, Anderson Torres, as well as its police chief, Fabio Augusto Vieira. In votes on Wednesday, the Supreme Court confirmed both orders.Mr. Moraes, a controversial figure who has been criticized for overstepping his authority, said evidence showed the men knew that protesters were planning violence, but did little to stop it.Neither he nor other federal authorities have disclosed that specific evidence. Instead, he cited the inadequate number of security forces and the fact that roughly 100 buses of protesters were allowed to enter Brasília with little monitoring.What is clear is that the federal government largely ceded responsibility to the district to protect the capital in the face of protests that, according to a slew of social media posts in the days prior, appeared likely to turn violent. The federal government pays the district roughly $2 billion a year to provide security, and the district had successfully protected the capital during several large, tense political events in recent months.A four-page security plan obtained by The Times showed that, during the planned protests on Sunday, much of the responsibility for protecting the federal government’s buildings fell on the district police.Understand the Riots in Brazil’s CapitalThousands of rioters supporting Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right former president of Brazil,  stormed the nation’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices on Jan. 8.Anatomy of a Mass Attack: After Mr. Bolsonaro lost the presidential election in October, many believed that the threat of violence from his supporters would recede. Here is what went wrong.The Investigations: Authorities face several major questions as they piece together how rioters briefly seized the seats of Brazil’s government.Digital Playbook: Misinformation researchers are studying how the internet was used ahead of the riots in Brazil. Many are drawing a comparison to the Jan. 6 attack.World Leaders React: Governments in Latin America and beyond were swift to condemn the unrest. President Biden called the attack “outrageous.”The document, which was signed Friday afternoon and sent to more than a dozen top security officials in Brasília, tasked the district police to keep demonstrators out of Three Powers Plaza, which includes Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential offices, and to “maintain reinforcement of personnel” throughout the protests.But that plan did not please Flávio Dino, Brazil’s justice minister, when he heard about it on Saturday morning in a phone call with Mr. Rocha, the district governor, according to an official in Mr. Dino’s office who spoke on the condition of anonymity because officials had not yet agreed to release the details of the call.Mr. Dino did not want protesters on the national esplanade, Brazil’s version of the National Mall in Washington, a long grassy stretch that leads directly to Brazil’s most important government buildings. In response, Mr. Rocha agreed to change the plan accordingly and make the esplanade off limits, according to the official in Mr. Dino’s office.Later that night, according to the official, Mr. Dino was surprised when he saw a news article that said Mr. Rocha would let the protest go forward on the esplanade with “tranquillity and security.”Supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the presidential office in Brasília on Sunday.Eraldo Peres/Associated PressThe protests went forward, but the tranquillity and security was lacking.On Sunday, thousands of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the ousted far-right president, marched onto the esplanade, dressed in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag and carrying signs that demanded a military coup and that referenced voter-fraud conspiracy theories long peddled by Mr. Bolsonaro.The district police was there, but not in full force. Authorities have not provided the precise number of police officers present on Sunday, but according to videos and eyewitness accounts, there were far fewer officers than for other recent demonstrations in the capital..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;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.By contrast, there were several hundred thousand people in the same spot a week earlier for the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. While those crowds were there to celebrate, rather than wreak havoc, the district deployed all of its more than 10,000 police officers, far more than were on the ground on Sunday.Why there were so few police officers is now a central question for investigators. The security plan did not list a number of officers, but instead just suggested that the police should have sufficient personnel to handle the protests.Federal authorities have pointed the finger at Mr. Torres and Mr. Vieira, the district’s security chief and police chief, who have been ordered arrested.Mr. Torres, in particular, has come under scrutiny. He was Mr. Bolsonaro’s former justice minister and started in his new post in the district on Jan. 2. He quickly replaced much of the district’s security staff, despite its recent track record of success during the elections, and then left for vacation in Florida, where Mr. Bolsonaro has also been staying in recent weeks.On the day of the protests, Mr. Torres, who was ostensibly in charge of the capital’s security, was thousands of miles away.Mr. Torres said Tuesday that he would return to Brazil to defend himself. “I have always guided my actions with ethics and legality. I believe in the Brazilian justice system and in the strength of the institutions. I am certain that the truth will prevail,” he said on Twitter. Mr. Rocha, the district governor, has now also begun to point the finger at his deputies for the security lapses.Alberto Toron, Mr. Rocha’s lawyer, said in an interview on Wednesday that the security plans were adequate, but that the security forces failed to carry them out, even suggesting that they did so deliberately.“We saw videos, for example, of police fraternizing with demonstrators,” he said. “There is a hidden hand here, which not only demobilized the police and the Army not to act, but it seems that there was an orchestration for something broader to happen.”“The governor was deceived,” he added. “He suffered a process of sabotage.”Several videos appear to show the police as indifferent to the protests. In one, a man asks a group of chatting police officers if he can walk all the way to the end of the esplanade and take a bath in the reflecting pool in front of Congress. “Everything is open today?” he asks. The police appear to respond affirmatively, and wave him in the direction of Congress.Another video shows that after protesters ascend onto the roof of Congress and break into the building, about 10 relaxed police officers watch the scene, chatting with protesters, texting and filming the scene themselves.It was not until the protesters had broken inside the government buildings that military and federal law enforcement arrived to retake control.Federal security officials in charge of protecting the presidential offices had not expected violence during the protests, and only asked for reinforcements from the Army after rioters broke inside the building, according to an Army general who spoke anonymously to discuss a sealed investigation.Federal police said late Wednesday that they had arrested 1,159 people, nearly all under the suspicion of taking part in the riots. Authorities have said in recent days that they are now turning their attention to the political and business elites who helped organize, fund and aid the riots.The actions of security officials and police officers are expected to remain a central focus of investigators in the months ahead. Brazil’s Senate plans to begin a congressional investigation next month. On Wednesday, 60 U.S. and Brazilian members of Congress released a joint statement, condemning extremism in both countries that led to attacks on their capitols.Lis Moriconi More

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      Suspect in Shootings at Homes and Offices of New Mexico Democrats Is in Custody

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      The authorities say that a man is being held on unrelated charges, and that a gun tied to at least one of the episodes has been recovered.The authorities in Albuquerque announced Monday that a suspect in the recent shootings at the homes or offices of a half-dozen Democratic elected officials was in custody on unrelated charges and that they had recovered a gun used in at least one of the shootings.Officials did not release information on the suspect other than to say that he is a man under 50; nor would they say what the unrelated charges were.“We are still trying to link and see which cases are related and which cases are not related,” Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said at a news conference on Monday afternoon.Officials have ideas about a possible motive, Chief Medina said, but will not release details for fear of compromising the investigation.The authorities have not definitively tied the shootings to politics or ideology.Police officials asked the courts to seal all paperwork related to the case, Chief Medina said. He said that the authorities had numerous search warrants and were waiting for additional evidence.No one was hurt in the shootings, four of which happened in December and two that took place this month. The shootings involved four homes, a workplace and a campaign office associated with two county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s newly elected attorney general.The police had provided details last week on five of the shootings. On Monday, they said that they were also investigating a shooting that occurred in early December and caused damage to the home of Javier Martínez, a New Mexico state representative set to become the State Legislature’s next speaker of the House.Mr. Martínez said he had heard the gunfire in December, and recently discovered the damage after he heard of the attacks related to the other elected officials. He decided to inspect the outside of his home, KOB reported.In addition to the Albuquerque Police Department, the New Mexico State Police and Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the shootings.If a federal crime was committed, the Police Department will pursue those charges, Chief Medina said. “The federal system has much stronger teeth than our state system,” he said.The shootings came at a time when public officials have faced a surge in violent threats, extending from members of Congress to a Supreme Court justice.Mayor Tim Keller of Albuquerque said he hoped the fact that a suspect was in custody would provides some comfort to elected officials, who he said should be able to do their jobs without fear.“These are individuals who participate in democracy, whether we agree with them or not,” Mr. Keller said. “And that’s why this act of violence, I think, has been so rattling for so many people.” More