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      The Israeli Feminist Trying to Save Liberal Zionism

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Israeli Feminist Trying to Save Liberal ZionismCan Merav Michaeli rescue Israel’s Labor Party?Opinion ColumnistMarch 5, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Peter Rigaud/laif, via ReduxWhen Merav Michaeli, a pathbreaking feminist, was elected head of Israel’s Labor Party in January, some people offered her condolences. Labor was once Israel’s governing party, the home of many of the country’s iconic leaders: David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin. It ruled continuously from Israel’s founding in 1948 until 1977, and then a few more times after that.But since the second Palestinian intifada in 2000, which for many Israelis discredited the country’s peace camp, the Israeli left has collapsed. Because of its politicians’ inability to form a stable government, the country is about to hold its fourth elections in two years, and in January polls showed that, for the first time, Labor might fail to meet the threshold to win any seats at all in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. For a party that once seemed to define Israel itself — especially to liberal diaspora Jews — it’s been an almost inconceivable fall.There’s a phenomenon in business and politics called the glass cliff, in which organizations in crisis turn to female leaders. That seems to be how Michaeli, a former journalist who once gave a talk titled “Cancel Marriage” at an Israeli TEDx conference, became Labor’s leader.“Welcome to the Worst Job in Israeli Politics, Merav Michaeli,” said a headline in the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Her victory, wrote Anshel Pfeffer, doesn’t “so much reflect Michaeli’s popularity — she ran against six virtually unknown candidates — but the fact that no other politician wants to be remembered as the leader under whose watch Labor failed to get into the Knesset altogether.”But after Michaeli won, something unexpected happened. Labor’s poll numbers ticked up, and it’s now expected to capture six or seven seats when the country votes on March 23.“She’s the best thing that’s happened to Labor in recent years,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster and political analyst in Israel, told me. She described Michaeli, a former journalist once known for her campaign to make Hebrew, a highly gendered language, more gender inclusive, as “avant-garde.” Scheindlin added, “She has a backbone, and she’s not just blowing in the wind.”Labor’s last leader, Amir Peretz, was the opposite. In 2019, he swore he would never join a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, shaving his famous mustache so Israelis could better “read his lips” on the matter. The next year, he went back on his pledge, bringing Labor into Netanyahu’s unity government.Even as her party joined the ruling coalition, Michaeli insisted on remaining part of the opposition, making her, as The Times of Israel wrote, “a bizarre sort of one-woman opposition to the coalition from within.” Once in charge, she pulled Labor out of the government. The party’s improving fortunes suggest that taking a stand against Netanyahu has paid off.Now, six or seven seats still isn’t much, given Labor’s former dominance. (Netanyahu’s Likud currently holds 36 seats, followed by 33 seats for the centrist Blue and White party.) A party led by an avant-garde figure might seem, almost by definition, to have limited mainstream appeal. But after rescuing Labor from oblivion, Michaeli is convinced she can restore it. “I am here because this is my project — to turn it back into a ruling party,” Michaeli told me.Merav Michaeli, Labor’s new leader, says there is still a constituency for the two-state solution in Israel.Credit…Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressI first met Michaeli in 2009, when she was still a journalist. As she remembers it, it was at a party in New York before the first convention of J Street, the liberal pro-Israel group. At the time, she said, Israelis knew only two kinds of American Jews — those with right-wing views on Israel, and those who were indifferent. She wrote a newspaper column about progressive American Jews who cared about Israel’s future. Her editor, she said, told her that she had no idea what she was talking about, and never ran it.J Street would eventually turn into a force in the Democratic Party. But as Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians has grown ever more entrenched, many progressive Jews, myself included, have become skeptical about the future of liberal Zionism. I’d love to believe that Michaeli could do what she’s promising, creating a socially democratic Israel committed to a just resolution of the Palestinian conflict. But I see plenty of reason for doubt.Right now, Israeli politics is mostly a contest between different right-wing factions. Seeking to cling to power, Netanyahu, on trial for corruption, has struck a vote-sharing deal with the Religious Zionist Party, which includes what The Times of Israel called “Israel’s most extremist and openly racist Jewish political movement,” Otzma Yehudit. (One of Otzma Yehudit’s leaders, the paper reports, holds an annual “commemoration party” at the grave of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinians in 1994.)Netanyahu’s main rival, Gideon Saar, was once his protégé, and is in some ways even more conservative. And unlike in America, young people in Israel are to the right of older generations; according to data from the Israel Democracy Institute, 69.9 percent of Jewish Israelis ages 18 to 24 describe themselves as right-wing. It’s hard to see where support for a liberal revival could come from.But Michaeli argues that, as in the United States — where liberal economic policies are often popular even with self-described conservatives — there is a gap between people’s issue preferences and their political identity.“There is actually a majority in Israel that wants what we are offering,” she said. “People want socially democratic positions on the economy and society. People want a welfare state. People want pluralism, they want equality.”She’s convinced that there remains a large constituency for a two-state solution, at least in principle. “Of course there is a huge majority that does not believe it is achievable,” she said.That’s true not only in Israel, and not only on the right. The inexorable growth of Israel’s occupation, and the increasing power of those in Israel calling for outright annexation of Palestinian lands, can make it hard to believe that a two-state solution is still viable. If it isn’t, neither is Israeli democracy, unless and until the country is prepared to give equal rights to the Palestinians it rules. For years, it’s been a truism to say that Israel is approaching the point where it can be Jewish or democratic, but not both. It’s possible that, as much as liberal Zionists don’t want to admit it, that point has been crossed.So I asked Michaeli why American Jews committed to liberal democracy should still feel connected to Israel. She grew vehement, saying that the experience of living under Donald Trump should redouble our empathy for Israel’s embattled progressives.Michaeli’s first four years in the Knesset coincided with Barack Obama’s second term. “I spent those four years being attacked by liberal American Jews for failing to replace Netanyahu, failing to be an effective opposition,” she said. She grew deeply frustrated trying to explain the near impossibility of constraining a demagogue.“And then when Donald Trump was elected, I was devastated, but at the same time, I said to my friends, ‘Welcome to our lives,’” she said. “Now you will understand us better, because you felt the same — it’s the way your life changes. All of the sudden your president becomes your life, and your jaw drops 10 times a day, and you experience how a scandal happens every 10 minutes and everybody becomes numb, and you run out of words to express how horrible things are.” With Trump, she said, “I thought that my American liberal friends will at last understand what we have been up against all this time.”Instead, Michaeli feels that some liberal American Jews are giving up on their Israeli peers. “Don’t you get that we need you and you need us?” she asked. “You need us, because as long as Israel, which used to be a true democracy, and is half of the Jewish people, is under such threat, you need us to get over this as much as we need you to be able to strengthen your democracy.”She insists, however hard it is to imagine now, that a two-state solution is still within reach. “It has to happen,” said Michaeli. “I’m convinced that it will, eventually.”“Really?” I asked.“Yeah, of course,” she said. “Listen, I brought Labor back almost from the dead.”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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Demanding Loyalty, China Moves to Overhaul Hong Kong Elections

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }China’s Crackdown on Hong KongThe Security Law, ExplainedChina Rewrites HistoryFleeing Activists ChargedU.S. SanctionsMass ArrestsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDemanding Loyalty, China Moves to Overhaul Hong Kong ElectionsChina’s national legislature disclosed plans for a law that would make it extremely difficult for Beijing’s critics to hold elective office in Hong Kong.Protesters gathered outside a Hong Kong courthouse on Thursday for the preliminary hearing of the 47 pro-democracy activists who were charged with violating Chinese law after attempting to organize an election primary.CreditCredit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesKeith Bradsher and March 4, 2021Updated 9:03 p.m. ET阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版BEIJING — When Beijing set out last summer to quash resistance to its rule in Hong Kong, it imposed a national security law that empowered the authorities to arrest scores of democracy advocates and sent a chill over the city.Now, less than a year later, China wants nothing less than a fundamental overhaul of the city’s normally contentious politics.Zhang Yesui, a senior Communist Party official, announced on Thursday that China’s national legislature planned to rewrite election rules in Hong Kong to ensure that the territory was run by patriots, which Beijing defines as people loyal to the national government and the Communist Party.Mr. Zhang did not release details of the proposal. But Lau Siu-kai, a senior adviser to the Chinese leadership on Hong Kong policy, has said the new approach is likely to call for the creation of a government agency to vet every candidate running not only for chief executive but for the legislature and other levels of office, including neighborhood representatives.The strategy looks set to further concentrate power in the hands of Communist Party proxies in Hong Kong and to decimate the political hopes of the territory’s already beleaguered opposition for years to come.It would also appear to spell an end to the dream of full and open elections that has been nurtured by millions of Hong Kong residents in the years since Britain returned the territory to Chinese rule in 1997. Genuine universal suffrage — the right to direct elections — was one of the key demands of protesters during the 2019 demonstrations that engulfed the city of more than 7 million people for months.The police detaining a protester after the government announced the postponement of the legislative council election in September.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesMr. Zhang, a spokesman for China’s national legislature, the National People’s Congress, indicated that political turmoil in recent years had created the need to change the territory’s electoral system to ensure a system of “patriots governing Hong Kong.”He defended Beijing’s right to bypass local officials in Hong Kong in enacting such legislation, just as the central government did in imposing the national security law in June. The congress will discuss a draft plan for changes to the electoral system when it gathers for a weeklong session starting on Friday.The electoral restrictions would be likely to further smother the opposition, which has been battered by arrests and detentions since Beijing imposed the security law in June. On Sunday, in the most forceful use of the security law so far, the police charged 47 of Hong Kong’s most prominent democracy advocates with conspiracy to commit subversion after they organized an election primary in July.The democracy campaigners had hoped to win a majority in the local legislature in elections last September, then block government budgets, a move that could force Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s leader, to resign. The government later postponed those elections. But the city’s prosecutors said the activists’ strategy of trying to oust the chief executive amounted to interfering with government functions, an offense under the security law.Opposition politicians have defended their tactics as legitimate and commonplace in democratic systems and argue that they are merely fighting to preserve the city’s relative autonomy, promised under a policy known as “one country, two systems.”Pro-democracy activists were ushered to court on Thursday. They were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesBut some of Beijing’s staunchest allies in the city have accused the pro-democracy camp more broadly of putting Hong Kong’s future at risk by testing the Chinese government’s limits and forgetting that the city was not an independent country.“We are not another Singapore,” said Leung Chun-ying, a former chief executive of Hong Kong, in a statement. “In Hong Kong, by pushing on the democracy envelope too far, and by attempting to chip away the authority of Beijing, in for example appointing the chief executive, many of the so-called democrats have become, in practice, separatists.”Ronny Tong, a former pro-democracy lawmaker who now serves in the cabinet of Hong Kong’s chief executive, said he hoped Beijing would not make it impossible for opposition figures to run for office.“If you were to overdo it, which is something I don’t want to see, we would become a one-party legislature,” he said. “That wouldn’t be in line with the spirit of one country, two systems, and therefore I have cautioned restraint to whoever wishes to listen.”Still, he acknowledged that Hong Kong officials had little role to play. “We just have to wait and see.”Keith Bradsher reported from Beijing and Austin Ramzy from Hong Kong. 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      Facebook Ends Ban on Political Advertising

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFacebook Ends Ban on Political AdvertisingThe social network had prohibited political ads on its site indefinitely after the November election. Such ads have been criticized for spreading misinformation.Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, testifying in October. Before the ban on political ads, he had said he wanted to maintain a hands-off approach toward speech on Facebook.Credit…Pool photo by Michael ReynoldsMarch 3, 2021Updated 6:16 p.m. ETSAN FRANCISCO — Facebook said on Wednesday that it planned to lift its ban on political advertising across its network, resuming a form of digital promotion that has been criticized for spreading misinformation and falsehoods and inflaming voters.The social network said it would allow advertisers to buy new ads about “social issues, elections or politics” beginning on Thursday, according to a copy of an email sent to political advertisers and viewed by The New York Times. Those advertisers must complete a series of identity checks before being authorized to place the ads, the company said.“We put this temporary ban in place after the November 2020 election to avoid confusion or abuse following Election Day,” Facebook said in a blog post. “We’ve heard a lot of feedback about this and learned more about political and electoral ads during this election cycle. As a result, we plan to use the coming months to take a closer look at how these ads work on our service to see where further changes may be merited.”Political advertising on Facebook has long faced questions. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has said he wished to maintain a largely hands-off stance toward speech on the site — including political ads — unless it posed an immediate harm to the public or individuals, saying that he “does not want to be the arbiter of truth.”But after the 2016 presidential election, the company and intelligence officials discovered that Russians had used Facebook ads to sow discontent among Americans. Former President Donald J. Trump also used Facebook’s political ads to amplify claims about an “invasion” on the Mexican border in 2019, among other incidents.Facebook had banned political ads late last year as a way to choke off misinformation and threats of violence around the November presidential election. In September, the company said it planned to forbid new political ads for the week before Election Day and would act swiftly against posts that tried to dissuade people from voting. Then in October, Facebook expanded that action by declaring it would prohibit all political and issue-based advertising after the polls closed on Nov. 3 for an undetermined length of time.The company eventually clamped down on groups and pages that spread certain kinds of misinformation, such as discouraging people from voting or registering to vote. It has spent billions of dollars to root out foreign influence campaigns and other types of meddling from malicious state agencies and other bad actors.In December, Facebook lifted the ban to allow some advertisers to run political issue and candidacy ads in Georgia for the January runoff Senate election in the state. But the ban otherwise remained in effect for the remaining 49 states.Attitudes around how political advertising should be treated across Facebook are decidedly mixed. Politicians who are not well known often can raise their profile and awareness of their campaigns by using Facebook.“Political ads are not bad things in and of themselves,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor and the author of a book studying Facebook’s effects on democracy. “They perform an essential service, in the act of directly representing the candidate’s concerns or positions.”He added, “When you ban all campaign ads on the most accessible and affordable platform out there, you tilt the balance toward the candidates who can afford radio and television.”Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, has also said that political advertising on Facebook can be a crucial component for Democratic digital campaign strategies.Some political ad buyers applauded the lifting of the ads ban.“The ad ban was something that Facebook did to appease the public for the misinformation that spread across the platform,” said Eileen Pollet, a digital campaign strategist and founder of Ravenna Strategies. “But it really ended up hurting good actors while bad actors had total free rein. And now, especially since the election is over, the ban had really been hurting nonprofits and local organizations.”Facebook has long sought to thread the needle between forceful moderation of its policies and a lighter touch. For years, Mr. Zuckerberg defended politicians’ right to say what they wanted on Facebook, but that changed last year amid rising alarm over potential violence around the November election.In January, Facebook barred Mr. Trump from using his account and posting on the platform after he took to social media to delegitimize the election results and incited a violent uprising among his supporters, who stormed the U.S. Capitol.Facebook said Mr. Trump’s suspension was “indefinite.” The decision is now under review by the Facebook Oversight Board, a third-party entity created by the company and composed of journalists, academics and others that adjudicates some of the company’s thorny content policy enforcement decisions. A decision is expected to come within the next few months.On Thursday, political advertisers on Facebook will be able to submit new ads or turn on existing political ads that have already been approved, the company said. Each ad will appear with a small disclaimer, stating that it has been “paid for by” a political organization. For those buying new ads, Facebook said it could take up to a week to clear the identity authorization and advertising review process.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Cuomo Faces More Calls for His Resignation as Crisis Deepens

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Harassment Claims Against CuomoWhat We KnowCrisis DeepensAttorney General’s InvestigationCuomo’s ResponseAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCuomo Losing Power and Allies as Crisis DeepensGov. Andrew Cuomo faced more calls for his resignation, and a Republican congressman and Trump backer, Lee Zeldin, said he was exploring a challenge to him next year.State lawmakers in Albany reached a deal to impose limits and additional oversight on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic-era powers.Credit…Pool photo by Seth WenigJesse McKinley, Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Published More

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      New York Mayoral Candidates Weigh How Hard to Hit Cuomo

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?11 Candidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsAn Overview of the Race5 TakeawaysAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York Mayoral Candidates Weigh How Hard to Hit CuomoThe feud between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo has hurt New York City, but Mr. Cuomo’s recent troubles may alter the dynamic for the next mayor.Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing inquiries into sexual harassment claims and how his administration handled virus-related deaths in nursing homes.Credit…Hans Pennink/Associated PressMarch 3, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETGov. Andrew M. Cuomo was having one of the worst weeks of his administration, and he tried to divert attention to the New York City mayor’s race.In one of his famed slide show presentations, Mr. Cuomo listed the many challenges facing the city — a rising murder rate, a homelessness crisis, people deciding to move away — and questioned if the candidates were up to the task.“What have you managed before? What have you accomplished before?” Mr. Cuomo said in late February. “This is not about rhetoric. This is not about slogans.”Mr. Cuomo failed to mention another top challenge for the next mayor: Figuring out how to get along with him.Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat in his third term, has been significantly weakened by a growing crisis over allegations of sexual harassment and his handling of coronavirus-related nursing home deaths. But if Mr. Cuomo remains in office, the next mayor will have to work with him to help the city recover from the pandemic.Now the candidates must decide how strongly to criticize Mr. Cuomo; several candidates are calling for Mr. Cuomo to face impeachment proceedings or to resign if the harassment allegations are confirmed.But the governor is unlikely to forget those who attacked him, and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure has shown how a troubled relationship with Mr. Cuomo can thwart a mayor’s agenda. Mr. de Blasio never mastered how to work with the governor, even during the darkest days of the pandemic when the leaders fought over shutting down the city.Over the last seven years, the feud between Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio has had real implications for the city when they failed to work together on the vaccine rollout, reopening schools, a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, and fixing the subway and public housing.The candidates running to succeed Mr. de Blasio had been talking about how they would have a better relationship with Mr. Cuomo, but the tone drastically changed in recent days, after three women detailed accusations of sexual harassment against the governor.On Monday, after a woman told The New York Times that Mr. Cuomo tried to kiss her at a wedding in 2019, Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, said she had heard enough and Mr. Cuomo “should do the right thing and step aside.”Andrew Yang, the former presidential hopeful, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, have called for an independent investigation. Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, criticized Mr. Cuomo for disappearing from public appearances while the state was still facing a health crisis.“No one should throw around words like impeachment or resignation lightly,” she said. “But as a state, we must see immediate action to address the disgusting behavior” described by two female accusers of Mr. Cuomo.Maya Wiley called for “immediate action” to address Mr. Cuomo’s alleged behavior, but cautioned against using “words like impeachment or resignation lightly.”Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesScott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, said on Saturday that he believed in a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment.“I continue to support a thorough and truly independent investigation of the governor’s conduct, and if it supports these serious and credible allegations, Governor Cuomo must resign,” Mr. Stringer said.Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, and Carlos Menchaca, a City Council member in Brooklyn, have called for impeachment proceedings to begin.The condemnations are unlikely to affect Mr. Cuomo’s involvement in the June 22 Democratic primary for mayor, which is likely to determine the winner in the general election. The governor seems unlikely to endorse a candidate; even in the presidential race, he waited until very late to endorse his friend Joseph R. Biden Jr.Mr. Cuomo knows two leading candidates well: Mr. Stringer, a former state assemblyman, and Mr. Adams, a former state senator. Mr. Stringer has found ways to work with the governor, leading Carl Heastie, the State Assembly speaker, to call Mr. Stringer a “rubber stamp” for Mr. Cuomo in 2018 during a battle over pay raises for state lawmakers.But Mr. Adams has openly criticized Mr. Cuomo, over his management of the subway and his feud with the mayor. In April, when Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio fought over closing the city’s schools, Mr. Adams told them to “cut the crap.” This past week, after the sexual harassment claims were lodged, he said that when powerful men prey on women, “swift action must be taken against them.”Mr. Yang and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, have said they had an in with the governor — pointing to their relationship with his brother, Chris Cuomo, the CNN host. Mr. Yang, however, voted in 2018 for Cynthia Nixon, the actress and a fierce critic of Mr. Cuomo in the Democratic primary that year — a choice that he publicized on Twitter.Another guilt-by-association relationship could stem from one of Mr. Yang’s first endorsers: Ron Kim, the state assemblyman who has gone to war with Mr. Cuomo over virus-related deaths in nursing homes. In the 2018 Democratic primary for governor, Andrew Yang, left, voted for Cynthia Nixon, the actress who ran and lost against Mr. Cuomo in a bitterly fought contest.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesHaving a relationship with Mr. Cuomo is not necessarily predictive of how the next mayor might get along with the governor. Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio had known each other well: Mr. Cuomo, as the secretary of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, hired Mr. de Blasio to oversee the New York region during the Clinton administration.When Michael R. Bloomberg was mayor, he seemingly got along better with Mr. Cuomo. But behind the scenes, the leaders also had a tense relationship, jockeying for credit on issues like the state’s passage of a same-sex marriage law in 2011.The stakes have never been higher. Besides dealing with the coronavirus recovery, plenty of other key issues will be decided in Albany: raising taxes on the wealthy, schools funding, fixing the subway and desegregating specialized high schools.Democrats who have wrangled with Mr. Cuomo in the past believe that direct confrontation is the best approach. Monica Klein, a political consultant who worked for Mr. de Blasio and has organized protests outside the governor’s office, said Mr. Cuomo only responds to sustained political pressure and bad headlines.“You can’t cede ground to a bully,” she said.Some political consultants contend that Mr. Cuomo might prefer a candidate who has little experience in city government.“Even a weakened Governor Cuomo would run circles around Andrew Yang,” said Eric Phillips, a former press secretary for Mr. de Blasio.Mr. Stringer may have had an edge — at least before he brought up Mr. Cuomo’s resignation. In December, Mr. Stringer joined more than two dozen of Mr. Cuomo’s top allies in Albany, including Bill and Hillary Clinton. No other mayoral candidate was there for the historic moment: to cast the state’s official elector ballots to elect Mr. Biden as president.Scott Stringer, the city comptroller and a former state lawmaker, has found ways to work with the governor.Credit…Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesMr. de Blasio was not invited, even though the mayors of smaller cities like Buffalo and Rochester attended. Mr. de Blasio was left off the list because he ran in the Democratic primary against Mr. Biden, organizers said.The friendly gesture did not stop Mr. Cuomo from attacking Mr. Stringer a short time later.“The comptroller is an incumbent — where have you been?” Mr. Cuomo said to reporters in February, criticizing Mr. Stringer on police reform after huge protests in the city last summer. “What have you done? Where were you when Rome was burning?”Mr. Stringer may also face a difficult tightrope, trying to work with the governor while answering to progressive allies who are at odds with Mr. Cuomo, including State Senators Jessica Ramos and Alessandra Biaggi — both of whom endorsed Mr. Stringer.Mr. Stringer has made clear that he would try to be a stronger voice for the city than Mr. de Blasio.“I’m not going to have my lunch money stolen from Albany,” he said. “You can be sure of that.”Mr. Cuomo likely would have preferred Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president, or Christine Quinn, the former City Council speaker, two allies who decided against running for mayor. At a recent news conference, Mr. Cuomo said he had been asked about an endorsement and wanted to know more about candidates’ plans.“You need a real manager with a real vision who can really get things done,” Mr. Cuomo said.Jay Jacobs, an ally of Mr. Cuomo’s and chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, said he had given no thought to picking a favorite in the mayoral field.Still, he added: “It doesn’t help anybody’s chances to get something from the governor, or anyone for that matter, if they’ve been spending several years banging him over the head — that’s just common sense.”Katie Glueck and Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      After El Salvador Election, Bukele Is on Verge of Near-Total Control

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAfter El Salvador Election, Bukele Is on Verge of Near-Total ControlThe party of President Nayib Bukele is set to take a sweeping majority in El Salvador’s Congress, giving the populist leader broad new powers.President Nayib Bukele at a news conference Sunday.Credit…Stanley Estrada/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMarch 1, 2021, 6:13 p.m. ETMEXICO CITY — El Salvador’s populist president was poised on Monday to claim a resounding victory in the country’s legislative elections, dealing a crushing blow to establishment parties and granting the young leader, who has been accused of authoritarian tendencies, a powerful new mandate.When President Nayib Bukele, 39, swept to power in 2019, he vowed to overhaul Salvadoran politics. In Sunday’s elections, he appeared to do just that.Mr. Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas — New Ideas — perhaps with the help of a political ally, appeared on track to achieve a supermajority in the Legislative Assembly: 56 of 84 seats.“Let’s think about what we have achieved,” Mr. Bukele told his supporters on Twitter early Monday. “We are writing the history of our country.”The vote cements Mr. Bukele’s hold on El Salvador’s politics and endows his party with sweeping powers to replace his staunchest adversaries, including the attorney general, and appoint new members to the Supreme Court. And with Congress and the judiciary stacked with allies, Mr. Bukele could change the Constitution and possibly transform the government in his image.“There’s no checks on his power,” said David Holiday, regional manager for Central America at the Open Society Foundation. “The people have given him a kind of blank check to kind of rebuild El Salvador in the way that he sees fit.”The strong showing for Nuevas Ideas came despite allegations of voting fraud from Mr. Bukele and other party members.In a move that could have come straight from the playbook of former President Donald J. Trump, to whom Mr. Bukele has been compared, the Salvadoran president called a news conference Sunday, as voting was going on, to claim irregularities in the vote and attack the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the news media and the attorney general.The president complained that polling centers had opened late and that his party had been denied credentials to observe the vote. He also claimed that some people had been illegally prohibited from casting a ballot, without offering any evidence.At the news conference, Mr. Bukele encouraged voters to cast their ballots for Nuevas Ideas, appearing to ignore Salvadoran election law, which prohibits campaigning in the three days before polling.The country’s Electoral Tribunal said it would open an investigation into Mr. Bukele’s comments. It did acknowledge lapses in awarding credentials to officials from the president’s party, but it said the local authorities were free to allow them into voting stations.On Sunday, the top American diplomat in El Salvador warned against making baseless claims of irregularities in the electoral process.“It is very important not to say that there is fraud where there is no fraud,” Brendan O’Brien, the acting head of the United States Embassy in San Salvador, said in an interview with Salvadoran media. “It is important to wait for the results.”The comments from Mr. O’Brien, who took up his charge the day of Mr. Biden’s inauguration, may presage a tense relationship with the new administration in Washington. Veering from the approach taken by its predecessor toward authoritarian-leaning governments, the Biden administration might try to exert its considerable influence to curb Mr. Bukele’s tendencies.“I expect them to be very tough,” said Mr. Holiday of the Open Society Foundation. He added that he expected the Biden administration to work on elevating civil society voices and “legitimating actors that the government itself doesn’t want to legitimate.”For voters in El Salvador, Mr. Bukele’s frequent flirtations with autocracy appeared to matter little: In the end, the president’s promise of a brighter future for the country coupled with a slick communication strategy prevailed.“I voted for Nuevas Ideas because from the get-go I saw Bukele work, that promises are kept,” said Domingo Pineda, 29, a merchant in Santa Tecla, a municipality just outside the capital, San Salvador. “This is a government that is working for the people, by the people.”Oscar Lopez reported from Mexico City. Natalie Kitroeff contributed reporting from Mexico City and Nelson Rentería Meza contributed from Santa Tecla, El Salvador.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Why Trump Holds a Grip on the G.O.P.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Trump Holds a Grip on the G.O.P.Republicans still embrace the power of the ex-president’s agenda to galvanize voters and drive turnout.Mr. McCarthy has been a political editor and commentator for 18 years and has written extensively about conservatism, populism and the Trump presidency.March 1, 2021, 11:17 a.m. ETCredit…Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York TimesThe Donald Trump era isn’t over for the Republican Party. He is the party’s kingmaker, and two impeachments and a re-election defeat have not quelled Republican voters’ enthusiasm for him. As no less a critic of the ex-president than Senator Mitt Romney has acknowledged, he will be the party’s presumptive front-runner if he chooses to run for president again.If there is a Republican “civil war,” Mr. Trump is winning — and so easily that it can hardly be called a real fight.At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, Mr. Trump topped the presidential straw poll with 55 percent. The only other politician to break double digits, with 21 percent, was Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has positioned himself as Mr. Trump’s political heir.(If 55 percent seems like a less than resounding victory, recall that Mr. Trump came in only third in CPAC’s 2016 straw poll. Yet in that year’s primary contests he proved to be more popular with rank-and-file Republicans than he was with ideological conservatives like those who attend CPAC and tended to favor Ted Cruz in party caucuses.)Paradoxically, Mr. Trump may be all the stronger within the party because he served only one term. Many Republicans feel there is unfinished business to be settled after the Trump years. Many want a rematch to expunge the memory of defeat. The Republican right in particular feels that the battles Mr. Trump began over immigration, foreign policy, trade with China and the power of Big Tech in politics have yet to be played out.These are some of the themes that the party’s potential 2024 aspirants — Governor DeSantis, Senators Josh Hawley and Cruz, Nikki Haley (Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations) and others — continue to underscore, as do a legion of conservative commentators. With only one term to enact its agenda, the Trump administration is forgiven for not having achieved everything it set out to do, and its setbacks can be chalked up to Mr. Trump’s inexperience on entering office, the hostility of his media critics and the bad luck that the Covid-19 crisis struck in a re-election year. Two of these three conditions will not apply in 2024.What will apply, for better or worse, is the power of Mr. Trump and his agenda to galvanize voters and drive turnout — for both parties. In 2020 Mr. Trump received more votes — 74 million — than any other Republican nominee in history. That was over 11 million more votes than Mr. Trump won four years earlier. After everything that had happened in those years, and even amid the historic hardships of Covid, the Trump brand had actually grown its base of support.Credit…Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York TimesThis singular fact is seared into the minds of Republicans who look to the future, much as, after the 1964 election, forward-looking analysts like Kevin Phillips and the direct-mail innovator Richard Viguerie were more impressed by what Barry Goldwater had achieved in building a conservative movement of millions than by the fact of his loss. And Mr. Trump’s achievement was greater than Mr. Goldwater’s. Yet he lost, too; and many of the 81 million voters who elected President Biden seemed to be driven by antipathy to Mr. Trump and his politics, as indicated by the fact that many Biden voters did not vote for House Democrats.The lesson Republicans take from this is that Mr. Trump has discovered a potentially winning formula — if that formula’s power to attract voters to the Republican brand can be separated from the formula’s propensity to repel even larger numbers of voters who turn out to elect Democrats. More

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      Andrew Cuomo Is Under Fire. Can He Be Defeated?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAs a Weakened Cuomo Looks to a 4th Term, Challengers See OpportunityThe growing uncertainty over Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s political fortunes is a sharp turnaround from last year, when some supporters dreamed of a presidential bid. Potential challengers have noticed.Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is facing a federal inquiry into its handling of nursing homes in the pandemic.Credit…Pool photo by Seth WenigFeb. 26, 2021Updated 12:25 p.m. ETAs Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo confronts one of the most seemingly perilous moments in his decade as governor, private conversations are beginning to unfold about what it would take to mount a viable challenge against him next year, and who might be best positioned to take him on.The New York City public advocate, Jumaane D. Williams, has had conversations with allies in recent weeks about the possibility of seeking higher office. Party insiders hang on every public utterance of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, searching for signs of her future ambitions.Progressive activists and operatives are trading a flurry of texts, calls and tweets, glued to each fresh controversy unfolding around the governor, and speculating about what the political landscape would look like if he ultimately does not seek a fourth term in 2022. He and his team have said that he intends to run.Those discussions are in their earliest stages, and in some cases are rooted more in hopes than current realities. But they illustrate a growing sense of uncertainty around Mr. Cuomo, marking a striking turnaround from last year, when some Democrats dreamed of putting him on the presidential ticket.“Everybody who has ever wanted to be governor has started to go, ‘Oh, what do I need to do if this thing opens up?’” Bill Hyers, a veteran Democratic strategist who managed Mayor Bill de Blasio’s successful 2013 campaign, said this week. “There’s a lined-up coalition who want to defeat him. If he takes two more steps backward, then his challenge will be credible.”Mr. Cuomo’s administration faces a federal inquiry and legislative backlash in Albany concerning its handling of nursing homes in the pandemic. A number of accusations of bullying behavior have surfaced from lawmakers and former staff members, pushing questions of his temperament into public view.On Wednesday, a former aide issued a detailed on-the-record accusation of sexual harassment, prompting some officials and New York City mayoral candidates to call for an investigation. His team denies the allegation.And this week, a Marist poll found that his approval rating had dipped below 50 percent, though other polls have shown him in a much stronger position with Democrats.The governor’s unsettled future burst into public view at a news conference on Wednesday, where Mr. de Blasio — who has a toxic relationship with Mr. Cuomo and major political challenges of his own — did not rule out a run for governor, in response to a question from The New York Times. A former de Blasio staffer recalled that several years ago, the mayor would mention the idea of challenging Mr. Cuomo as one eventual possibility (though the mayor has middling approval numbers in his own city and little demonstrated support outside it).On the Republican side, Representative Tom Reed, a co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, has said that he is “seriously considering” a run, and party activists and officials have mentioned other possible contenders, including Representatives Elise Stefanik from the North Country and Lee Zeldin from Long Island. Their records of strong support for former President Donald J. Trump would be a major liability in a statewide race.Representative Tom Reed, a Republican co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, has said he is “seriously considering” running for governor.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesNational Republicans are aware of the challenges of running in heavily Democratic New York, barring significant weakening of Mr. Cuomo, but they are watching possibilities for that race closely, they say.Any serious threat to Mr. Cuomo would be more likely to emerge in a Democratic primary.“Any elected official that does not respond to the mandate of the people deserves a primary, myself included,” State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, a sharp critic of Mr. Cuomo’s, said in an interview late last week. She said she did not believe Mr. Cuomo had responded to that mandate.“Right now, his leadership is not hitting the mark,” she said. “And I think that New York deserves the best leadership, and we don’t have any more time. We are out of time, with below-average leaders who refuse to have integrity.”Asked if she would consider running for governor herself, she replied, “No, not today.” As for next year, she insisted that “that is not even what I’m concerned with right now,” as she navigates the needs of her Bronx and Westchester district, which has been hit hard by the pandemic.Certainly, even Mr. Cuomo’s biggest detractors are cleareyed about just how difficult it would be to challenge the governor.He defeated his last two primary opponents by around 30 percentage points each. He is a ruthless campaigner with a huge war chest and a lengthy record of achievements, and he has significant strength in communities of color. Many New Yorkers harbor good will toward him for his efforts to reassure the state in the early months of the pandemic, and it is unclear how much the turbulence of recent weeks resonates with voters now, much less how it will play out next year. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is in his last year in office, would not rule out a run for governor in 2022.Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images“In the past there have been many challenges that started with perceived fanfare, that ended in a fizzle,” said Jefrey Pollock, Mr. Cuomo’s pollster. “The governor’s record as one of the most progressive governors in the country is the thing that’s going to carry him to re-election, to first a primary victory and then victory in the general.”Democratic strategists eager to challenge Mr. Cuomo have a particular focus on who could connect with Black voters, a constituency that has been vital to Mr. Cuomo’s success in the past.Ms. James, who released a major report about how the Cuomo administration undercounted nursing home resident deaths tied to Covid-19, is the first Black woman to hold statewide office. She has led a number of progressive charges in office, and she has generated significant discussion among liberal leaders and strategists.People who have known her over the years see her as politically risk-averse and are skeptical, at this point, that she would challenge Mr. Cuomo, who has been a key ally.But a number of strategists note that the position of attorney general has often been a launching point for governor — as it was for Mr. Cuomo — and believe she would be formidable if he was not running, or if there are drastic changes to his political fortunes. A spokeswoman for Ms. James declined to comment.“I do know that there are others who say that attorney general stands for ‘aspiring governor,’’’ Ms. James said in an interview with The New York Times DealBook/DC Policy Project this week, saying she did not view her role as a “political job.”“At this point in time, my focus, again, is representing the interests of the citizens of the great State of New York,” she said.Then there are a number of prominent progressive state legislators who have clashed with Mr. Cuomo for years, like Ms. Biaggi, who has been an especially visible critic of his handling of the nursing homes controversy.State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, one of the most outspoken Democratic critics of Mr. Cuomo, also would not rule out challenging the governor next year.Credit…Desiree Rios for The New York TimesState Senator Jessica Ramos, another Cuomo critic, is also mentioned in some circles as a potential contender. But in a phone call on Thursday, she alluded to the significant financial hurdles any challenger would face.“We definitely need a true progressive governor, and I would love to see working people in New York coalesce around one candidate,” she said. “The part I think is a very serious challenge is when it comes to fund-raising, when we’re trying to represent those who have nothing.”Some progressives are also discussing the future of Mr. Williams, the public advocate, who is running for re-election this year but has spoken with allies about the possibility of running for governor or lieutenant governor. Mr. Williams, who lost a 2018 bid for lieutenant governor by around 6.6 percentage points, has been thought to be more likely to pursue that post again if he runs for another office. The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, said that he cornered Mr. Williams on the subject ahead of an event honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.Jumaane Williams is running for re-election this year as the New York City public advocate, but may consider a run for higher office in 2022.Credit…Mark Lennihan/Associated Press“In my office, getting ready to go out, I said to Jumaane, ‘You thinking of running for lieutenant governor again?’” Mr. Sharpton said. “He just smiled, didn’t deny, didn’t agree.”But allies have reached out to Mr. Williams in recent weeks about running for governor, too, according to a person familiar with the conversations.“The activists and folks like us would be very excited to see someone like Jumaane Williams run for governor,” said Jonathan Westin, who leads the progressive group New York Communities for Change. “If he ran, he could really give him a run for his money in a lot of Black and brown neighborhoods across New York.”Many strategists, officials and others looking at the race don’t expect the potential primary field to take shape for some months, and Mr. Cuomo’s many defenders across the party remain bullish on his chances.“Anybody is vulnerable, but anybody who primaries him does so at their peril,” said Keith L.T. Wright, the leader of the New York County Democrats.But as scrutiny over Mr. Cuomo’s behavior mounts, there remains the broader question of whether others in Albany may begin to turn on him — as they turned on ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer when he was in the midst of a scandal — or if ultimately many Democrats will close ranks.“In order for him to be vulnerable, you’ve got to come with the candidate,” Mr. Sharpton said. “There is a lot of bad press, but I don’t see the candidate.”Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More