Polls and Public Opinion

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Más de 100.000 personas marchan en México contra el Plan B

      by

      Se registraron manifestaciones en más de un centenar de ciudades del país contra una serie de medidas que van a limitar a la autoridad electoral y que, según sus funcionarios, dificultará garantizar elecciones libres y justas.Demonstrators gathered in Mexico City’s main square to protest new measures diminishing the nation’s electoral watchdog, changes they see as a threat to democracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesCIUDAD DE MÉXICO — Más de 100.000 personas salieron a las calles de México el domingo para protestar las leyes recién aprobadas que restringen al instituto electoral del país, en lo que los manifestantes dijeron era un repudio a los esfuerzos del presidente de debilitar a un pilar de la democracia.Vestidos en varios tonos de rosa, el color oficial del órgano de supervisión electoral que ayudó a terminar con el régimen de partido único hace dos décadas, los manifestantes llenaron el Zócalo de la capital y gritaron: “¡El voto no se toca!”.Los asistentes dijeron que buscaban enviar un mensaje al presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, quien respaldó las medidas y reside en el Palacio Nacional, frente a la principal plaza de la capital.Pero también se dirigían directamente a la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, que se espera que atienda las impugnaciones a las modificaciones al instituto electoral en los próximos meses. Muchos consideran que se trata de un momento que plantea un desafío crucial a la corte, que ha sido objeto de críticas por parte del presidente.La mañana del domingo, los manifestantes también gritaron: “¡Yo confío en la corte!”.Horas antes del inicio oficial de la protesta, los asistentes, algunos vistiendo camisas de botones bien planchadas y sombreros de paja, se reunían en cafeterías y tomaban desayuno en una terraza con vista a la sede de gobierno.Los manifestantes dijeron que los cambios ponen en riesgo a un pilar clave de la democracia del país.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesPero en la calle, el ambiente era de ansiedad.“Yo pagué mis propios gastos y mi estancia, pero no me pesa: haría eso y más por mi país”, dijo Marta Ofelia González, de 75 años, quien voló de Mazatlán, en el estado costero de Sinaloa, y llevaba una visera de paja para cubrirse de un sol intenso.Acudió, dijo, porque teme “perder la democracia y que nos convirtamos en una dictadura”.El presidente argumenta que los cambios van a ahorrar millones de dólares y mejorarán el sistema de votación. Pero los funcionarios electorales comentan que la modificación va a dificultar que se garanticen elecciones libres y justas, incluida la contienda presidencial del próximo año.“Es la última esperanza”, dijo Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, un exdiputado de izquierda y uno de los organizadores de la protesta. “Queremos generar un respaldo”, dijo, “para fortalecer la idea de que la Suprema Corte debe declarar inconstitucionales estas leyes”. De otro modo, agregó Acosta Naranjo, “tendríamos que ir a la elección con un árbitro parcial y un árbitro disminuido”.No se sabía con certeza de inmediato cuántas personas protestaron en todo el país —se organizaron manifestaciones en más de 100 ciudades— a pesar de que las cifras solo en Ciudad de México superaron los 100.000 asistentes, según organizadores y autoridades locales.Sobre las protestas se cernía la condena reciente en un tribunal de Brooklyn de Genaro García Luna, un exalto funcionario de seguridad mexicano, quien fue declarado culpable de recibir sobornos de los cárteles del narcotráfico: en México, el veredicto se percibe ampliamente como dañino a uno de los partidos de la oposición que ayudaron a organizar la protesta del domingo.José Ramón Cossío Díaz, un ministro retirado de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación, habló el domingo frente al edificio del tribunal.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesGarcía Luna fungió como un funcionario de seguridad de alto rango durante más de una década con dos presidentes del Partido Acción Nacional —Vicente Fox y Felipe Calderón— que hicieron llamados públicos para que los ciudadanos se unieran a la protesta.En las calles que recorrieron los manifestantes el domingo había afiches con el rostro de García Luna y la palabra “culpable”.El presidente ha insinuado que a los manifestantes los motiva el deseo de devolver el país a manos de los líderes corruptos del pasado.“Van a venir porque hay un grupo de intereses creados, de corruptos, que quiere regresar al poder para seguir robando”, dijo López Obrador en una conferencia de prensa reciente refiriéndose a los manifestantes del domingo. “No vengan aquí a decir: ‘Es que nos importa la democracia, es que se afecta la democracia’”.Era la segunda vez en alrededor de cuatro meses que los mexicanos se habían manifestado en apoyo del instituto de vigilancia electoral, que el presidente y sus seguidores aseguran que se ha convertido en una burocracia inflada cooptada por intereses políticos.“Tiene un poder desmesurado y desviado”, dijo Pedro Miguel, un periodista de La Jornada, un diario de izquierda, quien se describió como “militante” del proyecto político del presidente. Miguel criticó al INE por pagarle demasiado a sus integrantes, incluido un bono al retirarse.“Esa marcha parece más bien en defensa de ese bono y de esos sueldos miserables”, dijo de la protesta del domingo.Fue la segunda vez en unos cuatro meses que los mexicanos mostraron apoyo público al Instituto Nacional Electoral, que el presidente y sus seguidores aseguran se ha convertido en un organismo con burocracia inflada.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesLas medidas, aprobadas la semana pasada por la legislatura, van a recortar el personal del instituto, socavar su autonomía y limitar su capacidad para sancionar a los políticos que quebranten la ley electoral. Los funcionarios electorales indican que la modificación también eliminará a la mayoría de trabajadores que supervisan directamente el voto e instalan las casillas de votación en todo el país.“Pone en riesgo incluso la validez de las propias elecciones”, dijo en una entrevista Lorenzo Córdova, el presidente saliente del INE.Las manifestaciones suceden cuando el país se prepara para el inicio de la campaña presidencial de 2024, en medio de serias dudas sobre si una oposición maltrecha e incipiente cuenta con los medios para ganarse a los votantes desencantados.“Es una prueba muy importante de qué tanto van a poder movilizar a su base social”, dijo Blanca Heredia, profesora en el Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, refiriéndose a los partidos que se oponen al presidente, conocido por sus iniciales, AMLO.La multitud del domingo, según algunos analistas, era suficientemente grande para señalar que muchos mexicanos están ansiosos de apoyar a sus instituciones y también de expresar su descontento con el presidente.González, la manifestante de Mazatlán, dijo que no había votado por López Obrador, “porque todavía me sube el agua al tinaco”.Está por verse si la oposición puede sacar provecho electoral de ese desencanto.“Nada más tienen el sentimiento anti-AMLO”, dijo Heredia de los partidos que se enfrentan a López Obrador. “Si quieren captar a más votantes, distintos a los que son anti-AMLO, necesitan un proyecto en positivo, algún plan que proponer al país”.Los manifestantes que marcharon contra las medidas impulsadas por el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador, quien ha insinuado que los que protestan buscan volver a poner el país en manos de líderes corruptos.Luis Antonio Rojas para The New York TimesElda Cantú More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Large Crowds Across Mexico Protest Overhaul of Election Watchdog

      by

      Demonstrations took place in over 100 cities against the recent overhaul of the country’s electoral watchdog, which officials say could make fair and free elections difficult.More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Mexico on Sunday to protest new laws hobbling the nation’s election agency, in what demonstrators said was a repudiation of the president’s efforts to weaken a pillar of democracy.Wearing shades of pink, the official color of the electoral watchdog that helped end one-party rule two decades ago, protesters filled the central square of the capital, Mexico City, and chanted, “Don’t touch my vote.”The protesters said they were trying to send a message to the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who backed the measures and lives in the national palace on the square’s edge.They were also speaking directly to the nation’s Supreme Court, which is expected to hear a challenge to the overhaul in the coming months. Many see the moment as a critical test for the court, which has been a target of criticism by the president.Protesters also chanted on Sunday morning, “I trust in the court.”Hours before the demonstration officially began, attendants, many wearing crisp collared shirts and Panama hats, lined up outside upscale cafes and sat for breakfast on a terrace overlooking the seat of government.Protesters said the changes imperiled a key pillar of the nation’s democracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesBut on the streets, the mood was anxious.“I paid my own expenses and my stay, but it doesn’t bother me, I’d do that and more for my country,” said Marta Ofelia González, 75, who flew in from Mazatlán, on the coast of Sinaloa State, and wore a straw visor to block the punishing sun.She came, she said, because she fears “we will lose democracy and become a dictatorship.”The president argues the changes will save millions of dollars and improve the voting system. Electoral officials, though, say the overhaul will make it difficult to guarantee free and fair elections — including in a crucial presidential election next year.“This is our last hope,” said Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, a former leftist congressman and one of the demonstration’s organizers. “We want to defend the court’s autonomy so it can declare these laws unconstitutional.” Otherwise, Mr. Acosta Naranjo said, “we will have to hold an election with a partial and diminished arbiter.”It was not immediately clear how many people protested across the country — demonstrations had been organized in more than 100 cities — though the numbers in Mexico City alone were above 100,000, organizers and local officials said.Looming over the protests was the recent conviction in a Brooklyn courtroom of Genaro García Luna, a former top Mexican law enforcement official, who was found guilty of taking bribes from cartels — a verdict widely viewed in Mexico as damaging to one of the opposition parties associated with the demonstration on Sunday.José Ramón Cossío Díaz, a retired minister of the Supreme Court, spoke in front of the court building on Sunday.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesMr. García Luna served in high-profile security roles for more than a decade under two conservative National Action Party presidents — Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón — both of whom publicly called for citizens to attend the protest.The streets where protesters roamed on Sunday were lined with posters bearing Mr. García Luna’s face and the word “guilty.”The president has suggested that the protesters are motivated by the desire to put the country back in the hands of the corrupt leaders of the past.“They’re going to show up because there are vested, corrupt interests that want to return to power to continue stealing,” Mr. López Obrador said at a recent news conference. “So don’t try to say ‘it’s that we care about democracy, it’s that democracy is being damaged.”It was the second time in about four months that Mexicans had demonstrated in support of the election watchdog, which the president and his supporters say has become a bloated bureaucracy captured by political interests. “It has too much power, perverted power,” said Pedro Miguel, a journalist at La Jornada, a leftist newspaper, who describes himself as a “militant” of the president’s political project. Mr. Miguel criticized the agency for paying its governing members too much, including a bonus after stepping down.“This is a march in defense of that bonus and those miserable salaries,” he said of the demonstration on Sunday.It was the second time in about four months that Mexicans had rallied in support of the election watchdog, which the president and his supporters say has become a bloated bureaucracy.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesThe measures, passed by the legislature last week, will cut the agency’s staff, undermine its autonomy and limit its capacity to punish politicians who break electoral law. Electoral officials say the overhaul will also eliminate the majority of workers who directly oversee the vote and install polling stations across the country.“It threatens the validity of elections themselves,” said Lorenzo Córdova, the departing president of the agency, in an interview.The protest comes as the country gears up for the start of the 2024 presidential campaign, amid serious questions about whether a battered and inchoate opposition has the wherewithal to win over disenchanted voters.“It’s an important test of how much they’re able to mobilize their base,” said Blanca Heredia, a professor at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, referring to the parties opposing Mr. López Obrador, known by his initials, AMLO.The crowd was big enough on Sunday, analysts said, to suggest that many Mexicans are eager to support their institutions — and vent their anger at the president.Ms. González, of Mazatlán, said she had not voted for Mr. López Obrador “because my brain still works.”It remains unclear whether the opposition can use that bitterness to its electoral advantage.“All they have is that anti-AMLO sentiment,” Professor Heredia said of the parties opposing Mr. López Obrador. “If they want to gain more voters that aren’t just anti-AMLO, they’re going to need a positive project — a plan for the country.”Demonstrators marching against the measures pushed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has suggested that protesters want to place the country back in the hands of corrupt leaders.Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York TimesElda Cantú More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      The Wisdom and Prophecy of Jimmy Carter’s ‘Malaise’ Speech

      by

      On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter emerged from days of isolation to deliver the most important and memorable address of his life. Carter had canceled vacation plans and spent more than a week cloistered at Camp David, where he met with a “steady stream of visitors” who shared their hopes and fears about a nation in distress, most immediately thanks to another in a series of energy crises.Carter, however, discerned a deeper problem. America had a wounded heart. The president believed it suffered from a “crisis of the spirit.” The speech was among the most unusual in presidential history. The word that has clung to it, “malaise,” was a word that didn’t even appear in the text. It was offered by his critics and has since become something close to official history. Everyone above a certain age knows immediately and precisely the meaning of the phrase “the malaise speech.”I believe, by contrast, the best word to describe the speech would have been “pastoral.” A faithful Christian president applied the lessons he’d so plainly learned from years of Bible study and countless hours in church. Don’t look at the surface of a problem. Don’t be afraid to tell hard truths. Be humble, but also call the people to a higher purpose.The resulting address was heartfelt. It was eloquent. Yet it helped sink his presidency.Read the speech now, and you’ll see its truth and its depth. But, ironically, it’s an address better suited to our time than to its own. Jimmy Carter’s greatest speech was delivered four decades too soon.The ostensible purpose of the speech was to address the energy crisis. Anyone who remembers the 1970s remembers gas lines and the helpless feeling that our nation’s prosperity was dependent on foreign oil. Yet that was but one of a seemingly endless parade of American problems.By 1979, this country had experienced a recent string of traumatic political assassinations, urban riots that dwarfed the summer riots of 2020 in scale and intensity, campus unrest that makes the current controversies over “wokeness” look civil and quaint, the defeat in Vietnam, and the deep political corruption of Richard Nixon. At the same time, inflation rates dwarfed what we experience today.When he addressed the nation, Carter took a step back. With his trademark understated warmth, he described his own period of reflection. He’d taken the time to listen to others, he shared what he heard, and then he spoke words that resonate today. “The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us,” he said, and he described symptoms that mirror our current reality.“For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years,” Carter said. (Meanwhile, last year a record 58 percent of Americans told NBC News pollsters that our nation’s best years are behind it.)There was more. “As you know,” he told viewers, “there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions.” He was right, but compared to now, Americans were far more respectful of virtually every major institution, from the government, to the news media, to the private sector. Only the military fares better now in the eyes of the public.Then there was this gut-punch paragraph:We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate.When we read these words after the contemporary onslaught of mass shootings, the anguish of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and the turmoil of two Trump impeachments, you can again see the parallels today.We’re familiar with political speeches that recite the litany of American challenges, but we’re not familiar with speeches that ask the American people to reflect on their own role in a national crisis. Carter called for his audience to look in the mirror:In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.There is a tremendous amount of truth packed into those words. But there was a problem: Carter correctly described a country of mutual, interlocking responsibilities between the government and the people. Yet he was ultimately unable to deliver the results that matched his pastoral message.For all the scorn heaped on Carter later, the speech was successful, at first. His approval rating shot up a remarkable 11 points. Then came chaos — some of it Carter’s fault, some of it not. Days after the speech, he demanded the resignation of his entire cabinet. (He ultimately fired five.) It was a move that communicated confusion more than conviction.Then the world erupted. In November, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy and took dozens of Americans hostage. In December, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and at least appeared to secure the country quickly and easily. Contrary to popular remembrance, Carter did not respond with weakness. The defense buildup for which Ronald Reagan is remembered actually began under Carter. And in April 1980, he greenlit a daring attempt to fly into the heart of Iran and rescue American hostages by force.It was not to be. Mechanical problems scrubbed the mission far from Tehran, and in the confusion of the withdrawal, two aircraft collided, and eight American servicemembers died. American gloom deepened. The nation seemed to be moving from defeat to defeat.The failed rescue was a hinge moment in history. It’s hard to imagine the morale boost had it succeeded, and we know the crushing disappointment when it failed. Had the Army’s Delta Force paraded down New York’s “Canyon of Heroes” with the liberated hostages, it would have probably transformed the public’s perception of the president. But just as presidents own military victories, they also own defeats. Carter’s fate was sealed. Reagan carried 44 states, and on Inauguration Day — in a final insult by Tehran — the hostages came home.The story of the next 10 years, moreover, cast Carter’s address in a different light. The nation went from defeat to victory: Inflation broke, the economy roared, and in 1991 the same military that was humiliated in the sands of Iran triumphed, with assistance from its allies, over an immense Iraqi Army in a 100-hour land war that astonished the world.The history was written. Carter was wrong. There wasn’t a crisis of confidence. There was no malaise. There was instead a failure of leadership. Better, or at least luckier, leaders revived a broken nation.Yet with every passing year, the deeper truths of Carter’s speech become more apparent. His insights become more salient. A speech that couldn’t precisely diagnose the maladies of 1979 more accurately describes the challenges of 2023. The trends he saw emerging two generations ago now bear their poisonous fruit in our body politic.Carter’s central insight was that even if the country’s political branches could deliver peace and prosperity, they could not deliver community and belonging. Our nation depends on pre-political commitments to each other, and in the absence of those pre-political commitments, the American experiment is ultimately in jeopardy.In 1979, Carter spoke of our civil liberties as secure. They’re more secure now. A generation of Supreme Court case law has expanded our rights to free speech and religious liberty beyond the bounds of precedent. In 1979, Carter said that the United States possessed “unmatched economic power and military might.” That assertion may have rung hollow to a nation facing a Soviet Union that seemed to be at the peak of its power. But it’s unquestionably true today.We’re free, prosperous and strong to a degree we couldn’t imagine then. Yet we’re tearing each other apart now. The words that didn’t quite capture the moment in 1979 land quite differently today:We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility.With these words, Carter raised the question, what is our freedom for, exactly? While we want to better ourselves and our families, we cannot become self-regarding. We have obligations to each other. We have obligations to our community. The best exercise of freedom is in service to others.Yet one of the stories of our time is the abuse of liberty, including the use of our freedoms — whether it’s to boycott, condemn or shame — to try to narrow the marketplace of ideas, to deprive dissenters of their reputations and their livelihoods. A porn-saturated culture luxuriates in its own decadence and exploitation, and then wonders why hearts break and families fail. And as Carter noted, our huge wealth cannot heal the holes in our hearts, because “consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.”At the start of this piece, I used the word “pastoral” to describe Carter’s speech. But there’s another word: prophetic. His words were not the clarion call necessary for his time, but they are words for this time. As Jimmy Carter spends his last days on this earth, we should remember his call for community, and thank a very good man for living his values, serving his neighbors, and reminding us of the true source of strength for the nation he loved. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      The Forces Tearing Us Apart Aren’t Quite What They Seem

      by

      A toxic combination of racial resentment and the sharp regional disparity in economic growth between urban and rural America is driving the class upheaval in American partisanship, with the Republican Party dominant in working class House districts and the Democratic Party winning a decisive majority of upscale House seats.Studies from across the left-right spectrum reveal these and other patterns: a nation politically divided by levels of diversity; the emergence of an ideologically consistent liberal Democratic Party matching the consistent conservatism of the Republican Party, for the first time in recent history; and a striking discrepancy in the median household income of white majority House districts held by Democrats and Republicans.Four scholars and political analysts have produced these studies: Michael Podhorzer, former political director of the AFL-CIO, in “The Congressional Class Reversal,” “Socioeconomic Polarization” and “Education Polarization”; Oscar Pocasangre and Lee Drutman, of New America, in “Understanding the Partisan Divide: How Demographics and Policy Views Shape Party Coalitions”; and Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory, in “Both White and Nonwhite Democrats are Moving Left.”Podhorzer’s analyses produce provocative conclusions.“Throughout the first half of the 20th century,” he writes in his class reversal essay, “Democrats were solidly the party of the bottom of the income distribution and Republicans were solidly the party of the top half of the income distribution.” In 1958, Podhorzer points out, “more than half of the members of the Democratic caucus represented the two least affluent quintiles of districts. Today, that is nearly the case for members of the Republican caucus.”The result? “In terms of income,” Podhorzer writes. “the respective caucuses have become mirror images of each other and of who they were from Reconstruction into the 1960s.”The shift is especially glaring when looking at majority-white congressional districts:From 1994 through 2008, Democrats did about equally well with each income group. But, beginning with the 2010 election, Democrats began doing much better with the top two quintiles and much worse with the bottom two quintiles. In 2020, the gap between the top two and the bottom two quintiles was 50 points. Since 2016, Democrats have been doing worse than average with the middle quintile as well.The income shift coincided with a deepening of the urban-rural partisan schism.“As recently as 2008,” Podhorzer writes, “40 percent of the Democratic caucus represented either rural or sparse suburban districts, and about a fifth of the Republican caucus represented majority-minority, urban or dense suburban districts. Now, the caucuses are sorted nearly perfectly.”As if that were not enough, divergent economic trends are compounding the urban-rural split.In his socioeconomic polarization essay, Podhorzer shows how median household income in white majority districts has changed.From 1996 to 2008, in majority white districts, there was virtually no difference in household income between districts represented by Republicans and Democrats. Since then, the two have diverged sharply, with median household income rising to $80,725 in 2020 in majority white districts represented by Democrats, well above the $62,163 in districts represented by Republicans.Podhorzer ranks congressional districts on five measures:1) Districts in the lowest or second lowest quintile (the bottom 40 percent) of both income and education; 2) districts in the lowest or second lowest quintile of income but in the middle quintile or better for education; 3) districts that are not in the other four measures; 4) districts that are either in the fourth quintile on both dimensions or are in the fourth for one and the fifth for the other; and 5) districts that are in the fifth quintile for both dimensions.Using this classification system, how have majority white districts changed over the past three decades?“For the entire period from 1996 through 2008,” Podhorzer writes,none of the white socioeconomic groups was more than 10 points more or less than average, although we can see the highest socioeconomic group trending more Democratic through that period. But everything changed dramatically after 2008, as the two highest socioeconomic groups rapidly became more Democratic while the lowest socioeconomic group became much less Democratic.In 1996, Democrats represented 30 percent of the majority white districts in the most educated and most affluent category; by 2020, they represented 86 percent. At the other end, in 1996, Democrats represented 38 and 42 percent of the districts in the bottom two categories; by 2020, those percentages fell to 12 and 18 percent.In examining these trends, political analysts have cited a growing educational divide, with better educated — and thus more affluent — white voters moving in a liberal Democratic direction, while whites without college have moved toward the right.Podhorzer does not dispute the existence of this trend, but argues strenuously that limiting the analysis to education levels masks the true driving force: racial tolerance and racial resentment. “This factor, racial resentment,” Podhorzer writes in the education polarization essay, “does a much, much better job of explaining our current political divisions than education polarization.”In support of his argument, Podhorzer provides data showing that from 2000 to 2020, the Democratic margin among whites with and without college degrees who score high on racial resentment scales has fallen from minus 26 percent to minus 62 percent for racially resentful non-college whites and from minus 14 percent to minus 53 percent among racially resentful college- educated whites.At the same time, the Democratic margin rose from plus 12 to 70 percent over those twenty years among non-college whites low in racial resentment; and from 50 to 82 percent among college-educated whites low in racial resentment.In other words, in contradiction to the education divide thesis, non-college whites who are not racially resentful have become more Democratic, while college-educated whites who are racially resentful have become more Republican, in contradiction to the education divide thesis.Podhorzer makes the case that “the unequal distribution of recovery after the economy crashed in 2008 has been profoundly overlooked,” interacting with and compounding divisions based on racial attitudes:Educational attainment was among the important characteristics associated with those increasingly prosperous places. Add to that mix, first, the election of a Black president, which sparked a backlash movement of grievance in those places left behind in the recovery, and, second, the election of a racist president, Donald Trump — who stoked those grievances. We are suffering from a polarization which provides an even more comprehensive explanation than the urban-rural divide.Changing racial attitudes are also a crucial element in Abramowitz’s analysis, “Both White and Nonwhite Democrats are Moving Left,” in which he argues that “Democrats are now as ideologically cohesive as Republicans, which is a big change from a decade ago, when Republicans were significantly more cohesive than Democrats.”Damon Winter/The New York TimesIn 1972, on a 1 to 7 scale used by American National Election Studies, Abramowitz writes,Supporters of the two parties were separated by an average of one unit. The mean score for Democratic voters was 3.7, just slightly to the left of center, while the mean score for Republican voters was 4.7, to the right. By 2020, the distance between supporters of the two parties had increased to an average of 2.6 units. The mean score for Democratic voters was 2.8 while the mean score for Republican voters was 5.5.The ideological gulf between Democrats and Republicans reached its highest point in 2020, Abramowitz observes, “since the ANES started asking the ideological identification question.”While the movement to the right among Republican voters has been relatively constant over this period, the Democratic shift in an increasingly liberal direction has been more recent and more rapid.“The divide between supporters of the two parties has increased considerably since 2012 and most of this increase was due to a sharp leftward shift among Democratic voters,” Abramowitz writes. “Between 2012 and 2020, the mean score for Democratic voters went from 3.3 to 2.9 while the mean score for Republican voters went from 5.4 to 5.5.”By far the most important shift to the left among Democrats, according to Abramowitz, was on the question “Should federal spending on aid to Blacks be increased, decreased or kept about the same?” From 2012 to 2020, the percentage of Democrats saying “increased” more than doubled, from 31.3 to 72.2 percent. The surge was higher among white Democrats, at 47.5 points, (from 24.6 to 72.1 percent), than among nonwhite Democrats, at 31.2 points, from 41.1 to 72.3 percent.The growing ideological congruence among Democrats has significant consequences for the strength of the party on Election Day. Abramowitz notes that “For many years, white Democrats have lagged behind nonwhite Democrats in loyalty to Democratic presidential candidates. In 2020, however, this gap almost disappeared with white Democratic identifiers almost as loyal as nonwhite Democratic identifiers.”The increase in loyalty among white Democratic identifiers, he continues, “is due largely to their increased liberalism because defections” to the right “among white Democrats”have been heavily concentrated among those with relatively conservative ideological orientations. This increased loyalty has also been apparent in other types of elections, including those for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. In 2022, according to data from the American National Election Studies Pilot Survey, 96 percent of Democratic identifiers, including leaning independents, voted for Democratic candidates for U.S. House and U.S. Senate.In their paper, “Understanding the Partisan Divide,” Pocasangre and Drutman of New America focus on race and ethnicity from the vantage point of an analysis of voting patterns based on the level of diversity in a district or community.“Republican districts,” they write,are some of the least ethnically diverse districts. But voters within these districts have diverse policy views, particularly on economic issues. Democratic districts are some of the most ethnically diverse districts. But voters within these districts are mostly in agreement over their views of both social and economic issues.Pocasangre and Drutman’s study reinforces the widespread finding “That Republican districts are predominantly white and, for the most part, less affluent than the national average. In contrast, Democratic districts are less white than the average but tend to be more affluent than average.”Pocasangre and Drutman find that the household income differences between Democratic and Republican-held seats continues to widen. From 2020 to 2022, the income in Democratic districts rose from $95,000 to $100,000 while in Republican districts it grew from $77,000 to $80,000, so that the Democratic advantage rose from $18,000 to $20,000 in just two years.Republican districts, the two authors continue, are “conservative on both social and economic issues, with very few districts below the national average on either dimension.” Democratic districts, in contrast, areprogressive on both policy domains, but have quite a few districts that fall above the average on either the social or economic dimension. In particular, of the 229 Democratic districts in 2020, 14 percent were more conservative than the national average on social issues and 19 percent were more conservative than the national average on economic issues.On average, competitive districts tilt Republican, according to the authors:Very few competitive districts in 2020 were found on the progressive quadrants of social and economic issues. Instead, of the 27 competitive districts in 2020, 70 percent were more conservative than the national average on economic issues and 59 percent were more conservative than the national average on social issues.These battleground districtslean toward the progressive side when it comes to gun control, but they lean toward the conservative side on all the other social issues. Their views on structural discrimination — an index that captures responses to questions of whether Black people just need to try harder to get ahead and whether discrimination keeps them back — are the most conservative, followed by views toward abortion.In addition, a majority of competitive districts, 57 percent, are in Republican-leaning rural-suburban communities, along with another 13 percent in purely rural areas. Democratic districts, in contrast, are 17 percent in purely urban areas and 52 percent in urban-suburban communities, with 31 percent in rural-suburban or purely rural areas.I asked Pocasangre about this tilt, and he emailed back:For now, most swing districts go for Republicans. The challenge for Democrats right now is that most of these swing districts are in suburbs which demographically and ideologically look more like rural areas where Republicans have their strongholds. So, Democrats do face an uphill battle when trying to make inroads in these districts.But, Pocasangre continued, “majorities in Congress are so slim that control of the House could switch based on idiosyncratic factors, like exceptionally bad candidates on the other side, scandals, changes in turnout, etc. Democrats need to get lucky in the suburbs, but for Republicans, they are theirs to lose.”Pocasangre and Drutman classified districts as Democratic, Republican, or competitive, based on the ratings of the Cook Political Report in the 2020 and 2022 elections: “Competitive districts are those classified as toss ups for each cycle while the partisan districts are those rated as solid, likely, or lean Democratic or Republican.”The Cook Report analysis of 2024 House races lists 20 tossup seats, 11 held by Democrats, 9 by Republicans, one of which is held by the serial fabulist George Santos, whose threatened New York seat is classified as “lean Democratic.” Eight of the 11 Democratic toss-ups are in three states, four in North Carolina and two each in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Four of the nine Republican tossups are in New York, along with two in Arizona.The changing composition of both Democratic and Republican electorates and the demographics of the districts they represent is one of the reasons that governing has become so difficult. One result of the changing composition of the parties has been a shift in focus to social and cultural issues. These are issues that government is often not well equipped to address, but that propel political competition and escalate partisan hostility.Perhaps most important, however, is that there now is no economic cohesion holding either party together. Instead, both have conflicting wings. For the Republicans it’s a pro-business elite combined with a working class, largely white, often racially resentful base; for the Democrats, it’s a party dependent on the support of disproportionately low-income minorities, combined with a largely white, college-educated elite.One might question why all these cultural and social issues have come so much to the fore and what it might take for the dam to give.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

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Biden Drawing Up a 2024 Playbook That Looks a Lot Like 2020’s

      by

      President Biden’s strategy is to frame the race as a contest between a seasoned leader and a conspiracy-minded opposition, while batting away concerns about his age.WASHINGTON — Forget the Wilmington basement. This time he will have a Rose Garden. And Air Force One and a big white mansion and all the other advantages of incumbency in a year when he is not forced by a pandemic to stick to streaming from downstairs.But as President Biden prepares to run for a second term, his team is mapping out a strategy for 2024 that in many other ways resembles that of 2020. Whether he ultimately faces Donald J. Trump again or another Republican trying to be like Mr. Trump, the president plans a campaign message that still boils down to three words: Competent beats crazy.Whether he can sell that theme again represents a singular challenge given surveys showing that the public has not exactly rallied behind him and harbors deep doubts about his age. When Mr. Biden kicks off his re-election campaign this spring, as is widely expected, he will be the oldest president in history but one of the lowest-rated in the modern period, presiding over an economy that is improving but unsettled and leading a party publicly behind him but privately angst-ridden. And rather than Mr. Trump, he may yet face a Republican challenger closer to the age of his son.The goal, according to interviews with White House officials, outside advisers, key allies and party strategists, is to frame the race as a contest, not a referendum on Mr. Biden. On one side, in this narrative, will be a mature, seasoned leader with a raft of legislation on his record aimed at winning back working-class Democrats. On the other will be an ideologically driven, conspiracy-minded opposition consumed by its own internal power struggles and tethered to a leader facing multiple investigations for trying to overturn a democratic election.“It’s incumbent on the president and his team to make sure the election is a choice,” said Lis Smith, a senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 Democratic primary campaign. “It’s not going to be Joe Biden versus some mythical Democratic candidate. It’s going to be between Joe Biden and whoever the Republican nominee is.”Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster, said a rematch between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump would be the best scenario for the president. “At this point, President Biden just needs to seem like he is still very much with it and able to do the job and at that point his fate is largely out of his hands,” Mr. Ayres said. “He’s got to pray the Republicans blow themselves up again.”Lis Smith, a senior adviser to Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, in Keene, N.H., in 2019.Elizabeth Frantz for The New York TimesMr. Biden previewed his approach in his State of the Union address this month when he baited Republicans into a debate over Social Security and Medicare, then pressed his argument during appearances in Wisconsin and Florida. He used the nationally televised speech before Congress to highlight his legislative successes while focusing on pocketbook issues to reach out to voters upset at him over inflation.The trips that followed illustrated one important difference from 2020. No longer tied to the basement of his home in Delaware, the way he was by Covid-19 in 2020, Mr. Biden will travel frequently this year to deliver his message, aides said. As projects from the 2021 infrastructure package break ground, the president intends to cut a lot of ribbons around the country to take credit.Republican strategists are gambling that the physical toll of a full-scale, nonpandemic campaign effort will wear on an 80-year-old president. They plan to portray him as an aging, failed leader and a big-spending captive of the political left who drove up inflation and did little to defend the border against a record wave of illegal immigration.Which Republicans Are Eyeing the 2024 Presidential Election?Card 1 of 6The G.O.P. primary begins. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Marjorie Taylor Greene Didn’t Like What She Saw

      by

      Gail Collins: So Bret, Joe Biden’s been on a roll. Economy good, State of the Union speech good — made even better by those Republican boo birds.Any complaints?Bret Stephens: The economy is a mixed bag, with positive signals, like falling inflation and historically low unemployment, but also some worrying ones, like a labor-force participation rate that’s too low and big layoffs in big tech. I thought the speech was a mixed bag, too, with a feisty performance that will please liberals but not endear him to the majority of Americans, who still disapprove of his job performance by a seven-point margin.But on the subject of Republican hecklers, what a disgrace. Never mind the geriatric president; the real danger is the prepubescent opposition.Gail Collins: Well, if I ever want to make a good impression on a group, I’ll try to recruit Marjorie Taylor Greene to scream at me that I’m a liar.Bret: Being called a liar by Greene is like being accused by Donald Trump of having a low I.Q. I believe that’s what Freudians call projection.Gail: The Republican leaders were certainly better behaved. But they did seem desperate to reject any suggestion that their party wanted to cut back spending on Social Security and Medicare. I thought that was part of the plan all along. Wasn’t it?Bret: Not as far as I’m aware, unless you mean Senator Rick Scott’s nonstarter proposal to sunset all federal legislation every five years.Gail: Well, Scott was head of the Republican Senate re-election effort at the time.Bret: Even Mitch McConnell dismissed Scott’s brainstorms out of hand. But if it means trying to save both programs from looming insolvency, then yes, you could say some Republicans are for that.The other thing I found striking about the speech, Gail, is that it was probably the most unapologetically liberal State of the Union any Democratic president has delivered since Lyndon Johnson in the ’60s. I know you like a lot of the proposals, but will it win Biden a second term?Gail: Which part do you think an average American voter would have hated? An assault weapons ban? Abortion rights? A tax on the superrich?Bret: Well, abortion rights is a winning issue for Democrats, thanks to the terrible Dobbs decision. On the other hand, the billionaires’ tax is probably unconstitutional and also ineffective, since ultrawealthy people are pretty good at shielding their assets. And, as our own polling guru Nate Cohn pointed out last summer, gun control is one of those issues that always seems to poll well but rarely decides elections.Gail: One thing Biden’s speech demonstrated was how good a liberal agenda sounds to nonliberals when it’s presented by a guy who seems so mellow. People always looked down on Biden as a presidential candidate because he reminded them of somebody’s chatty great-uncle. Turns out that these days, a nice great-uncle who wants to put a cap on drug prices is just what we’re looking for.Bret: Our friend Frank Bruni had the best line on the same point in his newsletter last week. “For Donald Trump,” he wrote, “we needed noise-canceling headphones. For Biden, hearing aids.” It’s particularly sharp because the age question is only going to become more acute for Biden. Some of his fumbles, like calling Chuck Schumer the Senate minority leader, are going to stick in people’s minds.Um, awkward segue here, but we really should talk about Senator John Fetterman.Gail: So sorry to hear he was briefly hospitalized — and to learn, in a story by our newsroom colleague Annie Karni, that his long-term physical problems have made it difficult for him to deal with his work. Lesson No. 1: Joining the United States Senate is not the best possible agenda for a man who’s recovering from a serious stroke.Bret: Obviously we wish him a full recovery ….Gail: Fortunately, the Pennsylvania voters who chose him last year over Mehmet Oz — by nearly five percentage points — weren’t overly focused on Fetterman’s health situation. Lesson No. 2: These days, when it comes to congressional elections, the overriding issue is simply which party will control what.Thanks to Pennsylvania, the answer in the Senate this year is the Democrats, and even if Fetterman can’t perform all his day-to-day duties as well as he’d hoped, as long as he can show up for votes, he’s fulfilling their most important mandate.Bret: OK, total disagreement on this one. Being a senator isn’t just about voting a certain way. There’s also important committee and constituency work. If Fetterman’s doctors think he will eventually recover, then he should stay. But voters also deserve more transparency about his health than they got during the campaign or than they are getting now. If he can’t meet the demands of the office, he owes it to Pennsylvanians to step down and let Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, select his replacement.Gail: Now Bret, on a totally different matter: I’ve always appreciated your willingness to go along with my foreign-affairs avoidance. But China has, I guess you could say, floated into domestic territory. Tell me if you have any new balloon thoughts.Bret: What really gets me about the balloon caper (I am withholding judgment about the three U.F.O.s we shot down over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron until the little green men send me further instructions) isn’t the threat to national security. The Chinese can surely get most of the surveillance they need from orbiting satellites. It’s the nerve. The Chinese government thought it could get away with it on the eve of Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing. If they are that rude, stupid and cocky, what else do they think they can pull off?Gail: Kinda wondering if the Xi government just did it to look tough to their own people.Bret: Well, we probably popped that balloon. My fear is that the Chinese regime, or elements inside it, may be spoiling for war. Have I mentioned that we need to start spending more on defense?Gail: I’m very, very worried this is a prelude to a Chinese attempt to take Taiwan. While we should do everything we can to keep that from happening, there’s no way I would want to go to war over it.Bret: I disagree, but you’re speaking for a lot of Americans, including a growing share of Republicans.Gail: As far as our defense budget goes, I think we could get whatever money is needed by cutting costs someplace else in the Pentagon.But, just between us, if I rooted for higher military spending would you oppose risking the lives of American troops over Taiwan?Bret: I’m with President Biden on this one. The defense of Taiwan is a vital American interest, and not just because it’s the superpower of microchips. If Beijing conquers Taiwan it will just whet its appetite for aggression against our other allies, including Japan and the Philippines. So trying to stay out of it will only make our problems larger, not smaller. I also think our commitment to Taiwan’s freedom is akin to President Harry Truman’s stands for West Berlin and South Korea. Those sacrifices in blood and treasure paid long-term dividends for global freedom and American prosperity.But speaking of long-term threats to the country, Gail, I was shocked but not surprised to read that two-thirds of American fourth-graders are not proficient in reading. What a disaster. Thoughts on fixing?Gail: Nothing more important to worry about than reading skills. But you don’t want to encourage an obsession over tests. There’s way too much of that already — even preschools are drilling their kids in preparation for kindergarten entrance exams.Bret: On this point, Gail, we agree. The endless testing is turning kids into nervous wrecks. And clearly it’s not helping them get any better at reading and math.Gail: Let’s focus on early childhood education — if it’s the right quality, kids will move on to grade school with skills in problem-solving and critical thinking that makes the next level so much easier.That, of course, would require a lot more money. Jill Biden has made it one of her top crusades, and cheers to the first lady for that.Bret: I’m pretty sure the United States spends much more per student than most other countries, only to achieve lackluster results. Different suggestion: Let’s adopt phonics more widely for early reading, give up new math for old math, and urge parents to read to and with their children for at least an hour each night.Gail: Preschool education is one of our biggest fights, so I guess this conversation needs to be continued …Bret: Before we go, Gail, I hope our readers don’t miss Richard Sandomir’s beautiful obituary for Solomon Perel, a.k.a. Josef Perjell, who died in Israel earlier this month at 97. If you remember the film “Europa, Europa,” you’ll know his story — a Jewish boy who pretended to be an ethnic German to escape being murdered by the Nazis and later got inducted into the Hitler Youth, where he had to hide his Jewishness for the rest of the war. The parting piece of advice he got from his father was, “Always remain a Jew,” while his mother told him, “You must live.”It seems like contradictory advice, since he had to pretend to be a Nazi in order to survive. But, from a Jewish perspective, the advice was actually the same. From Deuteronomy: “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse — therefore choose life.”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

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis’s Challenge: When, and How, to Counterattack Trump

      by

      As the former president lobs insults and calls him “Ron DeSanctimonious,” Gov. Ron DeSantis is carefully avoiding conflict. But if he runs for president as expected, a clash is inevitable.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prizes preparation and the way it allows him to control his political narrative. But suddenly, he was on the verge of going off message.He had traveled to a Central Florida warehouse this past week to promote a $2 billion tax cut proposal when he was confronted with the inevitable: an especially ugly attack from former President Donald J. Trump that seemed to warrant a strong response.Mr. Trump had insinuated on social media that Mr. DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls while he was a teacher in his early 20s. As a reporter asked for his reaction, the Florida governor — standing amid kitchen stoves and boxes of baby diapers — inhaled sharply. He straightened the papers in front of him and raised his open palms to interrupt the question.But instead of slamming the former president, Mr. DeSantis demurred.“I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” he said. “That’s how I spend my time. I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”For months, Mr. DeSantis has pursued a strategy of conflict avoidance with his top rival in the shadow 2024 Republican presidential primary, delaying what is likely to be a hostile and divisive clash that forces the party’s voters to pick sides.But now he faces the pressing question of how long this approach can work. Mr. Trump, who has spent weeks trying to goad Mr. DeSantis into a fight with rude nicknames like “Ron DeSanctimonious,” is stepping up his social media-fueled assault, even as polls and interviews show that Mr. DeSantis has become the leading alternative to the former president for many voters and donors.Mr. DeSantis at the news conference on Tuesday in Ocala, Fla., where he promoted a tax cut proposal. He has shied away from attacking potential 2024 Republican presidential rivals.Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner, via Associated PressMr. DeSantis must also decide just how forcefully to counterattack once he engages with Mr. Trump, and whether he has left himself enough room to effectively parry the former president’s taunts and smears without offending his loyal supporters.Seventeen months before the Republican nominating convention, the future of Mr. Trump’s political movement seems likely to be decided by a battle between the 76-year-old former president, who has redefined the party in his image as centered primarily on grievances, and the 44-year-old governor, who has presented himself as a new and improved heir — younger, smarter and more strategic, policy-focused and disciplined.Many conservatives who dislike Mr. Trump’s constant dramas, the myriad criminal investigations he is facing and the stain of his efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election have put their hopes in a DeSantis candidacy, in a way their predecessors never did with any of Mr. Trump’s challengers in 2016.The Run-Up to the 2024 ElectionThe jockeying for the next presidential race is already underway.Education Issues: Donald J. Trump and possible Republican rivals, like Gov. Ron DeSantis, are seizing on race and gender issues in schools, but such messages had a mixed record in the midterms.No Invite for Trump: The Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group, has invited a half-dozen potential G.O.P. presidential candidates to its annual donor retreat — but not Mr. Trump.Falling in Line: With the vulnerabilities of Mr. Trump’s campaign becoming evident, the bickering among Democrats about President Biden’s potential bid for re-election has subsided.Harris’s Struggles: With Mr. Biden appearing all but certain to run again, concerns are growing over whether Kamala Harris, who is trying to define her vice presidency, will be a liability for the ticket.Mr. DeSantis has captured the attention of Republican voters and the party’s activist base by leaning into polarizing social issues from his perch as governor of a key battleground state, while so far refraining from attacking Mr. Trump and other potential 2024 rivals. He has instead insisted that he is focused on governing Florida, where the legislative session is scheduled to run from March to May.But Mr. DeSantis’s above-the-fray posture carries risk. One of the central tenets of the modern Republican Party under Mr. Trump has been the willingness to fight, ruthlessly and tirelessly.While the Florida governor has successfully portrayed himself to conservatives as a cultural warrior, his actual experience mixing it up with powerful opponents is thinner. He was barely tested last year during his re-election bid, his first since emerging as a national political figure.In a memorable debate moment, Mr. DeSantis stood by, stiffly staring ahead, as his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, demanded that the governor say whether he would serve all four years of a second term. When called upon next, Mr. DeSantis shot off a sharp canned retort, but the exchange left Mr. Crist looking like the more nimble combatant.Some deep-pocketed Republican donors have privately expressed concern about how Mr. DeSantis will perform when forced to directly engage with an opponent as combative and unbothered by traditional rules of decorum as Mr. Trump..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“No Republican has ever emerged from an exchange with Donald Trump looking stronger, so the natural tendency is to deflect his attacks and avoid confrontation,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.“That’s easy to do, and maybe even wise when his barbs are confined to Truth Social,” Mr. Donovan added, referring to Mr. Trump’s social media site, where he has fired off many of his attacks. “The question is what happens when DeSantis finds himself on a debate stage opposite Trump, and G.O.P. voters want to see whether they are getting what they were promised.”Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine Mr. DeSantis began with the “DeSanctimonious” nickname as the governor concluded his successful re-election campaign. Many conservatives — who had cheered Mr. Trump’s behavior when it was directed at Democrats — reacted angrily and were protective of Mr. DeSantis.Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump at a coronavirus response round-table event in Belleair, Fla., in July 2020.Al Drago for The New York TimesIt was a signal that Republicans might rally behind a single primary opponent to Mr. Trump in a way they did not in 2015 and 2016, when Mr. Trump called Ben Carson “pathological,” comparing him to a child molester, and insinuated that Senator Ted Cruz’s father had been linked to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.Since November, despite the criticism he faced at the time, Mr. Trump has periodically hit out at his potential rival, albeit to a relatively small audience. He posted his most recent innuendo about the governor on Truth Social, where he has just under five million followers. And he has insulted Mr. DeSantis in casual conversations, describing him as “Meatball Ron,” an apparent dig at his appearance, or “Shutdown Ron,” a reference to restrictions the governor put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.Mr. Trump’s team has been amassing data about Mr. DeSantis’s actions in response to the pandemic, in part to try to depict him as a phony.So far, Mr. DeSantis has countered Mr. Trump’s attacks with occasional needling aimed at the former president’s anxiety about being labeled a loser. While Republicans have suffered through three disappointing election cycles with Mr. Trump as the face of the party, Mr. DeSantis won re-election resoundingly in November.“Go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters days after the midterm elections, when he was asked about Mr. Trump’s criticism.A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis declined to comment. But a person familiar with the governor’s thinking said he was likely to stick with a measured approach. That means that Republicans hoping for a more aggressive stance by Mr. DeSantis, who is said to be keenly aware of how many of his supporters also like Mr. Trump, are almost certain to be disappointed.“DeSantis has been getting the benefit of an announced presidential candidate — and all the media attention that comes with that — without having to get involved in every dogfight, because he is operating under the auspices of a governor who is doing his job,” said Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist and top adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader.Taking on Mr. Trump is complicated. Republican rivals have been unable for seven years to thwart his personal attacks or to dissuade an abiding loyalty to the former president among about one-third of the party’s voters.There is often little room to question or debate Mr. Trump without being cast by him and his allies as a political adversary, or even a traitor to the country. Such slash-and-burn tactics are a staple not just of his political life, but also of his decades-long career in business before his White House tenure.“I don’t think people fully understand how ruthless he is,” said Jack O’Donnell, a former casino executive who published a book in 1991 about working with Mr. Trump, and who said he faced vicious threats when he did. “He has no boundaries. And when you’re on the receiving end of that, you wonder what’s next.”It’s unclear how long Mr. DeSantis can steer clear of the former president while both are anchored to Florida, their home state.On Feb. 21, the super PAC supporting Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign will hold its first fund-raiser of the 2024 election at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.But just days later, Mr. DeSantis will visit the same 16-mile-long barrier island, where he will host a dayslong “issues forum,” a private event for Republican donors and policy experts to meet with the governor and discuss issues that are likely to be central in a presidential campaign, according to two people who insisted on anonymity to discuss plans for an event that has not yet been announced.That Mr. DeSantis sees no currency in directly taking on Mr. Trump was underscored by the target the Florida governor preferred to aim at this past week.At a different event, Mr. DeSantis held court for about an hour behind what looked like a replica of a cable news set, sitting in the center like an anchor, with a busy digital background behind him that read “TRUTH” — an echo of the name of Mr. Trump’s website. He excoriated a favored enemy, the mainstream news media, and called for rolling back the free press’s legal protections against defamation suits.“It’s a really tough situation for DeSantis,” said Tommy Vietor, a Democratic strategist who worked for Senator Barack Obama in his brutal primary race against Hillary Clinton in 2008. “If he starts punching at Trump, he’s going to anger a lot of the people he needs to vote for him.”But, Mr. Vietor noted, “if you are viewed as weak and cower in response to attacks from Trump, that will be seen as a proxy for how you will be seen as a Republican nominee and how you’ll be as president.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Repeat Election in Berlin Speaks to the ‘Chaos’ Many Residents Feel

      by

      The do-over vote on Sunday is only the tip of the iceberg for a city some see as in crisis: short on housing, schools and efficient governance.BERLIN — The city’s airport came in more than $4 billion over budget and nine years late. Then there is the chronic housing shortage, the overcrowded schools and the crumbling subway system. If all of that is not enough to dispel any notion that Berlin is a model of efficiency, then maybe this Sunday’s court-ordered repeat election is.The vote is meant to make right the many things that went wrong in September 2021, when city and district governments were up for election but there were too few ballots and polling booths, leading to long lines at polling stations, amid the confusion of roads closed because of the Berlin Marathon.That election was annulled last year, and a panel of judges ordered a new vote, a first in modern German history. (Federal elections, also held that day, will not be done over on Sunday.) When the ballots are cast this time, there will be outside observers from the European Council, the top human rights panel on the continent — the sort of monitoring more typically done in places where there is fear of vote tampering or intimidation.“Berlin is unfortunately turning into a ‘chaos city’ — starting with politics,” Markus Söder, the belligerent governor of Bavaria, who appears to relish attacking the politics of the German capital, said recently.The disputed 2021 election was a win for the Social Democrats, the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which has been running Berlin’s government for 22 years. Franziska Giffey became the first woman elected the city’s mayor, and she formed a coalition with the Greens and the far-left Die Linke party.A crowded evening commute on Thursday at the Alexanderplatz stop.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesTrain access cut off because of construction repairs at the Nordbahnhof station.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesBut current polls have the conservative party in the lead ahead of Sunday’s election, and 68 percent of Berliners say their trust in their political institutions has declined since the last vote, according to a recent poll.Facing a major housing crisis, the city of 3.8 million is short about 125,000 apartments. Schools are understaffed, and parts of the public transportation system are offline for extensive repairs. Construction sites can snarl busy streets for months, if not longer. Major building permits can take years to process. And city services can be glacially slow, with some Berliners complaining that it can take months to get appointments for something as simple as registering a new address.“What I hate is the chaos, especially when it comes to the bureaucracy,” said Silvia Scheerer, 64, dressed in an elegant black fur-trimmed winter coat and waiting patiently for the subway, at a spot where since October trains have been running on a reduced schedule.Labor Organizing and Union DrivesApple: After a yearlong investigation, the National Labor Relations Board determined that the tech giant’s strictly enforced culture of secrecy interferes with employees’ right to organize.N.Y.C. Nurses’ Strike: Nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai in Manhattan ended a three-day strike after the hospitals agreed to add staffing and improve working conditions.Amazon: A federal labor official rejected the company’s attempt to overturn a union victory at a warehouse on Staten Island, removing a key obstacle to contract negotiations between the union and the company.Electric Vehicles: In a milestone for the sector, employees at an E.V. battery plant in Ohio voted to join the United Automobile Workers union, citing pay and safety issues as key reasons.A social worker who regularly deals with city workers in her job, she says she sees how swamped they are.“It’s worse than it’s ever been,” said Ms. Scheerer, who spent half of her life in Communist East Germany, where she said the city bureaucracy and transportation actually worked quite well.A construction site in Berlin on Thursday. It’s not uncommon for such work to disrupt busy streets for months at a time.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesMorning traffic on the A100 highway on a recent weekday.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesPart of the problem is how city government is structured. At the top level, the city is run by a mayor and senators who are elected by a city Parliament, similar to a state house in other German states. Below that are 12 district councils, each headed by a district mayor.“‘I am not in charge of that, I am not responsible for this’ and always pointing to somewhere else — that’s a classic in Berlin,” said Lorenz Maroldt, the editor in chief of the Berlin daily newspaper Tagesspiegel and a longtime chronicler of city politics and their dysfunction.This complex approach to governing makes building a single bike path that crosses several districts a nightmare, says Stefanie Remlinger, the district mayor of Mitte, in Central Berlin, which has nearly 388,000 citizens and 2,000 district staff members to handle their needs.A factor in both the housing and school crises: Berlin has absorbed thousands of new residents and refugees in recent years. Ms. Remlinger’s district currently has 55 schools; it needs five additional ones, she said, just to accommodate all of the newly arriving children.Stefanie Remlinger, the district mayor of Mitte, in her office.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesA visualization of the movement of rental bicycles in Berlin. The city’s complex system of governing makes it hard to do something like build a single bike path across several districts.Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times“Since 2015 we’ve been in crisis mode,” Ms. Remlinger said. “We’ve had a major refugee crisis to deal with, corona, the war, and with it another refugee crisis and inflation.” As in many other countries, workers are striking for better wages. This past week, both educators and other public-sector workers walked off their jobs over several days, meaning garbage piled up, medical procedures were rescheduled and students were not taught.Jochen Christiansen, 59, a sanitation worker, moved to West Berlin in the 1980s to avoid military service, as men living in the city were exempt from West Germany’s draft. Four decades ago, he said, the city worked: Rent was affordable, the schools were fully staffed and the bureaucracy was efficient.During a recent protest of city workers demanding a pay raise of 10.5 percent, he showed little sympathy for the city’s history of undertaking big-budget projects, like the beleaguered new airport, while neglecting its salaried public-sector workers.“I think it’s important to show that we’ll defend ourselves,” he said as he marched with a crowd of 2,500 public workers through central Berlin.A protest by public-sector workers in Berlin on Thursday.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesRalf Kleindiek is Berlin’s first chief digital officer.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesBut if many of Berlin’s challenges seem not unexpected for a European capital city dealing with new arrivals, inflation and a shortage of skilled workers, the failure to run an election crystallized the feeling that the administration could do better.“The vote itself might be one of the most instructive lessons on how this city doesn’t work,” said Ralf Kleindiek, who has taken on the formidable task of trying to bring the administration into the 21st century as its first chief digital officer.But luckily, says Mr. Maroldt, the newspaper editor, the city’s many problems have not robbed it of its many charms.“Despite its best efforts,” he said, “politics has not managed to spoil the fun of Berlin for most people.”Closed streets and construction work have become common sights in Berlin.Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times More