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in ElectionsJohn Eastman Blamed Pence for Violence at Jan. 6 Riot
John Eastman, the author of a memo that some in both parties liken to a blueprint for a coup, sent a hostile email to the vice president’s chief counsel as the mob attacked.WASHINGTON — As a mob was attacking the Capitol chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” a lawyer who plotted with President Donald J. Trump and his allies to try to overturn the 2020 election sent a hostile message to the vice president’s top lawyer, blaming Mr. Pence for the violence.The email, reported by The Washington Post and confirmed by a person briefed on its contents, shows the extent to which Mr. Trump and his advisers sought to pressure the vice president, who was presiding over the certification of the election, to defy the will of the voters and keep Mr. Trump in office.“The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,” the lawyer, John Eastman, wrote to Greg Jacob, Mr. Pence’s chief counsel.Mr. Pence and Mr. Jacob were in a secure room at the Capitol when Mr. Eastman sent the message, The Post said. Outside, rioters were storming the building where Congress was meeting to certify Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election, erecting a gallows, hunting for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and forcing lawmakers to evacuate in a scene of violence and mayhem. Police officers recovered guns, knives, Tasers, Molotov cocktails, explosive devices and zip ties in the area.Mr. Eastman rose within Mr. Trump’s legal circle in 2020 from a little-known conservative academic to one of the most influential voices in the president’s ear, writing a memo laying out steps he argued Mr. Pence could take to keep Mr. Trump in power — measures Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have likened to a blueprint for a coup.The two-page memo written by Mr. Eastman and circulated to the White House in the days before the certification was revealed in the book “Peril” by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. In the memo, Mr. Eastman argued that as vice president, Mr. Pence was “the ultimate arbiter” of the election, essentially saying he had the power to determine who won, and that “we should take all of our actions with that in mind.”That view was rejected by Mr. Pence and his lawyers as illegal and unethical.Since his memo was made public, Mr. Eastman has sought to distance himself from its contents, arguing that the document was taken out of context. He told National Review that the strategy was not “viable” and would have been “crazy” to pursue.But the email to Mr. Jacob undercuts those comments. Mr. Jacob wrote in a draft opinion article that Mr. Eastman showed “a shocking lack of awareness” as “a band of thugs who had been sold the lie that the vice president had the power to reverse the outcome of the election” stormed the Capitol.“Vice President Pence rejected the spurious legal theories that were pitched to him, and he did his duty,” Mr. Jacob wrote. “An inquiry should be made into whether the president’s outside lawyers did theirs.”Through a spokesman, Mr. Eastman declined to comment.The liberal activist Lauren Windsor recently recorded Mr. Eastman calling Mr. Pence an “establishment guy” and standing by the contents of his memo. “These guys are spineless,” he said of lawmakers who refused to join his plan to overturn the election based on false claims of widespread voter fraud.Trump’s Bid to Subvert the ElectionCard 1 of 6A monthslong campaign. More
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in ElectionsCourt Filing Lists Documents Trump Seeks to Withhold From Jan. 6 Inquiry
The National Archives says the former president is asserting executive privilege over phone logs, notes and other records concerning the attack on the Capitol.WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump is seeking to block from release a wide range of documents related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the National Archives said Saturday in an early-morning federal court filing detailing what Mr. Trump is fighting to keep secret.In the filing, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, John Laster, the director of the National Archives’ presidential materials division, laid out for the first time exactly which documents Mr. Trump was asserting executive privilege over. The former president is hoping to prevent the documents from being reviewed by the House committee empowered to investigate the mob violence at the Capitol.According to the filing, Mr. Trump has asserted executive privilege specifically over 770 pages of documents, including 46 pages of records from the files of Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff; Stephen Miller, his former senior adviser; and Patrick Philbin, his former deputy counsel. Mr. Trump is also objecting to the release of the White House Daily Diary — a record of the president’s movements, phone calls, trips, briefings, meetings and activities — as well as logs showing phone calls to the president and to Vice President Mike Pence concerning Jan. 6, Mr. Laster wrote.Mr. Trump has also asserted executive privilege over 656 pages that include proposed talking points for Kayleigh McEnany, his former press secretary; a handwritten note concerning Jan. 6; a draft text of a presidential speech for the “Save America” rally that preceded the mob attack; and a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity, the filing states.Finally, Mr. Trump asserted executive privilege over 68 additional pages, including a draft proclamation honoring the Capitol Police and two officers who died after the riot, Brian D. Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, as well as related emails; a memo about a potential lawsuit against several states that Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in the November election; an email chain from a state official regarding election-related issues; and talking points on alleged election irregularities in one Michigan county.The filing comes in response to a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed this month against the National Archives seeking to block the disclosure of White House files related to his actions and communications surrounding the Jan. 6 riot.In that lawsuit, in a 26-page complaint, a lawyer for Mr. Trump argued that the materials must remain secret as a matter of executive privilege. The lawyer said the Constitution gave the former president the right to demand their confidentiality even though he was no longer in office — and even though President Biden has refused to assert executive privilege over them.The lawsuit touched off what is likely to be a major legal battle between Mr. Trump and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, in which a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol seeking to disrupt Congress’s counting of electoral votes to formalize Mr. Biden’s victory. Its outcome will carry consequences for how much the panel can uncover about Mr. Trump’s role in the riot, pose thorny questions for the Biden administration and potentially forge new precedents about presidential prerogatives and the separation of powers.The leaders of the committee, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, have condemned Mr. Trump’s lawsuit as “nothing more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our probe.”“It’s hard to imagine a more compelling public interest than trying to get answers about an attack on our democracy and an attempt to overturn the results of an election,” Mr. Thompson, the committee’s chairman, and Ms. Cheney, the vice chairwoman, wrote in a statement after the suit’s filing.Understand the Claim of Executive Privilege in the Jan. 6. InquiryCard 1 of 8A key issue yet untested. More
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in ElectionsOn Vaccines and More, Republican Cowardice Harms America
Back in July, Kay Ivey, governor of Alabama, had some strong and sensible things to say about Covid-19 vaccines. “I want folks to get vaccinated,” she declared. “That’s the cure. That prevents everything.” She went on to say that the unvaccinated are “letting us down.”Three months later Ivey directed state agencies not to cooperate with federal Covid-19 vaccination mandates.Ivey’s swift journey from common sense and respect for science to destructive partisan nonsense — nonsense that is killing tens of thousands of Americans — wasn’t unique. On the contrary, it was a recapitulation of the journey the whole Republican Party has taken on issue after issue, from tax cuts to the Big Lie about the 2020 election.When we talk about the G.O.P.’s moral descent, we tend to focus on the obvious extremists, like the conspiracy theorists who claim that climate change is a hoax and Jan. 6 was a false flag operation. But the crazies wouldn’t be driving the Republican agenda so completely if it weren’t for the cowards, Republicans who clearly know better but reliably swallow their misgivings and go along with the party line. And at this point crazies and cowards essentially make up the party’s entire elected wing.Consider, for example, the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves. In 1980 George H.W. Bush, running against Ronald Reagan for the Republican presidential nomination, called that assertion “voodoo economic policy.” Everything we’ve seen since then says that he was right. But Bush soon climbed down, and by 2017 even supposed “moderates” like Susan Collins accepted claims that the Trump tax cut would reduce, not increase, the budget deficit. (It increased the deficit.)Or consider climate change. As recently as 2008 John McCain campaigned for president in part on a proposal to put a cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But at this point Republicans in Congress are united in their opposition to any substantive action to limit global warming, with 30 G.O.P. senators outright denying the overwhelming scientific evidence that human activities are causing climate change.The falsehoods that are poisoning America’s politics tend to share similar life histories. They begin in cynicism, spread through disinformation and culminate in capitulation, as Republicans who know the truth decide to acquiesce in lies.Take the claim of a stolen election. Donald Trump never had any evidence on his side, but he didn’t care — he just wanted to hold on to power or, failing that, promulgate a lie that would help him retain his hold on the G.O.P. Despite the lack of evidence and the failure of every attempt to produce or create a case, however, a steady drumbeat of propaganda has persuaded an overwhelming majority of Republicans that Joe Biden’s victory was illegitimate.And establishment Republicans, who at first pushed back against the Big Lie, have gone quiet or even begun to promote the falsehood. Thus on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal published, without corrections or fact checks, a letter to the editor from Trump that was full of demonstrable lies — and in so doing gave those lies a new, prominent platform.The G.O.P.’s journey toward what it is now with respect to Covid-19 — an anti-vaccine, objectively pro-pandemic party — followed the same trajectory.Although Republicans like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott claim that their opposition to vaccine requirements is about freedom, the fact that both governors have tried to stop private businesses from requiring customers or staff to be vaccinated shows this is a smoke screen. Pretty clearly, the anti-vaccine push began as an act of politically motivated sabotage. After all, a successful vaccination campaign that ended the pandemic would have been good political news for Biden.We should note, by the way, that this sabotage has, so far at least, paid off. While there are multiple reasons many Americans remain unvaccinated, there’s a strong correlation between a county’s political lean and both its vaccination rate and its death rate in recent months. And the persistence of Covid, which has in turn been a drag on the economy, has been an important factor dragging down Biden’s approval rating.More important for the internal dynamics of the G.O.P., however, is that many in the party’s base have bought into assertions that requiring vaccination against Covid-19 is somehow a tyrannical intrusion of the state into personal decisions. In fact, many Republican voters appear to have turned against longstanding requirements that parents have their children vaccinated against other contagious diseases.And true to form, elected Republicans like Governor Ivey who initially spoke in favor of vaccines have folded and surrendered to the extremists, even though they must know that in so doing they will cause many deaths.I’m not sure exactly why cowardice has become the norm among elected Republicans who aren’t dedicated extremists. But if you want to understand how the G.O.P. became such a threat to everything America should stand for, the cowards are at least as important a factor as the crazies.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
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in ElectionsThe Moral Chasm That Has Opened Up Between Left and Right Is Widening
There has been a remarkable erosion in public tolerance of “offensive expression about race, gender and religion,” according to Dennis Chong and Morris Levy, political scientists at the University of Southern California, and Jack Citrin, a political scientist at Berkeley.“Tolerance has declined overall,” they add, particularly “for a category of speech that is considered unworthy of First Amendment protection because it violates the goal of equality.”The three authors cite the 2018 promulgation of new guidelines by the American Civil Liberties Union — which was formerly unequivocal in its defense of free speech — as a reflection of the changing views within a large segment of the liberal community. Under the 2018 guidelines, the A.C.L.U. would now consider several factors that might warrant a refusal to take on certain cases:“Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed” depending onthe potential effect on marginalized communities; the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values; and the structural and power inequalities in the community in which the speech will occur.Chong, Citrin and Levy write:Arguments for censoring hate speech have gained ground alongside the strengthening of the principle of equality in American society. The expansion of equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities, women, L.G.B.T.Q., and other groups that have suffered discrimination has caused a re-evaluation of the harms of slurs and other derogatory expressions in professional and social life. The transformation of social attitudes regarding race, gender, and sexuality has fundamentally changed the tenor of debate over speech controversies.Traditionally, they point out,the main counterargument against free speech has been a concern for maintaining social order in the face of threatening movements and ideas, a classic divide between liberal and conservative values. Now, arguments against allowing hate speech in order to promote equality have changed the considerations underlying political tolerance and divided liberals amongst themselves. The repercussions of this value conflict between the respective norms of equality and free expression have rippled far beyond its epicenter in the universities to the forefront of American politics.In an email, Chong wrote that “the tolerance of white liberals has declined significantly since 1980, and tolerance levels are lowest among the youngest age cohorts.” If, he continued, “we add education to the mix, we find that the most pronounced declines over time have occurred among white, college educated liberals, with the youngest age cohorts again having the lowest tolerance levels.”The Chong-Citrin-Levy paper focuses on the concept of harm in shaping public policy and in the growing determination of large swaths of progressives that a paramount goal of public discourse is to avoid inflicting injury, including verbal injury, on marginalized groups. In this context, harm can be understood as injury to physical and mental health occurring “when stress levels are perpetually elevated by living in a constant state of hyper-vigilance.”Proponents of what is known as moral foundations theory — formulated in 2004 by Jonathan Haidt and Craig Joseph — argue that across all cultures “several innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of ‘intuitive ethics.’” The five foundations are care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation.One of the central claims of this theory, as described in “Mapping the Moral Domain” — a 2011 paper by Jesse Graham, Brian A. Nosek, Haidt, Ravi Iyer, Spassena Koleva and Peter H. Ditto — is thatLiberal morality would prioritize harm and fairness over the other three foundations because the “individualizing foundations” of harm and fairness are all that are needed to support the individual-focused contractual approaches to society often used in enlightenment ethics, whereas conservative morality would also incorporate in-group, authority, and purity to a substantial degree (because these ‘binding foundations’ are about binding people together into larger groups and institutions).I asked Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, about the role of concerns over ideology and gender in the changing character of liberalism.“I think we need to move beyond a simple ‘gender gap’ story to better understand how conceptualizations of womanhood impact politics,” she replied. “The first way is to think about the gender gap as a ‘feminist gap.’”From this perspective, Wronski continued, men can hold feminist values and women can be anti-feminist, noting that “the attitudes people have about gender roles in society have a bigger impact on political outcomes than simple male/female identification.”Wronski cited a paper, “Partisan Sorting and the Feminist Gap in American Politics” by Leonie Huddy and Johanna Willmann, which argues that feminism “can be distinguished from political ideology when construed as support for women’s political advancement, the equalization of male and female power, the removal of barriers that impede women’s success, and a strengthening of women’s autonomy.” Huddy and Willmann noted that in a “2015 national survey, 60 percent of women and 33 percent of men considered themselves a feminist.”There are substantial differences, however, in how feminist women and men align politically, according to their analysis:We expect women’s feminist loyalty and antipathy to play a greater role in shaping their partisanship than feminist affinity among men because feminist and anti-feminist identities have greater personal relevance for women than men, elicit stronger emotions, and will be more central to women’s political outlook.The authors created a feminism scale based on the respondent’s identification with feminism, their support for female politicians, perception of sex discrimination and gender resentment. Based on survey data from the 2012 and 2016 elections, they found thatMen scored significantly lower than women in both years (men: .55 in 2012, .46 in 2016; women: .60 in 2012, .54 in 2016). Nonetheless, men and women also overlap considerably in their support and opposition to feminism.Personality characteristics play a key role, they found: “Openness to experience consistently boosts feminism.” A predilection for authoritarianism, in contrast, “consistently lowers support for feminism” while “agreeableness promotes feminism,” although its effects are strongest “among white respondents.”So too do demographic differences: “Religiously observant men and women are less supportive of feminism than their nonobservant counterparts. Well-educated respondents, especially well-educated women, are more supportive of feminism.” Single white women are “more supportive of feminism than women living with a partner.”Getty ImagesFeminism, in addition, is strongly correlated with opposition to “traditional morality” — defined by disagreement with such statements as “we should be more tolerant of people who live according to their own moral standards” and agreement with such assertions as “the newer lifestyles are contributing to a breakdown in our society.” The correlation grew from minus .41 in 2012 to minus .53 in 2016.During this century, the power of feminism to signal partisanship has steadily increased for men and even more so for women, Huddy and Willman found: “In 2004, a strong feminist woman had a .32 chance of being a strong Democrat. This increased slightly to .35 in 2008 and then increased more substantially to .45 in 2012 and .56 in 2016.” In 2004 and 2008, “there was a .21 chance that a strong feminist male was also a strong Democrat. That increased slightly to .25 in 2012 and more dramatically to .42 in 2016.”In an email, Huddy elaborated on the partisan significance of feminist commitments:It is important to remember that women can be Democrats or Republicans, but feminists are concentrated in the Democratic Party. Appealing to an ethic of care may not attract Republican women if it conflicts with their religious views concerning the family or opposition to expanded government spending. Sending a signal to feminists that the Democratic Party is behind them shores up one of their major constituencies.In a 2018 paper, “Effect of Ideological Identification on the Endorsement of Moral Values Depends on the Target Group,” Jan G. Voelkel, a sociologist at Stanford, and Mark J. Brandt, a professor of psychology at Michigan State, argue that moral foundations theory that places liberals and conservatives in separate camps needs to be modified.Voelkel and Brandt maintain that “ideological differences in moral foundations” are not necessarily the result of differences in moral values per se, but can also be driven by “ingroup-versus-outgroup categorizations.” The authors call this second process “political group conflict hypothesis.”This hypothesis, Voelkel and Brandt contend,has its roots in research that emphasizes that people’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors are strongly influenced by the ideological groups they identify with and is consistent with work suggesting that people’s ideological identifications function like a group identification. According to this view, liberals and conservatives may selectively and flexibly endorse moral values depending on the target group of the moral act.Voelkel and Brandt cite as an example the moral foundation of fairness:The strong version of the moral divide account predicts that liberals should be more likely to endorse the fairness foundation no matter the target group. The political group conflict account makes a different prediction: Liberals will condemn unfair treatment of liberal groups and groups stereotyped as liberal more than conservatives. However, conservatives will condemn unfair treatment of conservative groups and groups stereotyped as conservative more than liberals. Such a finding would suggest that the fairness foundation is not unique to liberals, as both groups care about fairness for their own political in-groups.The surveys the authors conducted show thatConsistent with the political group conflict hypothesis, we found that the effect of ideological identification depended on whether moral acts involved liberal or conservative groups. Consistent with the moral divide hypothesis, we found the pattern identified by MFT (liberals score higher on the individualizing foundations and conservatives score higher on the binding foundations) in the moderate target condition.Put another way:We find evidence that both processes may play a part. On one hand, we provide strong evidence that conservatives endorse the binding foundations more than liberals. On the other hand, we have shown that political group conflicts substantively contribute to the relationship between ideological identification and the endorsement of moral values.The debate over moral values and political conflict has engaged new contributors.Richard Hanania, president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and a former research fellow at Columbia’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, argues thatWomen are having more of a role to play in intellectual life, so we’re moving toward female norms regarding things like tradeoffs between feelings and the search for truth. If these trends started to reverse, we could call it a “masculinization” of the culture I suppose. The male/female divide is not synonymous with right/left, as a previous generation’s leftism was much more masculine, think gender relations in communist countries or the organized labor movement in the U.S. at its peak.The role of gender in politics has been further complicated by a controversial and counterintuitive finding set forth in “The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education” by Gijsbert Stoet and David C. Geary, professors of psychology at Essex University and the University of Missouri.The authors propose that:paradoxically, countries with lower levels of gender equality had relatively more women among STEM graduates than did more gender equal countries. This is a paradox, because gender-equal countries are those that give girls and women more educational and empowerment opportunities, and generally promote girls’ and women’s engagement in STEM fields.Assuming for the moment that this gender equality paradox is real, how does it affect politics and polarization in the United States?In an email, Mohammad Atari, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Southern California and lead author of “Sex differences in moral judgments across 67 countries,” noted that “some would argue that in more gender-egalitarian societies men and women are more free to express their values regardless of external pressures to fit a predefined gender role,” suggesting an easing of tensions.Pivoting from gender to race, however, the nonpartisan Democracy Fund’s Voter Study Group this month issued “Racing Apart: Partisan Shifts on Racial Attitudes Over the Last Decade.” The study showed thatDemocrats’ and independents’ attitudes on identity-related topics diverged significantly from Republicans’ between 2011 and 2020 — including their attitudes on racial inequality, police, the Black Lives Matter movement, immigration, and Muslims. Most of this divergence derives from shifts among Democrats, who have grown much more liberal over this period.The murder of George Floyd produced a burst of racial empathy, Robert Griffin, Mayesha Quasem, John Sides and Michael Tesler wrote, but they note that poll data suggests “this shift in attitudes was largely temporary. Weekly surveys from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape project show that any aggregate changes had mostly evaporated by January 2021.”Additional evidence suggests that partisan hostility between Democrats and Republicans is steadily worsening. In their August 2021 paper, “Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization,” Levi Boxell and Matthew Gentzkow, both economists at Stanford University, and Jesse M. Shapiro, a professor of political economy at Brown, wrote:In 1978, according to our calculations, the average partisan rated in-party members 27.4 points higher than out-party members on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100. In 2020 the difference was 56.3, implying an increase of 1.08 standard deviations.Their conclusion is that over the past four decades, “the United States experienced the most rapid growth in affective polarization among the 12 O.E.C.D. countries we consider” — the other 11 are France, Sweden, Germany, Britain, Norway, Denmark, Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland.In other words, whether we evaluate the current conflict-ridden political climate in terms of moral foundations theory, feminism or the political group conflict hypothesis, the trends are not favorable, especially if the outcome of the 2024 presidential election is close.If the continuing anger, resentment and denial among Republicans in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential contest is a precursor of the next election, current trends, in combination with the politicization of election administration by Republican state legislatures, suggest that the loser in 2024, Republican or Democrat, will not take defeat lying down.The forces fracturing the political system are clearly stronger than the forces pushing for consensus.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
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in ElectionsAn Oath Keeper Was at the Capitol Riot. On Tuesday, He’s on the Ballot.
Edward Durfee Jr. is a member of the far-right militia and was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He is now running for office in New Jersey.Edward Durfee Jr. is many things: a former Marine, a libertarian who distrusts the Federal Reserve and an active member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia who leads the group’s northern New Jersey region and was outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack.He is also running for the New Jersey State Assembly as a Republican.More than 20 Oath Keepers have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors have accused members of the militia of plotting to overturn the election by breaching the Capitol and making plans to ferry “heavy weapons” in a boat across the Potomac River into Washington.Mr. Durfee, a 67-year-old tech consultant, said he did not enter the Capitol during the assault, and he condemned the violence that led to several deaths.But he wholeheartedly embraces the ideology of the Oath Keepers, an antigovernment group that pledges to support and defend its interpretation of the Constitution against all enemies.The group, whose name comes from their original mission to disobey certain government orders, became a zealous supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories about “deep-state” cabals attempting to overthrow him and embracing his relentless lies that the 2020 election was illegitimate.Mr. Durfee said he went to Washington in January to “stop the steal” and to protest against disproved claims of election fraud.Mr. Durfee, in blue, outside of the Capitol on Jan. 6 with the Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes.Eric WoodsBut he is more than just a fringe candidate mounting a long-shot race for the Legislature.He also leads the Republican committee in the town where he lives, Northvale, underscoring the extent to which right-wing activism has become increasingly mainstream within the G.O.P., even in a Democratic stronghold like Bergen County, less than 30 miles from Manhattan.The Oath Keepers, founded more than a decade ago, are known to draw members from the ranks of former military and law enforcement personnel. But records from the militia group, leaked after a database was hacked and shared with a group known as Distributed Denial of Secrets, have offered a new window into the organization’s links to active-duty police officers and government officials.In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that any officer associated with the Oath Keepers should be investigated — and fired.Tuesday’s election in New Jersey features a matchup between Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican, and the Democratic incumbent, Philip D. Murphy, one of just two governor’s races in the country. All seats are also on the ballot in the state Legislature, where Democrats are expected to retain majority control.Mr. Durfee — who gathered 165 signatures to get on the ballot and then ran unopposed in the primary — has called for ending all governmental oversight of parental rights, permitting families to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay for private and parochial schools, and cutting state agency budgets by 5 percent.He has few illusions of outright victory.“I’m an oxymoron in government,” he said. “I’m on the ballot because nobody challenged me. There’s that lack of participation among our citizens.”He is running to represent a liberal area of northern New Jersey just across the Hudson River from New York. Registered Democrats in the district outnumber Republicans by more than three to one, making it difficult to find Republicans willing to invest the time and money to mount hard-to-win campaigns, party leaders said. (A frequent Republican candidate in the district, Dierdre Paul, called them “kamikaze races.”)“I’m not this ogre that’s hiding behind the fence — ‘Oh, here comes one of them Democrats. Let’s jump on them,’” Mr. Durfee said.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesThe county’s Republican chairman, Jack Zisa, defended Mr. Durfee as a “mild-mannered conservative,” but said that his main attribute was far more transactional: He was the only person willing to run.“It’s a very tough district for Republicans and Mr. Durfee was, frankly, one of only a couple people who put his name in,” Mr. Zisa said.Mr. Durfee is one of dozens of Oath Keepers across the country who are already in office or running for election, nearly all of them Republicans, according to a ProPublica analysis of the hacked database.Roy Sokoloski, a Republican, was involved with recruiting candidates to run for office when he was a councilman in Northvale, a 5,000-person town on the northern border with New York State. He and Mr. Durfee worship at the same Roman Catholic church.“If you don’t know his political background, he’s a nice fellow,” said Mr. Sokoloski, an architect.But he believes Mr. Durfee’s candidacy is an ominous sign for a once-formidable party struggling to remain relevant in a state with nearly 1.1 million more registered Democrats than Republicans.“He’s the worst candidate that the Republicans could have endorsed,” said Mr. Sokoloski, who said he voted against Mr. Trump twice and spoke wistfully of a time when G.O.P. leaders focused on issues like high taxes, not overturning elections.“If the Republican Party can only find people like that,” he said, “what does that say about the party?”Mr. Durfee said he drove from New Jersey on Jan. 6 to help with an Oath Keeper security detail. “We weren’t enforcers,” Mr. Durfee said. “We were just there as eyes.”He said he was close enough to the chaos to get doused with pepper spray, but far enough away to avoid being swept into the crowd that rampaged through the Capitol.Brian D. Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who grew up in New Jersey and faced off against the angry mob, died after suffering what a medical examiner ruled were multiple strokes.“It just morphed into something and got out of control,” Mr. Durfee said. “It’s just shameful.”A devotee of the libertarian Ron Paul, Mr. Durfee speaks openly about his involvement with the Oath Keepers, which he said he joined in 2009, the year it was founded following the election of Barack Obama.Mr. Durfee runs the Oath Keepers’ northern New Jersey operation and said he was responsible for maintaining the national group’s email and membership lists, which were included in the documents that were hacked.Mr. Durfee, a tech consultant, says he maintains the Oath Keepers’ membership database. The list was hacked, offering a clearer understanding of people linked to the far-right militia group.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesHis campaign, he said, has consisted mainly of attending community events, handing out business cards and directing people to a candidate website he built.He has little money to spend in his race against the Democratic Assembly candidates, Shama A. Haider and Ellen J. Park. He and two other candidates running on the Republican line for the Legislature have reported that, as a group, they do not expect to spend more than $15,800.He has not gotten support from the state Republican Party, and Mr. Ciattarelli has tried to distance himself from Mr. Durfee. “Anyone who advocates terrorism, or had anything to do with the insurrection, has no place in our party,” said Chris Russell, a strategist for the Ciattarelli campaign..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Durfee said he preferred to keep his savings in precious metals based on a worry that paper “fiat money” will eventually be devalued.“I have dollars for my wife — we all have to live,” he said. “But I save in silver and gold.”He spent two years in the Marines in noncombat roles. After earning his G.E.D., he took classes in computer programming at Chubb Institute. Last year, he lost a race for Northvale councilman.A grandfather of three who opposes abortion, he is an ardent Catholic and a fourth-degree member of the Knights of Columbus, a rank given for patriotism.“I’m not this ogre that’s hiding behind the fence — ‘Oh, here comes one of them Democrats. Let’s jump on them,’” he said.Mr. Durfee participated in a videoconference with the Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, and dozens of other members 10 days after the 2020 election, according to a leaked recording of the call released by Unicorn Riot, an alternative media site. As speakers discussed upcoming protests in Washington, Mr. Durfee can be heard urging people to “show the respect that we have for our country and our Constitution.”“We’re not coming down there with fisticuffs, unless, you know,” he said, his voice trailing off.“We’re all eager to be overzealous,” he added, “but we still have to maintain that position of respect for our flag and for our country.”Instead, the violence that unfolded shook the nation, leading to the arrests of more than 600 people and a congressional investigation into what the F.B.I. has called domestic terrorism.Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, a Democrat who represents Mr. Durfee’s district, said she saw his candidacy mainly as an indicator of Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, even in liberal bastions like Bergen County.Republican strongholds still exist in New Jersey, especially in the rural northwest and along the Jersey Shore; Mr. Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr. statewide by 16 percentage points, yet beat him in Ocean County by 29 points.Still, Ms. Huttle said she was surprised to see such a far-right candidate vying for a seat she has held for 15 years.“I would understand it in South Jersey,” said Ms. Huttle, who lost a primary race for State Senate and will be leaving the Legislature in January. “I don’t understand it here.”Mr. Zisa, the Republican chairman, said it would be inaccurate to read too much into Mr. Durfee’s candidacy.“We’re the Republican Party,” he said. “We’re not the Oath Keeper party.”Nonetheless, he is hoping to capitalize on the media interest in Mr. Durfee’s affiliation with the extremist group. If it boosts turnout, he said, it could result in spinoff value for Republican candidates in more competitive races.“This might drive the Republican voter out,” Mr. Zisa said. More
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in ElectionsEnd the Secrecy. Open Up Adoption Records.
More from our inbox:Facebook MisinformationErasing Older Women at the Art Institute of ChicagoA Conversation With VotersSam Anthony, left, with his birth father, Craig Nelson, at Mr. Anthony’s home in Falls Church, Va., in August.Debra Steidel WallTo the Editor:Re “With DNA and Friend’s Help, a Dying Son Finds His Father” (front page, Oct. 10):If we continue to keep the process of finding one’s birth family and opening birth records as difficult as possible, as with Sam Anthony, profiled in your article, we are preventing valuable family connections that should be a basic human right.Adoptees are often completely cut off from our birth families the second our adoption papers are finalized. If it weren’t for DNA testing I would never have discovered that two half-siblings of mine had been adopted into a different family a few states away.Adoptees should not have to go to great lengths to reconnect with their birth family. But, unfortunately, the complicated and often expensive process of DNA testing and hiring private investigators is often the only way to find biological relatives.When birth records are sealed, adoptees suffer in order to uphold an archaic standard that was meant to shroud adoptions in secrecy to prevent shame. We live in a different era now and, like Sam, deserve a right to our records.Melissa Guida-RichardsMilford, Pa.The writer is the author of “What White Parents Should Know About Transracial Adoption.”To the Editor:This is the latest article in The Times exposing the egregious practice of denying adoptees the truth about their beginnings and hiding the babies’ fate from their birth parents.Steve Inskeep’s March 28 essay, “I Was Denied My Birth Story,” revealed his fury about not knowing “the story of how I came to live on this earth. Strangers hid part of me from myself.”Lisa Belkin reviewed Gabrielle Glaser’s book “American Baby” (Book Review, Jan. 24), another tragic tale about when adoptions are closed.How many tragic tales do we have to hear to understand that birth parents, adoptive families and adoptees need to know one another? How many children must lie awake at night wondering why they were given away? How many adoptees do not know their genetic history?The solution is easy — open adoption in which birth parents and adoptive families choose each other and stay in touch through social media, texts, photos and visits.With Ancestry.com and 23andMe closed adoptions do not remain closed. Why not avoid the emotional pain by sharing the truth from the beginning?Nancy KorsWalnut Creek, Calif.The writer is an adoption facilitator.Facebook Misinformation Illustration by Mel Haasch; Photograph by Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Misinformation Tripped Alarms Inside Facebook” (front page, Oct. 24):New disclosures that point to a disconnect between self-serving public statements of Facebook executives and the internal expressions of concern of lower-level employees surrounding the 2020 election paint a picture of a company policy that enables and protects misinformation.These revelations, especially those involving the Jan. 6 insurrection, suggest that management overlooks or even accepts incendiary content in its pursuit of profits — a practice that is often out of sync with the conscience of its employees and is at odds with the best interests of the public.Taken together with the recent testimony of the whistle-blower Frances Haugen, who detailed to Congress a corporate culture that places profits ahead of its users’ mental health, this new documentation clearly strengthens the case for congressional oversight and public awareness.Facebook’s reach and influence are so vast that its apparent unwillingness to filter misinformation exceeds the bounds of free speech, harming its users and putting democracy at risk. The company has had a good run, but the days of its free ride maybe numbered.Roger HirschbergSouth Burlington, Vt.Erasing Older Women at the Art Institute of Chicago Art Institute of ChicagoTo the Editor:Re “Museum Ousts Volunteers in Diversity Push. Uproar Ensues.” (news article, Oct. 22):Alas, the invisible old woman! While your article on the Art Institute of Chicago’s decision to end the volunteer careers of 82 docents focused on the controversy over the racial makeup of the docents, it neglected to really deal with the overt age discrimination that such otherwise worthwhile pushes for greater diversity promote.Not all docents are older or female, but they tend to be. Largely, they can volunteer with such expertise and loyalty because after long careers and/or raising families, many finally have the time to turn to volunteering in their communities. Yet the museum — along with much of our society — invalidates these older women, erasing their presence.Dee BaerWilmington, Del.The writer is a senior guide at the Delaware Art Museum.A Conversation With Voters Aaron Nesheim for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Anti-Robocall: Listening to Voters Talk” (news article, Oct. 21):This wonderful article identifies a way to improve the minimal communication that currently prevails among those holding different opinions regarding values and public policy.As psychologists and spiritual teachers have long observed, deep, nonjudgmental listening to others with diverse perspectives can increase compassion for one another and perhaps lead to compromise solutions to the serious problems afflicting our nation and the world.Would that our Congress might take heed and schedule such listening sessions about the national issues too often discussed secretly that leave the public uninformed. Broadcasting honest dialogues that state positions and not just attacks on the other side on TV and the internet would manifest a concern for an informed citizenry.Bruce KerievskyMonroe Township, N.J. More
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in ElectionsCori Bush and AOC Are Right About Jan. 6 and 1866
When, in the early morning hours of Jan. 7, Congress finally certified the 2020 Electoral College count, more than 140 Republican members of Congress had voted, in one way or another, to reject the outcome. They had embraced the spirit of the mob that stormed the Capitol the day before, even if they had not physically joined it.With that said, there was a smaller number of congressional Republicans who may have gone further than simply casting a vote the way President Donald Trump wanted them to, in the days leading up to Jan. 6. According to a new report by Hunter Walker in Rolling Stone, “Multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process.”Walker’s sources, two unnamed organizers who say they helped plan the rallies, claim that Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn and Louie Gohmert or members of their staffs spoke to or collaborated with pro-Trump activists in the days, weeks and months before the attack on the Capitol. Gosar, a staunch defender of the former president, reportedly told potential rally goers that Trump would give them a “blanket pardon” for their activities.Greene, Gohmert, Boebert, Brooks, Cawthorn and Biggs have all pushed back strongly on the Rolling Stone report, which appeared over the weekend. Gosar called it “categorically false and defamatory.”“There was a meeting at the White House about voter fraud and election theft activity,” Brooks said. “But I have no recollection of any kind of organizational activity regarding the speeches on Jan. 6.”For his part, Gohmert released a statement Monday: “No one in my office, including me, participated in the planning of the rally or in any criminal activity on Jan. 6. We did not attend or participate at all.”Boebert also issued a statement on Monday: “Let me be clear. I had no role in the planning or execution of any event that took place at the Capitol or anywhere in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6th.”The organizers who spoke to Rolling Stone apparently plan to testify before the Jan. 6 select committee to provide more details about what they say was collaboration between Republican lawmakers and the pro-Trump activists who planned the events that ultimately led to the attack.In the meantime, some Democrats are already calling for their removal from office.“Any member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation’s Capitol must be expelled,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy, our country, and human life in the vicinity of our Capitol and beyond.”Likewise, Representative Cori Bush of Missouri said on Twitter that the House must “investigate and expel members of Congress who helped incite the deadly insurrection on our Capitol.”Bush had actually introduced a House resolution for this purpose just days after the attack. “There is no place in the people’s House for these heinous actions,” she said at the time, referring to “members who attempted to disenfranchise voters and incited this violence.”“I firmly believe,” she went on, “that these members are in breach of their sworn Oath of Office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. They must be held accountable.”They weren’t. There was simply no appetite, among House leadership, for such drastic and decisive action. There still isn’t. But it was a serious demand, and we should take it seriously.Bush’s resolution rests on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which cleared Congress in 1866 and was ratified in 1868:No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.In plain English, Congress has the power and authority to expel from office any constitutional officer who engages in sedition and takes up arms against the Constitution of the United States.The original context for this, obviously, was the Civil War and its immediate aftermath. By the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson, a conservative unionist from Tennessee, had taken charge of Reconstruction with a plan to restore the Southern states as equals, their political and constitutional status essentially unchanged from what it was before the war.Under Johnson’s arrangement, the former Confederate states could operate under their antebellum constitutions, the end of slavery notwithstanding. All-white electorates could elect all-white legislatures and send all-white delegations to Washington. Some of these men were, like Johnson, conservative unionists. Many more were former rebel leaders. Alexander Stephens — of the infamous Cornerstone Speech — was elected to represent Georgia in the Senate in 1866 after he was arrested and imprisoned as the former vice president of the Confederacy in 1865.Either way, neither group supported anything like fundamental change to the social and political fabric of the South. If seated, these delegations to Congress would stymie and block any Republican effort to reconstruct the South as an open society with free labor.Indeed, had every Southern representative been seated, Republicans would not have had the votes to get the 14th Amendment through Congress in the first place, on account of the two-thirds majority requirement for passage.Worse than potential obstruction was the real chance that the South would re-enter Congress with as much, or more, political power than it had before the war. The 13th Amendment had abolished chattel slavery, which effectively gutted the three-fifths compromise. And thanks to Johnson, recalcitrant Southern elites could form new governments without extending the vote to free and recently freed Blacks. When the 14th Amendment repealed the three-fifths compromise outright, the effect would be to give the South a considerable bonus in Congress.“Beginning with the reapportionment of 1870,” the legal scholar Garrett Epps writes in “The Antebellum Political Background of the Fourteenth Amendment,” “the Southern states would receive full representation for each freed slave rather than a mere sixty percent, a change that would give the region thirteen more House seats and electoral votes without the extension of minimal political rights, much less the franchise, to the freed slaves who formed the basis of the representation.”To head off this threat, Republicans took two steps. First, they refused to recognize, much less seat, members from the states readmitted under Johnson’s policies. And then, looking to the future, they wrote this prohibition on former Confederate leaders into the Constitution as Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Republicans would prevent the re-ascendence of this “slave power” with a blockade of federal office deployed against Southern elites.If the ultimate goal of Section 3, in other words, was to preserve the integrity of Congress against those who would capture its power and plot against the constitutional order itself, then Representative Bush is right to cite the clause against any members of Congress who turn out to have collaborated with the plotters to overturn the election and whose allies are still fighting to “stop the steal.”There is a movement afoot to undermine electoral democracy for the sake of a would-be strongman. We have the tools to stop it. Congress, and by this I mean the Democratic majority, should use them.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