Presidential Election of 2020

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      Is There a Lockstep Mentality on the Left?

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      To the Editor:Re “Groupthink Has Left the Left Blind,” by Bret Stephens (column, Nov. 17):I have read a great deal lately about how the woke left delivered the victory to President-elect Joe Biden and should be recognized and rewarded for its contribution. This incisive and insightful piece by Mr. Stephens may lead us to quite a different conclusion.Perhaps the dogmatic groupthink of the radical left and the media attention it garnered actually nearly cost Mr. Biden the election and seriously eroded what could have been a blue wall in down-ballot contests. At the risk of excommunication from the liberal community I have always embraced, let me say that “leftism” continues to break a singular rule of combat: Never hand your opponent a loaded gun!Cullen SchippeAlbuquerqueTo the Editor:I could be more sympathetic to Bret Stephens’s argument that leftist elites — who allegedly demand conformity of thought — are alienating centrist liberals if more than a handful of congressional Republicans could acknowledge that Joe Biden won the presidency. Clearly no political party has a corner on lockstep mentality.If my choice is between lemming Trumpers who reduce all liberals to socialists, Communists and anarchists and ditch our democratic norm of accepting fair election results, or leftist woke forces, I will gladly take my chances with the latter.Amy LefkofCharlotte, N.C.To the Editor:Three cheers for Bret Stephens as he articulates exactly what I feel as a white, female, senior lifelong Democrat. I am tired of the woke part of the Democratic Party making me feel guilty for the accident of my birth: being white of Northern European descent.I am tired of the politics of identity when identity does not decide how everyone sharing that identity thinks or acts. I am tired of the liberals who cannot look beyond the personality of the president to recognize that he may actually have done something good.Get out from behind the screen of pious disapproval and learn about others who can actually be rational when they make decisions that don’t agree with yours.Lynn BentPortola Valley, Calif.To the Editor:I consider myself one of those “woke” whom Bret Stephens refers to. I strive to be actively attentive to important issues, especially of racial and social justice. I also believe we have a moral obligation to “stay woke,” to take a stand and be active, challenging injustices and racism in our communities and fighting hatred and discrimination wherever it rises.I firmly believe that Donald Trump has harmed the soul of America. Wokes forever!Louis CampagnaRidgefield, Conn.To the Editor:Bret Stephens is right that many on the left had blinders on during the election. Which is why I am optimistic. President Trump may have lost the match but he is not down for the count. The House races saw important G.O.P. gains, and Republicans may well win the majority in 2022. Republicans are likely to hold on to the Senate. And Mr. Trump somehow managed to get three conservatives seated on the Supreme Court.I wouldn’t be surprised to see his victorious return in 2024, after people tire of the lockdowns and high taxes imposed by the Biden administration.David TulanianLas VegasTo the Editor:Even as a lifelong liberal Democrat, I readily concede, as Bret Stephens contends, that the left has turned its back on complexity and nuance, and harmed its own moral standing in the process. The progressive wing of the party fails to appreciate the extent to which it alienates a large segment of the population, or the reasons. And I get how no one wants to feel looked down upon.But how are we to respond, Mr. Stephens, to those who claim, as U.S. deaths pass 250,000, that the virus is a hoax, or those who insist, with no evidence whatsoever, that they know — just know — that the election was rigged, stolen, fake?Karen McAndrew AllenShelburne, Vt.To the Editor:Bret Stephens’s column would be more persuasive if the centrist faction of the Democratic Party actually stood behind policy positions that are up to the task of addressing the massive social failures left in the wake of decades of neoliberalism and winner-take-all capitalism. The center instead only offers more of the same corporatist policies that gave rise to the cult of Donald Trump in the first place.To win big, Democrats must pay heed to the needs of disaffected Trump voters. The party must present an inspiring vision for the middle class that addresses systemic macroeconomic issues such as the widening wealth gap, access to health care and education, monopoly power and money in politics.We can fight right-wing populism only with left-wing populism. Moderation just holds the door open for demagogues.Robert FerrySeattle More

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      Facebook se debate entre combatir la desinformación y no afectar su crecimiento

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      SAN FRANCISCO — En los tensos días posteriores a la elección presidencial, un equipo de empleados de Facebook presentó al director ejecutivo, Mark Zuckerberg, un hallazgo alarmante: la desinformación relacionada con las elecciones se estaba volviendo viral en la plataforma.El presidente Donald Trump decía que la elección había sido amañada, y las historias de los medios de comunicación de derecha con afirmaciones falsas y engañosas sobre los votos desechados, los votos mal contados y los conteos sesgados estaban entre las noticias más populares de la plataforma.En respuesta, los empleados propusieron un cambio de emergencia en el algoritmo de noticias del sitio, que ayuda a determinar lo que más de 2000 millones de personas ven todos los días. Se trataba de hacer énfasis en la importancia de lo que Facebook denomina puntuaciones de “calidad del ecosistema de noticias”, o NEQ (por su sigla en inglés), una clasificación interna secreta que asigna a los medios noticiosos en función de las señales sobre la calidad de su periodismo.Por lo general, los puntajes NEQ desempeñan un papel menor en la determinación de lo que aparece en los muros de los usuarios. Sin embargo, varios días después de la elección, Zuckerberg acordó aumentar el peso que el algoritmo de Facebook le dio a los puntajes NEQ para asegurarse de que las noticias autorizadas aparecieran de manera más prominente, según dijeron tres personas que tienen información sobre la decisión y que no están autorizadas a divulgar las discusiones internas.El cambio forma parte de los planes de “remodelación” que Facebook desarrolló durante meses para lidiar con las secuelas de una elección disputada. Dio como resultado un aumento de visibilidad para grandes medios como CNN, The New York Times y NPR, mientras que los mensajes de páginas hiperpartidistas muy comprometidas, como Breitbart y Occupy Democrats, se volvieron menos visibles, señalaron los empleados.Era una visión de lo que podría ser un Facebook más tranquilo y menos polarizador. Algunos empleados argumentaron que el cambio debía ser permanente, aunque no estaba claro cómo podría afectar la cantidad de tiempo que la gente pasaba en Facebook. En una reunión de empleados celebrada la semana posterior a la elección, los trabajadores preguntaron si el “canal de noticias mejorado” podía mantenerse, dijeron dos personas que asistieron a la junta.Guy Rosen, un ejecutivo de Facebook que supervisa la división de integridad encargada de la limpieza de la plataforma, dijo durante una llamada con reporteros la semana pasada que los cambios siempre fueron temporales. “Nunca ha habido un plan para volverlos permanentes”, afirmó. John Hegeman, quien supervisa el canal de noticias, dijo en una entrevista que, aunque Facebook podría dar marcha atrás a estos experimentos, los analizaría y aprendería de ellos.El debate sobre las noticias ilustra una tensión central que algunos miembros de Facebook están sintiendo en la actualidad: que las aspiraciones de la compañía de mejorar el mundo a menudo están en conflicto con su deseo de dominio.En los últimos meses, a medida que Facebook ha sido objeto de un mayor escrutinio en cuanto a su papel en la amplificación de información falsa y divisiva, sus empleados se han enfrentado por el futuro de la empresa. Por un lado están los idealistas, incluyendo a muchos trabajadores de base y algunos ejecutivos, que quieren hacer más para limitar la desinformación y la polarización del contenido. Por otro lado están los pragmáticos, quienes temen que esas medidas puedan perjudicar el crecimiento de Facebook o provocar una reacción política que ocasione una regulación dolorosa.“Hay tensiones en casi todas las decisiones de productos que tomamos, y en toda la compañía hemos desarrollado una política llamada ‘Mejores decisiones’ para asegurarnos de que las tomamos con precisión, y que nuestros objetivos están directamente conectados con el hecho de ofrecer las mejores experiencias posibles para las personas”, dijo Joe Osborne, portavoz de Facebook.Estas batallas han afectado la moral. En una encuesta a los empleados aplicada este mes, los trabajadores de Facebook reportaron sentirse menos orgullosos de la compañía en comparación con años anteriores. Solo cerca de la mitad sentía que Facebook tenía un impacto positivo en el mundo, por debajo de las tres cuartas partes que opinaron eso a principios de este año, según una copia de la encuesta, conocida como Pulse, que fue analizada por The New York Times. La “intención de quedarse” de los empleados también disminuyó, así como la confianza en el liderazgo.BuzzFeed News informó previamente sobre los resultados del sondeo.Aunque el día de las elecciones y sus secuelas han pasado con pocos incidentes, algunos empleados desilusionados renunciaron; alegaron que ya no podían trabajar para una compañía cuyos productos creen que son perjudiciales. Otros se han quedado, bajo el razonamiento de que pueden cambiar las cosas desde el interior. Otros han hecho el cálculo moral de que, a final de cuentas, incluso con sus defectos, Facebook hace más bien que mal.“Los salarios de Facebook están entre los más altos del sector tecnológico en este momento, y cuando te vas a casa con un cheque gigante cada dos semanas, tienes que convencerte de que es por una buena causa”, comentó Gregor Hochmuth, exingeniero de Instagram, propiedad de Facebook, quien dejó la compañía en 2014. “De lo contrario, tu trabajo no es muy diferente del de otras industrias que destrozan el planeta y pagan a sus empleados de manera exorbitante para ayudarles a que se olviden de eso”.Con la mayoría de los empleados trabajando a distancia durante la pandemia, gran parte del examen de conciencia ha tenido lugar en Workplace, la red interna de Facebook.En mayo, al calor de las protestas de Black Lives Matter, Zuckerberg enfureció a muchos empleados cuando se negó a remover una publicación del presidente Trump que decía “cuando empieza el saqueo, empieza el tiroteo”. Los legisladores y los grupos de derechos civiles dijeron que la publicación impulsaba la violencia contra los manifestantes y pidieron que fuera retirada. Pero Zuckerberg dijo que la publicación no violaba las reglas de Facebook.Para señalar su insatisfacción, varios empleados formaron un nuevo grupo en Workplace, llamado “Take Action”. La gente en el grupo, que se incrementó hasta alcanzar más de 1500 miembros, cambiaron sus fotos de perfil a una imagen de un puño levantado de Black Lives Matter.El grupo se convirtió en un hogar para la disidencia interna y el humor negro sobre las debilidades de Facebook. En varias ocasiones, los empleados reaccionaron a las noticias negativas sobre la compañía publicando un meme de una escena de una comedia británica en la que dos nazis tienen una epifanía moral y se preguntan: “¿Somos los malos?”.En junio, los trabajadores organizaron un paro virtual para protestar por las decisiones de Zuckerberg sobre las publicaciones de Trump.En septiembre, Facebook actualizó sus políticas para los empleados con el fin de desalentar a los trabajadores de mantener debates políticos contenciosos en foros abiertos de Workplace, al decir que deberían limitar las conversaciones a espacios específicamente designados. También exigió a los empleados que usaran sus rostros reales o la primera inicial de sus nombres como la foto de su perfil, un cambio interpretado por algunos trabajadores como una medida represiva.Varios empleados dijeron que se sentían frustrados porque, para abordar temas delicados como la desinformación, a menudo tenían que demostrar que las soluciones propuestas no enojarían a los poderosos partidarios ni se harían a expensas del crecimiento de Facebook.Las ventajas y desventajas se evidenciaron este mes, cuando los ingenieros y científicos de datos de Facebook publicaron los resultados de una serie de experimentos llamados “P (Malo para el Mundo)”.La compañía había encuestado a los usuarios acerca de si ciertas publicaciones que habían visto eran “buenas para el mundo” o “malas para el mundo”. Encontraron que las publicaciones de alto alcance —vistas por muchos usuarios— tenían más probabilidades de ser consideradas “malas para el mundo”, un hallazgo que algunos empleados dijeron que les alarmaba.Así que el equipo entrenó un algoritmo de aprendizaje automático para predecir los mensajes que los usuarios considerarían como “malos para el mundo” y rebajarlos en los canales de noticias. En las primeras pruebas, el nuevo algoritmo redujo con éxito la visibilidad de los contenidos censurables. Pero también redujo el número de veces que los usuarios abrieron Facebook, una métrica interna conocida como “sesiones” que los ejecutivos monitorean de cerca.“Los resultados fueron buenos, excepto que llevó a una disminución de las sesiones, lo que nos motivó a probar un enfoque diferente”, según un resumen de los resultados, que fue publicado en la red interna de Facebook y revisado por el Times.Luego, el equipo realizó un segundo experimento en el que ajustaron el algoritmo para que un conjunto más grande de contenido “malo para el mundo” fuera rebajado con menos fuerza. Aunque eso dejaba publicaciones controversiales en los canales de noticias de los usuarios, no reducía sus sesiones o el tiempo empleado.Ese cambio fue aprobado en última instancia. Pero otras características que los empleados desarrollaron antes de la elección nunca lo fueron.Una, llamada “corregir el registro”, habría notificado retroactivamente a los usuarios que habían interactuado con noticias falsas y los habría dirigido a una verificación independiente de los hechos. Los empleados de Facebook propusieron ampliar el producto, que actualmente se utiliza para notificar a las personas que han compartido información falsa sobre la COVID-19, para que se aplique a otros tipos de información falsa.Pero eso fue vetado por los ejecutivos de políticas que temían que mostrara desproporcionadamente las notificaciones a las personas que compartían noticias falsas de sitios web de derecha, según dos personas familiarizadas con las conversaciones.Otro producto, un algoritmo para clasificar y degradar el “cebo de odio” —publicaciones que no violan estrictamente las reglas de discurso de odio de Facebook, pero que provocan una avalancha de comentarios de odio— se limitó a ser utilizado solo en grupos, en lugar de páginas, después de que el equipo de políticas determinó que afectaría principalmente a los editores de derecha si se aplicaba más ampliamente, dijeron dos personas familiarizadas con esa estrategia.Rosen, el ejecutivo de integridad de Facebook, impugnó esas caracterizaciones en una entrevista, que se celebró con la condición de que no se le citara directamente.Dijo que la herramienta “corregir el registro” no era tan eficaz como se esperaba, y que la empresa había decidido centrarse en otras maneras de poner freno a la información errónea. También dijo que la aplicación del detector de “cebo de odio” a las páginas de Facebook podría castigar injustamente a los editores por los comentarios de odio dejados por sus seguidores, o hacer posible que los malos actores dañen el alcance de una página al enviar spam con comentarios tóxicos. Ninguno de los dos proyectos fue archivado por preocupaciones políticas o porque redujo el uso de Facebook, dijo.“Ningún cambio en el canal de noticias se realiza únicamente por su impacto en el tiempo empleado”, dijo Osborne, el portavoz de Facebook. Añadió que las personas que hablaron con el Times no tenían autoridad para tomar decisiones.De alguna manera, al final del gobierno de Trump, los cambios de Facebook para limpiar su plataforma se volverán más fáciles. Por años, Trump y otros líderes conservadores acusaron a la compañía de tener sesgos anticonservadores cada vez que tomaba medidas para limitar la desinformación.No obstante, incluso con el gobierno de Biden entrante, Facebook deberá equilibrar el deseo de los empleados de tener responsabilidad social con sus objetivos comerciales.“La pregunta es esta: ¿qué han aprendido de estas elecciones para dar forma a sus políticas en el futuro?”, opinó Vanita Gupta, directora ejecutiva del grupo de derechos civiles Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “Mi preocupación es que reviertan todos estos cambios a pesar de que las condiciones que los impulsaron se sigan presentando”.En una reunión virtual de empleados celebrada la semana pasada, los ejecutivos describieron lo que vieron como éxitos electorales de Facebook, dijeron dos personas que asistieron. Mientras que el sitio seguía lleno de publicaciones que afirmaban falsamente que la elección estaba amañada, Chris Cox, jefe de producto de Facebook, dijo que estaba orgulloso de cómo la compañía había aplicado etiquetas a la información errónea relacionada con la elección, e indicado a los usuarios la información autorizada sobre los resultados, dijeron las personas.Luego la transmisión se cortó para mostrar un video que era una suerte de refuerzo moral por el Día de Acción de Gracias y que presentaba un desfile de empleados que hablaban sobre lo que estaban agradecidos este año.Kevin Roose es columnista de tecnología para el Times. Su columna The Shift, analiza la intersección de la tecnología, los negocios y la cultura. Puedes encontrarlo en Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, o Instagram. • FacebookMike Isaac es reportero de tecnología y autor de Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, que ha estado en la lista de los más vendidos del NYT sobre el dramático ascenso y caída de la compañía de transporte de pasajeros. Cubre regularmente Facebook y Silicon Valley, y tiene sede en el buró de San Francisco del Times. @MikeIsaacSheera Frenkel cubre temas de ciberseguridad desde San Francisco. Pasó más de una década en el Medio Oriente como corresponsal en el extranjero para BuzzFeed, NPR, The Times of London y los diarios McClatchy. @sheeraf More

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      ‘Democracy Should Not Be Taken for Granted’

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      “Mr. Biden has vowed to turn the page on the ‘aberration’ of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy,” wrote Robert Malley and Philip H. Gordon in the Op-Ed “Trump Still Has 70 Days to Wreak Havoc Around the World.” But is that what people around the world really want?We asked readers living outside of the United States to give us their perspectives on the election and the way that President Trump and President-elect Biden have handled the transition. Some were disappointed in the results.“Trump is not popular in Korea, but his actions to break through the long-frozen U.S. and North Korean relationship were very promising,” wrote Youngsook Soahn in Seoul, South Korea. “I doubt a President Biden and the Democrats will do any good for the Korean Peninsula.”For others, the race itself was a cautionary tale:“To see the U.S. move away from a slide into autocratic leadership was gratifying, but everything that has happened since has only reinforced the idea that this may be a brief sojourn from the madness,” wrote Jack McColl in Melbourne, Australia. “It seems the time we could rely on the U.S. to play a consistent leading role in global society has come to an end.”More reactions from international readers follow. They have been edited for clarity and length.South America‘Biden understands the necessity of ending the Maduro regime’Fernando Coca Ruiz, Tarija, Bolivia: America has shown the world that democracy should not be taken for granted, that it requires our willingness to participate constantly in order to make sure it actually represents “The People.” As for my own country, I’m sure Joe Biden understands the necessity of ending the Maduro regime. It would be a major win for him and for the Venezuelan people. But I’m concerned that hard-line progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will influence the administration to support socialist presidents like Alberto Fernández in Argentina and Luis Arce in Bolivia. If this were to happen, Latinos and the new administration will move further apart. Just look at the election results in Miami.‘Biden will have a very hard time reversing the damage’Saul Zambrano, Mexico City: The U.S. presidential election has made the limits and shortcomings of its electoral system more evident than ever. Biden will have a very hard time reversing the damage that has been done in a short Trump administration. And I’m appalled and ashamed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s refusal to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden. Looking at the club of countries that haven’t congratulated him, it’s clear we shouldn’t be a part of it.‘It will be business as usual’Uziel Nogueira, Florianópolis, Brazil: Even Pinochet accepted the results that ended his dictatorship of 25 years. As far as the impact to Brazil, it will be business as usual. The good news is Bolsonaro’s foreign policy will now be guided by national interest and not to please Donald Trump.North America‘America had chosen a racist’Liza, Bequia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: I’m on the formation committee of Democrats Abroad, Caribbean Islands Group. We’re thrilled that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected and our overall sense is that throughout the plethora of Caribbean island nations, most people are relieved by this win. They recognize that Trump threatened to destroy democracy itself. And in a region where the Indigenous are primarily Black, they were saddened and appalled that America had chosen a racist to lead it. Black Lives Matter gave them hope, and so do Biden and Harris.Harris’s Jamaican heritage, and her many accomplishments, fuel a particularly deep-welled source of pride throughout the region. She coolly exhales benevolent messaging over the seemingly endless conflagrations of our outgoing leadership. Likewise, the Biden/Harris “unity first” and “facts matter” prescriptive is resoundingly joyful and heartening.‘The rot in your democracy will continue to spread’Glen Rowe, Nanaimo, British Columbia: As a neighbor and a friend, I am deeply concerned for the well-being of your country. While I am profoundly relieved that Biden and Harris have won your election, I worry that they will be rendered largely ineffective by Mitch McConnell and his obstructive, anti-democratic crew of Republican senators and the rot in your democracy will continue to spread. My country’s well-being is tied to yours.The Middle East‘Trump has been unintentionally beneficial to Middle Eastern peace’Terry Plasse, Sde Yaakov, Israel: I’m a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and have lived in northern Israel the past six years. Most of the American expats I know in Israel share my negative view of Donald Trump. Israelis without ties to the U.S. are mostly concerned with how he has affected Israel and most favored moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. I think Trump has been unintentionally beneficial to Middle Eastern peace. Not because he did any negotiating, but because several Arab countries in the region have decided that they share more interests with Israel than the U.S. And those shared interests or alliances with Israel may be more valuable than those with the U.S. (an example of transactional diplomacy, which is not a bad thing).‘Biden needs to show no leniency’Mohammad Reza Mohammad Karimi, Karaj, Iran: President-elect Biden is expected to correct the global perception that Americans condone lies, violate international commitments, commit fraud, abuse offices and support dictators — as long as they remain economically strong. To do this, Biden needs to show no leniency to Donald Trump and let the law take its natural course. If a court were to sentence Trump to prison, Biden should not try to protect him. This alone will ensure that Trump’s type of misrule is never, ever repeated and the havoc unleashed on the world will become a lesson for all future generations.AsiaHope for ‘an ambitious climate policy’Pratik Londhe, Pune, India: The new administration gives me hope, especially for an ambitious climate policy. The U.S. can take the lead and set the example for the rest of the world with something like the Green New Deal. This could set off a chain of events across the globe in favor of renewable energy and sustainable development. The politics in my country repeatedly sidestep this issue.‘We do not need a hot war nearby’C.K. Ung, George Town, Penang, Malaysia: The chaos in the U.S. before and after Election Day was a big concern for countries in Southeast Asia. In the months before the election, the U.S. had escalated its military movements in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, maybe to show voters that Trump’s administration is tough on China. With Trump and his supporters taking actions on multiple fronts to retain his presidency, there is a risk that he may actually provoke a shooting war in the South China Sea, which would cause economic hardship to countries in Southeast Asia. Times are bad and people are suffering under the Covid-19 pandemic. We do not need a hot war nearby to add to our suffering.They are ‘amused by his Twitter feed’Jeff Axelrod, Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu, China: Some of my students at the Chinese high school where I teach say they’re a little sad Trump will be leaving. They’ve been entertained and amused by his Twitter feed. But as an American expat, I’ve had several local adults ask for my opinion — they don’t want to offend by stating theirs first — and they’ve been greatly relieved when I’ve told them I’m not a fan. They see him as immature, petty and dangerous.AustraliaAmerica has ‘missed the boat, badly’Leslie Michael Anderson, Orange, New South Wales: I don’t really believe that Biden is strong or smart enough or has the ability to do much good for the American people. After more than four decades in politics his contributions have basically been to agree with whatever was happening, including the invasion of Iraq. I don’t like Trump but I don’t believe that Biden can be trusted to do more than make promises. If America is looking for a leader with the ability to make a real difference they have missed the boat, badly.Africa‘We should not be so reliant on the U.S.’Faadiel Essop, Paarl, South Africa: I’m glad Trump’s presidency is (hopefully!) coming to an end so President-elect Biden can begin to restore U.S. relations with Africa. Maybe he could increase support to help counter major burdens of diseases such as H.I.V.-AIDS and Covid-19. However, the Trump years made us realize that we should not be so reliant on the U.S. and to gaze elsewhere for supporters and allies. On a personal level, I used to attend at least one major science congress in the U.S. until Trump took over, and I imposed a “travel ban” on myself. I’m not sure if I will return now that I am collaborating with scientists in other countries that are far more welcoming and helpful.Europe‘The E.U. has become less dependent on its “big brother”’Charlotte Raab, Leuven, Belgium: I cannot recall ever following an election that closely and anxiously before, not even ones in which I’m allowed to vote. I’m confident this new administration will re-establish the bonds that exist between the United States and the European Union, but the past years have also shown that the E.U. has become less dependent on its “big brother” and can stand up for itself. Biden and Harris will have a lot of work to do rebuilding trust in institutions.‘Biden will bring more interventionist foreign policy’Joshua Rice, Adana, Turkey: I’m an American expat living in Turkey. People here think Biden will bring more interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East. Turks are anti-Kurdish thanks to P.K.K. terrorist attacks and they like that Trump moved our troops away from the border to allow Erdogan to establish a security buffer.‘Johnson eagerly imitated Trump’s insults to the international order’Abigail Maxwell, Northamptonshire, England: As do many Britons, I hope Trump’s defeat will make Mr. Johnson, our prime minister, think again about his threat to break the Good Friday Agreement, by which there is no hard border in Ireland. I hope Mr. Johnson will use his last few days to make a trade agreement with the E.U., on which the British economy depends. While Johnson eagerly imitated Trump’s insults to the international order, I hope he will see that there is more cost to that position now that Trump is gone.‘A giant needs to take care where and on what he steps’Larus Jon Gudmundsson, Iceland: It’s the old story of the fluttering of a butterfly wing in one corner of the world resulting in a hurricane in another. But in this case it’s the kicking of an elephant in an Oval Office whose multiple effects can and will be felt in every corner of the earth. A giant needs to take care where and on what he steps. Being a member of a small nation, I’m very much aware of the effects of your president’s actions. Leaving international treaties and institutions should not be left to the whim of one person.‘Others will take up the baton elsewhere’Diego, Crespos, Spain: I’m certainly glad that Mr. Trump lost the election, but I’m still shocked by the fact that almost half of Americans voted for him. Trump has shown authoritarian leaders all over the world that you can lie shamelessly and despise international organizations and get away with it. We’ll be suffering his legacy for years to come as others will take up the baton elsewhere. That is something that Mr. Biden can’t undo.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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      Why Did So Many Americans Vote for Trump?

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      President Trump’s disastrous mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic probably cost him re-election. Yet it seems mind-boggling that he still won more votes than any incumbent president in American history despite his dereliction of responsibility at a time of a once-in-a-century health crisis and economic devastation.Why are President-elect Joe Biden’s margins so thin in the states that clinched his victory? And why did the president’s down-ticket enablers flourish in the turbulent, plague-torn conditions they helped bring about?Democrats, struggling to make sense of it all, are locked in yet another round of mutual recrimination: They were either too progressive for swing voters — too socialist or aggressive with ambitious policies like the Green New Deal — or not progressive enough to inspire potential Democratic voters to show up or cross over.But they should understand that there was really no way to avoid disappointment. Three factors — the logic of partisan polarization, which inaccurate polling obscured; the strength of the juiced pre-Covid-19 economy; and the success of Mr. Trump’s denialist, open-everything-up nonresponse to the pandemic — mostly explain why Democrats didn’t fare better.This shocking strategy worked for Republicans, even if it didn’t pan out for the president himself. Moreover, it laid a trap that Democrats walked into — something they should understand and adjust for, as best they can, as they look ahead.How could a president responsible for one of the gravest failures of governance in American history nevertheless maintain such rock-solid support? Democracy’s throw-the-bums-out feedback mechanism gets gummed up when the electorate disagrees about the identity of the bums, what did and didn’t occur on their watch and who deserves what share of the credit or blame.When party affiliation becomes a central source of meaning and self-definition, reality itself becomes contested and verifiable facts turn into hot-button controversies. Elections can’t render an authoritative verdict on the performance of incumbents when partisans in a closely divided electorate tell wildly inconsistent stories about one another and the world they share.Mr. Trump has a knack for leveraging the animosities of polarized partisanship to cleave his supporters from sources of credible information and inflame them with vilifying lies. This time, it wasn’t enough to save his bacon, which suggests that polarization hasn’t completely wrecked our democracy’s capacity for self-correction: Sweeping a medium-size city’s worth of dead Americans under the rug turned out to be too tall an order.However, Mr. Trump’s relentless campaign to goose the economy by cutting taxes, running up enormous deficits and debt, and hectoring the Fed into not raising rates was working for millions of Americans. We tend to notice when we’re personally more prosperous than we were a few years before.But the president’s catastrophic response to Covid-19 threw the economy into a tailspin. That is where it gets interesting — and Democrats get uncomfortable.Mr. Trump abdicated responsibility, shifting the burden onto states and municipalities with busted budgets. He then waged a war of words against governors and mayors — especially Democrats — who refused to risk their citizens’ lives by allowing economic and social activity to resume.He spurred his supporters to make light of the danger of infection, made the churlish refusal to wear masks into an emblem of emancipation from the despotism of experts and turned public health restrictions on businesses, schools and social gatherings into a tyrannical conspiracy to steal power by damaging the economy and his re-election prospects.He succeeded in putting Democrats on the defensive about economic restrictions and school closures. As months passed and with no new relief coming from Washington, financially straitened Democratic states and cities had little choice but to ease restrictions on businesses just to keep the lights on. That seemed to concede the economic wisdom of the more permissive approach in majority-Republican states and fed into Mr. Trump’s false narrative of victory over the virus and a triumphant return to normalcy.But Democrats weren’t destined to get quite as tangled in Mr. Trump’s trap as they did. They had no way to avoid it, but they could have been hurt less by it. They allowed Republicans to define the contrast between the parties’ approaches to the pandemic in terms of freedom versus exhausting, indefinite shutdowns.Democrats needed to present a competing, compelling strategy to counter Republican messaging. Struggling workers and businesses never clearly heard exactly what they’d get if Democrats ran the show, and Democrats never came together to scream bloody murder that Republicans were refusing to give it to them. Democrats needed to underscore the depth of Republican failure by forcefully communicating what other countries had done to successfully control the virus. And they needed to promise to do the same through something like an Operation Warp Speed for testing and P.P.E. to get America safely back in business.Instead, they whined that Mr. Trump’s negligence and incompetence were to blame for America’s economic woes and complained that Mitch McConnell wouldn’t even consider the House’s big relief bill. They weren’t wrong, but correctly assigning culpability did nothing to help working-class breadwinners who can’t bus tables, process chickens, sell smoothies or clean hotel rooms over Zoom.The Republican message couldn’t have been clearer: Workers should be able to show up, clock in, earn a normal paycheck, pay the rent and feed their kids. Democrats were telling the same workers that we need to listen to science, reopening is premature, and the economy can’t be fully restored until we beat the virus. Correct! But how does that help when rent was due last week?Make no mistake, it was unforgivably cruel of Republicans to force blue-collar and service workers to risk death for grocery money. Yet their disinformation campaign persuaded many millions of Americans that the risk was minimal and that Democrats were keeping their workplaces and schools closed, their customers and kids at home, and their wallets empty and cupboards bare for bogus reasons.The president’s mendacious push to hastily reopen everything was less compelling to college-educated suburbanites, who tend to trust experts and can work from home, watch their kids and spare a laptop for online kindergarten. Mr. Trump lost the election mainly because he lost enough of these voters, including some moderate Republicans who otherwise voted straight Republican tickets.Democrats need to rethink the idea that these voters would have put Democratic House and Senate candidates over the top if only Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were less radiantly socialist. They need to accept that they took hits on the economy by failing to escape the trap Republicans set by doggedly refusing to do anything about the uncontained contagion destroying it.And they need to understand how Mr. Trump saved his party by weaponizing polarization. Conservatives needed a way not to get spun by the president’s destabilizing act of disloyalty, so they steadied themselves by reaffirming their loyalty down the remainder of the ballot. They were voting against a personal crisis of identity, not the Green New Deal.Democrats might have done better had sunny polls and their own biased partisan perceptions not misled them into believing that backlash to indisputably damning Republican failure would deliver an easy Senate majority — but not much better. Until the mind-bending spell of polarization breaks, everything that matters will be fiercely disputed and even the most egregious failures will continue to go unpunished.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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      Trump, Still Claiming Victory, Says He Will Leave if Electors Choose Biden

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      President Trump said on Thursday that he would leave the White House if the Electoral College formalized Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election as president, even as he reiterated baseless claims of fraud that he said would make it “very hard” to concede.Taking questions from reporters for the first time since Election Day, Mr. Trump also threw himself into the battle for Senate control, saying he would soon travel to Georgia to support Republican candidates in two runoff elections scheduled there on Jan. 5.When asked whether he would leave office in January after the Electoral College cast its votes for Mr. Biden on Dec. 14 as expected, Mr. Trump replied: “Certainly I will. Certainly I will.”Speaking in the Diplomatic Room of the White House after a Thanksgiving video conference with members of the American military, the president insisted that “shocking” new evidence about voting problems would surface before Inauguration Day. “It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede,” he said, “because we know that there was massive fraud.”But even as he continued to deny the reality of his defeat, Mr. Trump also seemed to acknowledge that his days as president were numbered.“Time is not on our side,” he said, in a rare admission of weakness. He also complained that what he referred to, prematurely, as “the Biden administration” had declared its intention to scrap his “America First” foreign policy vision.The president was also strikingly testy at one point, lashing out at a reporter who interjected during one of several of his rambling statements about the supposedly fraudulent election.“You’re just a lightweight,” Mr. Trump snapped, raising his voice and pointing a finger in anger. “Don’t talk to me that — don’t talk — I’m the president of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the president that way.”If Mr. Trump sees the end of his presidency as inevitable, he clearly still believes he can bolster his legacy — and badly undermine Mr. Biden, the man who is ending it — by helping to preserve a Republican Senate that could serve as a wall against the new Democratic agenda.The election results left Democrats holding 48 seats in the U.S. Senate. If Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic challengers in Georgia, can both pull off victories over Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, their party will gain de facto control of a Senate divided 50-50 because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would wield a tiebreaking vote.In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Trump said he would visit Georgia on Saturday. Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, later clarified that the president meant Saturday, Dec. 5.The president added that he could return to the state to back the Republicans a second time, “depending on how they’re doing.”It is unclear how helpful Mr. Trump’s appearances would be for the two embattled Republican incumbents. After a hand recount of a close vote, Georgia declared Mr. Biden the winner there on Nov. 19 by a margin of 12,284 votes. Mr. Biden is the first Democrat to carry the state in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996.Mr. Trump insisted on Thursday that he had won the vote by a significant margin. “We were robbed. We were robbed,” he said. “I won that by hundreds of thousands of votes. Everybody knows it.”Asked whether he would attend Mr. Biden’s inauguration, as is customary for a departing president, Mr. Trump was coy.“I don’t want to say that yet,” the president said, adding, “I know the answer, but I just don’t want to say.”At times, Mr. Trump shifted his explanation of his defeat from claims of fraud to complaints that the political battlefield had been slanted against him, casting the news media and technology companies as his enemies.“If the media were honest and big tech was fair, it wouldn’t even be a contest,” he said. “And I would have won by a tremendous amount.”After seeming to concede reality, Mr. Trump quickly caught himself and revised his conditional statement.“And I did win by a tremendous amount,” he added. More

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      In Praise of Janet Yellen the Economist

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      It’s hard to overstate the enthusiasm among economists over Joe Biden’s selection of Janet Yellen as the next secretary of the Treasury. Some of this enthusiasm reflects the groundbreaking nature of her appointment. She won’t just be the first woman to hold the job, she’ll be the first person to have held all three of the traditional top U.S. policy positions in economics — chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, chair of the Federal Reserve and now Treasury secretary.And yes, there’s a bit of payback for Donald Trump, who denied her a well-earned second term as Fed chair, reportedly in part because he thought she was too short.But the good news about Yellen goes beyond her ridiculously distinguished career in public service. Before she held office, she was a serious researcher. And she was, in particular, one of the leading figures in an intellectual movement that helped save macroeconomics as a useful discipline when that usefulness was under both external and internal assault.Before I get there, a word about Yellen’s time at the Federal Reserve, especially her time on the Fed’s board in the early 2010s, before she became chair.At the time, the U.S. economy was slowly clawing its way back from the Great Recession — a recovery impeded, not incidentally, by Republicans in Congress who pretended to care about national debt and imposed spending cuts that significantly hurt economic growth. But spending wasn’t the only issue of debate; there were also fierce arguments about monetary policy.Specifically, there were many people on the right condemning the Fed’s efforts to rescue the economy from the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Among them, by the way, was Judy Shelton, the totally unqualified hack Trump is still trying to install on the Fed board, who warned in 2009 that the Fed’s actions would produce “ruinous inflation.” (Hint: They didn’t.)Even within the Fed, there was a division between “hawks” worried about inflation and “doves” who insisted that inflation wasn’t a threat in a depressed economy, and that fighting the depression should take priority. Yellen was one of the leading doves — and a 2013 analysis by The Wall Street Journal found that she had been the most accurate forecaster among Fed policymakers.Why did she get it right? Part of the answer, I’d argue, goes back to academic work she did in the 1980s.At the time, as I’ve suggested, useful macroeconomics was under attack. What I mean by “useful macroeconomics” was the understanding, shared by economists from John Maynard Keynes to Milton Friedman, that monetary and fiscal policy could be used to fight recessions and reduce their economic and human toll.This understanding didn’t fail the test of reality — on the contrary, the experience of the early 1980s strongly confirmed the predictions of basic macroeconomics.But useful economics was under threat.On one side, right-wing politicians turned away from reality-based economics in favor of crank doctrines, especially the claim that governments can conjure up miraculous growth by cutting taxes on the rich. On the other side, a significant number of economists themselves rejected any role for policy in fighting recessions, claiming that there would be no need for such a role if people were acting rationally in their own interests, and that economic analysis should always assume that people are rational.Which is where Yellen came in; she was a prominent figure in the rise of “new Keynesian” economics, which rested on one key insight: People aren’t stupid, but they aren’t perfectly rational and self-interested. And even a bit of realism about human behavior restores the case for aggressive policies to fight recessions. In later work Yellen would show that labor market outcomes depend a lot not just on pure dollars-and-cents calculations, but also on perceptions of fairness.All this may sound abstruse, but I can vouch from my own experience that this work had a huge impact on many young economists — basically giving them a license to be sensible.And it seems to me that there’s a direct line from the disciplined realism of Yellen’s academic research to her success as a policymaker. She was always someone who understood the value of data and models. Indeed, rigorous thinking becomes more, not less important in crazy times like these, when past experience offers little guidance about what we should be doing. But she also never forgot that economics is about people, who aren’t the emotionless, hyperrational calculating machines economists sometimes wish they were.Now, none of this means that things will necessarily go well. The race is not to the swift, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet success to policymakers of understanding, but time and chance happen to them all. Trump’s cabinet was a clown show — possibly the worst cabinet in America’s history — but it wasn’t until 2020 that the consequences of the administration’s incompetence became fully apparent.Still, it’s immensely reassuring to know that economic policy will be made by someone who knows what she is doing.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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      A Fight Over Agriculture Secretary Could Decide the Direction of Hunger Policy

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      An unlikely fight is breaking out over President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s choice for agriculture secretary, pitting a powerful Black lawmaker who wants to refocus the Agriculture Department on hunger against traditionalists who believe the department should be a voice for rural America.Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and perhaps Mr. Biden’s most important supporter in the Democratic primary, is making an all-out case for Representative Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio, an African-American Democrat from Ohio.Mr. Clyburn, whose endorsement of Mr. Biden before the South Carolina primary helped turn the tide for the former vice president’s nomination, has spoken to him on the phone about Ms. Fudge as recently as this week. The lawmaker has also lobbied for her with two of the president-elect’s closest advisers and discussed the matter with Speaker Nancy Pelosi.“I feel very strongly,” Mr. Clyburn said in an interview on Wednesday about Ms. Fudge, who leads the nutrition and oversight subcommittee on the House Agriculture Committee.“It’s time for Democrats to treat the Department of Agriculture as the kind of department it purports to be,” he added, noting that much of the budget “deals with consumer issues and nutrition and things that affect people’s day-to-day lives.”But there are complications. Two of Mr. Biden’s farm-state allies are also being discussed for the job: Heidi Heitkamp, a former senator from North Dakota, and Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who served as agriculture secretary for President Barack Obama.The delicate proxy clash over the post, which is usually not as coveted as more high-profile cabinet positions, has pitted Democrats eager to emphasize issues like hunger and nutrition against more traditional members of the party who believe the department should represent rural America. The sprawling agency oversees farm policy, the Forest Service, food safety and animal health, but also the food stamp program, nutrition services, rural housing and rural development.More broadly, the debate illustrates the challenge Mr. Biden faces as he builds his administration. Every appointment he makes interlocks with others, and if he does not select a diverse candidate for one position it becomes more likely he will for other posts.The Agriculture job specifically is pinching Mr. Biden between two of his central campaign themes, which he repeated in plain terms this month in his victory speech: that he owes a special debt to African-American voters, and that he wants to be a president for all Americans, including those who didn’t vote for him.And nowhere did Mr. Biden fare worse than in rural America, particularly the most heavily white parts of the farm belt.“This is a choice that only Joe Biden can make, and he will make it understanding the unique challenges of rural America and what needs to happen in rural America moving forward,” said Ms. Heitkamp, a moderate who was defeated in 2018 after serving as attorney general and then senator in one of the most sparsely populated states in the country.Recalling her campaign efforts on behalf of Mr. Biden’s “great rural plan,” Ms. Heitkamp predicted the president-elect would “pick the person who can implement that rural plan.”Mr. Clyburn, though, said the Agriculture Department had for too long seemed “to favor big farming interests” over less wealthy people, whether they be “little farmers in Clarendon County, S.C., or food stamp recipients in Cleveland, Ohio,” Ms. Fudge’s hometown.Mr. Clyburn did not mention Ms. Heitkamp, but he bridled at the prospect of Mr. Vilsack reclaiming the department he had led for all eight years of the Obama administration.“I don’t know why we’ve got to be recycling,” Mr. Clyburn said, echoing complaints that Mr. Biden only represents Mr. Obama’s third term. “There’s a strong feeling that Black farmers didn’t get a fair shake” under Mr. Vilsack, Mr. Clyburn said.Mr. Vilsack did not respond in kind. He said he had “all the respect in the world for Representative Clyburn” and that he had learned from him.The former Iowa governor, who with his wife was an early supporter of Mr. Biden in his first campaign for president and again this year, said he was not angling for the agriculture job but was careful not to disclaim interest in the position.“If there’s something I can do to help the country, fine,” Mr. Vilsack said. “But the president-elect makes that decision.”When he does, he will be fully aware of where one of his most prominent supporters stands.In addition to his conversations with Mr. Biden, Mr. Clyburn has reached out to Steve Ricchetti, who will serve as a counselor in the White House, and Ted Kaufman, Mr. Biden’s longest-serving adviser and former chief of staff.House Democratic leaders are sensitive to creating vacancies in the chamber, even in safe districts like Ms. Fudge’s, given their slender majority. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, might not schedule a quick special election to replace her. But Mr. Clyburn said he was hopeful from his conversation with Ms. Pelosi that she “would greenlight” Ms. Fudge.Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, declined to comment on the discussion. But he signaled that the speaker, who appointed Ms. Fudge as the chairwoman of a subcommittee two years ago to defuse a potential rivalry for the speakership, would not object to her departure.“The speaker wants the full contribution of House Democrats to the Biden-Harris mandate and to the future represented in the administration,” Mr. Hammill said.Like other positions, the Agriculture Department decision could be settled by finding an alternate post elsewhere in the administration for whoever is passed over.A spokesman for Mr. Biden’s transition declined to comment on the appointment but said the president-elect was “prioritizing diversity of ideology and background as he builds a team of experts that looks like America to serve in his administration.”Ms. Fudge, though, has other important advocates, including Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, who said he had made the case for her “with four or five top Biden transition people.” Her colleagues on the House Agriculture Committee have also been supportive.“It is time for a hunger advocate to lead the Department of Agriculture, and nobody could lead the agency better than Marcia Fudge,” said Representative Filemon Vela, Democrat of Texas.Most significant, though, are three Black House Democrats who are close to one another and Ms. Fudge. The group includes Mr. Clyburn, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who is leaving Congress to become a senior adviser in the White House.As for Mr. Biden, Mr. Clyburn said, “he likes Fudge a whole lot.”Recounting his conversation with the president-elect, the congressman said he wanted to let him make the decision. “I just told him I thought she’d be a very good candidate and help refocus what the department is all about.” More

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      A Thanksgiving Myth Debunked: People Aren’t Fighting About Politics

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      With millions of Americans choosing not to visit loved ones this Thanksgiving out of caution over the coronavirus, a lot of small rituals will get passed over in the process.No shared turkey dinners, no football-watching parties in the TV room, no wondering aloud what stuffing is actually made of. And none of those famous, knock-down-drag-out fights with your relatives over politics. Right?Sort of. Those storied fights might never have been such a big part of the tradition to begin with. Like many aspects of the story that this holiday commemorates, brutal family infighting over politics is more myth than reality.“I’m Italian, so my family fights about anything and everything,” said Matthew Dean, 34, a construction project manager living in Pittsburgh. “They can agree with each other and still be arguing.”Mr. Dean is a Republican who supports President Trump, while other members of his family, including his father, dislike the president. He said they’re usually able to disagree without being too disagreeable.“From an outsider’s perspective, it would be arguing, but it never ruined any family time together,” Mr. Dean said, describing the raucous scene at past Thanksgiving dinners. “I think we have a greater sense of the bonds that hold us together as family and friends. And we don’t allow the politics to get above that.”Two years ago, a survey by The Associated Press and NORC, an independent research group at the University of Chicago, found that just 9 percent of American parents with adolescent or young-adult children reported having had a holiday gathering ruined by family disagreements over politics. Online, it was a different story: The same parents were twice as likely to say that they had unfriended or blocked a family member for political reasons.“The vast majority of Americans have no interest in discussing politics,” Samara Klar, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona, said in an interview. “Politics is important when it arises, but for most people it’s not something that they are excited to bring up at dinner.”For most Americans, politics isn’t anywhere near their favorite conversation topic. Dr. Klar said that while studies have shown that American parents would generally prefer to see their children marry someone of the same political persuasion, her own research went a level further — and found that the even stronger desire was for their children to marry someone who simply won’t force them to discuss politics all that much.“They just don’t want somebody who talks about politics all the time,” she said. “Partisan identity will always fall dead last,” she added. “Behind their gender, family role, their nationality, their race.”As a result, if coming together at the holidays means dealing with an outspoken relative of a different political stripe, the most common response may simply be flight — not fight.A study of Thanksgiving diners in 2016 matched up anonymized smartphone-location data with precinct-level voting information, and found that when relatives visited each other from areas with opposite political leanings, their meals together tended to be measurably shorter.This tracks with a separate study from 2016, “Political Chameleons: An Exploration of Conformity in Political Discussions,” finding that people would often prefer to avoid talking politics over openly disagreeing about them.“If you have somebody who’s really vocal politically, they’re going to dominate the discussion,” said Yanna Krupnikov, a Stony Brook University political scientist who has collaborated with Dr. Klar. “You’re not necessarily going to have people fight with them — you’re more likely to have people agree politely and just leave a little early.”Over the past few decades, as polarization has grown, families have in fact become more politically homogeneous.Kent Tedin, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, cited research he has done in recent years picking up on data compiled since the 1960s by Kent Jennings at the University of Michigan. It found that married, heterosexual couples are now far more likely to be politically aligned than they were 50 years ago — or even a couple decades ago.Dr. Klar said that her research has indicated that this trend is driven in part by the fact that, since the feminist movement’s second wave in the mid-20th century, women have grown more directly engaged in politics — and have become more likely to put a priority on finding a husband with whom they agree politically.The same thing goes for parents and their children. On matters of partisanship and political views — including a measurement that academics call the “racial resentment scale” — young people are far more likely to hold similar views to their parents than they were in the mid-1970s, or even in the 1990s.As a result, Dr. Tedin said, at the Thanksgiving table, “if there is a disagreement, almost anybody in the nuclear family — mom, dad and the kids — is going to be on one side, and the cousins are going to be on the other side.”But mostly, they’re likely to tiptoe around one another. “Polarized politics increases avoidance within families,” he said. “You might think polarized politics means they’re going to be fighting at Thanksgiving, but no — it’s the reverse. Polarized politics increases the pressure to avoid conflict at the holiday.”The inclination to avoid conflict doesn’t necessarily mean that disagreement is inevitable if the conversation does turn to politics. Matthew Levendusky, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies political polarization, said that when those kinds of conflicts do come up, they aren’t necessarily likely to become hostile. And whether hard or easy, Dr. Levendusky added, those conversations are fundamental to the functioning of a democracy — especially in a time when social media and cable news often play up each party’s most extreme elements.In 2016, Dr. Levendusky published a study showing that people tended to vastly overestimate the differences between the two parties. “We asked people where their position was, and where they thought the average Republican and Democratic positions were,” he said. “Basically, they thought the parties were twice as far apart as they are in reality, on a wide variety of issues.”Now he is at work on a book about how people with differing perspectives might overcome their political animus. Simply talking to one another, he said, is essential to bridging the divide — and it’s often not as painful as people expect it to be. That’s because most Americans are not deeply ideological, so political disagreements are not terribly high-stakes for them. In completing the research for the book, he and his collaborators convened roughly 500 study participants from across the political spectrum, and invited them to talk about politics.Dr. Levendusky found that participants were pleasantly surprised by the experience: “A number of people came up to me afterward and said, ‘I wasn’t sure I was going to like this, but I found all these people who thought like me, even if we weren’t on the same political side.’”Still, for many families, the primary goal this holiday is to find anything other than politics to talk about.Antonette Iverson, 27, said that her extended family in Detroit would be celebrating Thanksgiving remotely this year, saying grace over a Zoom call and then retreating to separate holiday meals. She doesn’t expect anyone would want to talk much about politics even if they were getting together, she said, adding that her family is mostly of a like mind about the presidential election anyway.“I don’t think there needs to be a discussion,” she said. “We’re all pretty exhausted with the situation.”Kathleen Gray contributed reporting. More