Presidential Election of 2024

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      Why Teen Voices Matter in the 2024 Election

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      For most teenagers, a presidential election year offers a dilemma. Elections have consequences, as the saying goes, and this is especially true for young people, who are at the center of any number of issues dividing the U.S. electorate. Yet most teens can’t vote.All spring and summer, the Headway team has been talking with high school students about this year’s election. Headway is an initiative at The New York Times that covers the world’s challenges through the lens of progress. Since the march of progress will have its longest effects on the youngest of us, that lens has made Headway especially interested in the experiences of the world’s youth.We have been especially curious about youth voter turnout this year, given how youth engagement in presidential elections has changed over the past few cycles. The 2020 election was particularly striking. The spread of the coronavirus meant that going to the voting booth was particularly fraught. The two contenders for the presidency were the oldest in American history. The 2016 election had notably low youth participation. On the eve of the 2020 election, The Times posed the question, “Why don’t young people vote, and what can be done about it?”But then young people defied expectations. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at Tufts University, Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 voted at higher rates in 2020 than they had in any elections except 1992 and 1972 (which was right after the voting age was lowered to 18). Their votes last election far outstripped the margin of victory in swing states, making them critical to the outcome.In collaboration with Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization that covers education in several American communities, the Headway team has been posing questions about the election to high school students, and asking them what questions they have for their peers about the race. We’ve heard from nearly 1,000 students from red, blue and purple states, all representing diverse backgrounds and schools. Their responses have been illuminating. While some high schoolers don’t consider the election particularly relevant to their interests, many do. Even when they can’t vote, many teenagers in every part of the country are highly interested in the election. They are eager to inform themselves about it, craving more forums to discuss it with peers and others, and yearning to see their voices represented in the outcome.So for the next two months, if you’re a teenager in the United States, we want to ask you all about your experience of the election. Consider this your formal invitation to participate in what we’re calling the Headway Election Challenge.

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      G.O.P. Report to Denounce Biden Administration Over Afghanistan Withdrawal

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      In an election-season document, Republicans are set to offer few new revelations but instead heap blame on the “Biden-Harris administration” while absolving former President Donald J. Trump.House Republicans are preparing to release an investigative report blaming the Biden administration for what they called the failures of the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, laying out a scathing indictment that appeared timed to tarnish Vice President Kamala Harris in the final weeks before the presidential election.The roughly 350-page document set to be released on Monday is the product of a yearslong inquiry by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It accuses President Biden and his national security team of being so determined to pull out of Afghanistan that they flouted security warnings, refused to plan for an evacuation and lied to the American public throughout the withdrawal about the risks on the ground and missteps that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members.“The Biden-Harris administration prioritized the optics of the withdrawal over the security of U.S. personnel on the ground,” the report states. The document, a draft of which was reviewed by The New York Times, also contends that the administration’s mismanagement resulted in “exposing U.S. Defense Department and State Department personnel to lethal threats and emotional harm.”Details of the document were reported earlier on Sunday by CBS.The findings are largely a recitation of familiar lines of criticism against Mr. Biden, offering few new insights about what might have been done differently to avoid the Taliban’s swift march into Kabul and the disastrous U.S. evacuation operation in August 2021. But they come at a critical time in the presidential race, when Mr. Trump has been working to persuade voters that Ms. Harris is unfit to be the commander in chief.The authors single out Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, for particular condemnation, charging that he failed to coordinate a viable exit strategy and misrepresented the situation on the ground to the public.They absolve former President Donald J. Trump almost entirely of responsibility for the debacle, even though an inspector general found in 2022 that the deal his administration struck with the Taliban in 2020, known as the Doha Agreement, to orchestrate a rapid U.S. withdrawal, was a major factor in the crisis. The report instead faults Zalmay Khalilzad, then the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, for the shortcomings of that pact.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Judge’s Decision to Delay Trump’s Sentencing

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      More from our inbox:Risky Covid Behavior‘Glorious’ Outdoor Dining in New York CityA Librarian’s FightDonald J. Trump, the first former American president to become a felon, is seeking to overturn his conviction and win back the White House.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Judge Pushes Sentencing of Trump to After Election” (front page, Sept. 7):I must disagree with the hand-wringing of my liberal colleagues who lament the fact that Donald Trump won’t be sentenced for his conviction in the hush-money case until after the election.Your article notes that the public will not know before they go to the polls “whether the Republican presidential nominee will eventually spend time behind bars.”With all due respect, so what? The former president was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Those who recoil at the idea of their president being a convicted felon won’t vote for him; those who support him will not change their minds based on the severity of the sentence.Other than being used as a talking point on the left (“he got four years in prison!!”) or on the right (“he got probation — I told you it was no big deal”), what could a sentence now possibly achieve?While no one, including Donald Trump, is above the law, this case is unique in our history. The sentence must be viewed as judicially sound, and for that it cannot become a partisan football, especially this close to an election.Eileen WestPleasantville, N.Y.To the Editor:Donald Trump’s lawyers have consistently maintained that his trials should not go forward because it may affect the 2024 election. Their many motions have contributed to delaying three of the four trials he faces. They have now persuaded Justice Juan Merchan in New York to put off sentencing in the fourth, justified by the judge because of the unique circumstances and timing surrounding the event.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Will Taylor Swift Endorse Kamala Harris? That’s the Wrong Question.

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      The conventions are over. The first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris looms. But for many observers, there’s a highly anticipated event in this election season that’s yet to happen and could occur at any moment: an endorsement announcement from Taylor Swift.Just one day after President Biden announced in July that he was abandoning his re-election bid, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder speculated publicly about the possibility of Ms. Swift endorsing Ms. Harris. The “Will Taylor Swift Endorse Kamala Harris?” headlines soon proliferated. During the Democratic National Convention in August, a rumor surfaced about a supposed mystery guest on the final night — who many excited observers speculated might be Ms. Swift. (In the end, there was no surprise guest.) The countdown clock restarted: When might we expect Ms. Swift’s official endorsement?A better question might be: Why should we care? We already know that celebrity endorsements have limited power to sway a race. In 2004, John Kerry had endorsements from celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Larry David, and in 2020, Bernie Sanders had Ariana Grande and Killer Mike’s official support. They lost. Ms. Swift, who endorsed Mr. Biden late in the 2020 race, failed to meaningfully move the needle in 2018, when she backed Phil Bredesen, a Democrat and the former governor of Tennessee, over Marsha Blackburn in a Senate race that Ms. Blackburn won. If celebrities had the amount of persuasive power that some Americans apparently wish they had, a substantial percentage of the population would be steadfast vegan Scientologists by now.The fantasy that a superstar like Ms. Swift might come around on a white horse to sway the electorate is a seductive one — but it’s worth asking what we hope this superstar will save us from. It’s not that Ms. Swift’s fans hope she’ll save them from Donald Trump. It’s more that, as an electorate, we continue to hold out hope that celebrities, through their sheer persuasive charisma, will save us from the hard work of politics itself.It would be exceedingly convenient if a superstar entertainer could make irrelevant the thorny questions of how to persuade voters in key states to vote for your chosen candidate. Ms. Swift’s popularity can’t be discounted, and it cuts through all sorts of American divides. An NBC News poll in 2023 reported that Ms. Swift was regarded favorably or neutrally by nearly 80 percent of registered voters. If she wears a specific pair of shoes out of her house, those shoes might sell out the moment they’re identified. But our political decisions are, and should be, rooted in more practical concerns. Anger among Arab American voters in Michigan over U.S. support for Israel and the war in Gaza, for example, is significant enough that it could cost Democrats the state. The idea that a Swiftie-inclined voter might ignore those concerns simply because of an endorsement from a favorite pop star isn’t just insulting, it’s dystopian.You might be thinking: But what about the ’60s? What about Bob Dylan and “Blowin’ in the Wind”? Didn’t celebrities change the course of history? Protest music did flourish; the cause, though, was another story. In a 2003 interview in the magazine In These Times, Kurt Vonnegut reflected on his experience speaking out against the Vietnam War: “Every artist worth a damn in this country, every serious writer, painter, stand-up comedian, musician, actor and actress, you name it, came out against the thing.” Yet this “laser beam of protest,” Vonnegut said, proved to have “the power of a banana-cream pie three feet in diameter when dropped from a stepladder five-feet high.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      MAGA Is Nothing Without Trump

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      I spent the Labor Day weekend in Chicago, America’s greatest summer city. Sunday afternoon in particular was glorious. The temperatures were moderate, the skies were clear and the tourist sections of the city were teeming with happy Pearl Jam fans who’d just attended Saturday’s concert at Wrigley Field. My wife and I took our grandchildren to Navy Pier to visit the Chicago Children’s Museum, and as we walked back toward Michigan Avenue we saw the same sight we see every time we visit Chicago — an impressive, towering skyscraper with the name “Trump” emblazoned in immense letters across the building’s facade.I was reminded once again that Donald Trump is a singular figure in American politics. There is no one like him, and that means that no one can replace him. While it’s always perilous to make predictions about American politics — or anything else about the future — here’s one that I’m almost certain is correct: If Donald Trump loses in 2024, MAGA will fade. He is the irreplaceable key to its success.Last month, I wrote a column that generated intense blowback on the right because I argued that as a pro-life conservative I am voting for Kamala Harris. That was controversial enough, but what really seemed to make people angry was one of my stated motivations: that I am voting for Harris to try to save conservatism from MAGA. Defeating Trump, I said, gives conservative Americans a chance to “build something decent from the ruins of a party that was once a force for genuine good in American life.”The MAGA response was, in essence, you’re fooling yourself. Trump or no Trump, we own the party now.In fact, this argument is one way that MAGA keeps other Republicans in line. Like it or not, they say, this is the modern Republican Party. You can choose it, or you can choose the Democrats, but don’t think for a moment that a different party is possible.But is that correct? We’re nine years into the Trump era of the Republican Party, and we can see a different reality: attempts to mimic Trump succeed in Republican primaries and deep red jurisdictions, but they fail in swing states and purple districts. Trump is MAGA’s most popular figure, and if he loses, then MAGA has nowhere to go but down.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Attempt on Trump’s Life and the Violence of American Politics

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      On the convention stage, Donald Trump said he would talk about the assassination attempt only once. Understandably, he has continued to talk about it, as many people do when shocking things happen to them.“I’m not nicer,” he told donors on Aug. 2, rebutting the idea that he’d mellowed in the aftermath. At rallies outdoors, he now stands behind bulletproof glass onstage. At a rally in Michigan recently, he said he’s been treated worse than various presidents, adding, “I even got shot! And who the hell knows where that came from, right?”Mr. Trump told The Daily Mail that he’s had no flashbacks or nightmares. Asked by the interviewer whether he thought he might have post-traumatic stress disorder or consider counseling, Mr. Trump said: “A couple of people have asked me that, and I have had no impact. It’s just amazing.” He went on to say that he didn’t think about the shooting much and did not want to.In a livestream on X, Elon Musk opened with the assassination attempt, asking, “What was it like for you?”“Not pleasant,” Mr. Trump replied and Mr. Musk laughed. Then Mr. Trump talked in much detail about the things that did happen and could have happened. Across more than 10 minutes, it seemed like Mr. Trump had consumed a lot of information about that day in Butler, Pa. He described different perspectives and footage: video of a woman who saw the shooter, the view of the crowd control experts, the local police officer who’d climbed up to the roof, his Secret Service detail who piled on top of him, and the sniper who killed the shooter. “He’s been with them for 23 years, and he’s never had anything like this, and all of the sudden he has to act,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s a very tough thing to act and to be shooting somebody.”“The bigger miracle is that I was looking in the exact direction of the shooter,” Mr. Trump said, “so it hit me at an angle that was far less destructive, so that was the miracle.” It’s actually a striking description of what happened: to be looking at and unable to see a source of imminent danger.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Lays Out Vision for Bending the Federal Government to His Will

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      Former President Donald J. Trump vowed to vastly reshape the federal bureaucracy on Saturday in a wide-ranging, often unfocused speech at a rally in Wisconsin.He pledged to ultimately eliminate the Department of Education, redirect the efforts of the Justice Department and fire civil servants charged with carrying out Biden administration policies that he disagreed with.And he told his supporters that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading vaccine skeptic who recently endorsed him, would be “very much involved” in a panel on “chronic health problems and childhood diseases.” Mr. Kennedy rose to prominence as a vaccine skeptic who promoted a disproved link between vaccines and autism.At one point Mr. Trump got in a dig at Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he has frequently accused without evidence of covering up signs that Mr. Biden was not fit to be president, by saying that he would support modifying the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to make it an impeachable offense for a vice president to cover up the incapacity of the president. It was a long-shot proposal at best, which would entail a difficult process that he does not control.Mr. Trump — who spent four years overseeing the federal bureaucracy — stood at an airport in front of hundreds of people holding “Drain the Swamp” signs distributed by his campaign and promised to “cut the fat out of our government for the first time meaningfully in 60 years,” a period that includes his presidency.Many of the proposals in Mr. Trump’s speech align with plans reported by The New York Times to conduct a broad expansion of presidential power over government, and to effectively concentrate more authority within the White House, if he wins in November.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More