Presidential Election of 2024

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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

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      None of Trump’s Economic ‘Solutions’ Hold Any Water

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      Ask Donald Trump what he’ll do about any of the nation’s economic problems and he’ll give you one of three answers. He’ll either promise to cut taxes, raise tariffs or deport millions of people. When asked about child care, for example, Trump told the Economic Club of New York that he would raise “trillions” of dollars from new tariffs on virtually every good imported into the United States.This, of course, shows a fundamental ignorance of how tariffs work as well as the probable impact of a high-tariff regime on most American consumers. (The short story is that, if passed into law, Trump’s tariffs would amount to a large tax hike on most working Americans.) It’s also just not an answer. But that’s normal for the former president.On Friday, toward the end of a news conference where he attacked E. Jean Carroll — the former journalist who sued Trump, successfully, for damages relating to sexual abuse — Trump told his audience that he would discuss the latest jobs numbers. What followed was a brief rant about “foreigners coming in illegally” who “took the jobs of native-born Americans.”“And I’ve been telling you that’s what’s going to happen,” said Trump, “because we have millions and millions of people pouring into our country, many from prisons and jails and mental institutions and insane asylums. Traffickers, human traffickers, women traffickers, sex traffickers, which, by the way, that’s the kind of thing that people should be looking at, because it’s horrible.”Here, I’ll note that it is unclear whether Trump understands that “asylum” in immigration refers to seeking refuge or sanctuary and not, as he seems to think, to the kind of institution that you might find in a Batman movie.To the extent that Trump had a solution to this imagined problem, it was mass deportation. In fact, mass deportation is his — and his campaign’s — answer to a whole set of policy questions. What, for example, will Trump do about housing costs? Well, his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, says that they’ll deport 20 million people and that this, somehow, will bring prices 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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      Hillary Clinton Debated Trump. Here’s Her Advice for Kamala Harris.

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      The 2016 Democratic nominee fell short to Donald Trump, but she had strong debate moments against him. In an interview, she offered some thoughts for Kamala Harris.Hillary Clinton has as much experience as any Democrat in debating Donald J. Trump.The 2016 presidential campaign, when she was her party’s nominee, included three of the six general-election debates Mr. Trump has participated in. Those faceoffs went a long way toward shaping the country’s vision of his candidacy and what he would be like as president.Mr. Trump, of course, went on to win the 2016 election — an outcome that still haunts Democrats.When Mrs. Clinton called this week to discuss her old debate coach, Karen Dunn, who is helping out Vice President Kamala Harris this time around, I took the opportunity to ask about her experience on the debate stage with Mr. Trump.“The consensus was that I won all three debates and that I was well prepared,” Mrs. Clinton said.Here are excerpts from our conversation, which have been lightly edited and condensed.What do you remember about your own preparations to debate Donald Trump?It was the first debate when Trump literally ridiculed me for preparing. This was not something we had thought about beforehand, because who thought we could be ridiculed for preparing for a presidential debate in front of 85 or 90 million people?So basically I said, yeah, I did prepare. And I’ll tell you something else I prepared for: I prepared to be president. Because I had the confidence. I knew the material. I felt comfortable. I also knew I had to brush Trump back and not let him be the center of attention all the time.What advice do you have for Kamala Harris as she prepares to debate Trump?She’s proven to be a good debater, both in her races in California and in her debate with Mike Pence. So I think she needs to be prepared enough that she feels really comfortable going on both offense and defense against Trump, because there’s a lot to cover with him.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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      During NYFW, Jill Biden, Anna Wintour and More March for Voting Awareness

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      Jill Biden, Anna Wintour and top American designers participated in a voting awareness march at the onset of New York Fashion Week.Morning rush hour in Midtown Manhattan slowed to a halt on Friday as nearly 1,000 fashion-industry professionals walked up Broadway in a march meant to urge people to vote on Election Day in November.The march, held at the onset of New York Fashion Week, was organized by a group that included the Council of Fashion Designers of America; I Am a Voter, an organization that promotes civic engagement; and Vogue. The event was billed as bipartisan, but an appearance by Jill Biden, the first lady, and a Harris-Walz campaign scarf worn discreetly by Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, were among the signs of an underlying Democratic tilt.The march started outside the Macy’s store in Herald Square, where designers, including Tory Burch, Brandon Blackwood, Joseph Altuzarra and Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hr4ernandez gathered with fashion editors and garment industry workers before the crowd walked roughly six blocks to Bryant Park, chanting “V-O-T-E, vote, vote, vote” along the way.Anna Wintour of Vogue with the designer Thom Browne. On Ms. Wintour’s bag is a scarf Mr. Browne designed in partnership with the Harris-Walz campaign.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMost marchers wore Old Navy T-shirts that said “Fashion for our future” and were designed by Zac Posen, right, the brand’s chief creative officer.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThe designer Prabal Gurung marched with the group from Herald Square to Bryant Park.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMost participants were uniformly dressed in Old Navy T-shirts designed by Zac Posen, the brand’s recently appointed chief creative officer, which were emblazoned with the slogan “Fashion for our future.” In a manner particular to fashion activism, the T-shirts were styled in myriad ways: tucked into pleated slacks, layered over slip dresses, knotted into crop tops.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