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      Fotos policiales de los acusados de conspirar con Trump: ¿por qué sonríen?

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      La imagen que se toma al fichar a los acusados de un delito suele reflejar seriedad, incredulidad o sorpresa. Eso no ha sucedido con algunos de los acusados con el expresidente en Georgia.[Última hora: Donald Trump fue fichado en Georgia y las autoridades difundieron su foto policial. Puedes leer más aquí, en inglés].La típica foto policial suele ser un asunto sombrío: con mala iluminación y gesto taciturno. Es un retrato permanente de la vergüenza, la letra escarlata del sistema legal.Y, casi por definición, va sin sonrisa.Pero entre las fotografías que han surgido de la oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton en Atlanta, donde Donald Trump y otras 18 personas han sido acusadas de conspirar para revertir las elecciones de 2020, hay varias que son peculiarmente alegres.Jenna Ellis, exabogada de Trump, luce una amplia sonrisa, al igual que David Shafer, expresidente del Partido Republicano de Georgia. Scott Hall, operador político de Trump, no logra reprimir una sonrisita burlona. Sidney Powell, acusada de esparcir teorías de la conspiración desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, deja ver un brillo en los ojos.Sidney Powell, acusada de difundir teorías conspirativas desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, es retratada con un gesto que oscila entre una sonrisa y un ceño fruncido.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton vía Associated Press¿Y qué expresan sin lugar a dudas sus expresiones faciales? Desafío.El semblante que han puesto para la cámara del sistema de justicia penal, y para el lente de la historia, recuerda los otros papeles de reparto que desempeñan en lo que parece ser una extraordinaria producción del teatro político: uno que concuerda con la afirmación muy repetida por Trump de que la fiscalía es una farsa y una burla.En la fotografía de Ellis, tomada el miércoles —tan alegre que podría ser una foto de perfil, a no ser por el logotipo de la oficina del sheriff detrás de su hombro— parece a punto de estallar en risas por el lugar donde se encuentra.La política moderna en tiempos de redes sociales, como casi todo, es una batalla por crear, controlar y definir imágenes. Y la foto policial, inventada en Bélgica en la década de 1840 como una forma útil de identificación, es un nuevo frente en ese combate.La mayoría de los otros acusados fichados hasta el momento de delitos de conspiración para revertir los resultados de las elecciones de 2020 dejaban ver su serio dilema. Tal vez ninguno más que Rudolph Giuliani, quien apretó los labios, miró con frialdad al frente y frunció el ceño luego de comparecer ante las autoridades el miércoles en Atlanta.Ellis intentó adueñarse de un proceso que suele verse como humillante o intimidante; ella ha presentado su acusación como una persecución política injusta que debe superarse con fe y optimismo.Publicó su fotografía policial en internet con una cita de los Salmos: “¡Alégrense, ustedes los justos; regocíjense en el Señor!”.Cuando se le pidieron comentarios, Ellis comparó su situación con la de un antiguo cliente, un ministro que desafió una orden de cerrar su iglesia en la pandemia.“Quienes se burlan de mí, de mi excliente y mi Dios, quieren ver que me quiebro y no tendrán esa satisfacción”, dijo. “Sonreí porque estoy decidida a enfrentar este proceso con valentía y actuando según la fe. No pueden robarse mi alegría”.Powell y los abogados que representan a Shafer y Hall no respondieron de inmediato a pedidos de comentario.Haber sido retratado en las instalaciones del condado de Fulton podría ser incluso un símbolo de estatus entre los seguidores de Trump más incondicionales: Amy Kremer, quien ayudo a organizar el mitin previo al motín del 6 de enero de 2021 en el Capitolio, publicó una foto manipulada en la que aparece, sin sonreír, frente al logotipo del sheriff del condado de Fulton. No se le ha acusado en Georgia.Se supone que el retrato policial sea un ecualizador, que tanto los poderosos como los desposeídos sean blanco del mismo lente objetivo. Y muchos enemigos de Trump han criticado al Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. por no tomar la foto de la ficha policial (como harían con otros acusados) cuando el expresidente fue fichado por cargos federales en Miami y Washington.Esta vez será distinto.Por regla general, los políticos suelen asumir su fichaje en la comisaría como eventos políticos que al final tendrán un peso en el resultado legal.Cuando a Tom DeLay, líder de la cámara baja, se le acusó de lavado de dinero y conspiración en 2005, se atavió con traje, ajustó su corbata y sonrió de oreja a oreja. Fue una forma astuta de privar a sus oponentes de una imagen que fácilmente podrían usar en anuncios para atacarlo. (Se retiró del Congreso pero su posterior condena fue anulada en apelación).John Edwards, quien fue senador por Carolina del Norte y candidato demócrata a la vicepresidencia en 2004, sonrió con calidez ante la cámara como si estuviera frente a un simpatizante cuando lo ficharon al imputársele delitos de violación de leyes de financiación de campaña en 2011. Como Ellis, quería transmitir su inocencia y la injusticia de los cargos. (Fue absuelto de uno de los cargos y el gobierno retiró los restantes).Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesServicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesA los políticos les obsesiona proyectar mensajes, es un rasgo dominante de su especie. Tom DeLay, John Edwards y Rick Perry acudieron a que los ficharan como a un evento político que a final de cuentas podría influenciar el veredicto legal.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Travis vía Getty ImagesY en 2014, Rick Perry, entonces gobernador republicano de Texas, ofreció una sonrisa taimada cuando lo ficharon por delitos relacionados con presionar al fiscal de distrito demócrata del condado de Travis para que renunciara. Calificó los cargos de “farsa”, publicó fotos suyas en una heladería poco después y dos años más tarde fue absuelto de todos los cargos.En la mayoría de los casos, sonreír en la foto policial es una muestra de rebeldía.Eso ha sido particularmente cierto si se habla de los delincuentes famosos que, en general, han sido casi tan cuidadosos de su imagen como las estrellas de cine o los políticos. Al Capone sonrió en varios retratos policiales así como en su foto de identificación en Alcatraz. Y en la única foto que se le tomó al narcotraficante Pablo Escobar para una ficha policial, luego de que lo arrestaron por narcotráfico en Colombia, parecía casi jubiloso.Donaldson Collection — Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesPor lo general, los criminales famosos, como Al Capone y Pablo Escobar, han estado muy atentos a su imagen, como las estrellas de cine o los políticos.Archivio GBB vía AlamyTenía un buen motivo. Los cargos fueron retirados rápidamente.Glenn Thrush cubre el departamento de Justicia. Se unió al Times desde 2017, luego de haber trabajado para Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald y City Limits. Más de Glenn ThrushMaggie Haberman es corresponsal política sénior y autora de Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Formó parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores del presidente Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. Más de Maggie Haberman More

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      Trump’s Plan: Skip the Debates, Win Iowa, Avoid Prison

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      Michelle Cottle, Ross Douthat, Carlos Lozada and Listen to and follow ‘Matter of Opinion’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicThe first Republican primary debate of the 2024 election is over. Chris Christie wiggled his fingers. Nikki Haley took Vivek Ramaswamy to the woodshed. Tim Scott was a “nonentity.” And then there was that elephant decidedly not in the room, Donald Trump, who instead spent his evening raving about water pressure to Tucker Carlson.As the former president is expected to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail, the Matter of Opinion hosts discuss what we learned from the first G.O.P. debate — and what it means when everyone in the party is still desperate to both be Trump, and be rid of him.Illustration by The New York Times; photograph by Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThoughts? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.Follow our hosts on X: Michelle Cottle (@mcottle), Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT), Carlos Lozada (@CarlosNYT) and Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen).“Matter of Opinion” is produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Phoebe Lett and Derek Arthur. It is edited by Stephanie Joyce. Mixing by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Isaac Jones, Efim Shapiro, Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Our fact-checking team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Annie-Rose Strasser. More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy Is Happy to Be Talked About, Even if His Name Is Said Wrong

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      At the debate and on the campaign trail, rivals, pundits and voters have stumbled on his name. (Rhymes with “cake,” he says.)To former Vice President Mike Pence, he’s “Vih-veck.” To a “Fox and Friends” panelist on Thursday morning, he was “Vee-veck.” And to some Iowa voters, it’s “Vy-vick” — if they said his name at all.Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur running for president who has climbed the polls in recent weeks, has branded himself as a political newcomer who, despite participating in his first Republican debate Wednesday night, seemed at ease bringing the event to near-chaos several times as he sparred with the likes of Mr. Pence and Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor.A different hurdle he may face, however, is getting others to say his name correctly.The son of Indian Americans, Mr. Ramaswamy has both leaned into and away from his racial background. He has often expressed gratitude that his parents immigrated to the “greatest nation on Earth,” and on Wednesday, he echoed a line from former President Barack Obama’s speech onstage when he introduced himself as a “skinny guy with a funny last name.” (Mr. Ramaswamy has said that “Vivek” rhymes with “cake” and pronounces his last name “Rah-muh-swah-mee.”)When Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, asked after the debate why Mr. Ramaswamy hadn’t corrected the mispronunciation sooner, the candidate laughed and said, “I appreciate best efforts.”Karthick Ramakrishnan, the director of AAPI Data, said that because Mr. Ramaswamy is running as an “insurgent candidate with radical ideas,” it “wouldn’t make sense for him to start policing, or suggesting how others should be pronouncing his name.” (One of the “10 commandments” in Mr. Ramaswamy’s platform asserts that “reverse racism is racism.”)“It’s a recognition that different people may be at different stages along the way in terms of even knowing who he is and how to pronounce his name,” Mr. Ramakrishnan said. “He is trying to activate a generational kind of debate and divide in America that needs to be addressed and to move away from racial identity politics.”Nicole Holliday, a linguistics professor at Pomona College, attributed the struggle for some to pronounce names correctly to a number of factors, including a sentiment that “English speakers in general expect to be accommodated everywhere in the world” and a lack of foreign language training in the United States from an early age.Past presidential candidates from diverse racial backgrounds have faced racist insults related to their names. In 2020, David Perdue, then a senator from Georgia, faced a backlash after he appeared to make fun of Kamala Harris’s name at a rally just before the November election: “Ka-ma-la, Ka-ma-la, Kamala-mala-mala, I don’t know, whatever.” And some critics of Mr. Obama often invoked his middle name — Hussein — to falsely claim that he was Muslim.Of the few prominent South Asians in G.O.P. politics, many have used names friendly to a less-diverse voter base. Bobby Jindal, the former Republican governor of Louisiana, changed his name from Piyush to Bobby when he was young. And Nikki Haley, another Indian American in the 2024 presidential race, has long used Nikki, her middle name, instead of her first name, Nimarata.While the overwhelming majority of Indian Americans are Democrats, a 2020 survey of Indian American voters found that almost 60 percent said they would be open to supporting an Indian American candidate “regardless of their party affiliation.”Mr. Ramaswamy’s name mispronunciations are all too familiar for South Asian Americans, said Sara Sadhwani, a political science professor at Pomona College. But, she noted, the acknowledgment of such mispronunciations by Mr. Hannity and others may point to a “slow recognition” among Republicans that “not only do we need to diversify, but we’ll have to be respectful to some extent of the folks who we’re able to bring to the table.”Beyond his name, Mr. Ramaswamy may “hit a ceiling” as a result of his Hindu faith, predicted Mr. Ramakrishnan, the AAPI Data founder.On Wednesday, the conservative commentator Ann Coulter made a comment largely condemned as racist, on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that “Nikki and Vivek are involved in some Hindu business, it seems. Not our fight.” (Ms. Haley was raised Sikh but later converted to Christianity.)“Ann can tweet whatever she wants to,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Ramaswamy campaign, said of the comment. “Vivek has traveled this country and is very grateful for the warm support he has received from Christian voters across the country.” More

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      G.O.P. Chair Says Candidates Must Talk About Abortion to Win in 2024

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      Republican rivals spent more time talking about abortion than any other single issue during the first debate, exposing divisions around a federal ban.Even as Republicans’ efforts to restrict abortion rights appear to have hurt candidates in key races over the last year, the party’s chairwoman said on Thursday morning that she welcomed the protracted — and at times, contentious — discussion of the topic in the first Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night.“I was very pleased to see them talk about abortion,” Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, said on “Fox & Friends.”According to an analysis by The New York Times, abortion was the most-discussed topic among the eight candidates, outlasting discussion of former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner, by more than a minute.Ms. McDaniel noted that Democrats had successfully campaigned on the issue of abortion rights in last year’s midterm elections and were likely to do so again in 2024. Democrats have sought to harness a backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion. The issue appears to have helped motivate voter turnout for Democrats and has become politically risky for Republicans. Many have sought to play down the subject.“If our candidates aren’t able to find a response and put out a response, we’re not going to win,” Ms. McDaniel said.But if Ms. McDaniel welcomed the discussion Wednesday night, so, too, did some Democrats and abortion rights activists, who were eager to remind voters that most Republicans — including those on the debate stage — are far to the right of public opinion.“Someone tell her they’re also not going to win if they do talk about abortion,” a leading abortion rights group, Naral Pro-Choice America, responded on X, formerly known as Twitter.This month, Ohio voters rebuffed a Republican-backed ballot measure that would have made it more difficult to amend the state’s constitution, an effort by Republicans to make it harder for voters to preserve abortion rights through an amendment. Though abortion was not technically on the ballot, discussion of the issue dominated the conversation.While a 2024 candidate’s fierce opposition to abortion may help draw voters in a Republican primary, that stance could hurt them with moderate or independent voters in a general election.A New York Times/Siena College poll from July found significant opposition to abortion among likely Republican voters, with 56 percent saying abortion should be mostly or always illegal, and 58 percent saying they backed a 15-week federal abortion ban.But the federal ban had significantly less support among a broader pool of voters, with 53 percent saying they would oppose it, and 61 percent saying abortion should be mostly or always legal.The exchange at Wednesday night’s debate laid bare this tension, exposing divisions within the Republican Party and those seeking to be its standard-bearer. While all eight candidates have voiced support for the Supreme Court’s decision, they disagree on whether to enact a federal abortion ban or leave those measures to the states.Former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina both backed a 15-week national ban, a policy that Mr. Pence has challenged everyone in the field to embrace. Mr. Pence sparred over the issue with Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, who argued that a federal abortion ban was politically impractical and urged Republicans “to stop demonizing this issue.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — who signed a six-week abortion ban into law in his state — hedged, saying he would support “the side of life” while also acknowledging that “Wisconsin is going to do it different than Texas.”But in her appearance on Fox News, Ms. McDaniel sought to highlight the party’s unity, saying that all eight candidates had successfully painted their political opponents as extreme on the issue. Mr. Scott, for example, claimed falsely that New York, California and Illinois allowed abortions without limits up until birth.Mr. Trump, who opted to skip the debate, has been less clear about his views on an abortion ban. His appointments to the Supreme Court cleared the way for its decision on abortion. But Mr. Trump has not yet backed a federal ban, and his campaign has suggested that he wants to leave abortion policy up to individual states. During his presidency, he at one point supported a ban after 20 weeks’ gestation. More

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      Nikki Haley Aims to Turn Her Debate Moment Into Momentum

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      The former South Carolina governor — the only woman in the Republican field — stood out for her responses on abortion, foreign policy and Donald Trump’s indictments.Less than 30 minutes into the first Republican presidential debate, the men onstage were bickering — just as Nikki Haley predicted.“I think this is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said, ‘If you want something said, ask a man,’” quipped Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former ambassador to the United Nations. “If you want something done, ask a woman.”The response was the beginning of a standout performance for Ms. Haley, who already cut a distinct figure: the lone woman in the Republican field, standing in a white and light blue suit-style dress among a stretch of men in nearly identical red ties.Her Thatcher line — a favorite on the stump and the inspiration for the title of one of her books — captured the balance she has sought to strike between testing her party’s attitudes and not leaning too far into her gender. But Ms. Haley, who has struggled to gain traction in primary polls dominated by Donald J. Trump, did not always stay above the fray.She took swings at her rivals and offered a general-election vision for her party that seemed to intrigue some voters and pundits who were impressed with her abilities to speak authoritatively, skillfully break with the pack on some issues and give and take punches.The showing could inject some much-needed momentum into her campaign. Ms. Haley spent the next morning sitting through a blitz of interviews before she was expected in Chicago for a fund-raiser. At the very least, her allies said, the debate gave a glimpse into why she should not be discounted.“Nobody thought Nikki Haley could get elected to anything in South Carolina,” said Katon Dawson, a Haley surrogate and the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. And yet, he added, “she has never lost a race.”Here are four areas where Ms. Haley was able to land a blow and distinguish herself from the field on Wednesday night in Milwaukee.“Do not make women feel like they have to decide on this issue.”She went head-to-head with former Vice President Mike Pence on abortion, giving an impassioned defense of women and urging her rivals to stop “demonizing” the issue. As governor of South Carolina, she signed a 20-week ban on the procedure, but on Wednesday, just as she has before, she called for “consensus” on the issue.“Can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions? Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions? Can’t we all agree that doctors and nurses who don’t believe in abortion shouldn’t have to perform them?” she said, before continuing: “Can’t we all agree that contraception should be available? And can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”Ms. Haley’s attempts to lead her party on a thorny issue haven’t always resonated — partly because, her critics say, she has dodged most questions on the details of her positions. On the stage Wednesday, she broached familiar personal themes, saying she was “unapologetically pro-life” because her husband was adopted and she had trouble conceiving her two children.But when Mr. Pence sought to establish himself as the staunchest opponent of abortion, telling Ms. Haley that “consensus is the opposite of leadership,” Ms. Haley fired back that he was being dishonest about what was politically possible when it comes to Congress passing a federal ban on abortion.“When you’re talking about a federal ban, be honest with the American people,” she said, arguing that the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate meant that no Democratic or Republican president would be able to set abortion policy.The exchange underscored the deep and emotional divide that has emerged among Republicans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Though members of the party largely support that ruling, a fierce electoral backlash to more stringent state-level restrictions has made abortion a politically risky issue for Republicans.“This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country.”Some of Ms. Haley’s fiercest clashes were with Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and political newcomer, over her support for Ukraine in its effort to fight Russia’s invasion, an issue that has starkly divided the field and the party more broadly. She suggested that Mr. Ramaswamy wanted to “hand Ukraine to Russia,” and that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had killed Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group responsible for a short-lived mutiny.“This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country,” Ms. Haley said to Mr. Ramaswamy, referring to Mr. Putin, whom she also called “thug.” “You don’t do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends.”Later, she took one of the most memorable shots of the night when she told Mr. Ramaswamy: “You will make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” This drew loud applause from the audience.“They all voted to raise the debt, and Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt.”On the campaign trail, Ms. Haley often tells crowds that it is time to put an accountant like herself in the White House. On Wednesday, as her rivals blamed President Biden and Democrats for economic policies that they said had driven up the cost of food and gasoline, Ms. Haley criticized both Republicans and Democrats for increasing the nation’s spending and debt.“The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us,” she said. “Our Republicans did this to us when they passed that $2.2 trillion Covid stimulus bill.”Mr. Biden shared a clip of Ms. Haley in which she said her rivals — Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence, Mr. DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina — had all fueled the national debt increase. “What she said,” the president said on X, formerly known as Twitter.Economists largely agree that Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue plan in 2021 contributed to the highest inflation rate in decades. But they spread the blame to stimulus passed under Mr. Trump and monetary stimulus by the Federal Reserve, along with disruptions to supply chains caused by Covid-19.The issues of debt and spending, along with calls for greater transparency in government, were part of Ms. Haley’s stunning come-from-behind-victory in 2010 when she was elected governor. That year, Ms. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, rode the Tea Party wave to become the first woman and first person of color to lead South Carolina — as well as the youngest governor of any state at the time.“We have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America.”Ms. Haley elicited some boos from the arena audience when she called for “a new generational conservative leader,” pointing out “that-three quarters of Americans don’t want a rematch between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden.”“We have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America,” she said. “We can’t win an election that way.”In an interview with the Fox News host Sean Hannity after the debate, Ms. Haley appealed to Republican primary voters to back a candidate other than Mr. Trump, whom she cast as an unsure bet against Mr. Biden.She said that she believed the criminal indictments against Mr. Trump were politically motivated, but that the cases could nevertheless take him off the campaign trail.“I served with him, I was proud to serve with him, I agree with him on most issues and he’s my friend,” Ms. Haley said of the former president. “But the reality is we cannot afford Joe Biden.” More

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      Nikki Haley Is the Best Trump Alternative

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      I have a bunch of friends and acquaintances who are Never Trump, maybe-Trump or kind-of-Trump Republicans. They’ve been looking around for the candidate they can support and give their dollars to, somebody who is an antidote to Donald Trump and who can win a general election.We’ve had endless conversations about who this person might be. Many of these friends and acquaintances went through a Ron DeSantis phase. A few like the No Labels third candidate option. I’ve often found myself talking up Tim Scott with them. If Trump is a moral stain, I would say, Tim Scott is the kind, honest and optimistic remedy.But Wednesday’s debate persuaded me that the best Trump alternative is not Scott, it’s Nikki Haley. Nothing against Scott, he just didn’t show the specific kind of power and force needed to bring down Trump. Haley showed more than a glimpse of that power.Wednesday’s debate illustrated the cancer that is eating away at the Republican Party. It’s not just Trumpian immorality. The real disease is narcissistic hucksterism. The real danger is that he’s creating generations of people, like Vivek Ramaswamy, who threaten to dominate the G.O.P. for decades to come.Ramaswamy has absolutely no reason to be running for president. He said that Trump is the best president of the 21st century. So why is he running against the man he so admires? The answer is: To draw attention to himself. Maybe to be Trump’s vice president or secretary of social media memes.If Trump emerged from the make-believe world of pro wrestling, Ramaswamy emerges from the make-believe world of social media and the third-rate sectors of the right-wing media sphere. His statements are brisk, in-your-face provocations intended to produce temporary populist dopamine highs. It’s all performative show. Ramaswamy seems as uninterested in actually governing as his idol.Republicans have been unable to take down Trump because they haven’t been able to rebut and replace the core Trump/Ramaswamy ethos — that politics is essentially a form of entertainment. But time and again, Haley seemed to look at the Trump/Ramaswamy wing and implicitly say: You children need to stop preening and deal with reality. She showed total impatience for the kind of bravado that the fragile male ego manufactures by the boatload.Haley dismantled Ramaswamy on foreign policy. It was not only her contemptuous put-down: “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” She took on the whole America First ethos that sounds good as a one-liner but that doesn’t work when you’re governing a superpower. Gesturing to Ramaswamy, she said, “He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don’t do that to friends.”Similarly on abortion, many of her opponents took the issue as a chance to perform self-righteous bluster — to make the issue about themselves. She was the only one who acknowledged the complexity of the issue, who tried to humanize people caught in horrible situations, who acknowledged that the absolutist position is politically unsustainable.She was the candidate brave enough to state the obvious truth that Trump took decades of G.O.P. fiscal conservative posturing and he blew it to smithereens. The other candidates assumed the usual conservative postures about cutting taxes and spending, but she introduced the reality: Under Trump, the G.O.P. added $8 trillion to the national debt. Where have you been the last seven years?That was part of a larger accomplishment. She seems to be one of the few candidates who understands that to run against Trump you have to run against Trump. Many of the other candidates, especially Ron DeSantis, seem to have absorbed the pernicious Trumpian assumption that Republican voters are so stupid that they can be won over by hokum. DeSantis is a smart guy trying to run as a simpleton. Haley, by contrast, seems to believe that voters are intelligent enough to be treated as adults.I’m trying to point to an overall pattern. When politics becomes entertainment, it’s very easy to create a land of make-believe in which you get high on your own supply. To follow Trump, you more or less have to say farewell to the actual world and live by the rules of the fun house carnival. Haley seems to have her feet still planted on the ground — able to face what Saul Bellow once called “the reality situation.”My largest question about Haley is: Does she know what year it is? The most interesting exchange of the night was between Ramaswamy and Mike Pence. Ramaswamy, to his credit, was talking about the nation’s mental health crisis and the national identity crisis that lies beneath it. Pence waved all that talk about the loss of meaning and purpose as so much woo-woo, and argued that the real problem is that government is not as good as the people. Pence, like many in the field, is still living in the age of Reagan, or at the latest, the Tea Party. They haven’t reoriented their focus to the sorts of concerns that are most important to heartland voters without a college degree. They don’t understand why the old Republican orthodoxy was so fragile in the face of Trump. They haven’t faced the new realities that have emerged this century.Has Haley? Too soon to tell. But if any of my friends and acquaintances want to stop Trump, this is their moment to give Haley her chance.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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      On Immigration, Republican Candidates Show Little Disagreement at Debate

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      Donald Trump’s signature issue from 2016 still reverberates powerfully and prompts aggressive rhetoric on ways to shore up the southern U.S. border.Asked whether he would send special forces into Mexico to combat drug cartels, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida didn’t hesitate to swing for the fences.“Yes, and I will do it on day one,” he said.He pledged to declare a national emergency and added: “When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that is going to be the last thing they do. We are going to use force and leave them stone-cold dead.”Republicans participating in the first presidential debate on Wednesday traded barbs and clashed repeatedly over abortion, climate change and how much fealty they owe to former President Donald J. Trump.But, when it came to immigration, there was little disagreement, only efforts to outdo each other in offering aggressive recommendations for military responses to unauthorized immigration and drug trafficking across the southern border. The overwhelming majority of illicit substances are brought into the United States in commercial vehicles coming through official ports of entry, rather than by migrants, according to law enforcement.Former Vice President Mike Pence did say that the United States would partner with the Mexican military, “and we will hunt down and destroy the cartels that are claiming lives in the United States.”During the debate, there were almost no evocations of immigration as one of the triumphant strains in the American tapestry, just a steady drumbeat of menace. In part, that reflects the degree to which Donald Trump’s signature issue has become so ingrained in the Republican playbook and psyche.But it also reflects the steady toll from drugs smuggled across the border, especially fentanyl, and the bitter trail of addiction and death that has stalked Americans across barriers of race, geography and class.As a result, like so much else in Republican politics, proposals that were once fringe have become mainstream since Mr. Trump made the border a core issue of his 2016 campaign and, once elected, of his domestic political agenda.Cars lining up to cross into the U.S. via Tijuana, Mexico, earlier this year. Drug smuggling across the border has been cited by Republican candidates as a main reason to secure the border.Guillermo Arias/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRepublican candidates in this campaign cycle have picked up his baton, embracing ideas that would have been deemed unthinkable before the Trump presidency.For months, they have amped up their rhetoric about the southern border, raising the prospect of sending military troops to target drug cartels and stop what they call an invasion of migrants. And polls show growing frustration among many demographic groups, including Democrats, about the influx of migrants, which has created chaotic scenes at the border in recent years and strained cities, from New York to Denver, where many of the arrivals have ended up.But there are clear partisan divides, with two-thirds of Republicans saying that there should be fewer immigrants and asylum-seekers allowed into the country, compared to about a quarter of Democrats, according to an Associated Press poll earlier this year.A poll by Gallup in July found that the percentage of Americans who believe immigration is a “good thing” is the lowest since 2014. The poll found a growing minority — 41 percent — of Americans believe immigration should be decreased, with Republicans far more likely to say so than Democrats. Still, a majority of Americans polled remain largely supportive of immigration and opposed to decreasing the number of immigrants.The political fallout has been especially sharp in New York, where more than 100,000 migrants have arrived, with nearly 60,000 of those staying in shelters.A poll released this week by the Siena College Research Institute found that large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents in both the city and upstate New York believe the migrants, many of them asylum-seekers, pose a “serious problem” for the state.Roughly 46 percent of voters said that migrants resettling in New York in the last two decades have been more of a “burden” than a “benefit” to the state. Nearly 60 percent said that “New Yorkers have already done enough for new migrants and should now work to slow the flow” rather than “accept new migrants and work to assimilate them into New York.”Unauthorized border crossings have declined in recent months, a result of measures that the Biden administration has introduced to enable people to enter the United States in a more orderly fashion, such as by making an appointment on a government mobile app for an interview with U.S. authorities at the border or being sponsored by a relative already in the country.During Wednesday’s debate, the fentanyl crisis loomed large, with the candidates invoking overdose deaths as emblematic of the border crisis.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina called for firing 87,000 newly hired I.R.S. agents and doubling the number of border patrol agents. “The most pressing need of the American people is our southern border,” he said.“If we spend $10 billion, we could finish the wall,” he said. “For $5 billion more, we could have the military-grade technology to surveil our southern border to stop the flow of fentanyl and save 70,000 Americans a year. “Vivek Ramaswamy, who has called for securing the border by any means necessary, including with military force, said that resources the United States has been sending to Ukraine should be employed instead to “protect against the invasion across our southern border.”Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, called for the detention of everyone entering the country unlawfully.But in a rare sentiment respectful of immigration at the debate, he said, “We have so many wonderful people from around the world who are waiting in line following the law to try to come here and pursue the American dream. Those people are waiting and waiting and waiting because we haven’t dealt with the problem of the folks who are here.”President Biden has repeatedly reminded Americans that only Congress can fix the broken immigration system. But, in an increasingly polarized political environment, prospects for a legislative solution backed by both parties have only become dimmer. More

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      Our Writers Pick the Winners, Losers and ‘the Star of the Evening’ From the First Republican Debate

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      Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for the first Republican presidential primary candidate debate, held in Milwaukee on Wednesday night. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers and contributors rank the candidates on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 means the candidate probably didn’t belong on the stage and should have dropped out before the debate […] More