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      Donald Trump Is Already Starting to Fail

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      That was quick.Donald Trump is planting the seeds of his own political demise. The corrupt, incompetent and extremist men and women he’s appointing to many of the most critical posts in his cabinet are direct threats to the well-being of the country, but they’re also political threats to Trump and to his populist allies.To understand why, it’s important to remember a cardinal reality about Trump’s political career. He has now won two general elections when he was the only alternative to an unsatisfactory status quo, and he lost the one when he was the unsatisfactory status quo. If he can’t govern well, his populist partisan realignment will come apart before it can truly begin.One of the most maddening aspects of the 2024 election is the extent to which so many voters viewed Trump as a mostly normal political candidate. MAGA Republicans see Trump as a singular figure, but an immense number of voters thought the talk about Trump was overheated, in both directions.If you’re like most Americans and don’t follow the news closely, it’s easy to see why you would see Trump in more conventional terms. A Politico analysis of the Trump campaign’s ads showed that “the single most-aired ad from his campaign since the start of October is all about inflation, Medicare and Social Security — arguing that” Kamala Harris “will make seniors already struggling with high prices ‘pay more Social Security taxes,’ while unauthorized’ immigrants receive benefits.”That is a normal, conventional political message. Trump’s ads attacking Harris’s past support for taxpayer-funded transition surgery for people in prison and immigration detention were also an appeal to the mainstream, an effort to label Harris as extreme.One of the challenging realities of American politics is that while vast numbers of Americans participate in presidential elections, only small minorities of voters actually stay engaged. And the priorities of the two groups are not the same, far from it.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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      Biden’s Policies Offer a Starting Point for Trump’s Border Crackdown

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      Mr. Trump has criticized the Biden administration for what he calls its lax handling of the border — but it has left him with tools he can use to shut down the border.President-elect Donald Trump has spent the last year railing against the Biden administration’s immigration policies, saying they left the border wide open and risked American security.But actions taken by President Biden in the past year, including a sweeping asylum ban and more streamlined deportation procedures, may make it easier for Mr. Trump to fulfill his promise to shut down the border and turn back migrants as quickly as possible.To be sure, Mr. Biden’s vision for immigration is different from Mr. Trump’s. While the White House has enacted stricter regulations at the border, it has also emphasized legal pathways to enter the country and offered temporary legal status to migrants from certain troubled countries.After promising a more humane immigration policy when he took office in 2021, Mr. Biden was confronted with a worldwide surge in migration that put pressure on the southern U.S. border. By his second year in office, annual border arrests topped 2 million.As chaotic scenes emerged of migrants crowding at the border, Republicans like Mr. Trump argued that the Democrats were unable to govern and protect American cities, and they urged a crackdown on immigration. Republican governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida sent thousands of migrants by bus and plane to Democratic northern cities to highlight the border crisis.President Biden visiting Brownsville, Texas, in February, where he received an operational briefing from U.S. border officials. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesWe 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’s Cabinet Picks, Panned in Washington, Thrill Many of His Voters

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      Where Donald J. Trump’s critics see underqualified nominees with questionable judgment, his voters described them as mavericks recruited to shake up Washington.To his detractors, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet looks like a rogues’ gallery of people with dubious credentials and questionable judgment.His supporters see something different.“It’s a masterpiece,’’ Eileen Margolis, 58, who lives in Weston, Fla., and owns a tattoo business, said of Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks unveiled over the past week. “If it was a painting, it would be a Picasso.”A “brilliant alliance,’’ is how Joanne Warwick, 60, a former Democrat from Detroit, described many of the nominees.“It’s pretty much a star cast,’’ said Judy Kanoui of Flat Rock, N.C., a retiree and lifelong Democrat who voted for Mr. Trump for the first time this month.Democrats, and even some Republicans, worry that these nominees for top positions in government are inexperienced, conflicted and potentially reckless. But in interviews with almost two dozen Trump voters around the country, his supporters were more likely to describe them as mavericks and reformers recruited to deliver on Mr. Trump’s promise to shake up Washington.In Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee for health and human services secretary, Mr. Trump’s supporters see a crusader searching for new solutions to chronic illnesses, not a conspiracy theorist promoting questionable and debunked ideas about vaccines and fluoride.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 ‘Diploma Divide’ and the 2024 Election

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      Readers discuss a David Brooks column about how the less educated are being left behind.To the Editor:Re “Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?,” by David Brooks (column, Nov. 8):Mr. Brooks is exactly right, but he doesn’t carry his line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. Yes, Donald Trump won the election because of a strong showing by the non-college-educated population. And yes, that segment is disadvantaged in many ways.But why did that segment vote for Mr. Trump? I would suggest there is a reason that people go to college. And contrary to what many believe, it is not just to get a better job. It is to become a better and more informed citizen, and to learn to distinguish truth from falsehood. And that is not easy when confronted with constant disinformation and outright lies.Partly as a result, the non-college-educated do not see that they have been duped. They have voted for a man and a party that have consistently worked to keep them suppressed, that have been against universal health care, against efforts to control global warming, against monopolistic practices, etc., etc.Democrats should stop flagellating themselves for having done something wrong. It is not they who have betrayed the non-college-educated. As global warming, hurricanes and flooding increase; as privatized health care grows more expensive, and epidemics again kill thousands because of vaccine skeptics; as inflation shoots up from tariffs and tax reduction, the non-college-educated will suffer disproportionately.Let them look to their elected Republicans. They have broken it, and now they own it.Robert H. PalmerNew YorkTo the Editor:Trying to blame the Democrats’ loss on their supposed disrespect of voters and behaving like elites is old and tired.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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      Why We Got It So Wrong

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      Let me ask you a few questions:If the Democrats nominated a woman to run for president, would you expect her to do better among female voters than the guy who ran in her place four years before?If the Democrats nominated a Black woman to run for president, would you expect her to do better among Black voters than the white candidate who ran in her place four years before?If the Republicans nominated a guy who ran on mass deportation and consistently said horrible things about Latino immigrants, would you expect him to do worse among Latino voters over time?If the Democrats nominated a vibrant Black woman who was the subject of a million brat memes, would you expect her to do better among young voters than the old white guy who ran before her?If you said yes to any of these questions, as I would have a month ago, you have some major rethinking to do, because all of these expectations were wrong.In 2024, Kamala Harris did worse among Black voters than Joe Biden did in 2020. She did worse among female voters. She did much worse among Latino voters. She did much worse among young voters.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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      Gaetz, Gabbard and Hegseth: Trump’s Appointments Are a Show of Force

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet picks show that he prizes loyalty over experience and is fueled by retribution.A Fox News ally for defense secretary. A former Democrat-turned-Trump-World-celebrity to oversee 18 spy agencies. A right-wing provocateur for the nation’s top law enforcement job.President-elect Donald J. Trump’s appointments for top government jobs continued to roll in fast and furiously on Wednesday, and his promise to build a presidential administration fueled by retribution quickly came into view.Those plans were perhaps best summarized by Representative Matt Gaetz, who wrote of his enthusiasm for the wholesale elimination of federal law enforcement agencies just hours before Mr. Trump announced he’d chosen the Florida Republican to lead the Justice Department:“We ought to have a full-court press against this WEAPONIZED government that has been turned against our people,” Mr. Gaetz wrote on social media on Wednesday. “And if that means abolishing every one of the three letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, I’m ready to get going!”Mr. Trump could not have said it better himself. And that is the entire point.The president-elect’s other bombshell picks include Pete Hegseth, a military veteran known for defending Mr. Trump on Fox News, to be his defense secretary; and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, to be director of national intelligence.President-elect Donald J. Trump chose Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence. They appeared together at a rally in North Carolina last month.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“These are so appalling they’re a form of performance art,” Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice, said in an interview, reflecting on Mr. Trump’s choices and their fitness for their jobs.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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      Matt Gaetz, a Bomb-Thrower for the Justice Department

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      President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general has set a new bar for in-your-face nominations.In selecting Representative Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general, President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen an undisguised attack dog to preside over the Department of Justice.Mr. Gaetz, 42, a Florida Republican and an unswerving loyalist to Mr. Trump, has a history that under conventional circumstances would make his confirmation prospects appear insurmountable.He was investigated by the Justice Department on suspicion of child sex trafficking. This year, after the government case was shuttered, the House Committee on Ethics opened its own inquiry into the matter, which effectively ended on Wednesday night after Mr. Gaetz resigned from his seat. Mr. Gaetz has also been accused of showing photos of nude women to colleagues on the House floor and of seeking a pardon from the previous Trump White House. He has denied each of these allegations.Mr. Gaetz is also an avowed enemy of virtually every top Republican not named Trump. He led the charge last year to oust one Republican leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and this year openly celebrated the resignations of two others — Senator Mitch McConnell, who announced he would be retiring as minority leader, and Ronna McDaniel, who stepped down as chairwoman of the Republican Party National Committee.“We’ve now 86’d: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell,” Mr. Gaetz exulted on the social media platform X in March.“I am not some ‘Lord of the Flies’ nihilist,” Mr. Gaetz insisted to The New York Times in January 2023, just after he had relinquished his five-day blockade of Mr. McCarthy’s eventually successful quest to be speaker. But nine months later, Mr. Gaetz helped pushed Mr. McCarthy out of the job for good.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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      Evans Defeats Caraveo in Colorado, Flipping a Key House Seat for the G.O.P.

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      Representative Yadira Caraveo, Democrat of Colorado, lost her first re-election battle to her Republican challenger, Gabe Evans, a state representative, former Army captain and police officer with ties to the far right, The Associated Press declared on Tuesday, handing the G.O.P. a key pickup as it closes in on retaining its House majority.Mr. Evans’s win puts Republicans just two seats shy of the majority, with about a dozen races left to be called.A moderate Democrat, Ms. Caraveo kept a relatively low profile after winning her seat two years ago in a new swing district north of Denver. Her campaign heavily emphasized Ms. Caraveo’s background as a pediatrician and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, highlighting how her stances on reproductive rights and access to health care contrasted starkly with her opponent’s.She was Colorado’s first Latina elected to federal office.Mr. Evans, who has refused to say that former President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election and also downplayed the severity of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, was one of several election deniers and skeptics who sought to flip tossup districts.He also backpedaled his stance on abortion, saying in a recent debate that he would no longer support a national ban after endorsing one in 2022. As a state representative, he voted against a ban on corporal punishment in Colorado public schools, and refused to say during a debate with Ms. Caraveo when he believed it would be appropriate for a teacher to strike a child. More