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      Trump Mixes Grievance Politics With Bread-and-Butter G.O.P. Issues

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      Though the former president often draws attention for his more extreme policy proposals and rhetoric, a set of core conservative issues appear to resonate even more with his supporters.Former President Donald J. Trump has consistently generated headlines on the campaign trail for his apocalyptic, often violent rhetoric and for extreme policy proposals that would reshape long-held norms of American government.They include his vow to use the Justice Department to prosecute his foes, his statement that he would be a dictator but only on the first day of his presidency and his use of language echoing authoritarian leaders.But those comments are wrapped around more traditional political statements. A significant portion of Mr. Trump’s stump speech focuses on core conservative issues that are the bread and butter of Republican politics.Though they draw less media attention, his statements on those issues, which often push the edge of truth, appear to resonate more with his audiences. Here are some of Mr. Trump’s biggest applause lines from a speech in Reno, Nev., on Sunday, many of which have been fixtures of his appeals to voters throughout his campaign.Law and orderIn his 2024 bid, Mr. Trump is building on two safety-related messages from his previous campaigns, when he stoked fear about urban crime in Democratic-run cities and staked out a hard-line position on immigration, in part by using anti-immigrant rhetoric to paint migrants as criminals.“On my first day back in the White House, I will terminate every ‘open borders’ policy of the Biden administration.”Since leaving the White House, Mr. Trump has consistently attacked President Biden’s record on immigration, criticizing him as doing little to deter the record number of migrants crossing the border. This proposal is one of several in which Mr. Trump promises to restore and strengthen his previous immigration policies, which were hugely popular with his supporters. Mr. Biden has recently signaled a willingness to enact new restrictions on migration.“As soon as we win the election, the momentum of our great victory will immediately begin stopping the hordes of illegal-alien migrants who are charging across our border by the hundreds of thousands.”Underlying this line is Mr. Trump’s oft-repeated notion that Mr. Biden is a weak leader who has made America’s adversaries see the country as vulnerable. With statements like these, Mr. Trump suggests that he projects such an image of strength that his election alone — which he presents as an inevitability — will deter migrants from illegally crossing the border.“Safety will again be restored so that children can go outside with their parents — mother and father — and play in the park without being beat up, molested or shot.”Mr. Trump presents a dark, often dystopian, vision of an America that is ravaged by crime, building on his message in 2020 that the nation’s cities were decaying. He is again trying to present himself as a “law-and-order” candidate, vaguely alluding to crime in cities led by Democrats, for which he blames progressive politicians, activists and policies. (Mr. Trump sometimes exaggerates crime statistics to make his point.)“Drill, baby, drill” has become a rallying cry for Mr. Trump.Max Whittaker for The New York TimesEnergy and the economyPocketbook concerns are central to Mr. Trump’s campaign this year. He has recently begun using the slogan “Better Off With Trump,” telling voters that the economy was better when he was president.“I will rapidly end crooked Joe Biden’s inflation nightmare, end his war on American energy, and we will drill, baby, drill.”“Drill, baby, drill,” a mantra during the 2008 presidential campaign, has become a rallying cry for Mr. Trump, who insists that America must be less reliant on imports of oil and gas. He presents greater domestic production of fossil fuels as a solution to rising energy prices that he blames chiefly for inflation in the United States. And he is critical of environmental restrictions imposed by the Biden administration that limit drilling for oil and gas.“They’re going to make all electric cars in our country, but not when I’m in there. I’ll end that the first day.”Mr. Trump draws roars of approvals when he talks about rolling back the Biden administration’s efforts to encourage Americans to transition to electric vehicles. (The administration does not have a federal electric vehicle mandate, as Mr. Trump often claims.)He often tailors his criticism to his audience. In Nevada, he suggested that initiative would hurt automobile union workers, a criticism he has made in other speeches. But when in Iowa, Mr. Trump deems electric vehicles a threat to ethanol, a fuel that is made from corn and other crops and that is a major factor in the state’s economy.Cultural battlesOften toward the end of his stump speech, Mr. Trump turns to a set of divisive social issues that have become rallying cries for the Republican Party.“On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”These vows, which encapsulate a number of issues that fire up Mr. Trump’s conservative base, consistently elicit some of the loudest responses at his events. His views largely align with his 2024 rivals for the nomination. Republicans have hoped such “parental rights” issues could help them win over suburban voters in particular.“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or mask mandate.”Mr. Trump often played down the effectiveness of masks during the coronavirus pandemic. Even as his vaccine development program, Operation Warp Speed, spurred progress, the vaccines are deeply unpopular with his Republican base, and he has railed against requiring them as an affront to personal freedom.“I will keep men out of women’s sports.”This line effectively cements the belief by many conservatives that gender is fixed at birth and based on biological sex. After saying it, Mr. Trump will often marvel that politicians even have to talk about it, a way for him to ridicule L.G.B.T. rights activists. The sentence has been criticized as offensive by L.G.B.T. rights activists for misgendering transgender women athletes.Retribution and the excesses of the leftUnderlying Mr. Trump’s campaign speeches are two key grievances: his false claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him and his position that the four indictments against him are politically motivated. He draws on both as he condemns his opponents and suggests he would exact vengeance if elected.“Every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of honor. Because I am being indicted for you.”Mr. Trump faces 91 total felony counts in four criminal cases. He devotes considerable time in his stump speech accusing Mr. Biden of masterminding all four. With this line, Mr. Trump positions himself as a kind of Christlike political martyr: a victim of corrupt political enemies who is absorbing their blows to spare his conservative supporters.“Our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom.”Mr. Trump consistently portrays himself as the last bulwark defending American democracy from an onslaught of forces, among them the political left. With this sentence, he turns his legal woes into a collective problem. He often adds, “In the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I just happen to be standing in the way.” More

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      There Wasn’t Much to Love About 2023

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. This is our last conversation for the year, so let me first wish you and Dan a Merry Christmas.Gail: Thanks, Bret. And the best of course to you and Corinna and your kids.Bret: As much as I’ve loved our exchanges, I can’t say I’ve loved the year. From Donald Trump’s political resurrection, to Congress failing to come together to help Ukraine, to America’s premier university presidents being unable to say that calling for the genocide of Jews violates campus policies, to this latest ludicrous impeachment inquiry, to the clown show that made Kevin McCarthy speaker of the House and then the clown show that brought him down, to Vivek Ramaswamy merely opening his mouth, it feels like the year in which America slipped into terminal decline.Gail Collins: Hey, let’s go for something a little less drastic. I admit any year in which all the most positive stories seemed to involve Taylor Swift wasn’t exactly great for politics. But looking back I see some bright spots.Bret: I’m all ears.Gail: Even though people can’t wrap their heads around it, the economy’s really improved. Lots of jobs available. The unemployment rate is, gee, nearly the lowest since I was in grad school. Biden’s battle against global warming has been showing signs of progress. Electric car sales, for example, are up. Solar is energy booming.Bret: Much of it lining the pockets of Elon Musk, 2023’s third-biggest blowhard.Gail: Representative George Santos is gone — so deeply gone he’s joined Rudy Giuliani in the world of cameo video sales. And while it’s hard for America to find issues on which a strong majority can get together, I’ll bet one is the conviction that Vivek Ramaswamy is the most irritating presidential candidate in recent world history.Bret: Your point about the remarkable resilience of the American economy is a good one, and maybe it will even help Joe Biden politically as inflation finally cools off and interest rates start to fall. He’ll need that, since right now more than 60 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy.Biden might just get another political assist if the Supreme Court, in its supreme unwisdom, fails to overturn a lower court decision to sharply restrict the distribution of abortion pills, which will almost surely energize a lot of independent voters to stick with him. There’s a bitter sort of irony in thinking that the only thing that might save abortion rights in America for the long term is their restriction in the short term.Gail: The struggle over abortion rights is one of the most fascinating political stories of our era. It seems to be getting a very strong, very positive response from a wide swath of the public. Not just limited to liberals or Democrats.Bret: Even conservatives like me shudder to think of what happens in this country if we turn the clock back 60 years on reproductive rights.Gail: The most recent controversies are going to bring even more voters into the abortion-rights camp. We had the story of the Texas Supreme Court blocking an abortion for a young woman who wanted to have a baby, then learned the fetus she was carrying would almost certainly not survive — and that following through with the delivery might make it impossible for her to have children in the future. Hard to get a more sympathetic saga.Bret: Remarkable how people who claim to believe in the sanctity of life are willing to wreck lives to get what they want.Gail: And the abortion pills work so early in a pregnancy … opposition is pretty much limited to people with a religious conviction against ending pregnancy at all.I’m very sure a majority of the Supreme Court justices don’t want to have to deal with this issue. They’re conservative, but not totally crazy.Bret: Very sure? I can see John Roberts, the chief justice, and Neil Gorsuch, the most libertarian of the justices, joining the three liberals in overturning the appeals court. But it’s going to be uncomfortably close.Gail: Fingers crossed.Bret: Returning to my preferred tale of woe, Gail, homelessness in America just rose to its highest recorded rate. Levels of illegal immigration continued to rise this year to stratospheric levels, despite Biden’s repeated promises to get the border under control. Both problems contribute to a palpable sense that things are not under control. And I don’t quite understand why Democrats don’t want to move more aggressively on these fronts, since they are big liabilities for the party.You’re in charge of the Dems: What’s up with that?Gail: Hmmph. I clearly remember recently that when something strange was going on in the House, I mentioned that you were in charge of Republicans and you protested. So don’t stick all the Democrats on me.Bret: Turnabout is fair play!Gail: OK, we’re talking about two issues here. I blame much of the housing crisis on suburban zoning laws that make it hard to build a lot of affordable homes for working families. Not that it’s all that easy to get large apartment complexes for the non-rich built in cities, either.To really tackle housing on a national scale, we’d need new programs coming from Congress, where the Republican House majority is hard pressed to work efficiently enough to brew coffee.Bret: The question isn’t whether House Republicans can brew coffee, Gail. It’s about what the president knew about Hunter’s coffee brewing — and when he knew it.Gail: Oh please, let’s skip the nonissue of Hunter Biden today.Bret: About the coffee: I was kidding. About housing: I don’t pretend to be an expert, but my impression is that the homelessness crisis has a lot to do with the opioid, meth and mental-health crises. I’m all for easing zoning laws, but I doubt we’ll make much headway until we find a way to address our catastrophic drug and mental-health problems, which often reinforce each other. Reversing misbegotten efforts to decriminalize hard drugs in places like Oregon, as well as a terrible Ninth Circuit ruling that made it difficult for cities to enforce ordinances against public camping, would do some good.Gail: Too bad we’re not doing the negotiations. I can envision possible trade-offs.The border is definitely a huge problem, but the Republicans are just using it as an excuse not to do anything the Biden administration proposes on any issue. While there have been some modest administration reforms, really getting the border situation under control requires bipartisan agreement that these House Republicans will never, ever allow.Bret: I’ve always been in favor of comprehensive and liberal immigration reform, but we didn’t have this scale of crisis when any of Biden’s recent predecessors were in office. The problem started when the administration came to office determined to be the un-Trump — and doing so at precisely the moment when much of Latin America was falling apart. Biden then spent two years in denial about the crisis until Democratic mayors in cities like New York and the governor of Massachusetts started crying foul. And the solution, I’m afraid, is to effectively militarize the border until would-be migrants get the message that the only way into the United States is through legal channels.Gail: Have a feeling we’ll be arguing about this throughout 2024. Meantime, give me some thoughts on Republican presidential politics. (Not that you’re in charge of the Republicans or anything.)Bret: If only!Gail: Next time we converse, the Iowa Republican caucus will be right around the corner, followed by the New Hampshire primary.The only candidate who seems to have a sliver of a chance of embarrassing Trump is Nikki Haley. She’s been picking up steam in New Hampshire and some people think she might actually be able to win there if Chris Christie dropped out of the race. Think you could talk him into it?Bret: Well, hope springs eternal — or at least until Super Tuesday. If Christie dropped out of the race tomorrow and threw his political weight behind Haley, she might have a chance of edging out Ron DeSantis for second place in Iowa, behind Trump, which would at least give her a symbolic victory. Ditto for New Hampshire, where the combined Haley-Christie vote, according to polls, stands at about 32 percent compared with Trump’s 44 — almost a contest! But the biggest problem Haley faces is that while she would probably trounce Biden in a general election, it now looks like Trump will win, too, which defeats the argument among Republicans that the 45th president is unelectable as the 47th.Gail: Awful but electable, the Donald Trump story.Bret: In short, the only thing that can turn things around for Republicans is Biden stepping down. Which, as you’ve correctly been telling me these past months, ain’t likely to happen. How very, very depressing.Gail: Yeah, we’ve been wishing for ages that Biden would make the smart, generous move and announce he’s not running for re-election. Now, with the primaries right around the corner, it’s almost too late for him to change his mind anyway. Sigh.Bret: Gnash teeth. Beat breast. Wail.Gail: Well, the one thing I think we can count on is a non-boring new year. It’s true the Republican presidential primaries could be really dreary, but I refuse to believe that a man who’s under indictment for a jillion different offenses is just going to coast to victory.And we’ll have lots of House and Senate races to argue about. For instance, did you see that in Arizona — no, I’m gonna stop and hold that thought for the new year. This one’s been hard enough.Bret, one of my favorite things is waiting, every week, for you to end the conversation with some great piece of prose or poetry. Let’s have one more for the holidays.Bret: Well, the most delightful piece of prose that I’ve read in The Times in the last few days is Jonathan Kandell’s obituary for Sanche Charles Armand Gabriel de Gramont, better known in this country as the journalist Ted Morgan (an anagram for “de Gramont”). The son of a French aristocrat, Morgan chose to become an American, led a life of adventure as a soldier and journalist, and even won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting when he covered the death of the opera baritone Leonard Warren, who died at the Met in 1960 while singing Verdi’s aria “Urna fatale del mio destino” — “the fatal urn of my destiny.”“There was an awesome moment as the singer fell,” Morgan reported. “The rest of the cast remained paralyzed. Finally someone in the capacity audience called out, ‘For God’s sake, bring down the curtain!’”And that’s my wish, Gail, for 2023.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, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      The Secret to Trump’s Success Isn’t Authoritarianism

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      If the presidential election were held today, Donald Trump could very well win it. Polling from several organizations shows him gaining ground on Joe Biden, winning five of six swing states and drawing the support of about 20 percent of Black and roughly 40 percent of Hispanic voters in those states.For some liberal observers, Mr. Trump’s resilience confirms that many Americans aren’t wedded to democracy and are tempted by extreme ideologies. Hillary Clinton has described Mr. Trump as a “threat” to democracy, and Mr. Biden has called him “one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history.”In a different spirit, some on the right also take Mr. Trump’s success as a sign that Americans are open to more radical forms of politics. After Mr. Trump’s win in 2016, the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin crowed that the American people had “started the revolution” against political liberalism itself. Richard Spencer declared himself and his fellow white nationalists “the new Trumpian vanguard.”But both sides consistently misread Mr. Trump’s success. He isn’t edging ahead of Mr. Biden in swing states because Americans are eager to submit to authoritarianism, and he isn’t attracting the backing of significant numbers of Black and Hispanic voters because they support white supremacy. His success is not a sign that America is prepared to embrace the ideas of the extreme right. Mr. Trump enjoys enduring support because he is perceived by many voters — often with good reason — as a pragmatic if unpredictable kind of moderate.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?  More

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      Trump Defends 6 Republicans Charged in Scheme to Overturn His 2020 Loss

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      At a campaign event in Nevada, the former president said, without evidence, that the Biden administration was unfairly targeting the Republican officials accused of being fake electors.Former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday defended six Nevada Republicans who were recently indicted in connection with a scheme to overturn his 2020 election loss, claiming without evidence that they were victims of political persecution by the Biden administration.Mr. Trump has repeatedly rebuffed accusations this month that he has antidemocratic inclinations by pointing his finger at President Biden. He often claims without evidence that Mr. Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department to influence the 2024 election.At a campaign event on Sunday in Reno, Mr. Trump sharpened that attack by pointing to the indictment this month of six members of Nevada’s Republican Party who had acted as fake electors in a scheme intended to overturn Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory. Those charged included Michael J. McDonald, the state party’s chairman.“They’re a bunch of dirty players,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Biden and Democrats. “Look at what they’re doing right here to Michael and great people in this state. It’s a disgrace.”Mr. Trump’s comments in Nevada, which is expected to be a crucial battleground state, are among the many ways he has sought to question the integrity of the election process and to raise doubts about results he opposes.The former president, who also faces charges over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, repeated his false claims that the election was stolen from him. And he broadly accused Democrats of cheating in elections, without evidence.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?  More

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      With His Super PAC in Disarray, DeSantis Aims to Stay on Offense

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      The Florida governor kept his focus trained on his opponents, even as Never Back Down, the group aligned with the governor, lost another key leader.A day after Ron DeSantis’s political operation suffered another major setback — the departure of a chief strategist — the Florida governor ignored the internal turmoil at an event in Iowa and did not take questions from reporters. Perhaps there just wasn’t much left to say.The group, Never Back Down — a super PAC formed to help Mr. DeSantis take on Donald J. Trump and serve as a powerful shadow campaign with a huge war chest and an influential political team — had lost another key player, the sixth senior leader to depart in recent weeks.In the months since it was founded, the super PAC has burned through tens of millions of dollars and changed its mission and strategy without much success. Four weeks before the first nominating contests in Iowa, it now faces questions about whether what remains is enough to have an impact, without much time to refocus or rebuild.So instead, Mr. DeSantis and his allies sought to go on offense against his rivals for the Republican nomination — most notably Mr. Trump, who is cruising in Iowa, and former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who is challenging him most directly — something he has struggled to do on the debate stage.At a packed coffee shop on Sunday in Oskaloosa, Iowa, Mr. DeSantis assured voters that he would bolster the country’s military and said that, in contrast to Mr. Trump, his leadership was “not about entertainment.”While Mr. DeSantis has sought to project strength and competence on the campaign trail, behind-the-scenes infighting at Never Back Down has frequently overshadowed his efforts.The group, which had amassed $130 million to support his candidacy, was supposed to be a difference maker. Instead, it has sometimes been a distraction, even as it works to build a formidable get-out-the-vote operation in the early nominating states.The departure on Saturday of the strategist, Jeff Roe, an influential political consultant who seeded Never Back Down with allies from his firm, Axiom, followed the loss of the group’s first chief executive, Chris Jankowski, just before Thanksgiving. Mr. Jankowski’s replacement, Kristin Davison, was fired in early December, and Never Back Down’s chairman, Adam Laxalt, a longtime friend of Mr. DeSantis, also stepped down this month, as two other senior staff members were fired.Never Back Down is now in an uncertain place. The group has quickly burned through cash and its new chairman and interim chief executive, Scott Wagner, is a Miami lawyer and close college friend of Mr. DeSantis, rather than a seasoned political operative, although he has been a member of the group’s board. In a post on X, Mr. Roe seemed to place the blame for his resignation on negative comments Mr. Wagner made in a Washington Post article about the fired employees.Meanwhile, another group of DeSantis loyalists has created a new super PAC, Fight Right, that has been running advertisements against Ms. Haley, who has caught up with or surpassed Mr. DeSantis in many polls. The group’s latest ad referred to Ms. Haley as “Tricky Nikki,” accusing her of pushing “the woke corporate agenda” on immigration. The ad was the latest sign that Mr. DeSantis, who has predicted victory in Iowa over Mr. Trump, has instead found himself in a two-front war, battling Ms. Haley for anti-Trump voters while simultaneously trying to wrest Trump supporters from the former president.Never Back Down, or N.B.D., had previously handled advertising, but Mr. DeSantis’s campaign — which is not legally allowed to coordinate with the group — suggested that it would focus on turning out voters.“We have full confidence in the N.B.D. ground game and field operation, which is second to none,” Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement on Sunday. “There is a stellar team in place and we appreciate their independent efforts to fight for Ron DeSantis.”A spokeswoman for Never Back Down did not respond to a request for comment.Instead of addressing the recent tumult, Mr. DeSantis sharpened his criticism of Ms. Haley and continued to attack Mr. Trump.Mr. DeSantis has recently urged voters to question why Ms. Haley has not given a firm answer about whether she would accept a role as Mr. Trump’s vice president, should he offer it after winning the Republican nomination. The implication is that Ms. Haley is aligning herself with Mr. Trump and attacking Mr. DeSantis on his behalf, rather than seeking the nomination herself. On Saturday, the DeSantis campaign sent out an email proclaiming that the governor was “Not Running to Be Anything Else.”“She owes you an answer to this,” Mr. DeSantis told the audience at a town hall in Concord, N.H., on Friday. It was a line of attack he repeated at another event later that night.Mr. DeSantis also pointed out that Mr. Trump had not ruled out selecting Ms. Haley during a recent radio interview. “Right now I’m not even thinking about that,” the former president had said when asked about the possibility. “I’ve always gotten along well with Nikki,” he added, but cautioned it was “unlikely” he would pick Ms. Haley. (For his part, Mr. DeSantis reiterated in New Hampshire that he would not run on Mr. Trump’s ticket, saying he could accomplish more as governor than vice president.)Ms. Haley has poured cold water on the charge without directly answering it. At a stop this month in Sioux City, Iowa, a voter asked if she would serve as Mr. Trump’s vice president. “I’ve never played for second,” she responded. (A spokeswoman for her campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, said Mr. DeSantis would “say anything to try to salvage his sinking ship of a campaign.”)On Sunday in Oskaloosa, Mr. DeSantis did not repeat his criticism. But one of his allies, Mark Chelgren, a former state senator in Iowa, opened the event by excoriating Mr. Trump as “self-serving” for denying his 2020 election loss.“The reality was, the week prior to absentee ballots going out, he had a debate with Joe Biden, and they both looked immature, selfish and petty,” Mr. Chelgren told voters. “That is why Donald Trump lost the last election.”As for Mr. Roe and the turmoil with Never Back Down, most voters said they were more concerned with policy differences between candidates rather than political infighting.Jordan Padgett, an undecided voter, said he had not even heard of Never Back Down. “I know the movie, great movie,” he said, referring to the 2008 action film by the same name.But Shari Dayton, who is supporting Mr. DeSantis, said the fact that the governor’s PAC seemed to be in disarray could affect how she votes in January’s caucuses.Hearing the news of the organization’s travails, her eyes widened. “I will have to look into that,” she said. “That’s interesting.”Shane Goldmacher More

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      Florida Sex Scandal Shakes Moms for Liberty, as Group’s Influence Wanes

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      The conservative group led the charge on the Covid-era education battles. But scandals and losses are threatening its power.Moms for Liberty, a national right-wing advocacy group, was born in Florida as a response to Covid-19 school closures and mask mandates. But it quickly became just as well known for pushing policies branded as anti-L.G.B.T.Q. by opponents.So when one of its founders, Bridget Ziegler, recently told the police that she and her husband, who is under criminal investigation for sexual assault, had a consensual sexual encounter with another woman, the perceived disconnect between her public stances and private life fueled intense pressure for her to resign from the Sarasota County School Board.“Most of our community could not care less what you do in the privacy of your own home, but your hypocrisy takes center stage,” said Sally Sells, a Sarasota resident and the mother of a fifth-grader, told Ms. Ziegler during a tense school board meeting this week. Ms. Ziegler, whose husband has denied wrongdoing, said little and did not resign.Ms. Sells was one of dozens of speakers who criticized Ms. Ziegler — and Moms for Liberty — at the meeting, an outcry that underscored the group’s prominence in the most contentious debates of the pandemic era.Perhaps no group gained so much influence so quickly, transforming education issues from a sleepy political backwater to a rallying cry for Republican politicians. The organization quickly became a conservative powerhouse, a coveted endorsement and a mandatory stop on the G.O.P. presidential primary campaign trail.Yet, as Moms for Liberty reels from the scandal surrounding the Zieglers, the group’s power seems to be fading. Candidates endorsed by the group lost a series of key school board races in 2023. The losses have prompted questions about the future of education issues as an animating force in Republican politics.Donald J. Trump, the dominant front-runner for the party’s nomination, makes only passing reference in his stump speeches to preserving “parental rights” — the catchphrase of the group’s cause. Issues like school curriculums, transgender students’ rights and teaching about race were far less prominent in the three Republican primary debates than abortion rights, foreign policy and the economy. And the most prominent champion of conservative views on education — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — has yet to unite conservatives behind his struggling presidential bid.John Fredericks, a Trump ally in Virginia, said the causes that Moms for Liberty became most known for supporting — policies banning books it deemed pornographic, curtailing the teaching of L.G.B.T.Q. issues and policing how race is taught in schools — had fallen far from many voters’ top concerns.“You closed schools, and people were upset about that. Schools are open now,” he said. “The Moms for Liberty really have to aim their fire on math and science and reading, versus focusing on critical race theory and drag queen story hours.”He added: “It’s nonsense, all of it.”The two other founders of Moms for Liberty, Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, have distanced themselves from Ms. Ziegler, saying she has not been an officer in the national organization since early 2021. Ms. Ziegler did not respond to a request for comment.In a statement, Ms. Descovich and Ms. Justice dismissed criticism that the group was hypocritical. They argue that it is not opposed to racial justice or L.G.B.T.Q. rights, but that it wants to restore control to parents over their children’s education.“To our opponents who have spewed hateful vitriol over the last several days: We reject your attacks,” Ms. Descovich and Ms. Justice said. “We are laser-focused on fundamental parental rights, and that mission is and always will be bigger than one person.”Ms. Justice declined to answer questions about the continued influence of their organization or their electoral losses.Tina Descovich, left, and Tiffany Justice, the two other founders of Moms for Liberty, distanced themselves from Ms. Ziegler.Matt Rourke/Associated PressNearly 60 percent of the 198 school board candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty in contested races across 10 states were defeated in 2023, according to an analysis by the website Ballotpedia, which tracks elections.The organization claims to operate 300 chapters in 48 states and to have about 130,000 members.Jon Valant, the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, found in a recent study that the group had an outsize presence in battleground and liberal counties. Yet in those areas, the policies championed by Moms For Liberty are broadly unpopular.“The politics have flipped on the Moms for Liberty, and they’re turning more people to vote against them than for them,” Mr. Valant said.In November, the group announced that it had removed the chairwomen of two Kentucky chapters after they had posed in photos with members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence. That came several months after a chapter of Moms for Liberty in Indiana quoted Adolf Hitler in its inaugural newsletter. The year before, Ms. Ziegler publicly denied links to the Proud Boys after she had posed for a photo with a member of the group at her election night victory party.The episodes have transformed the group’s image and alienated it from the voters it once claimed to represent. The group was at one time particularly strong in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, where education issues helped spur Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to victory in the 2021 governor’s race. (This year, Mr. Youngkin failed in his high-profile attempt at a Republican takeover of the Virginia Statehouse.)Anne Pogue Donohue, who ran for a school board seat in Loudoun County, Va., against a candidate endorsed by the group, said she saw a disconnect between the cause of Moms for Liberty and the current concerns of voters.On social media, Ms. Donohue, a former government lawyer and mother of two young children, faced a barrage of personal insults, death threats and accusations that she was trying to “groom” children to become transgender, she said. But during her in-person interactions with voters, she added, a vast majority of parents seemed more concerned with practical issues like math and reading scores, support for special education and expanding vocational and technical programs.Ms. Donohue won her seat by nearly seven percentage points.“There is a pushback now,” she said. “Moms for Liberty focuses heavily on culture-war-type issues, and I think most voters see that, to the extent that we have problems in our educational system that we have to fix, the focus on culture-war issues isn’t doing that.”One place where Moms for Liberty maintains a stronger hold is the state where the group has had perhaps the most influence: Florida.Since forming in 2020, the group has aligned itself with Mr. DeSantis, backing his parental-rights-in-education law that critics nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay.” The law prohibits classroom instruction on L.G.B.T.Q. topics.Mr. DeSantis then campaigned for conservative candidates for local school boards, turning nonpartisan races into ones heavily influenced by politics. Several school boards with newly conservative majorities ousted their superintendents.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has been aligned with Moms for Liberty, with the group backing his controversial parental-rights-in-education law.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesIn Brevard County, the school board is now entirely conservative except for Jennifer Jenkins, whom Mr. DeSantis has already listed as someone he would like to help defeat in 2024.Ms. Jenkins, an outspoken Moms for Liberty critic who wrested Ms. Descovich’s school board seat from her in 2020, said the organization, while small, had remained a vocal fixture in school board meetings, with about 10 regulars who sometimes bring along people from Indian River and other nearby counties.“Their members are definitely more extreme than they ever were before,” said Ms. Jenkins, who has been a frequent target of the group. They have picketed outside her house, sent her threatening mail and, she said, taken photos of her in the grocery store as recently as a couple of weeks ago.On Tuesday, some Moms for Liberty members from Brevard and Indian River Counties attended a Brevard County School Board meeting to protest books that they say should be pulled from schools. Most of the books they named had already been formally challenged.Still, one by one, group members stood behind the lectern and read explicit scenes from the books until the board’s chairwoman — whom Moms for Liberty and Mr. DeSantis endorsed last year — warned them to stop.It was what the speakers wanted: Under a Florida law enacted this year, if a school board denies a parent the right to read passages deemed “pornographic,” then the school district “shall discontinue the use of the material.” In other words, cutting off the reading would effectively result in pulling the book from schools, board members said.“I highly encourage all of you to look at this statute,” Julie Bywater, a member of the Brevard County chapter of Moms for Liberty, told the school board.Such tactics have become typical for Moms for Liberty members. In response, opponents have started showing up to school board meetings in force, trying to counter the group’s message — including in Sarasota, where Ms. Ziegler’s critics turned out to try to push her out.The school board, which includes several conservatives who have aligned with Ms. Ziegler before, voted 4 to 1 on Tuesday for a nonbinding resolution urging her to resign; Ms. Ziegler was the only one on the board to vote against it. More

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      Chris Christie Rebukes Rivals Not Named Trump in First TV Ad

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      Mr. Christie, attacking higher-polling opponents Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, accused them of spending too much time attacking each other.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey turned his fire on Friday from former President Donald J. Trump, his usual subject of attack, to his higher-polling Republican rivals for the nomination.Mr. Christie’s campaign released its first television advertisement of the campaign cycle, which blasted Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, for targeting each other instead of the former president, whom they all trail by a wide margin.“Chris Christie is the only one who can beat Trump because he’s the only one trying to beat Trump,” the narrator in Mr. Christie’s 30-second spot says.The six-figure ad buy, first reported by Axios, is airing in New Hampshire on local broadcasts and on national outlets including CNN, CNBC and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”It comes as Mr. Christie tries to boost himself before the Jan. 23 primary in New Hampshire, where he is in third place behind Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley. He has bet that a strong showing in the Granite State, forgoing Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, will keep his campaign afloat in future contests.The ad cited polls that showed Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis behind Mr. Trump by double digits.“Nikki Haley, down by 26 in her home state to Trump, attacks DeSantis,” a voice-over says, citing an ad from the super PAC supporting Ms. Haley that called him “too lame to lead, too weak to win.” The ad then pivots to Mr. DeSantis: “DeSantis, down 32 to Trump in Iowa, attacks Nikki Haley,” the narrator says, airing a clip from Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC that said “you can’t trust Tricky Nikki.”“There’s only one candidate trying to stop Trump,” the ad says, before airing footage of Mr. Christie bashing Mr. Trump on the debate stage.The Times reported last month that Ms. Haley’s super PAC had spent $3.5 million on ads attacking Mr. DeSantis but none specifically attacking Mr. Trump. (On Friday, Ms. Haley called on the former president to participate in the Iowa debate, saying, “It’s getting harder for Donald Trump to hide.”)While Mr. DeSantis has attacked Mr. Trump’s record more in recent weeks, his super PAC, Never Back Down, spent 10 times more on efforts to criticize Ms. Haley than Mr. Trump.Mr. Christie trails Mr. Trump by more than 50 points in national polls, with his support hovering in the low single digits.He has spent the fewest days campaigning of the remaining Republican Party candidates, an analysis from The New York Times showed. The campaigns and super PACs supporting Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley and Mr. Trump have far outspent him. More

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      Republicans Tap Mazi Melesa Pilip to Run for Santos’s Seat

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      Party leaders believe Mazi Melesa Pilip has the potential to be a breakout star. But she has little political experience and her policy views are largely unknown.Republicans battling to hold onto the New York House seat vacated by George Santos chose on Thursday another relatively unknown candidate with a remarkable biography but a thin political résumé to run in a special election next year.After extensive vetting, Republican leaders selected Mazi Melesa Pilip, a local legislator who was born in Ethiopia, served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces and first ran for office in 2021 vowing to fight antisemitism.It was a bold gamble by Long Island Republicans, a group better known for nominating older, white establishment figures. Republicans believe Ms. Pilip, a 44-year-old mother of seven, has the potential to become a breakout star before the Feb. 13 special election, particularly at a moment when Israel’s war with Hamas is reordering American politics.“She is the American success story,” said Peter King, a former New York Republican congressman involved in the nomination. “Some people have superstar capacity. She walks into the room, people notice her, they listen to her.”Ms. Pilip, however, lacks many of the credentials typically prized in a competitive congressional race. She has almost no experience raising money, lacks relationships with key party figures outside her affluent New York City suburb and has never faced the kind of scrutiny that comes with being a candidate for high office.In fact, beyond fierce advocacy for Israel and support for the police, she has taken no known public positions on major issues that have shaped recent House contests. That includes abortion rights, gun laws and the criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump.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?  More