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      Inflationary Wave Changes Political Terrain for Right-Wing Populists

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      The leaders of Turkey, Hungary and Brazil are all grappling with problems posed by the global rise in prices ahead of national elections.To all those who would pose a challenge to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s coming presidential election, including the press, the Supreme Court and liberals, the embattled right-wing leader has an answer: “Only God removes me.”But Mr. Bolsonaro might be unseated by an unexpected problem that his political playbook has no easy answer for: inflation.Prices are climbing faster than they have in almost two decades in Brazil, a country with a relatively recent history of disastrous inflationary episodes. The currency has steadily declined in value, losing roughly 10 percent against the dollar in the last six months alone. And the economy, Latin America’s largest, slipped back into recession in the third quarter.That has upset people like Lucia Regina da Silva. A 65-year-old retired nursing assistant and former Bolsonaro supporter, she has watched over the last year as surging prices have eroded the purchasing power of her modest monthly pension.“I believed this government would improve our lives,” said Ms. da Silva on a recent morning as she pushed a mostly empty shopping cart — a few vegetables and some personal products were all she could afford — through the aisles of Campeão, a cheap supermarket chain in Rio de Janeiro. “But that was flawed.”Mr. Bolsonaro is among a generation of right-wing populists who, in the past decade and a half, have risen to power in democracies like Turkey, Brazil and Hungary, and whose reigns have coincided, at least at first, with periods of solid economic performance in those countries. They have remained in power by stoking nationalist passions and driving deep wedges into the electorate with hot-button cultural issues. Along the way, they have co-opted the news media and cowed opponents.Now these strongmen — including Mr. Bolsonaro, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey — are grappling with rising prices, even as they face national elections within the next two years. A new and unexpected peril, inflation is threatening to organize and animate political opposition in the countries of these three leaders in a way few would have predicted just a few months ago.In Hungary, where consumer prices are rising at their fastest pace since 2007, polls suggest that Mr. Orban will face his toughest election ever next year, as the cost of living and low wages become top concerns for voters.In Hungary, polls suggest that Prime Minister Viktor Orban will face his toughest election ever next year as the cost of living and low wages become top concerns.Pool photo by John ThysVoters in the nearby Czech Republic — which has faced rising inflation and soaring energy costs — just ousted Andrej Babis, the country’s billionaire right-wing populist prime minister, by a narrow margin.Mr. Bolsonaro’s standing, already damaged by his administration’s management of the Covid crisis, has tumbled, with polls showing him badly trailing his likely 2022 opponent, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.In anticipation, Mr. Bolsonaro has begun laying the groundwork to dispute the results of next year’s vote, which the polls suggest he would lose badly if it were held today. “I want to tell those who want to make me unelectable in Brazil, only God removes me,” he told a cheering crowd in São Paulo in September.But Mr. da Silva has already incorporated the economic crisis into his recent campaign. “The Bolsonaro government is responsible for inflation,” he said in an interview. “Inflation is out of control.”The situation is most dire in Turkey, where the unorthodox economic policies of President Erdogan have set off a full-on currency crisis. The value of the lira has collapsed roughly 45 percent this year. And prices are now rising at an official rate of more than 20 percent annually, with some unofficial estimates even higher.Countries with right-wing populist leaders aren’t the only ones reeling from inflation. In the United States, prices are rising at their fastest rate since 1982. And left-leaning populists, such as those in power in Argentina, are also contending with fierce inflationary currents, which have put them on the defensive.The upsurge represents a sudden break from the trend of sluggish growth and tepid inflation that dominated the global economy for roughly a dozen years before the pandemic hit. That low-growth backdrop allowed powerful central banks in the United States, the European Union and Britain to keep interest rates low. And those decisions had large implications for poorer countries around the world.That’s because the low-rate policies made by central banks such as the Federal Reserve reduce the returns investors in wealthy nations can make by buying safe government bonds in their home countries, pushing them into riskier investments in emerging markets that promise higher returns.Economists say that flow of money toward developing nations might have been an underappreciated element of the success right-wing populist leaders have enjoyed in recent years, as it provided a steadily favorable economic tailwind that coincided with their time in power.Turkey, which suffered a sharp recession in 2009, was able to rebound relatively quickly thanks to a surge of borrowing from foreign investors that supercharged growth. Mr. Bolsonaro’s election in 2018 coincided with a fresh push to lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve, which prompted U.S. investors to buy more emerging market debt and helped prop up the real.“Since the global financial recession, the global macroeconomic environment was a godsend to authoritarians,” said Daron Acemoglu, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied the deterioration of democracies. “Essentially, with very low interest rates, it made many countries that had either weak democracies or semi-authoritarianism, or sometimes fully fledged authoritarianism, still attractive to foreign capital.”But as the global economy began to heal from the pandemic this year, a combination of supply chain disruptions, central bank money-printing and government spending aimed at juicing the recovery ignited a sharp rise in prices around the world. That prompted leaders in many developing countries to tweak their policies — and global investors to rethink their investments in those markets.Claudia Calich, the head of emerging market debt at M&G Investments in London, has invested in Turkish government bonds, denominated in lira, for years. But, Ms. Calich said, the increasing public pressure that Mr. Erdogan was putting on the country’s central bank to cut interest rates this year led the fund to sell its entire position.In Turkey, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the value of the lira has lost about 45 percent this year, and prices are rising at an official rate of more than 20 percent annually.Burhan Ozbilici/Associated Press“As soon as we started seeing the changes this year going in the wrong direction, namely for further rate reductions, then we started getting worried about the currency,” Ms. Calich said. “That has been, so far, the wrong policy response. And yeah, we’ve been very happy to have exited that position.”There are few politically palatable options for emerging market countries dealing with an inflationary upsurge and weakening currencies. But for a number of reasons, the inflationary rise is especially tricky political terrain for populists like Messrs. Orban, Erdogan and Bolsonaro, who all face elections in 2022 or 2023.Their personalized approach to politics — and the fact that they have all been in office for years — makes it difficult for them to sidestep blame for the condition of the economy. At the same time, their brand of populism, which emphasizes nationalist rivalries and has been effective in the past, can seem out of touch to citizens whose standards of living are swiftly plummeting.The traditional remedy for inflation would call for some combination of higher interest rates from the central bank and skimpier government spending. But both moves would probably hurt economic growth and employment, at least in the short term, potentially worsening prospects of re-election.In Turkey, Mr. Erdogan — who has adopted an increasingly authoritarian leadership style since surviving a coup attempt in 2016 — has ruled out such a conventional response. In recent weeks, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, essentially under Mr. Erdogan’s personal control, has repeatedly cut interest rates.Most observers think Mr. Erdogan has made a difficult situation much worse, with the prospect of more interest rate cuts and currency declines driving foreign investors to pull their money from Turkey.At the same time, the political winds also seem to be blowing against Mr. Erdogan. The worsening economic situation has prompted scattered street protests. Opposition politicians are calling for snap elections to deal with the crisis, while hammering Mr. Erdogan for what they call his disastrous management of the economy.Mr. Orban and Mr. Bolsonaro, both of whom once fashioned themselves as conservative budgeteers, have abandoned their previous positions. Instead, they are pushing a short-term surge of spending to provide an influx of cash to voters ahead of next year’s elections. It’s unclear that such an approach will help, however, as it is likely to make inflationary pressures worse.Sitting on a bench at a local farmers market in Budapest on a recent afternoon, Marton Varjai, 68, laughed at the $250 check Mr. Orban recently sent him, part of a payout his government authorized to all pensioners, who amount to roughly 20 percent of the population.Mr. Varjai earns a monthly pension of about $358, of which 85 percent goes to covering medicine and utilities. “The rest is what I have to live off,” he said, adding that he was concerned about his ability to make ends meet.Such sentiments are becoming an increasing focus for Hungarian voters. A recent study by Policy Solutions, a progressive think tank in Budapest, found that Hungarians are most concerned with the cost of living and low wages.“If these issues dominate the campaign, it’s not good for Fidesz,” said Andras Biro-Nagy, director of Policy Solutions, referring to Mr. Orban’s ruling party. More

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      Republican Recriminations Point to a Rocky Path to a House Majority

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      Simmering tensions between the far-right flank and more traditional conservatives burst into the open on Tuesday, while Republican leaders stayed silent.WASHINGTON — Hostilities between the Republican far right and its typically muted center burst into the open on Tuesday, highlighting deep divisions that could bedevil the party’s leaders if they capture a narrow majority in the House next year.Initially prompted by the anti-Muslim comments of Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, the Republican-on-Republican war of words on Tuesday was remarkably bitter and an indication of a brewing power struggle between an ascendant faction that styles itself after President Donald J. Trump and a quieter one that is pushing back.First, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called her freshman colleague Nancy Mace of South Carolina “trash” for condemning Ms. Boebert’s remarks in a television interview.Ms. Mace then used a series of emojis — a bat, a pile of excrement and a crazy clown — to describe Ms. Greene, then kept up a steady stream of social media attacks, calling her a liar, a grifter and a nut.Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, came to Ms. Mace’s defense, calling Ms. Greene “unserious circus barker McSpacelaser” — a reference to a social media post that she once circulated suggesting that wildfires in the West had been started by lasers owned by the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family.Mr. Kinzinger added that Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader and would-be speaker who has done nothing to discipline rank-and-file members of his conference for bigoted and violent statements, “continues his silent streak that would make a monk blush.”Then Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, an ally of Ms. Greene’s, took to Twitter to amplify an attack by the right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec denouncing Ms. Mace as a “scam artist” for promoting coronavirus vaccinations on CNN.The carnival-like behavior would amount to little more than a sideshow if it did not have real implications for midterm campaigns and, possibly, a fractured Republican majority in 2023. Party leaders again chose to remain mum as their backbenchers brawled, and Democrats took full advantage of the spectacle.“The atmosphere is what it has been and what has been created by the Republican Party over the last 50 years, where they have continued to move down the path of divisiveness, of acrimony, of threats and accusations, which have demeaned the politics of America,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, told reporters.He again called on Republican leaders to discipline their members, referring to the episode that touched off the hostilities: public comments by Ms. Boebert in which she suggested that Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and a Muslim who wears a hijab, could be a suicide bomber and called her a member of the “jihad squad.”The House’s three Muslim lawmakers — Ms. Omar and Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and André Carson of Indiana, all Democrats — suggested that their party was looking at options to sanction Ms. Boebert.“Muslims in this country are proud Americans, hard-working members of our community,” Mr. Carson said. “And we are not anyone’s scapegoat.”These should be heady days for House Republicans. Off-year elections this month showed real disenchantment with Democratic control of the House, Senate and White House. Redistricting in Republican-controlled state legislatures has given the party a running start to win the four or five seats it needs to control the House, and polling suggests that a narrow plurality of Americans would rather have Republicans in control of Congress. Given the party’s structural advantages on redistricting, access to polls and enthusiasm, that suggests a much broader victory would be at hand if the voting were today.Michael Steel, a former spokesman for Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the former Republican speaker, said the party’s leaders should be working behind the scenes to calm dissent and keep members focused on building a platform and an argument for control.“The top priority right now should be for everyone in the canoe to have their rifles pointing outward, not at each other,” Mr. Steel said. “And the focus should be on addition, not subtraction. That means keeping all the frogs in the wheelbarrow, even if some of those frogs are pretty ugly.”Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, used a series of unflattering emojis in social media attacks on Ms. Greene.Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesInstead, Republicans are stepping on their own message. On Tuesday, CNN unearthed another video of Ms. Boebert from September, when she said she turned to Ms. Omar and referred to the “jihad squad,” again insinuating that she could be a suicide bomber.Ms. Omar has said that no such confrontation occurred. During a call initiated by Ms. Boebert on Monday — ostensibly to offer contrition — the situation only devolved further, as Ms. Boebert refused to apologize and instead demanded that Ms. Omar publicly ask forgiveness for “anti-American” comments.Democrats were not the only ones who condemned Ms. Boebert’s behavior. Ms. Mace, a highly regarded newcomer and the first woman to graduate from the Citadel military college, appeared on CNN to say, “I have time after time condemned my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for racist tropes and remarks that I find disgusting, and this is no different than any others.”Ms. Greene, who like Ms. Boebert is a favorite of Mr. Trump’s, criticized Ms. Mace on social media and on Stephen K. Bannon’s broadcast, “War Room,” and condemned Republican leaders.“They’re always all over us whenever we say or do anything, but it’s the Nancy Maces that should be called out,” Ms. Greene told Mr. Bannon. She added that she, not Ms. Mace, represented the Republican base, a comment seconded by others on the far right, including Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona.Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, defended Ms. Mace.“Nancy is a serious legislator who rolls up her sleeves and looks for solutions where they can be found, such as federal cannabis decriminalization, but also digs in and fights when progressives put politics above policy,” Mr. Meijer said. “I can’t think of a single credible thing those attacking her have even tried to accomplish.”Republican leaders were left pointing fingers at their Democratic counterparts, who they said had also taken no action against members who had crossed lines, whether through anti-Israel comments or exhortations to protesters that they said encouraged violence.If the Republicans claim a narrow majority in the midterms, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California would need virtually all of his conference’s votes to claim the speakership.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. Hoyer did say that Mr. McCarthy reached out to him to say Ms. Boebert wanted to apologize to Ms. Omar, an overture that Mr. Hoyer said would not end well. He was proved correct.Mr. McCarthy finds himself in a delicate position. He does not know how large a majority his party might win in November, especially since much of the redistricting has focused on shoring up incumbent advantages than creating more competitive races. A sweeping Republican win would allow him to write off the votes of his party’s fringe.But if the Republicans claim a narrow majority, Mr. McCarthy would need virtually all of the conference’s votes to claim the speakership, a prize he has sought for nearly a decade. The far right brought down Mr. Boehner in 2015, and Republican divisions over the prospects of Mr. McCarthy’s speakership sunk his last run for the post weeks later.A handful of members, including Ms. Greene, have been cool to the idea of granting him the gavel should his party claim the majority.Emily Cochrane More

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      Éric Zemmour, Far-Right Pundit, Makes French Presidential Run Official

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      After months of speculation, Mr. Zemmour, an anti-immigration writer and right-wing television star, said he was running in the presidential elections next year to “save” France.PARIS — Éric Zemmour, a polarizing far-right writer and television star, announced on Tuesday that he was running for French president in elections next year, ending months of speculation over a bid that upended the race before he had even made it official.Mr. Zemmour, 63, is a longtime conservative journalist who rose to prominence over the past decade, using prime-time television and best-selling books to expound on his view that France was in steep decline because of Islam, immigration and leftist identity politics, themes he returned to in his announcement.“It is no longer time to reform France but to save it,” Mr. Zemmour said in a video with dramatic overtones that was published on social media, conjuring images of an idealized France and then warning about outside forces that threatened to destroy it. He has fashioned himself as a Donald J. Trump-style provocateur lobbing politically incorrect bombs at the French elite establishment — saying, for instance, that the law should require parents to give their children “traditional” French names — and rewriting some of the worst episodes from France’s past. He has been charged with inciting racial or religious hatred several times over his comments, and twice convicted and fined.Mr. Zemmour spoke over 1950s footage full of men in hats and vintage Citroën cars, contrasted with recent clips of crowded subways, crumbling churches, burning cars and violent clashes with the police.“You feel like a foreigner in your own country,” Mr. Zemmour said, reading from notes at a desk in front of old bookshelves in a way that seemed intent on replicating Charles de Gaulle’s posture when he issued a call to arms against Nazi Germany from London in June 1940.Mr. Zemmour said that he was running “to prevent our children and our grandchildren from experiencing barbarity, to prevent our daughters from being veiled and our sons from being subdued.”He accused the elites — journalists, politicians, judges, European technocrats — of failing France, which he said was represented by a long list of illustrious men and women, including Joan of Arc, Louis XIV and Napoleon.“We will not be replaced,” added Mr. Zemmour, who has espoused the theory of a “great replacement” of white people in France by Muslim immigrants — a conspiracy theory that has been cited by extremists in several mass shootings.Mr. Zemmour’s announcement video shows him speaking in a setting designed to recall a wartime address by Charles de Gaulle.Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe announcement, after months of barely veiled hints that Mr. Zemmour intended to run, surprised no one. It also came after the yet-to-be-declared candidate had endured a dip in the polls and a series of setbacks in recent days — including a disastrous visit to Marseille, in southern France, that ended with him making a crude gesture at a protester. The vulgar gesture gave ammunition to critics who say Mr. Zemmour is not fit to be president.“One may have doubts as to his ability to represent our country and serve in its highest office,” Gabriel Attal, a French government spokesman, told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday.Mr. Zemmour has already reshuffled the political calculus for several candidates in the presidential elections, which will be held in April next year.French presidential elections use a two-round system, with the top two candidates in the first round advancing to a runoff. Recent polls have put Mr. Zemmour in third place, with roughly 14 to 15 percent support, behind President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally party, who met in the runoff of the last presidential election in 2017.Even so, Mr. Zemmour has drawn in some of Ms. Le Pen’s supporters with his hard-line stance on immigration and identity. He has also pushed Les Républicains, France’s traditional conservative party, further to the right. The party is expected to pick its own candidate this week.Mr. Zemmour’s latest book, “France Has Not Said Its Last Word Yet,” which he released in September to mark his unofficial entry into the presidential race, has sold more than 250,000 copies.Some of his books have contained incendiary statements about women and minorities. They have also contained historical inaccuracies as Mr. Zemmour attempted to clear France of wrongdoing in some of the worst episodes of its past, including in World War II and Algeria’s war for independence from France.Mr. Zemmour is the son of parents from Algeria, and he styles himself as a defender of France’s Christian civilization against the influence of Muslim immigrants. But he himself is Jewish, and his repeated attempts to rehabilitate France’s collaborationist government and its leader, Marshal Philippe Pétain, have been condemned in vigorous terms by leaders of the French Jewish community, even as some Jews have identified with his anti-Islam message.Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally party, has seen some of her supporters drawn to Mr. Zemmour.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesOlivier Faure, the head of France’s Socialist Party, quipped on Twitter that Mr. Zemmour had used “De Gaulle’s microphone but Pétain’s speech” for his announcement.“Beethoven’s music but the wrong notes of a fantasized past for a caricatured present,” he added, referring to the soundtrack Mr. Zemmour used in Tuesday’s video. Mr. Zemmour has excelled as a right-wing television pundit deploying virulent nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric. In 2019, he joined CNews, a Fox-style news network, which provided a platform for him to express his ideas to hundreds of thousands of viewers.Mr. Zemmour experienced a rapid rise in the polls over the past few months, fueled by feverish media coverage of his latest book tour, but he has stumbled in recent weeks.Several supporters, including a key French financier who had lent him money, have distanced themselves, describing his campaign as disorganized and amateurish. Mr. Zemmour is not backed by a powerfully established political force, like Mr. Trump was with the Republican Party, and it remains unclear whether he can gather the official support of 500 elected representatives — a requirement to run for president in France. Some recent moves have also cast doubt on Mr. Zemmour’s ability to handle the challenges and pressures of the campaign trail.He was widely criticized for making political statements to journalists in front of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks there, and in Marseille, he was heckled by protesters and was photographed making the crude gesture toward a woman who had done the same thing toward him.“He has a lot of qualities as a polemicist, a lot less as a presidential candidate,” Ms. Le Pen, the far-right leader, told Sud Radio on Tuesday, accusing Mr. Zemmour of being “disconnected” from the French working class and of dividing voters. “If you want to be president, you have to unite.” More

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      An Oath Keeper Was at the Capitol Riot. On Tuesday, He’s on the Ballot.

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      Edward Durfee Jr. is a member of the far-right militia and was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He is now running for office in New Jersey.Edward Durfee Jr. is many things: a former Marine, a libertarian who distrusts the Federal Reserve and an active member of the far-right Oath Keepers militia who leads the group’s northern New Jersey region and was outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack.He is also running for the New Jersey State Assembly as a Republican.More than 20 Oath Keepers have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors have accused members of the militia of plotting to overturn the election by breaching the Capitol and making plans to ferry “heavy weapons” in a boat across the Potomac River into Washington.Mr. Durfee, a 67-year-old tech consultant, said he did not enter the Capitol during the assault, and he condemned the violence that led to several deaths.But he wholeheartedly embraces the ideology of the Oath Keepers, an antigovernment group that pledges to support and defend its interpretation of the Constitution against all enemies.The group, whose name comes from their original mission to disobey certain government orders, became a zealous supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories about “deep-state” cabals attempting to overthrow him and embracing his relentless lies that the 2020 election was illegitimate.Mr. Durfee said he went to Washington in January to “stop the steal” and to protest against disproved claims of election fraud.Mr. Durfee, in blue, outside of the Capitol on Jan. 6 with the Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes.Eric WoodsBut he is more than just a fringe candidate mounting a long-shot race for the Legislature.He also leads the Republican committee in the town where he lives, Northvale, underscoring the extent to which right-wing activism has become increasingly mainstream within the G.O.P., even in a Democratic stronghold like Bergen County, less than 30 miles from Manhattan.The Oath Keepers, founded more than a decade ago, are known to draw members from the ranks of former military and law enforcement personnel. But records from the militia group, leaked after a database was hacked and shared with a group known as Distributed Denial of Secrets, have offered a new window into the organization’s links to active-duty police officers and government officials.In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that any officer associated with the Oath Keepers should be investigated — and fired.Tuesday’s election in New Jersey features a matchup between Jack Ciattarelli, a Republican, and the Democratic incumbent, Philip D. Murphy, one of just two governor’s races in the country. All seats are also on the ballot in the state Legislature, where Democrats are expected to retain majority control.Mr. Durfee — who gathered 165 signatures to get on the ballot and then ran unopposed in the primary — has called for ending all governmental oversight of parental rights, permitting families to use taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay for private and parochial schools, and cutting state agency budgets by 5 percent.He has few illusions of outright victory.“I’m an oxymoron in government,” he said. “I’m on the ballot because nobody challenged me. There’s that lack of participation among our citizens.”He is running to represent a liberal area of northern New Jersey just across the Hudson River from New York. Registered Democrats in the district outnumber Republicans by more than three to one, making it difficult to find Republicans willing to invest the time and money to mount hard-to-win campaigns, party leaders said. (A frequent Republican candidate in the district, Dierdre Paul, called them “kamikaze races.”)“I’m not this ogre that’s hiding behind the fence — ‘Oh, here comes one of them Democrats. Let’s jump on them,’” Mr. Durfee said.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesThe county’s Republican chairman, Jack Zisa, defended Mr. Durfee as a “mild-mannered conservative,” but said that his main attribute was far more transactional: He was the only person willing to run.“It’s a very tough district for Republicans and Mr. Durfee was, frankly, one of only a couple people who put his name in,” Mr. Zisa said.Mr. Durfee is one of dozens of Oath Keepers across the country who are already in office or running for election, nearly all of them Republicans, according to a ProPublica analysis of the hacked database.Roy Sokoloski, a Republican, was involved with recruiting candidates to run for office when he was a councilman in Northvale, a 5,000-person town on the northern border with New York State. He and Mr. Durfee worship at the same Roman Catholic church.“If you don’t know his political background, he’s a nice fellow,” said Mr. Sokoloski, an architect.But he believes Mr. Durfee’s candidacy is an ominous sign for a once-formidable party struggling to remain relevant in a state with nearly 1.1 million more registered Democrats than Republicans.“He’s the worst candidate that the Republicans could have endorsed,” said Mr. Sokoloski, who said he voted against Mr. Trump twice and spoke wistfully of a time when G.O.P. leaders focused on issues like high taxes, not overturning elections.“If the Republican Party can only find people like that,” he said, “what does that say about the party?”Mr. Durfee said he drove from New Jersey on Jan. 6 to help with an Oath Keeper security detail. “We weren’t enforcers,” Mr. Durfee said. “We were just there as eyes.”He said he was close enough to the chaos to get doused with pepper spray, but far enough away to avoid being swept into the crowd that rampaged through the Capitol.Brian D. Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who grew up in New Jersey and faced off against the angry mob, died after suffering what a medical examiner ruled were multiple strokes.“It just morphed into something and got out of control,” Mr. Durfee said. “It’s just shameful.”A devotee of the libertarian Ron Paul, Mr. Durfee speaks openly about his involvement with the Oath Keepers, which he said he joined in 2009, the year it was founded following the election of Barack Obama.Mr. Durfee runs the Oath Keepers’ northern New Jersey operation and said he was responsible for maintaining the national group’s email and membership lists, which were included in the documents that were hacked.Mr. Durfee, a tech consultant, says he maintains the Oath Keepers’ membership database. The list was hacked, offering a clearer understanding of people linked to the far-right militia group.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesHis campaign, he said, has consisted mainly of attending community events, handing out business cards and directing people to a candidate website he built.He has little money to spend in his race against the Democratic Assembly candidates, Shama A. Haider and Ellen J. Park. He and two other candidates running on the Republican line for the Legislature have reported that, as a group, they do not expect to spend more than $15,800.He has not gotten support from the state Republican Party, and Mr. Ciattarelli has tried to distance himself from Mr. Durfee. “Anyone who advocates terrorism, or had anything to do with the insurrection, has no place in our party,” said Chris Russell, a strategist for the Ciattarelli campaign..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Durfee said he preferred to keep his savings in precious metals based on a worry that paper “fiat money” will eventually be devalued.“I have dollars for my wife — we all have to live,” he said. “But I save in silver and gold.”He spent two years in the Marines in noncombat roles. After earning his G.E.D., he took classes in computer programming at Chubb Institute. Last year, he lost a race for Northvale councilman.A grandfather of three who opposes abortion, he is an ardent Catholic and a fourth-degree member of the Knights of Columbus, a rank given for patriotism.“I’m not this ogre that’s hiding behind the fence — ‘Oh, here comes one of them Democrats. Let’s jump on them,’” he said.Mr. Durfee participated in a videoconference with the Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, and dozens of other members 10 days after the 2020 election, according to a leaked recording of the call released by Unicorn Riot, an alternative media site. As speakers discussed upcoming protests in Washington, Mr. Durfee can be heard urging people to “show the respect that we have for our country and our Constitution.”“We’re not coming down there with fisticuffs, unless, you know,” he said, his voice trailing off.“We’re all eager to be overzealous,” he added, “but we still have to maintain that position of respect for our flag and for our country.”Instead, the violence that unfolded shook the nation, leading to the arrests of more than 600 people and a congressional investigation into what the F.B.I. has called domestic terrorism.Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, a Democrat who represents Mr. Durfee’s district, said she saw his candidacy mainly as an indicator of Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, even in liberal bastions like Bergen County.Republican strongholds still exist in New Jersey, especially in the rural northwest and along the Jersey Shore; Mr. Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr. statewide by 16 percentage points, yet beat him in Ocean County by 29 points.Still, Ms. Huttle said she was surprised to see such a far-right candidate vying for a seat she has held for 15 years.“I would understand it in South Jersey,” said Ms. Huttle, who lost a primary race for State Senate and will be leaving the Legislature in January. “I don’t understand it here.”Mr. Zisa, the Republican chairman, said it would be inaccurate to read too much into Mr. Durfee’s candidacy.“We’re the Republican Party,” he said. “We’re not the Oath Keeper party.”Nonetheless, he is hoping to capitalize on the media interest in Mr. Durfee’s affiliation with the extremist group. If it boosts turnout, he said, it could result in spinoff value for Republican candidates in more competitive races.“This might drive the Republican voter out,” Mr. Zisa said. More

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      Las investigaciones internas de Facebook: los documentos muestran señales de alarma sobre la desinformación

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      Documentos de la empresa revelan que en varias ocasiones trabajadores de la red social advirtieron de la difusión de desinformación y teorías de la conspiración antes y después de las elecciones presidenciales de Estados Unidos.Dieciséis meses antes de las elecciones presidenciales celebradas en noviembre del año pasado, una investigadora de Facebook describió un acontecimiento alarmante. Una semana después de abrir una cuenta experimental, ya estaba recibiendo contenido sobre la teoría conspirativa de QAnon, según escribió en un informe interno.El 5 de noviembre, dos días después de las elecciones, otro empleado de Facebook escribió un mensaje para alertar a sus colegas sobre los comentarios con “desinformación electoral polémica” que se podían ver debajo de muchas publicaciones.Cuatro días después de eso, un científico de datos de la empresa escribió una nota para sus compañeros de trabajo en la que decía que el diez por ciento de todas las vistas de material político en Estados Unidos —una cifra sorprendentemente alta— eran publicaciones que alegaban un fraude electoral.En cada caso, los empleados de Facebook sonaron una alarma sobre desinformación y contenido inflamatorio en la plataforma e instaron a tomar medidas, pero la empresa no atendió los problemas o tuvo dificultades para hacerlo. La comunicación interna fue parte de un conjunto de documentos de Facebook que obtuvo The New York Times, que brindan nueva información sobre lo ocurrido dentro de la red social antes y después de las elecciones de noviembre, cuando a la empresa la tomaron desprevenida los usuarios que convirtieron la plataforma en un arma para difundir mentiras sobre la votación. More

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      What Happened When Facebook Employees Warned About Election Misinformation

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      Company documents show that the social network’s employees repeatedly raised red flags about the spread of misinformation and conspiracies before and after the contested November vote.Sixteen months before last November’s presidential election, a researcher at Facebook described an alarming development. She was getting content about the conspiracy theory QAnon within a week of opening an experimental account, she wrote in an internal report.On Nov. 5, two days after the election, another Facebook employee posted a message alerting colleagues that comments with “combustible election misinformation” were visible below many posts.Four days after that, a company data scientist wrote in a note to his co-workers that 10 percent of all U.S. views of political material — a startlingly high figure — were of posts that alleged the vote was fraudulent.In each case, Facebook’s employees sounded an alarm about misinformation and inflammatory content on the platform and urged action — but the company failed or struggled to address the issues. The internal dispatches were among a set of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times that give new insight into what happened inside the social network before and after the November election, when the company was caught flat-footed as users weaponized its platform to spread lies about the vote. More

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      Hey Parler, Nashville Isn’t Turning Red

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      NASHVILLE — When NPR’s tech reporter, Bobby Allyn, tweeted last week that the social media site Parler was moving its headquarters from Nevada to Nashville, a single word came to my mind — a word this newspaper will not publish, no matter that it is the only word in the English language truly appropriate to the situation.Parler’s chief executive, George Farmer, offered some reasons for moving the company. “Tennessee has great weather, an abundance of Southern hospitality, wonderful music and barbecue,” he wrote in an email announcement. “Even more than that, though, Tennessee shares Parler’s vision of individual liberty and free expression.”Founded in 2018 as a less regulated alternative to Facebook and Twitter, Parler is an online place where high-profile right-wing commentators and political figures can promulgate lies and conspiracy theories without interference. Though the company notified the F.B.I. about threats of violence in advance of the insurrection on Jan. 6, and has since added algorithms to detect posts calling directly for violence, it was nonetheless Parler’s vision of “free expression” that helped bring about the invasion of the U.S. Capitol by homegrown terrorists.The craven Republicans running Tennessee might share that vision of liberty, but Nashville definitely does not. Nashville, according to NBC News, is “a big blue dot in a deep red state.” That fact should tell you all you need to know about the relationship between this city and our state government. You likely know this dynamic already because it exists in virtually every major city or college town in every gerrymandered state governed by Republicans: Think Oxford, Miss.; Atlanta, Ga.; Birmingham, Ala.; Lexington, Ky.; Austin, Texas.; Chapel Hill, N.C.What you might not know is that Nashville is also in the midst of a convulsive identity crisis, unsure whether it wants to remain Music City or become something more like a tech incubator or a health care center or a financial services hub. Or maybe just the place where bridesmaids come to get drunk in the street.A midsize city on its way to becoming a big city can be all these things at once, of course, especially if it is a midsize city that is growing deliberately, in ways that do not displace its low-income residents or its work force. Especially if it is a midsize city that is investing in its public schools and building out its infrastructure to accommodate its meteoric growth.Nashville is doing those things poorly, if at all, and some of the blame for this paralysis can be laid at the feet of state government, which frequently passes pre-emptive laws or issues pre-emptive executive orders designed to tie the hands of Nashville leaders. The very last thing this city needs is to become the headquarters of a social media site favored by the right-wingers who are most poisoned by lies and hatred and fear.The truth is that high-profile members of the far right have been moving to Middle Tennessee since long before Parler announced its impending relocation. As the Nashville Scene’s Steven Hale noted when the conservative media celebrity Ben Shapiro decided to move the headquarters of The Daily Wire, the media company he co-founded, from Los Angeles to Nashville: “Look, we try hard to ignore these people,” Hale wrote. Nevertheless, here they are.And it’s not just celebrities who are moving to town. The coronavirus pandemic taught a lot of people that they can work wherever they want to work, and increasingly where people seem to want to work is in a state with no income tax. In my neighborhood alone, we have newcomers from Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and a bunch of other places I can’t name because I haven’t met the new people yet. A few weeks ago, I overheard a conversation between two new neighborhood children on bicycles. “Are you from Nashville?” the first child asked. “I’m from Des Moines,” the other kid said.We are hospitable people here in Tennessee, it’s true, and we do have great music and barbecue. But Mr. Farmer should know that Tennessee’s “great weather” includes six of the 18 billion-dollar weather disasters to hit the U.S. this year — catastrophic weather events triggered by a changing climate that many on his site deny exists. More

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      How Éric Zemmour Is Turning French Politics Upside Down

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      Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant writer and TV commentator, is surging in opinion polls before presidential elections next year — and he is not yet a candidate.PARIS — He is the anti-immigration son of parents from Algeria. He styles himself as the great defender of France’s Christian civilization, though he himself is Jewish. He channels Donald J. Trump in an anti-establishment campaign. And he is now scrambling the battle lines before France’s presidential election in April.The meteoric rise of Éric Zemmour, a far-right author and TV pundit, has turned France’spolitics upside down.Until a few weeks ago, most had expected France’s next presidential elections to be a predictable rematch between President Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen that, polls showed, left voters who wanted alternatives deeply dissatisfied.Though still not a declared candidate, Mr. Zemmour, 63, shot to No. 2 in a poll of likely voters last week, disrupting campaign strategies across the board, even beyond those of Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen.“The French want to upset a political order that hasn’t won them over, and Éric Zemmour appears to be the bowling ball that’s going to knock down all the pins,” said Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po University specializing in elections and the right.Mr. Perrineau warned that voters were not seriously focused yet on the elections and that polls could be volatile.Yet candidates are not taking any chances.Mr. Macron’s campaign has focused on winning support on the right and forcing a showdown with Ms. Le Pen, in the belief that the French would reject her party in the second round of voting, as they have for decades.Now it is far less clear whom he would meet in a runoff: A strong showing in the first round could propel Mr. Zemmour into the second one, or it could split the far-right electorate to allow a center-right candidate to qualify for the finals.After weeks of ignoring Mr. Zemmour, Mr. Macron is now criticizing him, though not by name, while government ministers and other Macron allies have unleashed a barrage of attacks.Mr. Zemmour is the author of several books, and a star on the right-wing CNews network. Nicolas Tucat/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Zemmour’s rise has been most unsettling for Ms. Le Pen, who is plummeting in the polls — so much so that her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party founder, said that he would support Mr. Zemmour if the writer were in a stronger position.Ms. Le Pen has for years tried to broaden her base with a so-called un-demonizing strategy of moving her nationalist, anti-immigrant party from the most extreme xenophobic positions that it was known for under her father. Now she finds herself in the unusual position of being outflanked on the right.Mr. Zemmour became one of France’s best-selling authors in the past decade by writing books on the nation’s decline — fueled, he said, by the loss of traditional French and Christian values, the immigration of Muslim Africans bent on a reverse colonization of France, the rise of feminism and the loss of virility, and a “great replacement” of white people, a conspiracy theory that has been cited by gunmen in multiple mass shootings.As the child of Algerians who settled in metropolitan France, he has presented himself as the embodiment of France’s successful system of assimilation. He has said that the failure to integrate recent generations of Muslim immigrants lies with the new arrivals, who hate France, and not with a system that others say has not kept up with the times.Mr. Zemmour’s influence rose to an entirely new level in the past two years after he became the star of CNews, a new Fox-style news network that gave him a platform to expound on his views every evening.His supporters include voters most deeply shaken by the social forces that have roiled French society more recently and that they now lump into “wokisme” — a #MeToo movement that has led to the fall of powerful men; a racial awakening challenging France’s image of itself as a colorblind society; the emergence of a new generation questioning the principles of the French Republic; and the perceived growing threat of an American-inspired vision of society.“In its history, France has always had a strong cultural identity, but now there’s deep anxiety about that identity,” Mr. Perrineau said. “People feel that their culture, their way of life and their political system, all is being changed. It’s enough.”Mr. Zemmour at a book promotion event in Nice last month.Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Éric Zemmour plays on that very well, on this nostalgia for the past, and this fear of no longer being a great power, of dissolving in a conglomerate that we don’t understand, whether it’s Europe or globalization or the Americanization of culture,” he added.In the 2017 election, Mr. Macron was the new face who overturned the existing political order. But during his presidency, “the new world of Emmanuel Macron has come to look a lot like the old world,” disillusioning voters, Mr. Perrineau said.Philippe Olivier, a close aide to Ms. Le Pen and a member of the European Parliament, said that French voters seek a larger-than-life figure in their president.“In the United States, a president could be a movie actor like Reagan or a carnival performer like Trump,” said Mr. Olivier, who is also Ms. Le Pen’s brother-in-law. “In France, we elect the king.”But the two-round system compels much of the electorate to vote in the runoffs against candidates — and not for someone of their liking.“In the second round, the point is who is more repulsive,” Mr. Olivier said. “I believe Macron would be more rejected than Marine, but Zemmour would be much more rejected than Macron.”As France has grown more conservative in recent years, Mr. Macron has tacked right on many issues to try to grab a bigger electoral slice, especially among voters in the traditional center-right Republicans party.The Republicans, who have yet to select their presidential candidate, are now facing a new threat themselves, because Mr. Zemmour draws support from them as well as from the far right.In their own bid to attract far-right voters, many leaders on the traditional right have flirted with Mr. Zemmour in recent years, excusing or overlooking the fact that the writer has been sanctioned for inciting racial hatred.“The traditional right made a serious mistake that is now exploding in their face,” said Jean-Yves Camus, director of the Observatory of Radical Politics. “Because it’s long been in competition against the far right on issues like national identity, immigration and sovereignty, it kept winking at Zemmour.”A fan taking a photo with Mr. Zemmour at a book signing in Toulon last month.Eric Gaillard/ReutersNow the traditional right is looking for ways to distance itself from the TV star without alienating his supporters.Patrick Stefanini, a Republican who ran President Jacques Chirac’s successful 1995 campaign, said Mr. Zemmour was benefiting from divisions within the traditional right on issues like immigration.“Mr. Zemmour has turned immigration into the single key to understanding the difficulties facing French society,” said Mr. Stefanini, who is now leading the presidential bid of Valérie Pécresse, the head of the Paris region. “The Republicans are having a little trouble positioning themselves because the tendencies aren’t the same within the Republicans.”Mr. Stefanini attributed Mr. Zemmour’s rise partly to the traditional right’s failure to quickly decide on a candidate, and said he felt confident that the TV star’s ratings would peter out.But for now, many voters appear to be taking a look at Mr. Zemmour, who has been attracting huge crowds at campaign-like events across France as he promotes his latest book, “France Has Not Said Its Last Word Yet.”Last week, three residents of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a wealthy suburb of Paris, came together to attend an event with Mr. Zemmour in the capital.Françoise Torneberg, who said she was in her 70s, said she liked Mr. Zemmour because “he gives a kick in the anthill,” she said.Her friend Andrée Chalmandrier, 69, said, “We love France but not the France of today.”“We’re not at home,” Ms. Chalmandrier said, adding that often when she shops in her suburb, “I’m the only French representative. There are four or five veiled women around me, who furthermore are extremely arrogant.”“And yet it’s a good neighborhood,” Ms. Torneberg said. “It’s not at all a working-class neighborhood.”Léontine Gallois contributed reporting. More