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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

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      Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s Chancellor, Faces Corruption Probe

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      The future of the chancellor’s coalition looked increasingly uncertain after prosecutors opened a criminal investigation on suspicion that he paid off pollsters and journalists.BERLIN — The government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of Austria teetered near collapse on Friday after federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation against him this week on suspicion of using government funds to pay for favorable opinion polls and news articles.Mr. Kurz, who has been feted as the young face of European conservatism, vigorously denied the charges. But he is now facing calls to step aside as three opposition parties plan to introduce a vote of no-confidence against him at a special parliamentary session next week.President Alexander Van der Bellen addressed the nation on Friday evening, reassuring Austrians that while the latest crisis threatened the government, the country’s democratic institutions remained intact and functional. “We have a crisis of government, not a crisis of state,” Mr. Van der Bellen said. “Our democracy is prepared for all possible situations, including this one.”The future of Austria’s government will now depend on the left-leaning Greens, the junior coalition partners, who were always uncomfortable political bedfellows with Mr. Kurz and who had campaigned on a platform of “clean politics.” Prominent voices in the Greens party now see that position and their support for the government as untenable under a chancellor who is suspected of using funds from the finance ministry to pay for positive media coverage.They are now calling for another member of his People’s Party to take over the chancellorship. Short of that, they could pull out of the ruling coalition and try to form a new government with a combination of smaller opposition parties, though they lack the numbers in Parliament. If all fails, the country could face new elections. “Such a person is no longer capable of performing his duties, and of course the People’s Party has a responsibility here to nominate someone who is beyond reproach to lead this government,” Sigi Maurer, the Greens’ leader in Parliament, said of Mr. Kurz.Mr. Kurz, 35, says he is determined to hang on. He rose to prominence after seizing control of the conservative People’s Party and refashioned it by co-opting many of the messages of the far right at a time when anti-immigrant populism was surging in Europe.After an intense, social media-savvy campaign focused largely on patriotic themes and a hard line against migration, Mr. Kurz became Austria’s youngest chancellor after elections in 2017, when he forged a government that included the far-right Freedom Party. Less than two years later that government collapsed after the far right was itself engulfed in scandal when a video emerged showing the Freedom Party’s then leader promising government contracts in exchange for financial support from a woman claiming to be a wealthy Russian. In new elections in 2019 Mr. Kurz came out on top once again, but pivoted to form a government with the left-leaning Greens, demonstrating his skill as a political shape shifter.Now it is Mr. Kurz who is suspected of the ethical breach that may implode his latest government.Austria’s federal prosecutor said on Wednesday it had launched a criminal investigation against Mr. Kurz and nine others on suspicion of misusing government funds to pay for polls and articles in the news media that cast him in a favorable light in the months leading up to and just after his election to the chancellery.Mr. Kurz before a meeting with Austria’s president, Alexander van der Bellen, on Thursday in Vienna.Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images“Between the years 2016 and at least 2018, budgetary funds of the Federal Ministry of Finance were used to finance surveys conducted by a polling company in the interest of a political party and its top official that were exclusively motivated by party politics, and sometimes manipulated,” the prosecutor’s office said. The results of the polls were then published in media belonging to the Österreich Media Group, “without being declared as an advertisement,” the prosecutors said. In exchange for the favorable coverage, prosecutors said they suspected that “payments were made to the media conglomerate.”The chancellor denied it. “I know what I did and I know that the accusations are false,” Mr. Kurz told reporters in Vienna on Thursday, where he met with Mr. Van der Bellen. “Just as the independent judiciary is an important pillar of our democracy, so is the presumption of innocence essential to our rule of law,” Mr. Kurz said. “At least, that has been the case until now.”Mr. Kurz and the leaders of his conservative party have so far rejected calls for him to step aside, circling the wagons instead. “The leaders of the People’s Party today made very clear that they only want to stay in this government under the leadership of Sebastian Kurz,” Elisabeth Köstinger, a member of the party and minister for tourism in Mr. Kurz’s government, told reporters.Mr. Kurz after parliamentary elections in 2017, when he joined the far right in government. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesSince taking over leadership of the People’s Party, Mr. Kurz has been its unchallenged leader, said Alexandra Siegl, a political analyst with Peter Hajek Public Opinion Strategies in Vienna.“You could say that the People’s Party in the past few years has been Sebastian Kurz,” she said. “There is no one else in the party who is as well known across the country and there is no obvious successor.”But there is also no easy path for his opponents to take power. The three opposition parties lack the majority needed for their no-confidence vote to succeed, unless several lawmakers from the Greens join them in support. On Thursday the leaders of the Greens met with their counterparts from the Socialists, the largest opposition party in Parliament, to try to find a solution. Even if the two were to join forces with the smaller, liberal Neos party, they would still lack a majority and could only survive by securing the support of the far-right Freedom Party, itself an awkward and potentially unstable proposition.“It is imperative that Mr. Kurz step down,” the Freedom Party’s current leader, Herbert Kickl, told reporters on Friday. He gave no indication whether his party would be willing to support a three-way minority government led by the Socialists. Failing that, Austria could face new elections — territory where Mr. Kurz has shown twice he knows how to perform. The Greens, on the other hand, have seen their support dwindle since 2019 and such a move could jeopardize two of their signature bills, which have been worked out with the government, but not yet passed into law.The Chancellery in Vienna on Wednesday.Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty ImagesBut the ongoing criminal investigation into Mr. Kurz , which will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to press charges, may make it impossible for the Greens not to bolt. On Friday, the prosecutors’ office made available more documents showing the text message exchanges between Mr. Kurz and his advisers, which included disparaging remarks about the previous conservative party leader and insults about members of the government in which he once served as foreign minister and calls to “stir up” a region against then Chancellor Christian Kern.“This hardens the suspicions against him,” Ms. Siegl said. Nevertheless, it may not be enough to shatter Mr. Kurz’s popularity among Austrians, especially a core group of supporters who continue to support his hard line on migration, she said. “They just push it to the side and say that every politician has something to hide, if you look hard enough,” she said. “No one likes to admit that they have been taken for a ride.” More

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      Trump True Believers Have Their Reasons

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      Just who believes the claim that Trump won in 2020 and that the election was stolen from him? Who are these tens of millions of Americans and what draws them into this web of delusion?Three sources provided The Times with survey data: The University of Massachusetts-Amherst Poll; P.R.R.I. (the Public Religion Research Institute); and Reuters-Ipsos. With minor exceptions, the data from all three polls is similar.Alexander Theodoridis, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts, summed it up:About 35 percent of Americans believed in April that Biden’s victory was illegitimate, with another 6 percent saying they are not sure. What can we say about the Americans who do not think Biden’s victory was legitimate? Compared to the overall voting-age population, they are disproportionately white, Republican, older, less educated, more conservative, and more religious (particularly more Protestant and more likely to describe themselves as born again).P.R.R.I. also tested agreement or disagreement with a view that drives “replacement theory” — “Immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background” — and found that 60 percent of Republicans agreed, as do 55 percent of conservatives.The Reuters/Ipsos data showed that among white Republicans, those without college degrees were far more likely to agree “that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump,” at 69 percent, than white Republicans with college degrees, at a still astonishing 51 percent. The same survey data showed that the level of this belief remained consistently strong (60 percent plus) among Republicans of all ages living in rural, suburban or urban areas.With that data in mind, let’s explore some of the forces guiding these developments.In their September 2021 paper, “Exposure to authoritarian values leads to lower positive affect, higher negative affect, and higher meaning in life,” seven scholars — Jake Womick, John Eckelkamp, Sam Luzzo, Sarah J. Ward, S. Glenn Baker, Alison Salamun and Laura A. King — write:Right-wing authoritarianism played a significant role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In subsequent years, there have been numerous ‘alt-right’ demonstrations in the U.S., including the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville that culminated in a fatal car attack, and the 2021 Capitol Insurrection. In the U.S., between 2016 and 2017 the number of attacks by right-wing organizations quadrupled, outnumbering attacks by Islamic extremist groups, constituting 66 percent of all attacks and plots in the U.S. in 2019, and over 90 percent in 2020.How does authoritarianism relate to immigration? Womick provided some insight in an email:Social dominance orientation is a variable that refers to the preference for society to be structured by group-based hierarchies. It’s comprised of two components: group-based dominance, and anti-egalitarianism. Group-based dominance refers to the preference for these hierarchies and the use of force/aggression to maintain them. Anti-egalitarianism refers to maintaining these sorts of hierarchies through other means, such as through systems, legislation, etc.Womick notes that his own study of the 2016 primaries showed that Trump voters were unique compared with supporters of other Republicans in the strength of theirgroup-based dominance. I think group-based dominance as the distinguishing factor of this group is highly consistent with what happened at the Capitol. These individuals likely felt that the Trump administration was serving to maintain group-based hierarchies in society from which they felt they benefited. They may have perceived the 2020 election outcome as a threat to that structure. As a result, they turned to aggression in an attempt to affect our political structures in service of the maintenance of those group-based hierarchies.In their paper, Womick and his co-authors askWhat explains the appeal of authoritarian values? What problem do these values solve for the people who embrace them? The presentation of authoritarian values must have a positive influence on something that is valuable to people.Their answer is twofold:Authoritarian messages influence people on two separable levels, the affective level, lowering positive and enhancing negative affect. and the existential level, enhancing meaning in life.They describe negative affect as “feeling sad, worried, or enraged.” Definitions of “meaning in life,” they write,include at least three components, significance, the feeling that one’s life and contributions matter to society; purpose, having one’s life driven by the pursuit of valued goals; and coherence or comprehensibility, the perception that one’s life makes sense.In a separate paper, “The existential function of right‐wing authoritarianism,” Womick, Ward and King, joined by Samantha J. Heintzelman and Brendon Woody, provide more detail:It may seem ironic that authoritarianism, a belief system that entails sacrifice of personal freedom to a strong leader, would influence the experience of meaning in life through its promotion of feelings of personal significance. Yet, right wing authoritarianism does provide a person with a place in the world, as a loyal follower of a strong leader. In addition, compared to purpose and coherence, knowing with great certainty that one’s life has mattered in a lasting way may be challenging. Handing this challenge over to a strong leader and investment in societal conventions might allow a person to gain a sense of symbolic or vicarious significance.From another vantage point, Womick and his co-authors continue,perceptions of insignificance may lead individuals to endorse relatively extreme beliefs, such as authoritarianism, and to follow authoritarian leaders as a way to gain a sense that their lives and their contributions matter.In the authors’ view, right-wing authoritarianism,despite its negative social implications, serves an existential meaning function. This existential function is primarily about facilitating the sense that one’s life matters. This existential buffering function is primarily about allowing individuals to maintain a sense that they matter during difficult experiences.Terray Sylvester/ReutersIn his email, Womick expanded on his work: “The idea is that perceptions of insignificance can drive a process of seeking out groups, endorsing their ideologies and engaging in behaviors consistent with these.”These ideologies, Womick continued,should eventually promote a sense of significance (as insignificance is what drove the person to endorse the ideology in the first place). Endorsing right wing authoritarianism relates to higher meaning in life, and exposing people to authoritarian values causally enhances meaning.In “Race and Authoritarianism in American Politics,” Christopher Sebastian Parker and Christopher C. Towler, political scientists at the University of Washington and Sacramento State, make a parallel argument:Confining the definition of authoritarianism to regime rule, however, leaves little room for a discussion of more contemporary authoritarianism, at the micro level. This review shifts focus to an assessment of political psychology’s concept of authoritarianism and how it ultimately drives racism. Ultimately, we believe a tangible connection exists between racism and authoritarianism.Taking a distinct but complementary approach, David C Barker, Morgan Marietta and Ryan DeTamble, all political scientists, argue in “Intellectualism, Anti-Intellectualism, and Epistemic Hubris in Red and Blue America” thatEpistemic hubris — the expression of unwarranted factual certitude” is “prevalent, bipartisan and associated with both intellectualism (an identity marked by ruminative habits and learning for its own sake) and anti-intellectualism (negative affect toward intellectuals and the intellectual establishment).The division between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism, they write, isdistinctly partisan: intellectuals are disproportionately Democratic, whereas anti-intellectuals are disproportionately Republican. By implication, we suggest that both the intellectualism of Blue America and the anti-intellectualism of Red America contribute to the intemperance and intransigence that characterize civil society in the United States.In addition, according to the Barker, Marietta and DeTamble, “The growing intellectualism of Blue America and anti-intellectualism of Red America, respectively, may partially explain the tendency by both to view the other as some blend of dense, duped, and dishonest.”In an email, Marietta wrote:The evidence is clear that the hubris driven by intellectual identity and the hubris driven by anti-intellectual affect lower our willingness to compromise with those who seem to lack character and honesty. I suspect the divide in perceptions, but unanimity in hubris, feeds the growing belief that democracy is failing and hence anti-democratic or illiberal policies are justified.Marietta reports that he and his colleaguesconducted a series of experiments to see what happens when ordinary citizens are faced with others who hold contrary perceptions of reality about things like climate change, or racism, or the effects of immigration. The results are not pretty.Once they realize that the perceptions of other people are “different from their own,” Marietta continued,Americans are far less likely to want to be around them in the workplace, and are far more likely to conclude that they are stupid or dishonest. These inclinations are symmetrical, with liberals rejecting conservatives as much (or sometimes more) than conservatives reject liberals. The disdain born of intellectual identity seems to mirror the disdain arising from anti-intellectual affect.I asked Barker about the role of hubris in contemporary polarization and he wrote back:The populist Right hates the intellectual Left because they hate being condescended to, they hate what they perceive as their hypersensitivity, and they hate what they view as an anti-American level of femininity (which is for whatever reason associated with intellectualism).At the same time, Barker continued,the intellectual Left really does see the G.O.P. as a bunch of deplorable rubes. They absolutely feel superior to them, and they reveal it constantly on Twitter and elsewhere — further riling up the “deplorables.”Put another way. Barker wrote,The populist/anti-intellectual Right absolutely believe that the intellectuals are not only out of touch but are also ungodly and sneaky, and therefore think they must be stopped before they ruin America. Meanwhile, the intellectual Left really do believe the Trumpers are racist, sexist, homophobic (and so on) authoritarians who can’t spell and are going to destroy the country if they are not stopped.What is a critical factor in the development of hubris? Moral conviction, the authors reply: “The most morally committed citizens are also the most epistemically hubristic citizens,” that is, they are most inclined “to express absolute certainty regarding the truth or falsehood” of claims “for which the hard evidence is unclear or contradictory.”Moral conviction plays a key role in the work of Clifford Workman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics at the University of Pennsylvania. Workman, Keith J. Yoder and Jean Decety, write in “The Dark Side of Morality — Neural Mechanisms Underpinning Moral Convictions and Support for Violence” that “People are motivated by shared social values that, when held with moral conviction, can serve as compelling mandates capable of facilitating support for ideological violence.”Using M.R.I. brain scans, the authors “examined this dark side of morality by identifying specific cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with beliefs about the appropriateness of sociopolitical violence” to determine “the extent to which the engagement of these mechanisms was predicted by moral convictions.”Their conclusion: “Moral conviction about sociopolitical issues serves to increase their subjective value, overriding natural aversion to interpersonal harm.”In a striking passage, Workman, Yoder and Decety argue thatWhile violence is often described as antithetical to sociality, it can be motivated by moral values with the ultimate goal of regulating social relationships. In fact, most violence in the world appears to be rooted in conflict between moral values. Across cultures and history, violence has been used with the intention to sustain order and can be expressed in war, torture, genocide, and homicide.What, then, Workman and his co-authors ask, “separates accepting ‘deserved’ vigilantism from others and justifying any behavior — rioting, warfare — as means to morally desirable ends?”Their answer is disconcerting:People who bomb family planning clinics and those who violently oppose war (e.g., the Weathermen’s protests of the Vietnam War) may have different sociopolitical ideologies, but both are motivated by deep moral convictions.The authors propose two theories to account for this:Moral conviction may function by altering the decision-making calculus through the subordination of social prohibitions against violence, thereby requiring less top-down inhibition. This hypothesis holds that moral conviction facilitates support for ideological violence by increasing commitments to a ‘greater good’ even at the expense of others. An alternative hypothesis is that moral conviction increases the subjective value of certain actions, where violence in service of those convictions is underpinned by judgments about one’s moral responsibilities to sociopolitical causes.In a 2018 paper, A Multilevel Social Neuroscience Perspective on Radicalization and Terrorism, Decety, Workman and Robert Pape ask, “Why are some people capable of sympathizing with and/or committing acts of political violence, such as attacks aimed at innocent targets?” More

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      Angela Merkel deja a una Alemania transformada

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      Ahora que la canciller se prepara para dejar su cargo tras 16 años al mando de Alemania, deja atrás un país que ha cambiado profundamente, y que está ansioso por cambiar aún más.STUTTGART, Alemania — La pequeña estrella plateada en la punta del Mercedes de Aleksandar Djordjevic brilla. La pule cada semana.Djordjevic fabrica motores de combustión para Daimler, uno de los principales fabricantes de automóviles de Alemania. Tiene un sueldo de unos 60.000 euros (alrededor de 70.000 dólares), ocho semanas de vacaciones y una garantía negociada por el sindicato de que no puede ser despedido hasta 2030. Tiene una casa de dos pisos y ese Mercedes clase E 250 en su entrada.Por todo eso, Djordjevic pule la estrella de su carro.“La estrella es algo estable y fuerte: significa Hecho en Alemania”, dijo.Pero en 2030 ya no habrá motores de combustión en Daimler, ni personas que fabriquen motores de combustión.“Estoy orgulloso de lo que hago”, dijo Djordjevic. “Es inquietante saber que dentro de diez años mi trabajo ya no existirá”.Djordjevic es la imagen de un nuevo orgullo y prosperidad alemanes. Y también de la ansiedad alemana.Mientras la canciller Angela Merkel se prepara para dejar su cargo después de 16 años, su país se encuentra entre los más ricos del mundo. Una clase media amplia y satisfecha es una de las facetas de la Alemania de Merkel que ha sido fundamental para su longevidad y su capacidad de cumplir una promesa fundamental de estabilidad. Pero su impacto ha sido mucho mayor.Viajar por el país que deja la canciller hace patente las profundas transformaciones que ha tenido.Trabajadores ensamblan baterías para carros eléctricos de Mercedes en Stuttgart.El puente transportador de la mina F60 en la mina de visitantes Lusatia, un punto de interés turístico en la región minera oriental de Lichterfeld-Schacksdorf.Ahí está el padre disfrutando de un permiso parental pagado en la católica Baviera. La pareja gay que cría a sus dos hijos en las afueras de Berlín. La mujer con hiyab que enseña matemáticas en una secundaria cerca de Fráncfort, donde la mayoría de los alumnos tienen pasaporte alemán, pero pocos tienen padres alemanes.El trabajador del carbón en el antiguo Este comunista que vota por un partido de extrema derecha que no existía cuando Merkel llegó al poder. Y unos hermanos jóvenes de una isla del Mar del Norte amenazada por la subida del nivel del mar que no recuerdan una época en la que Merkel no fuera canciller y no ven la hora de que se vaya.“Ella conoce el peligro del cambio climático desde antes de que nosotros naciéramos”, me dijo uno de los hermanos mientras se encontraba en el dique cubierto de hierba que protege la pequeña isla, Pellworm, de las inundaciones. “¿Por qué no hizo nada al respecto?”.Mientras Merkel dirigía su país a través de sucesivas crisis y dejaba otras sin atender, hubo cambios que lideró y cambios que permitió.Decidió eliminar gradualmente la energía nuclear en Alemania. Puso fin al servicio militar obligatorio. Fue la primera canciller en afirmar que el islam “pertenece” a Alemania. Cuando se trató de romper los paradigmas de los valores familiares conservadores de su país y de su partido, fue más tímida, pero finalmente no se interpuso.“Vio hacia dónde se dirigía el país y le permitió ir hacia ahí”, dijo Roland Mittermayer, un arquitecto que se casó con su esposo poco después de que Merkel invitara a los legisladores conservadores a aprobar una ley que permitiera el matrimonio igualitario, aunque ella misma votara en contra.Helmut y Stephanie Wendlinger con su hijo de 2 años, Xaver, y su hermana recién nacida, Leni, en Baviera.Un antiguo pozo minero convertido en lago cerca de la ciudad oriental de Forst. A medida que se va eliminando el uso del carbón, la población local espera que la industria turística ayude a compensar la pérdida de puestos de trabajo.Ningún otro líder democrático en Europa ha durado más tiempo. Y Merkel deja su cargo como la política más popular de Alemania.Muchos de sus predecesores de la posguerra tenían legados muy definidos. Konrad Adenauer ancló a Alemania en Occidente. Willy Brandt cruzó el Telón de Acero. Helmut Kohl, su antiguo mentor, se convirtió en el símbolo de la unidad alemana. Gerhard Schröder allanó el camino para el éxito económico del país.El legado de Merkel es menos tangible, pero igualmente transformador. Convirtió a Alemania en una sociedad moderna y en un país menos definido por su historia.Es posible que se la recuerde sobre todo por su decisión de acoger a más de un millón de refugiados en 2015-16, cuando la mayoría de las demás naciones occidentales los rechazaban. Fue un breve momento de redención para el país que había hecho el Holocausto y la convirtió en un ícono de la democracia liberal.“Fue una especie de curación”, dijo Karin Marré-Harrak, directora de una secundaria en la ciudad multicultural de Offenbach. “De alguna manera, nos hemos convertido en un país más normal”.Que te llamen un país normal puede parecer decepcionante en otros lugares. Pero para Alemania, una nación atormentada por su pasado nazi y cuatro décadas de división entre el Este y el Oeste, la normalidad era lo que todas las generaciones de la posguerra habían aspirado.Sin embargo, en casi todas partes existían también la persistente sensación de que la nueva normalidad se veía amenazada por desafíos épicos, que las cosas no podían seguir como estaban.El sueño alemánAleksandar Djordjevic, de 38 años, segundo desde la izquierda, y su esposa, Jasmina, jugando con su hija y unos amigos en Plochingen, cerca de Stuttgart.Djordjevic vive cerca de Stuttgart, la capital de la poderosa industria automovilística alemana. En 1886, en este lugar, Gottlieb Daimler inventó uno de los primeros automóviles en su jardín. En estos días, la ciudad es sede de Daimler, Porsche y Bosch, el mayor fabricante de piezas de carros del mundo.Al llegar a casa después de su turno una tarde reciente, Djordjevic todavía llevaba su uniforme de la fábrica, y junto al logotipo de Mercedes, el pin rojo del sindicato de obreros metalúrgicos.La mayoría de los empleados de Daimler pertenecen están sindicados. Los representantes de los trabajadores ocupan la mitad de los puestos en el consejo de administración de la empresa.“La historia del éxito de la industria alemana es también la historia de una fuerte representación de los trabajadores”, dijo. La estabilidad, los beneficios, las oportunidades para desarrollar habilidades, todo ello sustenta “la lealtad que los trabajadores sienten hacia el producto y la empresa”.Si el sueño americano es hacerse rico, el sueño alemán es la seguridad laboral de por vida.Djordjevic, de 38 años, siempre supo que quería trabajar para Daimler. Su padre trabajó allí hasta que murió. “Fue como una herencia”, dice.Cuando consiguió su primer trabajo, a los 16 años, pensó que lo había logrado. “Pensé: ‘Ya está’”, recuerda, “aquí me jubilaré”.Una fábrica de Daimler en Sindelfingen que producirá vehículos eléctricos.El montaje de un Mercedes-Benz Clase S en la fábricaAhora está menos seguro. Al igual que otros fabricantes de automóviles alemanes, Daimler tardó en iniciar su transición a los carros eléctricos. Su primer modelo puramente eléctrico se lanzó recién este año.El objetivo de Daimler es eliminar los motores de combustión antes de 2030. Nadie sabe lo que eso significa exactamente para los puestos de trabajo, pero Djordjevic hizo las cuentas.“Hay 1200 piezas en un motor de combustión”, dijo. “Solo hay 200 en un carro eléctrico”.“Los carros sostenibles son fantásticos, pero también necesitamos empleos sostenibles”, comentó.Daimler sigue creciendo. Pero gran parte del crecimiento del empleo está en China, dijo Michael Häberle, uno de los representantes de los trabajadores en el consejo de administración de la empresa.Häberle también ha estado en la empresa los 35 años de su vida laboral. Empezó como mecánico y fue ascendiendo hasta obtener un título en negocios y, finalmente, un puesto en el consejo de administración.De pie en una de las fábricas que ahora producen baterías para la nueva línea de carros eléctricos EQS, Häberle dijo que esperaba que la empresa no solo sobreviviera a esta transformación, sino que saliera fortalecida.La cuestión principal, dijo, es: ¿Alemania lo hará?Hubo un tiempo en el que daba por sentada la capacidad exportadora de su país. Pero ahora, dijo, “Alemania está a la defensiva”.Un hiyab alemánIkbal Soysal, de 30 años, da una clase de matemáticas de sexto grado en la secundaria Schiller de Offenbach.La industria automovilística alemana contribuyó a impulsar el milagro económico de la posguerra. Y los inmigrantes impulsaron la industria del automóvil. Pero no aparecen realmente en esa historia.Se les conocía como “trabajadores invitados” y se esperaba que vinieran, trabajaran y se fueran. Hasta hace dos décadas, no tenían un camino oficial hacia la ciudadanía.Entre ellos estaban los abuelos de Ikbal Soysal, una joven profesora de secundaria de la ciudad de Offenbach, cerca de Fráncfort, cuyo padre trabajó en una fábrica de piezas de automóvil para Mercedes.La generación de inmigrantes alemanes de Soysal sí figura en la historia de la Alemania actual. No solo tienen pasaporte alemán, sino que muchos tienen títulos universitarios. Son médicos, empresarios, periodistas y profesores.La población inmigrante de Alemania se ha convertido en la segunda mayor del mundo, por detrás de la de Estados Unidos. Cuando Merkel llegó al poder en 2005, el 18 por ciento de los alemanes tenía al menos un progenitor nacido fuera del país. Ahora es uno de cada cuatro. En la escuela de Soysal, en Offenbach, nueve de cada diez niños tienen al menos un progenitor que emigró a Alemania.Muchos de los profesores también.“Cuando empecé a dar clases aquí, todos los profesores eran alemanes con raíces alemanas”, dijo la directora, Karin Marré-Harrak. “Ahora, casi la mitad de ellos tienen raíces diversas”.Seis de cada diez habitantes de Offenbach tienen familias inmigrantes.Romaissa Elbaghdadi, de 15 años, entrenando con Angelo Raimon, de 13 años, en un club de boxeo en Offenbach.Soysal, musulmana, siempre quiso ser profesora, pero sabía que era un riesgo. En su estado, nunca había habido una profesora de secundaria que usara velo en la cabeza.Así que cuando la invitaron a su primera entrevista de trabajo, llamó con antelación para avisar a la escuela.Era 2018. Una persona lo consultó con la dirección, que rápidamente la tranquilizó: “Lo que importa es lo que tienes en la cabeza, no lo que tienes sobre la cabeza”.Consiguió ese trabajo y otros desde entonces.No siempre fue fácil. “Los alumnos se olvidan del velo en la cabeza muy rápido”, dijo Soysal. Pero algunos padres se quejaron con la dirección.Una vez, una alumna pidió consejo a Soysal. La niña llevaba un pañuelo en la cabeza, pero no estaba segura. “Si no te sientes bien, tienes que quitártelo”, le dijo Soysal.Para ella, en eso consiste la libertad de religión, consagrada en la Constitución alemana. “El asunto es que soy alemana”, dijo, “así que mi velo también es alemán”.La alternativa a MerkelMike Balzke junto con su esposa y sus dos hijas en Drewitz, donde su familia ha vivido por siete generaciones. “No queremos dinero, queremos un futuro”, dijo.Después de Offenbach, la siguiente parada es Hanau. Fue en este lugar donde, en febrero del año pasado, un atacante de extrema derecha entró en varios bares y disparó contra nueve personas, en su mayoría jóvenes, de origen migrante.La reacción contra la diversificación y modernización que ha sucedido bajo el mandato de Merkel se ha vuelto cada vez más violenta. Alemania sufrió tres ataques terroristas de extrema derecha en menos de tres años. El caldo de cultivo ideológico para esa violencia está encarnado en muchos sentidos por un partido que eligió su nombre en oposición a la canciller.A menudo, Merkel justificaba políticas impopulares llamándolas “alternativlos”, sin alternativa.La Alternativa para Alemania (AfD) se fundó en 2013 en oposición al rescate de Grecia que el gobierno de Merkel diseñó durante la crisis de la deuda soberana en Europa. Cuando el país recibió a más de un millón de refugiados en 2015 y 2016, el partido adoptó una postura antiinmigrante beligerante que le dio impulso y lo llevó al Parlamento alemán.La AfD está aislada en el oeste del país. Pero se ha convertido en el segundo partido más fuerte de la antigua Alemania del Este, que era comunista, el lugar donde creció Merkel.La Alemania de Merkel está más dividida entre el Este y el Oeste —al menos políticamente— que en cualquier otro momento desde la reunificación.En Forst, un centro textil en la frontera polaca que solía ser próspero pero perdió miles de puestos de trabajo y un tercio de su población después de la caída del Muro de Berlín, la AfD obtuvo el primer lugar en las últimas elecciones. El centro, las fábricas cerradas y las chimeneas aún salpican el horizonte.Una planta de energía de carbón que se cerrará en 2028, en el pueblo oriental de Jänschwalde.Una de las muchas fábricas abandonadas en Forst, un centro textil en la frontera polaca que alguna vez fue próspero. El nuevo propietario de esta antigua fábrica textil quiere transformarla en un espacio cultural.La desigualdad persistente entre el Este y Oeste sigue siendo evidente tres décadas después de la reunificación, a pesar de que el dinero de los contribuyentes ha fluido hacia el Este y su situación ha mejorado con el tiempo. Dado que el gobierno planea eliminar de manera gradual la producción de carbón para 2038, se prometen miles de millones de euros más en fondos para ayudar a compensar la pérdida de puestos de trabajo.Pero como dijo Mike Balzke, un trabajador de una planta de carbón cercana en Jänschwalde: “no queremos dinero, queremos un futuro”.Balzke recordó su optimismo cuando Merkel se convirtió en canciller por primera vez. Como era nativa del Este y científica, esperaba que fuera una embajadora de esa parte de Alemania y del carbón.En cambio, su aldea perdió una cuarta parte de su población durante su mandato. Nunca se construyó una línea de tren que había sido prometida de Forst a Berlín. La oficina de correos cerró.A Balzke, de 41 años, le preocupa que la región se convierta en un desierto.Esa ansiedad es honda. Y se profundizó con la llegada de refugiados en 2015.Dos padres y dos hijosRoland Mittermayer y Mathis Winkler con sus hijos Angelo, de 11 años, y Jason, de 6, cerca de Berlín. “Ella vio hacia dónde se dirigía el país y permitió que llegara allí”, dijo Mittermayer sobre la postura de Merkel sobre el matrimonio igualitario.La decisión de Merkel de dar la bienvenida a los refugiados fue una de las razones por las que Balzke dejó de votar por ella. Pero para muchas otras personas, sucedió lo contrario.Mathis Winkler, un trabajador de cooperación para el desarrollo en Berlín, nunca había votado por el partido de Merkel. Como hombre gay, estaba consternado por su definición conservadora y limitada de familia, que hasta hace solo unos años lo excluía a él, a su pareja de mucho tiempo y a los dos hijos que adoptaron.Pero después de que Merkel se convirtió en el objeto de la ira de la extrema derecha durante la crisis de refugiados, respaldó en solidaridad a su partido.Merkel impulsó su propia base en varios frentes. Durante su tiempo como canciller, se aprobó una legislación que permite a las madres y los padres compartir 14 meses de licencia parental remunerada. El ala conservadora de su partido se indignó, pero solo una década después se considera ya la nueva normalidad.Merkel nunca apoyó de manera decisiva el matrimonio igualitario, pero permitió que los legisladores votaran, sabiendo que se aprobaría.Jóvenes en un desfile del Día de Christopher Street en la ciudad de Cottbus, en el Este. Merkel nunca apoyó con firmeza el matrimonio igualitario, pero permitió que se votara.Helmut Wendlinger, un panadero en la zona rural de Baviera, aprovechó la legislación sobre licencia parental aprobada por el gobierno de Merkel. “Los hombres de la generación de mi padre no tuvieron esa oportunidad”, dijo.Winkler abandonó su apoyo al partido en 2019, después de que la sucesora de Merkel como líder conservadora, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, menospreciara el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo. Pero reconoció su deuda con la canciller.El 30 de junio de 2017, el día de la votación, le escribió una carta.“Es una pena que no pudieras apoyar con apertura el matrimonio entre parejas del mismo sexo”, escribió. “Aun así, te agradezco por haber hecho posible la decisión de hoy”.Luego la invitó a visitar a su familia “para verla por ti misma”.Ella nunca respondió. Pero él y su familia vivían a la vuelta de la esquina del domicilio de Merkel, quien nunca dejó su departamento en el centro de Berlín. La veían de vez en cuando en la fila para pagar en el supermercado.“Allí estaba ella, con papel higiénico en su canastilla de compras, yendo al supermercado como todos los demás”, recordó la pareja de Winkler, Roland Mittermayer. Incluso después de 16 años, todavía están tratando de descifrar a la canciller.“Es un enigma”, dijo Winkler. “Ella es un poco como la reina, alguien que ha existido durante mucho tiempo, pero nunca sientes que realmente la conoces”.La generación pos-MerkelLos hermanos Backsen: Sophie, de 23 años, Hannes, de 19, y Paul, de 21, en la isla de Pellworm. Su familia llevó al gobierno de Merkel a los tribunales por sus emisiones de dióxido de carbono.Seis horas al noroeste de Berlín, pasando por manchas interminables de campos verdes salpicados de parques eólicos y después de un viaje en ferry de 40 minutos desde la costa del Mar del Norte, se encuentra Pellworm, una isla tranquila donde la familia Backsen ha estado cultivando desde 1703.Hace dos años, llevaron al gobierno de Merkel a los tribunales por abandonar sus objetivos de emisión de dióxido de carbono establecidos en el Acuerdo de París. Perdieron, pero luego volvieron a intentarlo y presentaron una denuncia ante el tribunal constitucional.Esta vez ganaron.“Se trata de libertad”, dijo Sophie Backsen, de 23 años, a quien le gustaría hacerse cargo de la granja de su padre algún día.Los hermanos menores de Sophie, Hannes, de 19 años, y Paul, de 21, votaron por primera vez el domingo. Como el estimado del 42 por ciento de los votantes que lo harán por primera vez, votarán por los Verdes.“Si ves cómo vota nuestra generación, es lo contrario de lo que se percibe en las encuestas”, dijo Paul. “Los Verdes estarían gobernando el país”.Paul Backsen transporta granos para alimentar al ganado en la isla de Pellworm. Los Backsens han estado cultivando allí desde 1703.Sophie Backsen, de 23 años, alimenta a las vacas. “Tener una canciller toda mi vida significa que nunca ha tenido la menor duda de que las mujeres pueden hacer ese trabajo”, dijo sobre Merkel. “Pero en el tema climático, ella le ha fallado a mi generación”.Pellworm está al nivel del mar e incluso algunas partes están por debajo de él. Sin el dique que rodea la costa, se inundaría con regularidad.“Cuando hay lluvia constante durante tres semanas, la isla se llena de agua, como una bañera”, dijo Hannes.Aquí, la posibilidad de un aumento del nivel del mar es una amenaza existencial. “Esta es una de las elecciones más importantes”, dijo Hannes. “Es la última oportunidad de hacerlo bien”.“Si ni siquiera un país como Alemania puede manejar esto”, agregó, “¿qué posibilidades tenemos?”.La isla de Pellworm en el Mar del Norte está amenazada por el aumento del nivel del mar.Christopher F. Schuetze colaboró con reportería desde Berlín. More

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      Ignoring Arizona Humiliation, ‘Stop the Steal’ Races Forward

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      As a Republican review of 2020 votes in Arizona sputtered to a close, Donald Trump and his allies signaled that their attack on the election, and their drive to reshape future elections, were far from over.After all the scurrying, searching, sifting, speculating, hand-counting and bamboo-hunting had ended, Republicans’ post-mortem review of election results in Arizona’s largest county wound up only adding to President Biden’s margin of victory there.But for those who have tried to undermine confidence in American elections and restrict voting, the actual findings of the Maricopa County review that were released on Friday did not appear to matter in the slightest. Former President Donald J. Trump and his loyalists redoubled their efforts to mount a full-scale relitigation of the 2020 election.Any fleeting thought that the failure of the Arizona exercise to unearth some new trove of Trump votes or a smoking gun of election fraud might derail the so-called Stop the Steal movement dissipated abruptly. As draft copies of the report began to circulate late Thursday, Trump allies ignored the new tally, instead zeroing in on the report’s specious claims of malfeasance, inconsistencies and errors by election officials.Significant parts of the right treated the completion of the Arizona review as a vindication — offering a fresh canard to justify an accelerated push for new voting limits and measures to give Republican state lawmakers greater control over elections. It also provided additional fuel for the older lie that is now central to Mr. Trump’s political identity: that the 2020 election was stolen from him.“The leaked report conclusively shows there were enough fraudulent votes, mystery votes, and fake votes to change the outcome of the election 4 or 5 times over,” Mr. Trump said in a statement early Friday evening, one of seven he had issued about Arizona since late Thursday. “There is fraud and cheating in Arizona and it must be criminally investigated!”For Mr. Trump, Republican candidates vying to appeal to voters in primary races, and conservative activists agitating for election reviews in their own states, the 91-page document served as something of a choose-your-own-adventure guide. These leaders encouraged their supporters to avert their eyes from the conclusion that Mr. Biden had indeed won legitimately, and to instead focus on fodder for a new set of conspiracy theories.“Now that the audit of Maricopa is wrapping up, we need to Audit Pima County — the 2nd largest county in AZ,” Mark Finchem, a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona who supported the effort in Maricopa, wrote on Twitter. “There are 35k votes in question from multiple sources & I want answers.”Even Republicans who do not subscribe to false claims of election fraud are using investigations to justify more restrictive voting laws. In Michigan, State Senator Ed McBroom, a Republican who leads his chamber’s elections committee and wrote an unsparing report in July debunking an array of Trump-inspired fraud claims, said Friday that the discovery of potential avenues for election fraud — not evidence of fraud itself — was reason enough to pass new voting restrictions.“Just like we found in Michigan, it’s good that we found that these vulnerabilities weren’t exploited to any important extent in this election,” Mr. McBroom said in an interview. “It doesn’t mean that somebody might not use them in the future.”Cherry-picking from the report on Friday, the former president and his allies cited a series of eye-popping statistics that, on first glance, appeared to bolster their case, trusting that their supporters either would not digest the document in full or would not trust the mainstream news outlets that laid out its complete contents.Peter Navarro, a former adviser to Mr. Trump, falsely claimed on Twitter that the report had shown that 50,000 potentially illegal votes were cast in Maricopa County. That number was in fact the tally of ballots that the report — through questionable methodology — described as problematic in some way.Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, pointed on Twitter to “23,000+ Phantom Voters.” This was apparently a reference to 23,344 mail-in ballots that Cyber Ninjas, the company assigned by Arizona Republicans to carry out the review, had claimed came from voters listed under prior addresses. (Such claims were quickly refuted by the Maricopa County elections board, which said that “this is legal under federal election law.”)People in Phoenix, including supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, watched a live stream on Friday as the results of the election review were presented to the Arizona State Senate.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesProponents of the Arizona review seized on vague suggestions by the report’s authors that “canvassing,” or the common political campaign practice of knocking on doors, was needed. Without defining what sort of canvass they had in mind, many Republicans in Arizona and beyond made the word a new rallying cry in the hunt for election fraud.“Canvass Maricopa,” Wendy Rogers, a Republican state senator in Arizona, wrote on Twitter.The Arizona review, and similar partisan election investigations around the country, are one spear in a multipronged effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to dispute the outcome of the 2020 race and to overhaul future American elections.That push has alarmed Democrats, good-government groups and historians, who point to the ways that Mr. Trump undermined democratic norms while in office, including his fight to subvert last year’s election, an effort that culminated in the Capitol riot.New evidence for their arguments emerged this week in the form of a memo unearthed in a new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post. According to the memo, drafted by John Eastman, a Republican lawyer who worked with the Trump campaign, by refusing to accept the results, Mr. Trump could help prompt a state legislature to send an alternative slate of electors to Congress.The memo concluded that, with multiple slates to consider, former Vice President Mike Pence and allies in Congress could refuse to certify the states in question, which would nullify the election results and lead instead to a vote in the House of Representatives on the president, with each state delegation receiving one vote.In 2020, Republicans held the advantage in state delegations, with 26, meaning that Mr. Trump would have successfully overturned the election in this scenario.Trump’s Bid to Subvert the ElectionCard 1 of 4A monthslong campaign. More

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      Germany Struggles to Stop Online Abuse Ahead of Election

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      Scrolling through her social media feed, Laura Dornheim is regularly stopped cold by a new blast of abuse aimed at her, including from people threatening to kill or sexually assault her. One person last year said he looked forward to meeting her in person so he could punch her teeth out.Ms. Dornheim, a candidate for Parliament in Germany’s election on Sunday, is often attacked for her support of abortion rights, gender equality and immigration. She flags some of the posts to Facebook and Twitter, hoping that the platforms will delete the posts or that the perpetrators will be barred. She’s usually disappointed.“There might have been one instance where something actually got taken down,” Ms. Dornheim said.Harassment and abuse are all too common on the modern internet. Yet it was supposed to be different in Germany. In 2017, the country enacted one of the world’s toughest laws against online hate speech. It requires Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to remove illegal comments, pictures or videos within 24 hours of being notified about them or risk fines of up to 50 million euros, or $59 million. Supporters hailed it as a watershed moment for internet regulation and a model for other countries.But an influx of hate speech and harassment in the run-up to the German election, in which the country will choose a new leader to replace Angela Merkel, its longtime chancellor, has exposed some of the law’s weaknesses. Much of the toxic speech, researchers say, has come from far-right groups and is aimed at intimidating female candidates like Ms. Dornheim.Some critics of the law say it is too weak, with limited enforcement and oversight. They also maintain that many forms of abuse are deemed legal by the platforms, such as certain kinds of harassment of women and public officials. And when companies do remove illegal material, critics say, they often do not alert the authorities or share information about the posts, making prosecutions of the people publishing the material far more difficult. Another loophole, they say, is that smaller platforms like the messaging app Telegram, popular among far-right groups, are not subject to the law.Free-expression groups criticize the law on other grounds. They argue that the law should be abolished not only because it fails to protect victims of online abuse and harassment, but also because it sets a dangerous precedent for government censorship of the internet.The country’s experience may shape policy across the continent. German officials are playing a key role in drafting one of the world’s most anticipated new internet regulations, a European Union law called the Digital Services Act, which will require Facebook and other online platforms to do more to address the vitriol, misinformation and illicit content on their sites. Ursula von der Leyen, a German who is president of the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm, has called for an E.U. law that would list gender-based violence as a special crime category, a proposal that would include online attacks.“Germany was the first to try to tackle this kind of online accountability,” said Julian Jaursch, a project director at the German think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, which focuses on digital issues. “It is important to ask whether the law is working.”Campaign billboards in Germany’s race for chancellor, showing, from left, Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats and Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats.Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesMarc Liesching, a professor at HTWK Leipzig who published an academic report on the policy, said that of the posts that had been deleted by Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, a vast majority were classified as violating company policies, not the hate speech law. That distinction makes it harder for the government to measure whether companies are complying with the law. In the second half of 2020, Facebook removed 49 million pieces of “hate speech” based on its own community standards, compared with the 154 deletions that it attributed to the German law, he found.The law, Mr. Liesching said, “is not relevant in practice.”With its history of Nazism, Germany has long tried to balance free speech rights against a commitment to combat hate speech. Among Western democracies, the country has some of the world’s toughest laws against incitement to violence and hate speech. Targeting religious, ethnic and racial groups is illegal, as are Holocaust denial and displaying Nazi symbols in public. To address concerns that companies were not alerting the authorities to illegal posts, German policymakers this year passed amendments to the law. They require Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to turn over data to the police about accounts that post material that German law would consider illegal speech. The Justice Ministry was also given more powers to enforce the law. “The aim of our legislative package is to protect all those who are exposed to threats and insults on the internet,” Christine Lambrecht, the justice minister, who oversees enforcement of the law, said after the amendments were adopted. “Whoever engages in hate speech and issues threats will have to expect to be charged and convicted.”Germans will vote for a leader to replace Angela Merkel, the country’s longtime chancellor.Markus Schreiber/Associated PressFacebook and Google have filed a legal challenge to block the new rules, arguing that providing the police with personal information about users violates their privacy.Facebook said that as part of an agreement with the government it now provided more figures about the complaints it received. From January through July, the company received more than 77,000 complaints, which led it to delete or block about 11,500 pieces of content under the German law, known as NetzDG.“We have zero tolerance for hate speech and support the aims of NetzDG,” Facebook said in a statement. Twitter, which received around 833,000 complaints and removed roughly 81,000 posts during the same period, said a majority of those posts did not fit the definition of illegal speech, but still violated the company’s terms of service.“Threats, abusive content and harassment all have the potential to silence individuals,” Twitter said in a statement. “However, regulation and legislation such as this also has the potential to chill free speech by emboldening regimes around the world to legislate as a way to stifle dissent and legitimate speech.”YouTube, which received around 312,000 complaints and removed around 48,000 pieces of content in the first six months of the year, declined to comment other than saying it complies with the law.The amount of hate speech has become increasingly pronounced during election season, according to researchers at Reset and HateAid, organizations that track online hate speech and are pushing for tougher laws.The groups reviewed nearly one million comments on far-right and conspiratorial groups across about 75,000 Facebook posts in June, finding that roughly 5 percent were “highly toxic” or violated the online hate speech law. Some of the worst material, including messages with Nazi symbolism, had been online for more than a year, the groups found. Of 100 posts reported by the groups to Facebook, roughly half were removed within a few days, while the others remain online.The election has also seen a wave of misinformation, including false claims about voter fraud.Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old leader of the Green Party and the only woman among the top candidates running to succeed Ms. Merkel, has been the subject of an outsize amount of abuse compared with her male rivals from other parties, including sexist slurs and misinformation campaigns, according to researchers.Ms. Baerbock, the Green Party candidate for chancellor, taking a selfie with one of her supporters.Laetitia Vancon for The New York TimesOthers have stopped running altogether. In March, a former Syrian refugee running for the German Parliament, Tareq Alaows, dropped out of the race after experiencing racist attacks and violent threats online.While many policymakers want Facebook and other platforms to be aggressive in screening user-generated content, others have concerns about private companies making decisions about what people can and can’t say. The far-right party Alternative for Germany, which has criticized the law for unfairly targeting its supporters, has vowed to repeal the policy “to respect freedom of expression.”Jillian York, an author and free speech activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Berlin, said the German law encouraged companies to remove potentially offensive speech that is perfectly legal, undermining free expression rights.“Facebook doesn’t err on the side of caution, they just take it down,” Ms. York said. Another concern, she said, is that less democratic countries such as Turkey and Belarus have adopted laws similar to Germany’s so that they could classify certain material critical of the government as illegal.Renate Künast, a former government minister who once invited a journalist to accompany her as she confronted individuals in person who had targeted her with online abuse, wants to see the law go further. Victims of online abuse should be able to go after perpetrators directly for libel and financial settlements, she said. Without that ability, she added, online abuse will erode political participation, particularly among women and minority groups.In a survey of more than 7,000 German women released in 2019, 58 percent said they did not share political opinions online for fear of abuse.“They use the verbal power of hate speech to force people to step back, leave their office or not to be candidates,” Ms. Künast said.The Reichstag, where the German Parliament convenes, in Berlin.Emile Ducke for The New York TimesMs. Dornheim, the Berlin candidate, who has a master’s degree in computer science and used to work in the tech industry, said more restrictions were needed. She described getting her home address removed from public records after somebody mailed a package to her house during a particularly bad bout of online abuse.Yet, she said, the harassment has only steeled her resolve.“I would never give them the satisfaction of shutting up,” she said. More

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      Germany’s Far Right Is Nowhere in the Election. But It’s ‘Here to Stay.’

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      In the next national Parliament, the far-right Alternative for Germany party is likely to remain a pariah force. But it looks assured, too, of a role in shaping the country’s future.BERLIN — They promised they would “hunt” the elites. They questioned the need for a Holocaust memorial in Berlin and described Muslim immigrants as “head scarf girls” and “knife men.”Four years ago the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, arrived in the German Parliament like a wrecking ball, the first far-right party to win a place at the heart of Germany’s democracy since World War II. It was a political earthquake in a country that had once seen Hitler’s Nazi party rise from the fringes to win power in free elections.As another election looms on Sunday, the worst fears of many Germans have not come true: Support for the party has dipped. But neither have the hopes that the AfD would disappear from the political scene as suddenly as it appeared. If Germany’s fate in this election will not be settled by the far right, political analysts say, Germany’s future will partly be shaped by it.“The AfD is here to stay,” said Matthias Quent, professor of sociology at Magdeburg University of Applied Sciences and an expert on the far right. “There was the widespread and naïve hope that this was a short-lived protest phenomenon. The reality is that the far right has become entrenched in the German political landscape.”The AfD is polling at roughly 11 percent, just below its 2017 result of 12.6 percent, and is all but guaranteed to retain its presence in Parliament. (Parties with less than 5 percent of the vote do not get any seats.) But with all other parties refusing to include the AfD in talks about forming the next governing coalition, it is effectively barred from power.“The AfD is isolated,” said Uwe Jun, a professor of political science at Trier University.Yet with Germany’s two main parties having slipped well below the 30 percent mark, the AfD remains a disruptive force, one that complicates efforts to build a governing coalition with a majority of votes and parliamentary seats. Tino Chrupalla, one of the AfD’s two lead candidates in the election, believes that, eventually, the firewall other parties have erected against his party will crumble — most likely starting in one of the states in the former Communist East that is currently its power base.Tino Chrupalla, second from right, and other members of the AfD party before a meeting of the Parliament in Berlin last year.Michael Sohn/Associated Press“It’s not sustainable,” he said. “I’m confident that sooner or later there is no way without the AfD,” he told reporters this past week. “It will certainly start on the state level.”Founded eight years ago as nationalist free-market protest party against the Greek bailout and the euro, the AfD has sharply shifted to the right.The party seized on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over a million migrants to Germany in 2015 and 2016, actively fanning fears of Islamization and migrant crime. Its noisy nationalism and anti-immigrant stance were what first catapulted it into Parliament and instantly turned it into Germany’s main opposition party.But the party has struggled to expand its early gains during the past 18 months, as the pandemic and, more recently, climate change have shot to the top of the list of voters’ concerns — while its core issue of immigration has barely featured in this year’s election campaign.The AfD has tried to jump on the chaos in Afghanistan to fan fears of a new migrant crisis. “Cologne, Kassel or Konstanz can’t cope with more Kabul,” one of the party’s campaign posters asserted. “Save the world? Sure. But Germany first!” another read.At a recent election rally north of Frankfurt, Mr. Chrupalla demanded that lawmakers “abolish” the constitutional right to asylum. He also told the public broadcaster Deutsche Welle that Germany should be prepared to protect its borders, “if need be with armed force.”None of this rhetoric has shifted the race, particularly because voters seem to have more fundamental concerns about the party’s aura of extremism. Some AfD leaders have marched with extremists in the streets, while among the party’s supporters are an eclectic array of conspiracy theorists and neo-Nazi sympathizers.The AfD has not been linked directly to political violence, but its verbal transgressions have contributed to a normalization of violent language and coincided with a series of deadly far-right terrorist attacks.Supporters of the party at a rally in the central German city of Magdeburg this summer.Annegret Hilse/ReutersIn June 2019, a regional politician who had defended Ms. Merkel’s refugee policy was shot dead on his front porch by a well-known neo-Nazi. The killer later told the court that he had attended a high-profile AfD protest a year earlier.Since then, a far-right extremist has attacked a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle during a Yom Kippur service, leaving two dead and only narrowly failing to commit a massacre. Another extremist shot dead 9 mostly young people with immigrant roots in the western city of Hanau.The AfD’s earlier rise in the polls stalled almost instantly after the Hanau attack.“After these three attacks, the wider German public and media realized for the first time that the rhetoric of the AfD leads to real violence,” said Hajo Funke of the Free University in Berlin, who has written extensively about the party and tracks its evolution.“It was a turning point,” he said. “They have come to personify the notion that words lead to deeds.”Shortly after the Hanau attack, Thomas Haldenwang, the chief of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, placed elements of the AfD under surveillance for far-right extremism — even as the party’s lawmakers continued to work in Parliament.“We know from German history that far-right extremism didn’t just destroy human lives, it destroyed democracy,” Mr. Haldenwang warned after announcing his decision in March last year. “Far-right extremism and far-right terrorism are currently the biggest danger for democracy in Germany.”Today, the agency has classified about a third of all AfD members as extremist, including Mr. Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, the party’s other lead candidate. A court is reviewing whether the entire party can soon be placed under formal observation.Alice Weidel, the AfD’s other co-leader, during a media conference in Berlin last month.Clemens Bilan/EPA, via Shutterstock“The AfD is irrelevant in power-political terms,” said Mr. Funke. “But it is dangerous.”Mr. Chrupalla, a decorator who occasionally takes the stage in his overalls, and Ms. Weidel, a suit-wearing former Goldman Sachs analyst and gay mother of two, have sought to counter that impression. As if to hammer home the point, the party’s main election slogan this year is: “Germany — but normal.”A look through the party’s 207-page election program shows what “normal” means: The AfD demands Germany’s exit from the European Union. It calls for the abolition of any mandates to fight the coronavirus. It wants to return to the traditional German definition of citizenship based on blood ancestry. And it is the only party in Parliament that denies man-made climate change, while also calling for investment in coal and a departure from the Paris climate accord.That the AfD’s polling numbers have barely budged for the past 18 months suggests that its supporters are not protest voters but Germans who subscribe to its ideas and ideology.“The AfD has brought out into the open a small but very radical electorate that many thought we don’t have in this country,” said Mr. Quent, the sociologist. “Four years ago people were asking: ‘Where does this come from?’ In reality it was always there. It just needed a trigger.”Mr. Quent and other experts estimate the nationwide ceiling of support for the party at around 14 percent. But in parts of the former Communist East, where the AfD has become a broad-based political force entrenched at the local level, it is often twice that — enough to make it the region’s second-strongest political force.Among the under 60-year olds, Mr. Quent said, it has become No. 1.“It’s only a question of time until AfD is the strongest party in the East,” Mr. Quent said.That is why Mr. Chrupalla, whose constituency is in the eastern state of Saxony, the one state where the AfD already came first in 2017, predicts it will eventually become too big to bypass.“In the East we are a people’s party, we are well-established at the local, city, regional and state level,” Mr. Chrupalla said. “In the East the middle class votes for the AfD. In the West, they vote for the Greens.”Christopher F. Schuetze More