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      How Democracy Faces a Rising Threat Splitting Republicans and Democrats

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      The country is increasingly split into camps that don’t just disagree on policy and politics — they see the other as alien, immoral, a threat. Such political sectarianism is now on the march.American democracy faces many challenges: New limits on voting rights. The corrosive effect of misinformation. The rise of domestic terrorism. Foreign interference in elections. Efforts to subvert the peaceful transition of power. And making matters worse on all of these issues is a fundamental truth: The two political parties see the other as an enemy.It’s an outlook that makes compromise impossible and encourages elected officials to violate norms in pursuit of an agenda or an electoral victory. It turns debates over changing voting laws into existential showdowns. And it undermines the willingness of the loser to accept defeat — an essential requirement of a democracy.This threat to democracy has a name: sectarianism. It’s not a term usually used in discussions about American politics. It’s better known in the context of religious sectarianism — like the hostility between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq. Yet a growing number of eminent political scientists contend that political sectarianism is on the rise in America.That contention helps make sense of a lot of what’s been going on in American politics in recent years, including Donald J. Trump’s successful presidential bid, President Biden’s tortured effort to reconcile his inaugural call for “unity” with his partisan legislative agenda, and the plan by far-right House members to create a congressional group that would push some views associated with white supremacy. Most of all, it re-centers the threat to American democracy on the dangers of a hostile and divided citizenry.In recent years, many analysts and commentators have told a now-familiar story of how democracies die at the hands of authoritarianism: A demagogic populist exploits dissatisfaction with the prevailing liberal order, wins power through legitimate means, and usurps constitutional power to cement his or her own rule. It’s the story of Putin’s Russia, Chavez’s Venezuela and even Hitler’s Germany.Sectarianism, in turn, instantly evokes an additional set of very different cautionary tales: Ireland, the Middle East and South Asia, regions where religious sectarianism led to dysfunctional government, violence, insurgency, civil war and even disunion or partition.These aren’t always stories of authoritarian takeover, though sectarianism can yield that outcome as well. As often, it’s the story of a minority that can’t accept being ruled by its enemy.One-third of Americans believe violence could be justified to achieve political objectives. Rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, a sign that the risks of sustained political violence can’t be discounted.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn many ways, that’s the story playing out in America today.Whether religious or political, sectarianism is about two hostile identity groups who not only clash over policy and ideology, but see the other side as alien and immoral. It’s the antagonistic feelings between the groups, more than differences over ideas, that drive sectarian conflict.Any casual observer of American politics would agree that there’s plenty of hostility between Democrats and Republicans. Many don’t just disagree, they dislike each other. They hold discriminatory attitudes in job hiring as they do on the Implicit Association Test. They tell pollsters they wouldn’t want their child to marry an opposing partisan. In a paper published in Science in October by 16 prominent political scientists, the authors argue that by some measures the hatred between the two parties “exceeds longstanding antipathies around race and religion.”More than half of Republicans and more than 40 percent of Democrats tend to think of the other party as “enemies,” rather than “political opponents,” according to a CBS News poll conducted in January. A majority of Americans said that other Americans were the greatest threat to America.On one level, partisan animosity just reflects the persistent differences between the two parties over policy issues. Over the past two decades, they have fought bruising battles over the Iraq war, gun rights, health care, taxes and more. Perhaps hard feelings wouldn’t necessarily be sectarian in nature.But the two parties have not only become more ideologically polarized — they have simultaneously sorted along racial, religious, educational, generational and geographic lines. Partisanship has become a “mega-identity,” in the words of the political scientist Lilliana Mason, representing both a division over policy and a broader clash between white, Christian conservatives and a liberal, multiracial, secular elite.And as mass sectarianism has grown in America, some of the loudest partisan voices in Congress or on Fox News, Twitter, MSNBC and other platforms have determined that it’s in their interest to lean into cultural warfare and inflammatory rhetoric to energize their side against the other. As political sectarianism has grown in America, some of the loudest partisan voices in Congress or on Fox News, Twitter, MSNBC and other platforms have determined that it’s in their interest to lean into cultural warfare.Dina Litovsky for The New York TimesThe conservative outrage over the purported canceling of Dr. Seuss is a telling marker of how intergroup conflict has supplanted old-fashioned policy debate. Culture war politics used to be synonymous with a fight over “social issues,” like abortion or gun policy, where government played a central role. The Dr. Seuss controversy had no policy implications. What was at stake was the security of one sect, which saw itself as under attack by the other. It’s the kind of issue that would arouse passions in an era of sectarianism.A Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted in March found that Republicans had heard more about the Dr. Seuss issue than they had heard about the $1.9 trillion stimulus package. A decade earlier, a far smaller stimulus package helped launch the Tea Party movement.The Dr. Seuss episode is hardly the only example of Republicans de-emphasizing policy goals in favor of stoking sectarianism. Last month, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, penned an op-ed in support of unionization at Amazon as retribution for the Seattle company’s cultural liberalism. At its 2020 national convention, the Republican Party didn’t even update its policy platform.And perhaps most significant, Republicans made the choice in 2016 to abandon laissez-faire economics and neoconservative foreign policy and embrace sectarianism all at once and in one package: Donald J. Trump. The G.O.P. primaries that year were a referendum on whether it was easier to appeal to conservatives with conservative policy or by stoking sectarian animosity. Sectarianism won.Sectarianism has been so powerful among Republicans in part because they believe they’re at risk of being consigned to minority status. The party has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, and conservatives fear that demographic changes promise to further erode their support. And while defeat is part of the game in democracy, it is a lot harder to accept in a sectarian society.It is not easy to accept being ruled by a hostile, alien rival. It can make “political losses feel like existential threats,” as the authors of the study published in Science put it.As a result, the minority often poses a challenge to democracy in a sectarian society. It’s the minority who bears the costs, whether material or psychological, of accepting majority rule in a democracy. In the extreme, rule by a hostile, alien group might not feel much different than being subjugated by another nation.Trump supporters in Walterboro, S.C., held signs that read “the silent majority” at a rally in 2016.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesDemocracies in sectarian societies often create institutional arrangements to protect the minority, like minority or group rights, power-sharing agreements, devolution or home rule. Otherwise, the most alienated segments of the minority might resort to violence and insurgency in hopes of achieving independence.Republicans are not consigned to permanent minority status like the typical sectarian minority, of course. The Irish had no chance to become the majority in the United Kingdom. Neither did the Muslims of the British Raj or the Sunnis in Iraq today. Democrats just went from the minority to the majority in all three branches of elected government in four years; Republicans could do the same.But changes in the racial and cultural makeup of the country leave conservatives feeling far more vulnerable than Republican electoral competitiveness alone would suggest. Demographic projections suggest that non-Hispanic whites will become a minority sometime in the middle of the century. People with a four-year college degree could become a majority of voters even sooner. Religiosity is declining.The sense that the country is changing heightens Republican concerns. In recent days, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson embraced the conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party was “trying to replace the current electorate” with new voters from “the third world.” Far-right extremists in the House are looking to create an “America First Caucus” that calls for “common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and an infrastructure that “befits the progeny of European architecture.”It is not easy to pin down where political sectarianism in America fits on a scale from zero to “The Troubles.” But nearly every protection that sectarian minorities pursue is either supported or under consideration by some element of the American right.That includes the more ominous steps. In December, Rush Limbaugh said he thought conservatives were “trending toward secession,” as there cannot be a “peaceful coexistence” between liberals and conservatives. One-third of Republicans say they would support secession in a recent poll, along with one-fifth of Democrats.One-third of Americans believe that violence could be justified to achieve political objectives. In a survey conducted in January, a majority of Republican voters agreed with the statement that the “traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” The violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 suggests that the risks of sustained political violence or even insurgency can’t be discounted.Whatever risk of imminent and widespread violence might have existed in January appears to have passed for now.Mr. Biden speaks the day after Election Day in the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del. Erin Schaff/The New York TimesInstead, Joe Biden was sworn in as president — a person who did not attempt to arouse the passions of one sect against the other during his campaign. His nomination and election demonstrates that sectarianism, while on the rise, may still have limits in America: The median voter prefers bipartisanship and a de-escalation of political conflict, creating an incentive to run nonsectarian campaigns.Yet whether Mr. Biden’s presidency will de-escalate sectarian tensions is an open question.Mr. Biden is pursuing an ambitious policy agenda, which may eventually refocus partisan debate on the issues or just further alienate one side on matters like immigration or the filibuster. Still, the authors of the Science paper write that “emphasis on political ideas rather than political adversaries” would quite likely be “a major step in the right direction.”And Mr. Biden himself does not seem to elicit much outrage from the conservative news media or rank-and-file — perhaps because of his welcoming message or his identity as a 78-year-old white man from Scranton, Pa.But sectarianism is not just about the conduct of the leader of a party — it’s about the conflict between two groups. Nearly anyone’s conduct can worsen hostility between the two sides, even if it is not endorsed by the leadership of a national political party. Mr. Carlson and the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene are only the latest examples.It leaves America at an uncertain juncture. Mr. Biden may dampen sectarian tensions compared with Mr. Trump, but it is not clear whether festering grievances and resentments will fade into the background with so many others acting to stoke division.Sectarianism, after all, can last for decades or even centuries after the initial cause for hostility has passed. More

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      One Republican’s Lonely Fight Against a Flood of Disinformation

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      After losing an ugly congressional race last year, Denver Riggleman is leading a charge against the conspiracy-mongering coursing through his party. He doesn’t have many allies.AFTON, Va. — Denver Riggleman stood virtually alone.It was Oct. 2, on the floor of the House of Representatives, and he rose as one of only two Republicans in the chamber to speak in favor of a resolution denouncing QAnon. Mr. Riggleman, a freshman congressman from Virginia, had his own personal experiences with fringe ideas, both as a target of them and as a curious observer of the power they hold over true believers. He saw a dangerous movement becoming more intertwined with his party, and worried that it was only growing thanks to words of encouragement from President Donald J. Trump.“Will we stand up and condemn a dangerous, dehumanizing and convoluted conspiracy theory that the F.B.I. has assessed with high confidence is very likely to motivate some domestic extremists?” asked Mr. Riggleman, a former Air Force intelligence officer. “We should not be playing with fire.”Six months later, conspiracy theories like QAnon remain a threat that most Republicans would rather ignore than confront, and Mr. Riggleman is out of office. But he is ever more determined to try to expose disinformation from the far right that is swaying legions in the Republican base to believe in a false reality.Mr. Riggleman is a living example of the political price of falling out of lock step with the hard right. He lost a G.O.P. primary race last June after he officiated at the wedding of a gay couple. And once he started calling out QAnon, whose followers believe that a satanic network of child molesters runs the Democratic Party, he received death threats and was attacked as a traitor, including by members of his own family.The undoing of Mr. Riggleman — and now his unlikely crusade — is revealing about a dimension of conservative politics today. The fight against radicalism within the G.O.P. is a deeply lonely one, waged mostly by Republicans like him who are no longer in office, and by the small handful of elected officials who have decided that they are willing to speak up even if it means that they, too, could be headed for an early retirement.“I’ve been telling people: ‘You don’t understand. This is getting worse, not better,’” Mr. Riggleman said, sitting on a stool at his family bar one recent afternoon. “People are angry. And they’re angry at the truth tellers.”Mr. Riggleman, 51, is now back home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he and his wife run the bar and a distillery. And for his next move in a career that has included jobs at the National Security Agency and founding a military contracting business, he is working with a group of other experts to shine a light on what he calls the “social disease” of disinformation.His experience with the issues and emotions at work is both professional and personal. He was so intrigued by false belief systems that he self-published a book about the myth of Bigfoot and the people who are unshakably devoted to it.Mr. Riggleman is working with a group of other experts to shine a light on what he calls the “social disease” of disinformation.Matt Eich for The New York TimesMr. Riggleman, who first ran and won in 2018 after the Republican incumbent in his district retired, joined the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus and was endorsed by Mr. Trump. Now he says it “gives me shivers” to be called a Republican. He hopes to show that there is still a way to beat back the lies and false beliefs that have spread from the fringe to the mainstream. It is a heavy lift, and one that depends on overcoming two strong impulses: politicians’ fear of losing elections and people’s reluctance to accept that they were taken in by a lie.Mr. Riggleman summarized his conversations with the 70 percent of House Republicans he said were privately appalled at the former president’s conduct but wouldn’t dare speak out.“‘We couldn’t do that in our district. We would lose,’” he said. “That’s it. It’s that simple.”Stocky, fast-talking and inexhaustibly curious, the former congressman is now working for a group of prominent experts and academics at the Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies the spread of disinformation in American politics and how to thwart it. The group has undertaken several extensive investigations into how extremists have used propaganda and faked information to sow division over some of the most contentious issues of the day, like the coronavirus pandemic and police violence.Their reports have also given lawmakers a better understanding of the QAnon belief system and other radical ideologies that helped fuel the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.Mr. Riggleman said he had written one report about the involvement of far-right militants and white supremacist groups in the attack specifically at the request of a Republican member who needed help convincing colleagues that far-left groups were not the culprits.Getting lawmakers to see radical movements like QAnon as a threat has been difficult. Joel Finkelstein, the director of the Network Contagion Research Institute, said that in June, when the group tried to sound the alarm on QAnon to members of Congress, Mr. Riggleman was the only one who responded with a sense of urgency and agreed to help.“We were screaming it from the rooftops,” Mr. Finkelstein said. “We said: ‘This is going to be a problem. They’re growing increasingly militant in their conspiracies.’” When the institute’s members spoke to Mr. Riggleman, he said, “We showed him our data and he said, ‘Holy moly.’”Far from a theoretical or overblown concern, disinformation and its role in perpetuating false beliefs about Mr. Trump’s election loss and its aftermath are problems that some Republicans believe could cripple their party if left ignored.In a sign of how widespread these conspiracy theories are, a recent poll from Suffolk University and USA Today found that 58 percent of Trump voters wrongly believed the storming of the Capitol was mostly inspired by far-left radicals associated with antifa and involved only a few Trump supporters.“There was a troika of us who said, ‘This is going to a bad place,’” said Paul Mitchell, who represented Michigan in the House for two terms before retiring early this year in frustration. He said he had watched as members dismissed Mr. Riggleman, despite his experience in intelligence. “There weren’t many people who gave a damn what your expertise was,” Mr. Mitchell said. “It was inconsequential compared to the talking points.”Bob Good defeated Mr. Riggleman in a state Republican Party convention in June.Amy Friedenberger/The Roanoke Times, via Associated PressMr. Riggleman’s loss last summer in a closely held party convention allowed him to be more outspoken. The winner, Representative Bob Good, is a former associate athletic director at Liberty University who took issue with Mr. Riggleman’s officiation at the gay wedding and called him “out of step” with the party’s base.And as Mr. Riggleman kept it up and spoke out more aggressively against Mr. Trump after the election, his fight got lonelier.“I had a colleague of mine pat me on the shoulder and say: ‘Denver, you’re just too paranoid. You’re killing yourself for the rest of your life politically by going after the big man like this,’” Mr. Riggleman recalled.When he returned to Virginia for good in January, he said he sometimes felt just as isolated. Family members, former constituents and patrons at the distillery insisted that the election had been stolen from Mr. Trump. And they couldn’t be talked out of it, no matter how hard he tried.He recalled a recent conversation with one couple he is friends with that he said was especially exasperating.“I go over stats,” he said. “I go over figures. I go over the 50 states, how that actually works. How machines that aren’t connected are very hard to hack. How you’d have to pay off hundreds of thousands of people to do this.”“Did not convince them,” he added.Other friends of his, some of whom are also members of the growing group of former Republican lawmakers now publicly criticizing Mr. Trump, said that many conservative politicians saw no incentive in trying to dispel disinformation even when they know it’s false.“What some of these guys have told me privately is it’s still kind of self-preservation,” said Joe Walsh, a former congressman from Illinois who ran a short-lived primary campaign against Mr. Trump last year. “‘I want to hang onto the gig. And this is a fever, it will break.’”That is mistaken, Mr. Walsh said, because he sees no breaking the spell Mr. Trump has over Republican voters anytime soon. “It’s done, and it was done a few years ago,” he said.Mr. Riggleman, who is contemplating a run for governor in Virginia and is writing a book about his experience with the dark side of Republican politics, sees a way forward in his experience with Bigfoot. The sasquatch was how many people first learned about him as a politician, after an opponent accused him of harboring a fascination with “Bigfoot erotica,” in 2018.“I do not dabble in monster porn,” he retorts in his book, “Bigfoot … It’s Complicated,” which he based in part on a trip he took in 2004 on a Bigfoot expedition.Mr. Riggleman paid $2,000 to go on a Bigfoot expedition with his wife in 2004.Matt Eich for The New York TimesThe book is full of passages that, if pulled out and scrubbed of references to the mythical creature, could be describing politics in 2021.Mr. Riggleman quotes one true believer explaining why he is absolutely convinced Bigfoot is real, even though he has never seen it. In an answer that could have come straight from the lips of someone defending the myth that Mr. Trump actually won the 2020 election, the man says matter-of-factly: “Evidence is overwhelming. Check out the internet. All kinds of sightings and facts.”At another point, Mr. Riggleman describes a conversation he had with someone who asked if he really thought that all the people claiming to have seen Bigfoot over the years were liars. “I don’t think that,” Mr. Riggleman responds. “I do believe that people see what they want to see.”He did find one way to crack the Bigfoot false belief system: telling true believers that they were being ripped off to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars to go on expeditions where they would never actually see the creature.“They got very angry,” he said. But eventually, some started to come around. More

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      Trump May Start a Social Network. Here’s My Advice.

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      Recast your past failures as successes, engage in meaningless optics, and other tips from the Silicon Valley playbook.So Donald Trump wants to start a social network and become a tech mogul?Lucky for him, I am an expert in all things digital, and I’m willing to help. Tech is hard stuff, and new ventures should be attempted with extreme care, especially by those whose history of entrepreneurship is littered with the carcasses of, say, Trump Steaks.Or Trump Water. Or Trump University. Or Trump magazine. Or Trump Casinos. Or Trump Mortgages. Or Trump Airlines. Or Trump Vodka. Or the Trump pandemic response. Or, of course, the 2020 Trump presidential campaign.So, Mr. Trump, here’s my advice.Right from the start, I advise you to embrace your myriad failures as if they’re your best friends. Every failed venture actually went exactly as planned. Give up your distaste for being called a “loser.” Drop your tendency to blame others. Quit falling back on conspiracy theories — which even Sydney “The Kraken” Powell is bailing on.Instead, use one of Silicon Valley’s favorite excuses for its mistakes, that old Thomas Edison trope: You didn’t fail, but found 10,000 ways that didn’t work. Even if “fail” and “don’t work” are the same thing, in tech these are seen as a badge of honor rather than as a sign that you are terrible at executing a business plan and engage in only meaningless optics.Which brings us to my next point: Engage in meaningless optics. In Silicon Valley, what people perceive is just as valuable as anything that is actually valuable.You think 5,000 Beeple JPEGs are worth $70 million? Well, I have a Jack Dorsey tweet for $2.9 million you might want to consider.Luckily, this fits right in your wheelhouse — a talent that you have displayed in spades since the beginnings of your career.Edison also said that “genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” I might rephrase that for your entry into tech by saying, genius is 1 percent instigation and 99 percent perfidy.Instigation and perfidy, in fact, make the perfect formula for a modern-day social network, so you are already well on your way, given your skill set.Baseless conspiracies? Check. Incessant lies? Check. Crazy ALL-CAP declarations designed to foment anger? Check. Self-aggrandizing though badly spelled streams that actually reveal a profound lack of self-esteem? Check. Link-baiting hateful memes? Double check. Inciting violence over election fraud with both explicit and cryptic messages to your base, in order to get them to think they should attack the Capitol, like, for real? Checkmate — especially if you are former Vice President Mike Pence!As for Mr. Pence, you must get him to sign on to your platform, along with all the other right-wingers who groveled to you when you were on Twitter.And that doesn’t mean just the Florida member of the House of Representatives Matt Gaetz, who I assume will do that on any platform, but the whole passel of them, from Ted Cruz to Marjorie Taylor Greene to Marco Rubio to your current nemesis, Mitch McConnell. And, also, wait for it … folks like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Bernie Sanders, as well as all those Hollywood celebs who hate-tweet at you, and, of course, all the fake media.To have an effective social network, you need the whole gang there in order to reach the blessed perfect formula: Enragement equals engagement. You didn’t start the fire — well, maybe you did — but you definitely need to keep stoking it.It might be challenging to get all of the complex tech to actually work. A social network requires a lot of it, including servers, apps and content moderation tools. You’ll need a whole army of geeks whom you’ll have to pay real money. (If you don’t, they will cyberhack you back to Queens.)And since all of this will be quite pricey, I suppose you could take over the pretty much defunct Parler. Its previous chief executive said in an interview with me that the platform wasn’t responsible for any of the post-presidential-election chaos, and that got the service thrown off all kinds of back-end platforms run by Google, Apple and Amazon.Still, Parler may be on life support, but the tech is already built — and the platform is already full of deplorables, or, um, “patriots,” who happen to believe more in QAnon wingnut ideas than in the Constitution.Also, you should think about having a fresh kombucha station at HQ.As for your future competitors … Twitter has seen its shares rise sharply since it tossed you off for life. You still might get a reprieve over at Facebook, where an oversight board is contemplating your fate. We’ll see what the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, decides after the board makes a ruling.Keep in mind, Mr. Zuckerberg really is the most powerful man in the world; that was even the case when you were in the Oval Office. And while he once bear-hugged your administration, he is now sidling up to President Biden.Try to ignore that and learn to like your fellow tech moguls. You will be on their side. You’ll have to learn to love Section 230 — part of a 1996 law that shields companies from liability for what is said on their platforms — and abandon efforts to get rid of it (as you tried by executive order), since it will protect whatever toxic flood you unleash on your social media site.Which brings me to my last point: the name. It’s critical — and I am not sure how to approach it.Avoid MeinSpace and InstaGraft, for obvious reasons. The narcissist in you might go for The_Donald, which you might now be able to use, since Reddit banned the 800,000-member forum with that name for violating its rules against harassment, hate speech, content manipulation and more. (Sounds like just the kind of folks you like and who like you.)Personally, if you go this direction, I would use your name in a more creative way. My suggestion: Trumpet.Trumpets are brash and loud, and they’re often badly played and tinny. Right on brand, I’d say.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram, and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. More

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      Israel Election: Do-Over Vote Looks Likely to Leave Another Stalemate

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      With 90 percent of ballots counted, the results of the latest election point to another possible stalemate. That has prompted some soul-searching about the state of the country’s democracy.JERUSALEM — When Israelis woke on Wednesday, the day after their fourth election in two years, it felt nothing like a new dawn.With 90 percent of the votes counted, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance had 52 seats, while his opponents had 56 — both sides several seats short of the 61 needed to form a coalition government with a majority in Parliament. If those counts stand, they could prolong by months the political deadlock that has paralyzed the country for two years.That prospect was already forcing Israelis to confront questions about the viability of their electoral system, the functionality of their government and whether the divisions between the country’s various polities — secular and devout, right-wing and leftist, Jewish and Arab — have made the country unmanageable.“It’s not getting any better. It’s even getting worse — and everyone is so tired,” said Rachel Azaria, a centrist former lawmaker who chairs an alliance of environment-focused civil society groups. “The entire country is going crazy.”Official final results are not expected before Friday. But the partial tallies suggested that both Mr. Netanyahu’s alliance and its opponents would need the support of a small, Islamist Arab party, Raam, to form a majority coalition.Either of those outcomes would defy conventional logic. The first option would force Islamists into a Netanyahu-led bloc that includes politicians who want to expel Arab citizens of Israel whom they deem “disloyal.” The second would unite Raam with a lawmaker who has baited Arabs and told them to leave the country.Beyond the election itself, the gridlock extends to the administrative stagnation that has left Israel without a national budget for two consecutive years in the middle of a pandemic, and with several key Civil Service posts unstaffed.A polling station in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. “It’s not getting any better. It’s even getting worse — and everyone is so tired,” said a centrist former lawmaker about the repeat elections.Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressIt also heightens the uncertainty over the future of the judiciary and about the trial of Mr. Netanyahu himself, who is being prosecuted on corruption charges that he denies. Mr. Netanyahu has also dismissed the claim that he will use any new majority to grant himself immunity, but others likely to be in his potential coalition have said that would be up for debate.And both the prime minister and his allies have promised a sweeping overhaul that would limit the power of the Supreme Court.Shira Efron, a Tel Aviv-based analyst for the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group, said, “It’s not a failed state. It’s not Lebanon. You still have institutions.”“But there is definitely an erosion,” she noted. “Not having a budget for two years — this is really dangerous.”Mr. Netanyahu has presided over a world-leading vaccine program, in an illustration of how some parts of the state still operate very smoothly. But more generally, the lack of a state budget forces ministries to work on only a short-term basis, freezing long-term infrastructure projects like road construction.For Ms. Azaria, the former lawmaker, the stasis has delayed the discussion of a multibillion-dollar program to improve the provision of renewable energy, which her green alliance proposed to the government last year.“We’re talking about taking Israel to the next stage in so many ways, and none of it can happen,” Ms. Azaria said. “There is no decision making.”“Railway tracks, highways, all of these long-term plans — we won’t have them,” she added.The lack of a state budget forces ministries to plan for just one month at a time, freezing long-term infrastructure projects like railway tracks and highways.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesIsraeli commentators and analysts were locked in debate on Wednesday about changes to the electoral system that could break the deadlock.Some argued for the need to raise the 3.25 percent threshold of votes required for parties to enter Parliament. That would make it harder for smaller factions to gain seats and wield disproportionate power in negotiations to form coalition governments.Others proposed establishing multiple voting districts in Israel, instead of the current setup of one nationwide voting district, which they say would encourage smaller parties to merge into larger ones.One columnist suggested forming a technocratic government for a few months to allow for a new budget and to get the economy moving again.And one expert suggested simply anointing the leader of the largest party as prime minister, without the need for them to win the support of a parliamentary majority — a move that would at least ensure that Israel had a government following elections.“It might manufacture a majority for one of the sides,” said Prof. Gideon Rahat, co-editor of a book called “Reforming Israel’s Political System.”But the problem might also be solved if Mr. Netanyahu simply left the political stage, Professor Rahat added.“If you look at the results, the Israeli right wing has a clear majority and it would have a stable government if it wasn’t for Netanyahu,” he said.But for others, Israel’s problems extended beyond Mr. Netanyahu or fixes to the electoral system. For some, the impasse is rooted in more profound fissures that divide various parts of society, splits that have contributed to the political fragmentation.The country has several different fault lines — between Jews and the Arab minority, who form about 20 percent of the population; between Jews of European descent, known as Ashkenazis, and Mizrahi Jews whose ancestors lived for centuries in the Middle East; between those who favor a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict and those who want to annex the West Bank.A view of the Jewish settlement of Mitzpe Yeriho in the West Bank. One of the divides in Israel is between those who favor a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict and those who want to annex the West Bank.Oded Balilty/Associated PressThe fact that Mr. Netanyahu is still within reach of retaining power demonstrates that he has been more effective in bridging the divide between secular and deeply devout Jews than any other rival, said Ofer Zalzberg, director of the Middle East program at the at the Herbert C. Kelman Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group.“He has reconciled better than his adversaries the liberal idea of personal and individual autonomy with conservative values like preserving Jewish identity, as defined by Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law,” Mr. Zalzberg said.While other politicians historically tried to solve this tension by “turning all Israelis into secular Zionists,” he added, “Mr. Netanyahu advanced the idea of Israel as a mosaic of different tribes.”Mr. Netanyahu has failed to win over the more liberal of those tribes — and that failure is at the heart of the current stalemate. But he and his party have been more successful than the secular left at winning over key groups like Mizrahi Jews, who were historically marginalized by the Ashkenazi elite, Ms. Azaria said.“That’s the blind spot of the left wing in Israel — they’re not really talking to Mizrahim,” she said. “This could be the game changer of Israeli politics. If the left could open the gates and say, ‘You’re welcome. We want you here.’”Supporters of Mr. Netanyahu at a rally last year in Beit Shean, a town with a large population of Mizrahi Jews. “Mr. Netanyahu advanced the idea of Israel as a mosaic of different tribes,” one analyst said.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesThe political stalemate has also been exacerbated by a reluctance by Jewish-led parties to include Arab parties within their governments, ruling the latter out of coalition negotiations and making it even harder to form a majority.Arab parties have also been traditionally opposed to joining Israeli governments that are in conflict with Arab neighbors and occupy territories claimed by the Palestinians.But for Dr. Efron, the Tel Aviv-based analyst, there were hopeful signs of a paradigm shift on Wednesday morning. With the election results on a knife edge, some politicians were forced to at least consider the possibility of a pivotal political role for an Arab party such as Raam.And such a discussion might accelerate the acceptance of Arabs within the Israeli political sphere, she said.“It brings more integration,” Dr. Efron added. “In the long run, that could be a silver lining.”Adam Rasgon and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting. More

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      How Anti-Asian Activity Online Set the Stage for Real-World Violence

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      On platforms such as Telegram and 4chan, racist memes and posts about Asian-Americans have created fear and dehumanization.In January, a new group popped up on the messaging app Telegram, named after an Asian slur.Hundreds of people quickly joined. Many members soon began posting caricatures of Asians with exaggerated facial features, memes of Asian people eating dog meat and images of American soldiers inflicting violence during the Vietnam War.This week, after a gunman killed eight people — including six women of Asian descent — at massage parlors in and near Atlanta, the Telegram channel linked to a poll that asked, “Appalled by the recent attacks on Asians?” The top answer, with 84 percent of the vote, was that the violence was “justified retaliation for Covid.”The Telegram group was a sign of how anti-Asian sentiment has flared up in corners of the internet, amplifying racist and xenophobic tropes just as attacks against Asian-Americans have surged. On messaging apps like Telegram and on internet forums like 4chan, anti-Asian groups and discussion threads have been increasingly active since November, especially on far-right message boards such as The Donald, researchers said.The activity follows a rise in anti-Asian misinformation last spring after the coronavirus, which first emerged in China, began spreading around the world. On Facebook and Twitter, people blamed the pandemic on China, with users posting hashtags such as #gobacktochina and #makethecommiechinesepay. Those hashtags spiked when former President Donald J. Trump last year called Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu.”While some of the online activity tailed off ahead of the November election, its re-emergence has helped lay the groundwork for real-world actions, researchers said. The fatal shootings in Atlanta this week, which have led to an outcry over treatment of Asian-Americans even as the suspect said he was trying to cure a “sexual addiction,” were preceded by a swell of racially motivated attacks against Asian-Americans in places like New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate.“Surges in anti-Asian rhetoric online means increased risk of real-world events targeting that group of people,” said Alex Goldenberg, an analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University, which tracks misinformation and extremism online.He added that the anti-China coronavirus misinformation — including the false narrative that the Chinese government purposely created Covid-19 as a bioweapon — had created an atmosphere of fear and invective.Anti-Asian speech online has typically not been as overt as anti-Semitic or anti-Black groups, memes and posts, researchers said. On Facebook and Twitter, posts expressing anti-Asian sentiments have often been woven into conspiracy theory groups such as QAnon and in white nationalist and pro-Trump enclaves. Mr. Goldenberg said forms of hatred against Black people and Jews have deep roots in extremism in the United States and that the anti-Asian memes and tropes have been more “opportunistically weaponized.”But that does not make the anti-Asian hate speech online less insidious. Melissa Ryan, chief executive of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that researches disinformation, said the misinformation and racist speech has led to a “dehumanization” of certain groups of people and to an increased risk of violence.Negative Asian-American tropes have long existed online but began increasing last March as parts of the United States went into lockdown over the coronavirus. That month, politicians including Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican of California, used the terms “Wuhan virus” and “Chinese coronavirus” to refer to Covid-19 in their tweets.Those terms then began trending online, according to a study from the University of California, Berkeley. On the day Mr. Gosar posted his tweet, usage of the term “Chinese virus” jumped 650 percent on Twitter; a day later there was an 800 percent increase in their usage in conservative news articles, the study found.Mr. Trump also posted eight times on Twitter last March about the “Chinese virus,” causing vitriolic reactions. In the replies section of one of his posts, a Trump supporter responded, “U caused the virus,” directing the comment to an Asian Twitter user who had cited U.S. death statistics for Covid-19. The Trump fan added a slur about Asian people.In a study this week from the University of California, San Francisco, researchers who examined 700,000 tweets before and after Mr. Trump’s March 2020 posts found that people who posted the hashtag #chinesevirus were more likely to use racist hashtags, including #bateatingchinese.“There’s been a lot of discussion that ‘Chinese virus’ isn’t racist and that it can be used,” said Yulin Hswen, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, who conducted the research. But the term, she said, has turned into “a rallying cry to be able to gather and galvanize people who have these feelings, as well as normalize racist beliefs.”Representatives for Mr. Trump, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Gosar did not respond to requests for comment.Misinformation linking the coronavirus to anti-Asian beliefs also rose last year. Since last March, there have been nearly eight million mentions of anti-Asian speech online, much of it falsehoods, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights firm..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{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-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-coqf44{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-coqf44 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-coqf44 em{font-style:italic;}.css-coqf44 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:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-coqf44 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#333;text-decoration-color:#333;}.css-coqf44 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}In one example, a Fox News article from April that went viral baselessly said that the coronavirus was created in a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan and intentionally released. The article was liked and shared more than one million times on Facebook and retweeted 78,800 times on Twitter, according to data from Zignal and CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool for analyzing social media.By the middle of last year, the misinformation had started subsiding as election-related commentary increased. The anti-Asian sentiment ended up migrating to platforms like 4chan and Telegram, researchers said.But it still occasionally flared up, such as when Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a researcher from Hong Kong, made unproven assertions last fall that the coronavirus was a bioweapon engineered by China. In the United States, Dr. Yan became a right-wing media sensation. Her appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in September has racked up at least 8.8 million views online.In November, anti-Asian speech surged anew. That was when conspiracies about a “new world order” related to President Biden’s election victory began circulating, said researchers from the Network Contagion Research Institute. Some posts that went viral painted Mr. Biden as a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party.In December, slurs about Asians and the term “Kung Flu” rose by 65 percent on websites and apps like Telegram, 4chan and The Donald, compared with the monthly average mentions from the previous 11 months on the same platforms, according to the Network Contagion Research Institute. The activity remained high in January and last month.During this second surge, calls for violence against Asian-Americans became commonplace.“Filipinos are not Asians because Asians are smart,” read a post in a Telegram channel that depicted a dog holding a gun to its head.After the shootings in Atlanta, a doctored screenshot of what looked like a Facebook post from the suspect circulated on Facebook and Twitter this week. The post featured a miasma of conspiracies about China engaging in a Covid-19 cover-up and wild theories about how it was planning to “secure global domination for the 21st century.”Facebook and Twitter eventually ruled that the screenshot was fake and blocked it. But by then, the post had been shared and liked hundreds of times on Twitter and more than 4,000 times on Facebook.Ben Decker More

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      Can France’s Far Right Win Over the ‘Beavers’? One Mayor Shows How

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCan France’s Far Right Win Over the ‘Beavers’? One Mayor Shows HowIn the southern city of Perpignan, voters who had long built a dam against the far right turned in the last election. Some wonder whether it’s a harbinger of things to come.Last year Perpignan became the largest city to come under the control of the National Rally, the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesNorimitsu Onishi and March 13, 2021, 5:28 a.m. ETLire en françaisPERPIGNAN, France — Riding high in the polls ahead of the next presidential election, feeling they’ve won the battle over ideas, smelling blood in the Élysée Palace, leaders of France’s far right cocked their eyes across the land at perhaps the one thing standing between them and power: beavers.That is what some French call the voters who, time and again, have cast political differences aside and put in power anyone but far-right candidates — raising a dam against them as real beavers do against predators. Voters did precisely that in 2014 in Perpignan, a medieval city of pastel-color buildings on the Mediterranean near the border with Spain.But last year, the dam broke and Perpignan became the largest city under the control of the National Rally, the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen. Today the city of more than 120,000 is being closely watched as an incubator of far-right strategy and as a potential harbinger of what a presidential election rematch pitting Ms. Le Pen against President Emmanuel Macron could look like.A victory for Ms. Le Pen would be earth-shattering for France, and all of Europe. It has been an article of faith in France that a party whose leadership has long shown flashes of anti-Semitism, Nazi nostalgia and anti-immigrant bigotry would never make it through the country’s two-stage presidential electoral juggernaut.But steadily her party has advanced farther than many French have been prepared to countenance, and Ms. Le Pen’s debut in the final round of France’s last presidential election in 2017 came as a shock to the system.She may still be a relative long shot, given the party’s history in France, but for now perhaps not as long as she once was. Recent polls show her matching Mr. Macron in the first round of next year’s presidential contest and trailing by a few points in a second-round runoff. In a poll released Thursday, 48 percent of respondents said Ms. Le Pen would probably be France’s next president, up 7 percent compared with half a year ago.“They’ve been forming dams since 2002 now,” said Louis Aliot, the mayor of Perpignan and a longtime National Rally leader. “So to ask them again to form a dam with Macron — but what’s changed? Nothing at all.” Voter-built dams were no longer effective, unlike those made by the animal, he said, adding, “When beavers build dams, it works.”The mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, succeeded in softening the party’s image in Perpignan.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesIn 2014, many voters on the left and right had successfully united in a “Republican front” against Mr. Aliot — the same way they raised a dam against Ms. Le Pen in the 2017 presidential election won by Mr. Macron.But in the intervening years, Mr. Aliot succeeded in softening the party’s image in Perpignan and won new converts, even as disillusioned beavers stayed home or left blank ballots on voting day in 2020. Mr. Aliot won handily — in a rematch against his opponent of 2014 who, like Mr. Macron, had tilted rightward and marketed himself as the best check against the far right.Nationally, Ms. Le Pen, who was Mr. Aliot’s common-law partner for a decade until 2019, has hewed to the same playbook in sanitizing her party’s image, even amid questions about the depth and sincerity of those efforts.She has softened the party’s longtime populist economic agenda — for instance, by dropping a proposal to exit the euro and by promoting green reindustrialization — while holding onto or even toughening the party’s core, hard-line positions on immigration, Islam and security.The effort by the party to wade into the mainstream has presented a special quandary for Mr. Macron. Sensing the political threat, and lacking a real challenge on his left, he has tried to fight the National Rally on its own turf — moving to the right to vie for voters who might be tempted to defect to it. Doing so, Mr. Macron hopes to keep the far right at bay.But the shift also helps destigmatize the far right, or at least many of its messages, argue National Rally leaders, some members of Mr. Macron’s own party and political analysts. Mr. Macron’s strategy may have the unintended consequence of helping the National Rally in its decades-long struggle to become a normal party, they say. “It legitimizes what we’ve been saying,” Mr. Aliot said. “These are the people who’ve been saying for 30 years: Be careful, they’re nasty, they’re fascists, because they target Muslims. All of a sudden, they’re talking like us.”Mr. Macron and his ministers, in recent months, have tried to appropriate the extreme right’s issues with new policies and dog whistles, talking tough on crime and pushing through security bills to try to limit filming of the police, which was dropped after protests, and crack down on what they call Islamist separatism. In a recent televised debate, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, even accused Ms. Le Pen of being “shaky” and “softer than we are” on Islamism.President Emmanuel Macron has tried to fight the National Rally on its own turf — moving to the right to vie for voters who might be tempted to defect to it.Credit…Pool photo by Thomas CoexMarine Le Pen has been sanitizing her party’s image, even amid questions about the depth and sincerity of those efforts.Credit…Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThey have turned to identity politics, ordering an investigation into “Islamo-leftism” at French universities and other so-called American-inspired ideas that they say threaten to undermine French values.“The more we go on their ground, the stronger we make them,” Jean-Michel Mis, a national lawmaker from Mr. Macron’s party, said of the National Rally. “So their leaders are very pleased because, in the end, we’re legitimizing their campaign themes.”Nicolas Lebourg, a political scientist specializing on the National Rally, said that adopting the far right’s themes has often backfired. “What they’re currently doing is campaigning for Marine Le Pen,” he said.Even as Mr. Macron has portrayed himself as the best candidate to protect France from the far right, polls show voters may be growing weary of being asked to vote against a candidate, rather than for one.Among the former beavers of Perpignan were Jacques and Régine Talau, a retired couple who had always voted for the mainstream right, helping build the dam against the far right in Perpignan in 2014 and in the presidential election of 2017.Historically conservative and economically depressed, Perpignan was perhaps naturally receptive to Ms. Le Pen’s party, which had won smaller, struggling cities in the south and north in recent years. But winning over the Talaus of Perpignan was a tipping point.Their neighborhood, Mas Llaro, an area of stately homes on large plots amid vineyards on the city’s eastern fringe, is Perpignan’s wealthiest. In 2020, more than 60 percent of its residents voted for Mr. Aliot — 7 percentage points higher than his overall tally and 10 percentage points more than in 2014.Among the former “beavers” of Perpignan were Jacques Talau, left, and his wife, Régine, center, a retired couple who had always voted for the mainstream right.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesMas Llaro had always voted for the mainstream right.But disillusioned and weary of the status quo, the Talaus, like many others, voted for the first time for the far right last year, drawn by Mr. Aliot’s emphasis on cleanliness and crime, saying their home had been broken into twice.Though satisfied with the mayor’s performance, Mr. Talau said he would still join the dam against the far right in next year’s presidential contest and hold his nose to vote for Mr. Macron. But Ms. Talau was now considering casting a ballot for Ms. Le Pen.“She’s put water in her wine,” Ms. Talau said, adding that Mr. Macron was not “tough enough.”Mr. Aliot’s opponent in 2014 and 2020, a center-right politician named Jean-Marc Pujol, had pressed further to the right in an unsuccessful move to fend off the far right. He increased the number of police officers, giving Perpignan the highest number per capita of any large city in France, according to government data.Even so, many of his core supporters appeared to trust the far right more on crime and still defected, while many left-leaning beavers complained that they had been ignored and refused to take part in dam-building again, said Agnès Langevine, who represented the Greens and the Socialists in the 2020 mayoral election.“And they told us, ‘In 2022, if it’s between Macron and Le Pen, I won’t do it again,’ ” she added.Mr. Lebourg, the political scientist, said that Mr. Aliot had also won over conservative, upper-income voters by adopting a mainstream economic message — the same strategy adopted by Ms. Le Pen.Since taking over the party a decade ago, she has worked hard at “dédiabolisation” — or “de-demonizing” — the party.A war memorial in Perpignan, a conservative and economically depressed city that has been receptive to the National Rally party’s message.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesIn 2015, Ms. Le Pen expelled her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the party and had a long history of playing down the Holocaust.While she popularized dog whistles like “turning savage,” she consciously stayed clear of explosive language conjuring up a supposed “great replacement” of France’s white population by African and Muslim immigrants. In 2018, she rebranded the National Front as the more inclusive “Rally.”Still, the party wants to toughen migration policies for foreign students and reduce net immigration by twentyfold.It also wants to ban the public wearing of the Muslim veil and limit the “presence of ostentatious elements” outside religious buildings if they clash with the environment, in an apparent reference to minarets.In Perpignan, Mr. Aliot has focused on crime, spending $9.5 million to hire 30 new police officers, open new stations, and set up bicycle and nighttime patrols, responding to an increase in drug trafficking.Jeanne Mercier, 24, a left-leaning voter, said many around her had been “seduced” by the far-right mayor.Camille Rosa, left, a left-leaning voter, said she doesn’t know whether she would join again in building a dam against Ms. Le Pen in presidential elections next year.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times“We’re the test to show France that the National Front is making things work and that people are rallying and are happy,” she said, referring to the party by its old name. “In the end, it’s not the devil that we imagined.”Camille Rosa, 35, said she doesn’t know whether she would join again in building a dam against Ms. Le Pen next year. The attacks by the president’s ministers against “Islamo-leftism” and scholars on feminism, gender and race had fundamentally changed her view of the government of Mr. Macron.“I have the impression that their enemies are no longer the extreme right at all,” she said, “but it’s us, people on the left.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      À Perpignan, l’extrême-droite rallie ‘les castors’

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyÀ Perpignan, l’extrême-droite rallie ‘les castors’Dans cette ville méridionale, des électeurs qui avaient longtemps fait barrage à l’extrême-droite ont basculé aux dernières municipales. Un signe avant-coureur pour la prochaine présidentielle?Perpignan est devenue l’an dernier la plus grande ville de France à passer sous contrôle  du Rassemblement National, le parti d’extrême-droite dirigé par Marine Le Pen.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov pour The New York TimesNorimitsu Onishi and March 13, 2021, 5:28 a.m. ETRead in EnglishPERPIGNAN, France — Forts de bons sondages en amont de la prochaine élection présidentielle, estimant avoir gagné la bataille des idées et sentant le vent tourner à l’Élysée, les leaders de l’extrême-droite française n’ont peut-être plus qu’un obstacle entre eux et le pouvoir: les castors.C’est ainsi que certains en France surnomment ceux qui, d’un scrutin à l’autre, laissant de côté leurs différences politiques, choisissent d’élire n’importe qui plutôt que les candidats d’extrême-droite — érigeant un barrage contre ces derniers comme le font les vrais castors pour se protéger des prédateurs. C’est précisément ce qu’ont fait, aux municipales de 2014, les électeurs de Perpignan, cette ville médiévale méditerranéenne aux bâtisses couleur pastel située non loin de la frontière espagnole.Mais l’année dernière le barrage a cédé, et Perpignan est devenue la plus grande ville à passer sous contrôle du Rassemblement National d’extrême-droite que dirige Marine Le Pen. Aujourd’hui, cette ville de plus de 120 000 habitants est scrutée avec attention : elle est un incubateur de la stratégie de l’extrême-droite et un potentiel signe avant-coureur de ce à quoi pourrait ressembler le deuxième match présidentiel opposant Marine Le Pen à Emmanuel Macron.Une victoire de Mme Le Pen bouleverserait la France et l’Europe entière. Il a longtemps été considéré comme un principe acquis qu’un parti dont la direction a montré des signes d’antisémitisme, de nostalgie du nazisme et d’intolérance anti-immigrés n’arriverait jamais à remporter l’élection présidentielle.Mais petit à petit, son parti a progressé bien plus que beaucoup de Français n’étaient prêts à l’admettre. L’arrivée de Mme Le Pen au second tour de la dernière présidentielle française, en 2017, a été un électrochoc pour le système.Son combat est loin d’être gagné, vu l’historique de son parti en France, mais peut–être s’est-elle rapprochée de la ligne d’arrivée. Un sondage récent lui attribue un score égal à celui de M. Macron au premier tour de l’élection présidentielle de l’année prochaine, et une défaite par quelques points seulement au second. D’après un sondage publié jeudi dernier, 48% des Français estiment probable la victoire de Marine Le Pen à la présidentielle, soit 7% de plus qu’il y a six mois.“Ils ont fait barrage depuis 2002 maintenant”, dit Louis Aliot, maire de Perpignan et cacique de longue date du Rassemblement National. “Alors leur redemander de faire barrage avec Macron, mais qu’est-ce qui a changé? Rien du tout.” Les barrages des électeurs ne sont plus efficaces, contrairement à ceux de l’animal, estime-t-il. “Les castors, quand ils construisent des barrages, ça marche.”Le maire de Perpignan, Louis Aliot, a réussi à modérer l’image de son parti  à Perpignan.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov pour The New York TimesEn 2014, de nombreux électeurs de gauche comme de droite avaient formé avec succès un “front républicain” contre M. Aliot — de la même manière qu’ils avaient fait barrage à Mme Le Pen pour l’élection présidentielle de 2017 remportée par M. Macron.Mais depuis lors, M. Aliot a réussi à adoucir l’image du parti à Perpignan et à convertir de nouveaux électeurs, tandis que certains castors désabusés sont restés chez eux ou ont voté blanc le jour de l’élection en 2020. M. Aliot a gagné haut la main — une forme de revanche contre le même adversaire qu’en 2014 qui, comme M. Macron, avait viré à droite et s’était présenté comme le meilleur rempart contre l’extrême-droite.À l’échelle nationale, Mme Le Pen, qui fut pendant dix ans, jusqu’en 2019, la partenaire au civil de M. Aliot, adopte la même tactique d’assainissement de l’image de son parti, même si des questions demeurent quant à la réalité et la sincérité de ses efforts.Elle a modéré le programme économique longtemps populiste de son parti — en renonçant par exemple à la proposition d’abandonner l’euro et en promouvant la réindustrialisation verte — tout en perpétuant, voire en durcissant, les positions-clés et fermes du parti sur l’immigration, l’islam et la sécurité.Les efforts que déploie le parti pour se fondre dans les courants politiques traditionnels mettent M. Macron face à un dilemme. Sentant le danger politique à droite et sans réel challenger à sa gauche, il tente de combattre le Rassemblement National sur son propre terrain — en opérant un glissement vers la droite pour disputer à ce dernier les électeurs tentés de changer de camp. Ce faisant, M. Macron espère tenir l’extrême-droite à distance.Mais ce changement a aussi contribué à destigmatiser l’extrême-droite, tout du moins nombre de ses propositions, selon les leaders du Rassemblement National, des membres du propre parti de M. Macron, et des politologues. La stratégie de M. Macron pourrait avoir la conséquence imprévue d’aider le Rassemblement National dans son combat de plusieurs décennies pour devenir un parti normal, préviennent-ils.“Ça légitime ce qu’on dit”, dit M Aliot. “C’est des gens qui vous ont dit pendant 30 ans : attention, ceux-là ils sont méchants, ce sont des fachos, parce qu’ils s’en prennent aux musulmans. Tout d’un coup ils parlent comme nous.”Ces derniers mois, M. Macron et ses ministres ont tenté de s’approprier des thèmes chers à l’extrême-droite au moyen de politiques et d’expressions nouvelles. Ils ont adopté une posture ferme sur la criminalité, proposé des lois pour limiter la diffusion des images de policiers — abandonnées suite à des manifestations — et sévi sur ce qu’ils nomment le séparatisme islamiste. Lors d’un récent débat télévisé face à Marine Le Pen, le ministre de l’Intérieur Gérald Darmanin accusait celle-ci d’être “branlante” et “plus molle” sur l’islamisme que le gouvernement.Emmanuel Macron entreprend de combattre le Rassemblement National sur son propre terrain — glissant vers la droite pour disputer à ce dernier les électeurs tentés de faire défection.Credit…Pool photo by Thomas CoexMarine Le Pen tente d’assainissement l’image de son parti, même si des questions demeurent quant à la réalité et la sincérité de ses efforts.Credit…Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIls ont adopté une stratégie identitaire, commandant une enquête sur “l’islamo-gauchisme” dans les universités françaises et d’autres idées supposées d’inspiration américaine qu’ils accusent de saper les valeurs françaises.“Plus on va sur leur terrain, plus on les renforce”, estime Jean-Michel Mis, un député de La République En Marche, au sujet du Rassemblement National. “Donc leurs dirigeants sont très contents parce que finalement on légitime leurs thèmes de campagne.”Pour Nicolas Lebourg, un politologue spécialiste du Rassemblement National, l’adoption des thèmes de l’extrême-droite est souvent contre-productive. “Ce qu’ils sont en train de faire, c’est faire la campagne de Marine Le Pen,” explique-t-il.Alors que M. Macron se présente comme le meilleur candidat pour protéger la France de l’extrême-droite, les sondages démontrent que les électeurs sont de plus en plus las d’être toujours appelés à voter contre, plutôt que pour, un candidat.Jacques et Régine Talau comptent parmi les anciens castors de Perpignan. Ce couple de retraités avait toujours voté pour la droite classique et avait contribué au barrage contre l’extrême-droite lors des municipales de 2014, puis des élections présidentielles de 2017.Historiquement à droite et en proie aux difficultés économiques, Perpignan était sans doute un terrain naturel pour le parti de Mme Le Pen qui, ces dernières années, avait remporté de petites villes sinistrées dans le sud et le nord du pays. Mais le ralliement du couple Talau a marqué un tournant.Leur quartier, le Mas Llaro, une succession de demeures cossues construites sur de larges parcelles au milieu des vignobles, à la périphérie est de la ville, est la plus riche de Perpignan. En 2020, plus de 60% de ses résidents ont voté pour M Aliot — 7 points de plus que sa moyenne dans la ville et 10 de plus qu’en 2014.Parmi les anciens castors de Perpignan, il y a Jacques Talau, à gauche, et sa femme Régine, des retraités qui votaient toujours pour la droite classique.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov pour The New York TimesLe Mas Llaro a toujours voté pour la droite traditionnelle.Mais, désabusés et lassés du statu quo, les Talaus, comme bien d’autres, ont voté pour la première fois pour l’extrême-droite l’année dernière, séduits par l’accent mis par M. Aliot sur la propreté et la criminalité. Leur maison a été cambriolée deux fois, disent-ils.Bien que satisfait du bilan du maire, M. Talau indique qu’il se ralliera quand même au barrage contre l’extrême-droite pour la prochaine présidentielle et votera Macron en se bouchant le nez. En revanche, Mme Talau envisage désormais de voter pour Marine Le Pen.“Elle a mis de l’eau dans son vin”, estime Mme Talau, ajoutant que M. Macron n’est “pas assez dur”.L’adversaire de M. Aliot en 2014 et 2020, Jean-Marc Pujol, candidate du centre-droit, avait viré davantage vers la droite pour tenter, sans succès, de contrer l’extrême-droite. Il avait gonflé les effectifs de la police, d’après les statistiques gouvernementales, faisant de Perpignan la grande ville de France avec le plus grand nombre de policiers par habitant. Malgré cela, nombre de ses partisans historiques semblent avoir davantage fait confiance à l’extrême droite sur le sujet de la criminalité, et fait défection. De nombreux de castors à gauche se sont plaints d’avoir été ignorés et ont refusé de participer une nouvelle fois à la construction de barrages, dit Agnès Langevine, la candidate des Verts et des Socialistes aux municipales de 2020.“Et ils nous disaient : en 2022, si c’est un Macron-Le Pen, je ne ferai pas plus,” ajoute-t-elle.M. Lebourg, le politologue, estime que M. Aliot a aussi gagné le vote des riches électeurs conservateurs comme les Talaus en adoptant un message économique classique — la même stratégie qu’adopte Mme Le Pen.. Depuis qu’elle a pris les rênes du parti il y a dix ans, Mme Le Pen travaille dur pour “dédiaboliser” le parti.Un monument aux morts à Perpignan, une ville historiquement à droite, en proie à des difficultés économiques, et sensible à la rhétorique du Ralliement National. Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesEn 2015, elle a expulsé son propre père, Jean-Marie Le Pen, qui avait fondé le parti et a longtemps minimisé l’Holocauste.Tout en popularisant des expressions comme “l’ensauvagement”, elle a consciemment évité tout langage explosif évoquant un supposé “grand remplacement” de la population française blanche par les immigrants africains et musulmans. En 2018, elle a rebaptisé le Front National du nom plus inclusif de “Rassemblement”.Le parti veut cependant durcir les politiques migratoires pour les étudiants étrangers et diviser le solde migratoire par vingt.Il veut aussi interdire le port du voile musulman en public et limiter la “présence d’éléments ostentatoires” à l’extérieur des lieux de culte s’ils ne s’accordent pas avec l’environnement, dans une référence apparente aux minarets.À Perpignan, M. Aliot s’est concentré sur la criminalité, dépensant 8 millions d’euros pour l’embauche de 30 nouveaux policiers, l’ouverture de nouveaux commissariats et la mise en place de patrouilles à vélo et nocturnes, en réponse à une augmentation du trafic de drogues.Jeanne Mercier, une électrice de gauche âgée de 24 ans, dit que beaucoup gens autour d’elle ont été “séduits” par le maire d’extrême-droite.Camille Rosa, à gauche, vote à gauche, mais ne sait pas si elle fera de nouveau barrage contre Marine Le Pen lors des élections présidentielles de 2022.Credit…Dmitry Kostyukov pour The New York Times“On est le test pour montrer à la France que le FN fonctionne et les gens adhèrent et sont contents”, dit-t-elle, utilisant l’ancien nom du parti. “Finalement c’est pas tant le diable que ça.”Camille Rosa, 35 ans, ne sait pas si elle fera à nouveau barrage contre Mme Le Pen l’année prochaine. Les attaques des ministres du président contre “l’islamo-gauchisme” et les universitaires spécialistes du féminisme, du genre ou des questions raciales ont changé son regard sur le gouvernement de M Macron.“J’ai l’impression que leurs ennemis, ce n’est plus du tout l’extrême-droite”, dit-elle, “mais c’est nous, les personnes de gauche”.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Ron Johnson Says He Still Has Many Unanswered Questions

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeThe Lost HoursThe Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRon Johnson Says He Still Has Many Unanswered QuestionsThe Republican senator from Wisconsin is known for regularly promoting fringe theories favored by the right, most recently questioning the fact that pro-Trump rioters attacked the Capitol.Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, has not decided if he will seek re-election in 2022.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesMarch 1, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETSenator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has been on the forefront of elevating fringe theories about President Biden’s son Hunter, the coronavirus and the results of the 2020 election.In recent weeks he has come under renewed scrutiny for claiming in a series of radio interviews in his home state that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was not an “armed insurrection” and for using his time during a Senate hearing to read a first-person account that posited “provocateurs” and “fake Trump supporters” were behind the attack.Mr. Johnson has a reputation for being among the most accessible, high-profile Republicans in Washington, regularly defending his views to the mainstream news media — something many of his G.O.P. colleagues do not do.He spoke with The New York Times on Thursday about his theories of who was responsible for the attack on the Capitol and what he would like to see included in the congressional investigation of it. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.You were on the radio recently talking about how it wasn’t an armed insurrection. I was curious what the origin of that perspective was for you.When I think armed, I think firearms. And yeah, we don’t know. I have no idea. That’s one of the questions I’ve got is, how many firearms were seen, were confiscated? How many shots were fired? I believe the only ones that were fired were from law enforcement. And I’ve said I’ll defend law enforcement for taking action. I don’t understand what the uproar is. But apparently, there’s uproar somewhere. Somebody takes offense to it.And I would say, if it’s properly termed an “armed insurrection,” it was a pretty ragtag one. And again, I don’t dispute the destruction, or destructive capability of things like flagpoles and bats and that type of thing, but again, words have meaning.Well, what’s your feeling about who made up the group that stormed the Capitol?I don’t know, and I’m asking the question. I’m making no assumptions.There are just so many unanswered questions, which seems to be kind of the basic situation in so many things I’m trying to get to the bottom of. But here we are almost two months later, and there are just basic pieces of information that are missing here.In the Senate hearing the other day, you read the piece from The Federalist that suggested there were sort of provocateurs and “fake Trump supporters” that had designs on generating trouble from the crowd. And I wondered, do you share that analysis?I think it’s important, if we’re going to really get the whole truth, to understand exactly what happened, we need to look at different vantage points, different perspectives.I read that article, I think, as soon as it was published, which was shortly after Jan. 6. And I was intrigued by it. Because here was an individual that, again, I didn’t know him at the time. I actually spoke to him yesterday for the first time. But I didn’t know who he was. It just looks like he had a pretty good background. This is an instructor, focusing on this type of psychological type of warfare and that type of thing. So he seemed to be a knowledgeable observer.And I was just fascinated by the fact that he wrote down his thoughts, about 14, 15 pages, without looking at any news. So it’s kind of an unblemished accounting. And that’s really kind of the eyewitness accounts you want to examine. I’m not saying you accept everything. You don’t necessarily accept his conclusions. I think you kind of have to take at face value what he said he saw.Do you believe that, as the Federalist author Michael Waller wrote, that there were fake Trump protesters in the crowd?That’s what he said he thought he saw. I think later in the article, he didn’t see any who he would have thought were fake Trump protesters, he didn’t see them engage in any violence. I think he writes that in his article. Yeah. I’m letting his testimony stand on its own. I wasn’t there.Again, I’m drawing no conclusions whatsoever. Again, a lot of press reports are assuming, imputing all kinds of conclusions. They’re saying I’m saying things that I’m not saying at all. All I’m saying at this point in time is we need to ask a lot of questions.I wonder why you think there is merit to giving an audience to Mr. Waller’s assertions that there were either provocateurs or fake Trump supporters in the crowd, given the lack of evidence.I’m not questioning his veracity. I believe he’s probably telling the truth. That’s what he saw. I’m not agreeing with any conclusions. I’m not sure he’s really making too many conclusions, other than he concluded he saw four individual types of groups that stood out from the crowd.It might be a flawed part of the evidence, but why exclude it? Just because it doesn’t necessarily tie into whatever narrative somebody else wants to tell about the day? I’m not interested in the narratives, I’m interested in the truth.There’s been a lot of talk among some of your Republican colleagues in Congress about antifa or Black Lives Matter being involved in instigating what happened. Do you share that belief?It doesn’t really seem like that was the issue. It appears, again, this is all early, I haven’t drawn any conclusions, but it appears if there was any preplanning by groups, it was white supremacist groups, like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers, that type of thing. That’s what it appears..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.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;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{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-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}From Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.I’ve seen videos of other people claiming to be antifa in their hotel rooms. I don’t know if any of that’s been verified. But no, again, I am drawing no conclusions at all. But right now, it appears that there were provocateurs or agitators. It would appear it would probably be from the white supremacist groups that have already been named. But I haven’t talked to the F.B.I.You were on with Maria Bartiromo and talked about being against violent extremists from the left or the right. And it sounds like you’ve sort of landed on the position that these were right-wing groups that were involved in organizing what happened on Jan. 6. Is that right?It seems like those white supremacist groups seem to be responsible for this. I really condemn it. I mean, I’m not happy with it.I’ve attended a lot of Trump rallies. You talk to a lot of people. You see the mood in those crowds. And it is festive. It is joyful. You’re loving America. And it’s definitely pro-law enforcement and anti-breaking the law. Which is, again, why I certainly do not suspect, even a large pro-Trump crowd, I did not expect any violence from them.You said you want what you say to be accurate. And you read Mr. Waller’s piece, but without necessarily doing any due diligence to see whether what he was saying checked out.What do you mean, checked out? It’s his eyewitness account. What else is there to check out about it? I read what his credentials were, where he was teaching, at Fort Bragg. I mean, you can see in the article what his credentials are. He seemed to be pretty solid.A couple days later The Washington Post wrote an article that was very close to kind of describing things as Mr. Waller did, too. So that added further credence, from my standpoint, that what he saw, other people kind of saw and noticed and drew similar types of conclusions. Again, it’s just one piece of information that needs to be looked at, needs to be considered, needs to be tested, needs to be verified, compared against other things.Again, I’m not afraid of information. I’m amazed at how many people are. And how quick people are to put the conspiracy theory label on something, or call it disinformation.You’ve said tens of millions of Americans didn’t trust the election results. I wonder, how much do you think that’s because Republican leaders, from President Trump on down, told them not to trust the election results?I think that there’s a range of reasons why. But I’d say the main reason is that they saw their TV screens, observers not being able to observe. They see in states where all these other counties can turn in millions of votes, but in a few large counties in swing states, they just can’t get the vote totals in by 10 o’clock at night, for some reason. It just raises a level of suspicion.Well, in Wisconsin that’s because —It’s unfortunate the mainstream media’s revealed themselves to be so unbelievably biased that people on the other side of the aisle, the other side of the political spectrum, simply don’t trust them anymore. That’s part of the issue, too.One last thing. Where are you on running for re-election next year?Haven’t decided. Don’t need to decide for a while.Do you have a timeline for that?Yeah. But I’m not necessarily going to reveal it to you.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More