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    Arrest Made in Fire Set Outside Bernie Sanders’s Office in Vermont

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    Prosecutors and the police did not identify a possible motive for the fire, which was started on Friday. No one was injured.The authorities in Vermont arrested a man they said used an accelerant and a lighter to start a fire on Friday outside of Senator Bernie Sanders’s office in Burlington.The man, Shant Soghomonian (also known as Michael Soghomonian), 35, previously of Northridge, Calif., was arrested on Sunday on a charge of using fire to damage the building at One Church Street in Burlington, Vt., the U.S. Attorney’s office for the district of Vermont said in a statement on Sunday.Prosecutors and the police did not identify a possible motive for the fire. The office said that a lawyer for Mr. Soghomonian had not yet been identified. Officials did not provide a current address for Mr. Soghomonian.On Friday morning, according to prosecutors and the Burlington Police Department, Mr. Soghomonian walked into the vestibule of the senator’s office, where a security camera captured him as he sprayed an “apparent accelerant” near the outer door of the office.Mr. Soghomonian then used a lighter and “a blaze quickly began” as he fled via a staircase, prosecutors said. The blaze set off the building’s sprinklers on multiple floors.The sprinklers extinguished the fire before firefighters arrived around 10:45 a.m., the police said.The senator’s office was occupied at the time by multiple employees. It was not known how many other people were in the building at the time, but no injuries were reported, the authorities said.Senator Sanders, an independent from Vermont, was not in his office at the time of the fire, his office said in a statement on Friday.“A special thank you to Burlington Police Department detectives, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the integral role they played in bringing swift resolution to this investigation,” the mayor of Burlington, Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, said in a statement.An initial court appearance has not been scheduled for Mr. Soghomonian.If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, prosecutors said. More

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      Man Set Fire Outside Bernie Sanders’s Vermont Office, Police Say

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      The authorities are trying to identify an arsonist who struck outside the U.S. senator’s office in Burlington, Vt. No one was injured, and the senator was not there.The authorities in Vermont said they were searching for a man who started a fire outside Senator Bernie Sanders’s office in Burlington on Friday morning.The unidentified man walked into the vestibule of Senator Sanders’s office and sprayed an “apparent accelerant” on the entrance door to the third-floor office, before lighting the accelerant and fleeing, the Burlington Police Department said in a statement. It was unclear exactly what the man sprayed on the door.“A significant fire engulfed the door and part of the vestibule,” which prevented staff members who were working inside the office from exiting, the Police Department said.The building’s sprinkler system activated, which mostly put out the fire before firefighters arrived around 10:45 a.m., the Police Department said.A surveillance photo of a man the police say set a fire outside Senator Bernie Sanders’s office in Burlington, Vt., Friday morning.Burlington Police DepartmentThe Burlington Fire Department said that the door to the senator’s office “sustained moderate” damage from the fire, and that the third floor of the building and the floors below it also had water damage.No injuries were reported. Senator Sanders, independent of Vermont, was not at the office at the time of the fire, his office said in a statement.Investigators with the Vermont State Police determined that the fire was an act of arson. The authorities had not concluded a motive.The Police Department released a photo from surveillance footage of the man who started the fire. In the photo, he is wearing a black jacket, dark-colored pants, white sneakers and an orange beanie.Kathryn Van Haste, the Vermont state director for Senator Sanders, said in a statement, “We are grateful to the Burlington Fire and Police Departments who responded immediately today to a fire incident that took place in our office building.”The United States Capitol Police and the Senate sergeant-at-arms were working with local authorities in Burlington investigating the fire, Ms. Van Haste said.Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak of Burlington said in a statement that she was “relieved to hear that everyone made it out safely.” More

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      What Are Young Voters Looking For?

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      Want to ruin a Democratic strategist’s New Year? Bring up President Biden’s popularity problem with younger voters.The strategist may start furiously tap-dancing about this outreach plan or that policy achievement. But she has seen the polling trend line. She has heard the focus groups. She knows that millennials and Gen Z-ers are not feeling the Biden love. Many are threatening to sit out next year’s election. Some are flirting with supporting Donald Trump — or a third-party rando.And even if only a few of them follow through, the president and his party could be in big trouble. Americans younger than 45 have saved the Democrats from disaster in multiple recent elections. Their creeping alienation has the blue team rattled and raging: For the love of God, what will it take to lock in these voters?!This is not a new question. The political world, especially the Democratic Party, has long been in search of the secret formula for wooing younger voters to the polls. Strategists noodle over which issues members of this cohort care about, which candidates they connect with, how best to reach them. In 1994, Bill Clinton ventured onto MTV and overshared about his underwear in an effort to impress the young ’uns. Now that is desperation.Spoiler: There is no secret formula. Or rather, there is a whole host of formulas with scores of constantly shifting variables. Millennials and Gen Z-ers don’t just expect different things from candidates than do older voters; they approach the entire concept of voting differently, generally in ways that make them harder to persuade and mobilize.The people who obsess about this issue for a living can overwhelm you with data and analysis, competing priorities and suggestions. Even the bits they think they have figured out can abruptly shift. (Just when some thought they had a solid grip on this election, along came the war in Gaza.) All that, of course, is on top of the concrete systemic challenges of getting younger people registered for, informed about and comfortable with voting in general.As a close friend who spent years neck deep in the political weeds of cultivating younger voters observed, “The big theme is that there is no theme.”And yet there are a few recurring subthemes that bubble up when you talk with the professionals and with the younger voters themselves. These insights won’t crack the turnout code. Or necessarily save Mr. Biden’s presidency. But they do shed light on some of the more amorphous reasons younger Americans are so hard to turn out — and can maybe even point a way forward.“The No. 1 rule when you’re talking about young people: They may be progressive, but they are not Democrats,” warned Joshua Ulibarri, a partner with the Democratic polling firm Lake Research Partners. “They don’t turn out for parties.”Younger Americans may vote more Democratic than their elders, but that does not mean they want to join the team. And while their politics are generally to the left of the party’s center of gravity, this isn’t merely a matter of ideology.“Parties are institutions, and Gen Z-ers aren’t really into institutions,” said Morley Winograd, a senior fellow at the Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at the University of Southern California. The research on Gen Z-ers indicates they have little trust in most major U.S. institutions, and it’s hard to get more establishment or institutional than a political party. Certainly among the Gen Z-ers I know (I have kids, and they have friends), maintaining their independence from and skepticism of a compromised political establishment they feel is not working for them is a point of pride.Today’s hyperpartisan system, with its Manichaean mentality, can make parties even more unappealing for younger voters, said John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, whose specialty is younger voters. “They are not willing to take that responsibility to have to defend one party and create an enemy of the other.”And definitely don’t expect them to be moved by appeals to help a party take control of Congress or even the White House, Mr. Ulibarri said.Younger voters also are less inclined to turn out simply because they like a candidate’s personality. Now and then, one comes along who inspires them (think Barack Obama) or, alternatively, outrages them enough to make them turn out in protest (think Donald Trump). But more often they are driven by issues that speak to their lives, their core values or, ideally, both.The most outstanding current example of this is the issue of abortion rights, which has emerged as a red-hot electoral force since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Younger voters express anxiety about the practical repercussions of this decision and fury at the government intrusion into people’s personal lives. The issue has a clarity, immediacy and tangibility that appeal to younger voters. This is especially true when it appears as a stand-alone ballot initiative.Younger voters’ focus on issues and values rather than candidates and parties raises the question of whether ballot initiatives could be a way to engage them and propel them to the polls. Supporting such measures is more straightforward than embracing candidates. Plus, they have the advantage of not being (or at least not seeming) as entangled with a particular party. They have more of a direct-democracy vibe. (Please refer to: Institutions suck.) How much more satisfying is it to vote for an issue you are passionate about than for some flawed politician with a fake smile making promises you’re pretty sure he won’t keep?Supporting a candidate, any candidate, means accepting that person’s foibles and flaws along with the good parts. It requires balancing multiple concerns and priorities. And the longer the candidate’s record in public office, the more variables there are to consider. Just take the example currently giving the Biden campaign the worst nightmares: For progressives, at what point does Mr. Biden’s handling of Gaza outweigh his embrace of, say, combating climate change or protecting abortion access or supporting labor unions? What if the only alternative is another Trump term?For younger voters who reject the team mentality of party voting, these equations get complicated and frustrating — often frustrating enough to just skip voting altogether. When researchers ask younger people why they don’t vote, one of the top responses, if not the top one, is: I didn’t feel I knew enough about the candidates.Part of younger voters’ disenchantment may be wrapped up in the nature of progressivism. Younger voters tend to be more progressive than older ones, and progressives, by definition, want government to do more, change more, make more progress. You often hear variations on: Sure, the president did ABC, but what we really need is DEFGHIJXYZ. Or: This climate initiative/health care plan/caregiving investment/pick your policy achievement doesn’t go nearly far enough.This is not to suggest that Mr. Biden hasn’t racked up some notable missteps (Afghanistan!) and failed promises (the student debt mess). But expectations are an inextricable factor. Harvard’s Theda Skocpol refers to “the presidential illusion” among those on the political left, the longstanding idea that the president is a sort of political Svengali and that federal leadership can counter conservatism in states and localities. When reality sets in, these supporters are not shy about expressing their disappointment.Of course, most voting in America calls for choosing between candidates, in all their messy imperfection. Younger voters are less likely than older ones to have resigned themselves to this, to have curbed their expectations and idealism. So where does all this leave campaigns and, trickier still, parties desperate to win over younger voters?Younger voters need to be reminded of the concrete changes their votes can effect. Because of the 2020 election, the Biden administration has pushed through a major investment in fighting climate change; billions of dollars for infrastructure are flowing into communities, including rural, economically strapped areas; the first African American woman was appointed to the Supreme Court; many judges from notably diverse professional backgrounds have been placed on the lower courts, and so on.The dark corollary to this is detailing the explicit damage that can be done if young people opt out, an especially pressing threat with Mr. Trump on the vengeance trail. Separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border, stacking the Supreme Court with abortion-hostile justices, effectively declaring war on science — these were the fruits of the Trump administration. And that’s before you get to his persistent assault on democracy. Think of it all as his practice run, then imagine where another four years could take us.The key is figuring out and effectively communicating the right balance of positive and negative partisanship for the moment, said Mr. Della Volpe, stressing, “The recipe for 2020 will not be the same as 2024.”Another basic step: Candidates need to make clear that they understand and share younger voters’ values, even if they have different plans for working toward realizing their goals. Strategists point to the shrewd decision by Team Biden, after Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out of the 2020 primary contest, to form working groups with Mr. Sanders’s team, stressing their shared values. Connecting elections to something that resonates with younger voters — that is meaningful to their lives — is vital, said Abby Kiesa, the deputy director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a research group at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life that focuses on youth civic engagement. Issue groups can play a useful role in this, she said.Most broadly, everyone from interest groups to parties to candidates needs to push the message that a democratically elected government can still achieve big things. This goes beyond any specific bill or appointee. Younger Americans aren’t convinced that government can make meaningful progress. Some days it is hard to blame them. But this cynicism has terrible implications for democracy, and all of us would do well to fight it.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      La lección más importante de la victoria de Javier Milei

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      La elección como presidente de Argentina de Javier Milei —un personaje peculiar, fanfarrón de cabello indomable, con cinco mastines clonados y una costumbre de comunión psíquica con la difunta mascota que les dio origen— ha suscitado un gran debate sobre la verdadera naturaleza del populismo de derecha en nuestra era de descontento general.En Milei hay muchas manifestaciones de una política trumpiana: la energía extravagante y poco convencional, la crítica a las élites corruptas, los ataques a la izquierda, el apoyo de los conservadores sociales y religiosos. Al mismo tiempo, en política económica es mucho más un libertario doctrinario que un mercantilista o populista al estilo Trump, es una versión más extrema de Barry Goldwater y Paul Ryan que un defensor del gasto público y los aranceles. Mientras que el movimiento al que derrotó, la formación peronista que gobernó Argentina durante la mayor parte del siglo XXI, es de hecho más nacionalista y populista en lo económico, pues llegó al poder tras la crisis financiera de 2001 que puso fin al experimento más notable de Argentina con la economía neoliberal.La divergencia entre Trump y Milei puede interpretarse de varias maneras. Una lectura es que el estilo del populismo de derecha es la esencia del asunto, que su sustancia política es negociable siempre que presente figuras que prometan el renacimiento nacional y encarnen algún tipo de rebelión bufonesca, por lo general masculina, contra las normas del progresismo cultural.Otra lectura es que, sí, la política es bastante negociable, pero en realidad hay profundas afinidades ideológicas entre el nacionalismo económico de derecha y lo que podría llamarse paleolibertarismo, a pesar de que no coinciden en cuestiones específicas. En términos estadounidenses, esto significa que el trumpismo lo anticiparon de diferentes maneras Ross Perot y Ron Paul; en términos globales, significa que cabe esperar que los partidos de la derecha populista se muevan constantemente entre tendencias de regulación y libertarias, dependiendo del contexto económico y de los vaivenes políticos.He aquí una tercera interpretación: mientras que el descontento popular debilitó el consenso neoliberal de las décadas de 1990 y 2000 en todo el mundo desarrollado, la era del populismo está creando alineamientos muy distintos en la periferia latinoamericana que en el núcleo euro-estadounidense.En Europa Occidental y Estados Unidos, ahora se ve de manera sistemática a un partido de centroizquierda de las clases profesionales enfrentarse a una coalición populista y de la clase trabajadora de derecha. Los partidos de centroizquierda se han vuelto más progresistas en política económica en comparación con la era de Bill Clinton y Tony Blair, pero se han movido mucho más a la izquierda en cuestiones culturales, sin perder su liderazgo influyente y meritocrático, su sabor neoliberal. Y, en su mayoría, han sido capaces de contener, derrotar o cooptar a aspirantes de izquierda más radicales: Joe Biden al superar a Bernie Sanders en las elecciones primarias demócratas de 2020, Keir Starmer al marginar al corbynismo en el Partido Laborista británico y Emmanuel Macron al forzar a los izquierdistas franceses a votar a su favor en la segunda vuelta contra Marine Le Pen con la estrategia del menor de los males.Por su parte, la derecha populista ha conseguido muchas veces moderar sus impulsos libertarios para apartar a los votantes de clase baja de la coalición progresista, dando lugar a una política de centroderecha que suele favorecer ciertos tipos de proteccionismo y redistribución. Eso podría significar una defensa trumpiana de los programas de prestaciones sociales, los tibios intentos de los conservadores de Boris Johnson de invertir en el desatendido norte de Inglaterra o el gasto en prestaciones familiares de Viktor Orbán en Hungría, así como la recién desbancada coalición populista en Polonia.Te puedes imaginar que el abismo entre estas dos coaliciones mantendrá a Occidente en un estado de crisis latente, en especial teniendo en cuenta la personalidad de Trump, tan propensa a las crisis. Pero también es posible imaginar un futuro en el que este orden se estabilice y normalice un poco y la gente deje de hablar de un terremoto cada vez que un populista asciende al poder o de que la democracia se salva cada vez que un partido del establishment gana unas elecciones.La situación es muy distinta en América Latina. Allí el consenso neoliberal siempre fue más endeble, el centro más frágil, y por ende la era de la rebelión populista ha creado una polarización más clara entre quien esté más a la izquierda y más a la derecha (con la izquierda culturalmente progresista, pero por lo general más expresamente socialista que Biden, Starmer o Macron y la derecha culturalmente tradicional, pero por lo general más libertaria que Trump, Orbán o Le Pen).La nueva alineación en Argentina, con su libertario revolucionario que supera a una izquierda populista-nacionalista, es un ejemplo de este patrón; la contienda entre Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva y Jair Bolsonaro en Brasil el año pasado fue otro. Pero los recientes vaivenes de la política chilena son de especial interés. A principios de la década de 2010, Chile parecía tener un entorno político más o menos estable, con un partido de centroizquierda que gobernaba a través de una Constitución favorable al mercado y una oposición de centroderecha que luchaba por distanciarse de la dictadura de Pinochet. Entonces, las protestas populares echaron por tierra este orden y crearon un giro abrupto hacia la izquierda, además de un intento de imponer una nueva Constitución de izquierda que, a su vez, provocó una reacción adversa, que dejó al país dividido entre un impopular gobierno de izquierda encabezado por un antiguo activista estudiantil y una oposición de derecha en ascenso temporal liderada por un apologista de Pinochet.En cada caso, en relación con las divisiones de Francia y Estados Unidos, se observa un centro más débil y una polarización más profunda entre extremos populistas rivales. Y ahora, si la cuestión para América Latina es qué tan estable será la propia democracia en condiciones tan polarizadas, la cuestión para Europa y Estados Unidos es si la situación argentina o chilena es un presagio de su propio futuro. Tal vez no de inmediato, pero sí después de una nueva ronda de rebeliones populistas, que podría aguardar más allá de alguna crisis o catástrofe o simplemente al otro lado del cambio demográfico.En tal futuro, figuras como Biden, Starmer y Macron ya no podrían gestionar coaliciones de gobierno y la iniciativa en la izquierda pasaría a partidos más radicales como Podemos en España o los Verdes en Alemania, a los progresistas al estilo de Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez en el Congreso de Estados Unidos, a cualquier tipo de política que surja del encuentro entre la izquierda europea y las crecientes poblaciones árabes y musulmanas del continente. Esto daría a la derecha populista la oportunidad de prometer estabilidad y reclamar el centro, pero también crearía incentivos para que la derecha se radicalice aún más, lo que produciría mayores oscilaciones ideológicas cada vez que perdiera una coalición en el poder.Esta es, en cierto modo, la lección más clara de la victoria aplastante de Milei: si no se puede alcanzar la estabilidad tras una ronda de convulsiones populistas, no hay límites inherentes a lo desenfrenado que puede llegar a ser el siguiente ciclo de rebelión.Ross Douthat es columnista de opinión del Times desde 2009. Es autor, más recientemente, de The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery. @DouthatNYT • Facebook More

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      Has Latin America Found Its Trump in Javier Milei?

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      The election of Javier Milei, a wild-haired showboating weirdo with five cloned mastiffs and a habit of psychic communion with their departed pet of origin, as president of Argentina has inspired a lot of discussion about the true nature of right-wing populism in our age of general discontent.Milei has many of the signifiers of a Trumpian politics: the gonzo energy, the criticism of corrupt elites and the rants against the left, the support from social and religious conservatives. At the same time, on economic policy he is much more of a doctrinaire libertarian than a Trump-style mercantilist or populist, a more extreme version of Barry Goldwater and Paul Ryan rather than a defender of entitlement spending and tariffs. Whereas the party that he defeated, the Peronist formation that has governed Argentina for most of the 21st century, is actually more economically nationalist and populist, having ascended in the aftermath of the 2001 financial crisis that ended Argentina’s most notable experiment with neoliberal economics.You can interpret the Trump-Milei divergence in several ways. One reading is that the style of right-wing populism is the essence of the thing, that its policy substance is negotiable so long as it puts forward figures who promise national rebirth and embody some kind of clownish, usually masculine rebellion against the norms of cultural progressivism.Another reading is that, yes, the policy is somewhat negotiable but there are actually deep ideological affinities between right-wing economic nationalism and what might be called paleolibertarianism, despite their disagreement on specific issues. In American terms, this means that Trumpism was anticipated in different ways by Ross Perot and Ron Paul; in global terms, it means that we should expect the parties of the populist right to move back and forth between dirigiste and libertarian tendencies, depending on the economic context and political winds.Here is a third interpretation: While popular discontents have undermined the neoliberal consensus of the 1990s and 2000s all across the developed world, the age of populism is creating very different alignments in the Latin American periphery than in the Euro-American core.In Western Europe and the United States, you now consistently see a center-left party of the professional classes facing off against a populist and working-class coalition on the right. The center-left parties have become more progressive on economic policy relative to the era of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, but they have moved much more sharply left on cultural issues while retaining their mandarin and meritocratic leadership, their neoliberal flavor. And they have mostly been able to contain, defeat or co-opt more radical left-wing challengers — Joe Biden by overcoming Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primaries, Keir Starmer by marginalizing Corbynism in Britain’s Labour Party, Emmanuel Macron by forcing French leftists to cast a lesser-of-two-evils ballot in his favor in his runoffs against Marine Le Pen.The populist right, meanwhile, has often found success by moderating its libertarian impulses in order to woo downscale voters away from the progressive coalition, yielding a right-of-center politics that usually favors certain kinds of protectionism and redistribution. That could mean a Trumpian defense of entitlement programs, the halfhearted attempts by Boris Johnson’s Tories to invest in the neglected north of England or the spending on family benefits that you see from Viktor Orban in Hungary and the recently unseated populist coalition in Poland.You can imagine the gulf between these two coalitions keeping the West in a state of simmering near crisis — especially with Trump’s crisis-courting personality in the mix. But you can also imagine a future in which this order stabilizes and normalizes somewhat and people stop talking about an earthquake every time a populist wins power or democracy being saved every time an establishment party wins an election.The situation is quite different in Latin America. There the neoliberal consensus was always weaker, the center more fragile, and so the age of populist rebellion has created a clearer polarization between further left and further right — with the left culturally progressive but usually more avowedly socialist than Biden, Starmer or Macron and the right culturally traditional but usually more libertarian than Trump, Orban or Le Pen.The new alignment in Argentina, with its libertarian revolutionary overcoming a populist-nationalist left, is one example of this pattern; the contest between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil last year was another. But the recent swings in Chilean politics are especially instructive. In the early 2010s Chile seemed to have a relatively stable political environment, with a center-left party governing through a market-friendly Constitution and a center-right opposition at pains to distance itself from the Pinochet dictatorship. Then popular rebellions cast this order down, creating a wild yaw leftward and an attempt to impose a new left-wing Constitution that yielded backlash in its turn — leaving the country divided between an unpopular left-wing government headed by a former student activist and a temporarily ascendant right-wing opposition led by a Pinochet apologist.In each case, relative to the divides of France and the United States, you see a weaker center and a deeper polarization between competing populist extremes. And if the question for Latin America now is how stable democracy itself will be under such polarized conditions, the question for Europe and America is whether the Argentine or Chilean situation is a harbinger of their own futures. Perhaps not immediately but after a further round of populist rebellions, which could await beyond some crisis or disaster or simply on the far side of demographic change.In such a future, figures like Biden and Starmer and Macron would no longer be able to manage governing coalitions, and the initiative on the left would pass to more radical parties like Podemos in Spain or the Greens in Germany, to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezan progressives in the U.S. Congress, to whatever kind of politics emerges from the encounter between the European left and the continent’s growing Arab and Muslim populations. This would give the populist right an opportunity to promise stability and claim the center — but it would also create incentives for the right to radicalize further, yielding bigger ideological swings every time an incumbent coalition lost.Which is, in a way, the clearest lesson of Milei’s thumping victory: If you can’t reach stability after one round of populist convulsion, there’s no inherent limit on how wild the next cycle of rebellion might get.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. More

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      Who Are Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the Debate Moderators?

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      The role of debate moderator carries prestige, but it also brings exacting demands and inherent risks: personal attacks by candidates, grievances about perceived biases and, for the two moderators of Wednesday’s Republican primary debate, a tempestuous cable news network’s reputation.Enter Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the Fox News Channel mainstays who drew that assignment and will pose questions to the eight G.O.P. presidential candidates squaring off for the first time, absent former President Donald J. Trump.The party’s front-runner, Mr. Trump will bypass the debate in favor of an online interview with Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox News in April.But that doesn’t mean the debate’s moderators will be under any less of a microscope.Here’s a closer look at who they are:Bret BaierHe is the chief political anchor for Fox News and the host of “Special Report With Bret Baier” at 6 p.m. on weeknights. Mr. Baier, 53, joined the network in 1998, two years after the network debuted, according to his biography.Mr. Baier, like Ms. MacCallum, is no stranger to the debate spotlight.In 2016, he moderated three G.O.P. primary debates for Fox, alongside Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, who have since left the network. He was present when Ms. Kelly grilled Mr. Trump about his treatment of women during a 2015 debate, an exchange that drew Mr. Trump’s ire and led him to boycott the network’s next debate nearly six months later.During the 2012 presidential race, Mr. Baier moderated five Republican primary debates.At a network dominated by conservative commentators like Sean Hannity and the departed Mr. Carlson and Bill O’Reilly, Mr. Baier has generally avoided controversy — but not entirely.After Fox News called Arizona for Joseph R. Biden Jr. on election night in 2020, becoming the first major news network to do so and enraging Mr. Trump and his supporters, Mr. Baier suggested in an email to network executives the next morning that the outlet should reverse its projection.“It’s hurting us,” he wrote in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times.Mr. Baier was also part of a witness list in the defamation lawsuit that Dominion Voting Systems brought against Fox News over the network’s role in spreading disinformation about the company’s voting equipment. Fox settled the case for $787.5 million before it went to trial.Martha MacCallumShe is the anchor and executive editor of “The Story With Martha MacCallum” at 3 p.m. on weekdays. Ms. MacCallum, 59, joined the network in 2004, according to her biography.During the 2016 election, Ms. MacCallum moderated a Fox News forum for the bottom seven Republican presidential contenders who had not qualified for the party’s first debate in August 2015. She reprised that role in January 2016, just days before the Iowa caucuses.She and Mr. Baier also moderated a series of town halls with individual Democratic candidates during the 2020 election, including one that featured Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.Before joining Fox, she worked for NBC and CNBC.When Fox projected Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump in Arizona, effectively indicating that Mr. Biden had clinched the presidency, Ms. MacCallum was similarly drawn into the maelstrom at the network.During a Zoom meeting with network executives and Mr. Baier, she suggested it was not enough to call states based on numerical calculations — the standard by which networks have made such determinations for generations — but that viewers’ reactions should be considered.“In a Trump environment,” Ms. MacCallum said, according to a review of the phone call by The Times, “the game is just very, very different.” More

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      5 Things to Know About the Philadelphia Mayoral Race

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      The winner of the Democratic contest is all but certain to become the next mayor of Philadelphia and could play a key role in the 2024 presidential election.Amid grave concerns about public safety, education and the direction of a major American city, Philadelphians will take a major step on Tuesday toward electing their 100th mayor in a contest with implications that will reverberate across a crucial presidential battleground.The winner of Tuesday’s Democratic primary is all but certain to become the mayor of Philadelphia — the largest city in Pennsylvania, a premier presidential swing state — and the spending on the race has reflected those stakes. The crowded and increasingly acrimonious mayoral contest is the most expensive in the city’s history, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.Five contenders are generally considered to be the leading Democratic candidates: the former City Council members Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Allan Domb; Rebecca Rhynhart, a former city controller; and Jeff Brown, who has owned grocery stores.Ms. Parker, Ms. Rhynhart and Ms. Gym are often regarded as in the strongest positions, but the race is fluid and highly competitive. Sparse polling shows that there are many undecided voters, and some Democrats worry about low turnout, factors that make the outcome difficult to predict.Here are five things to know about Tuesday’s primary.It’s a test — however imperfect — of progressive power.Nearly two years ago, left-wing Democrats were bitterly disappointed by New York, as the relatively moderate Eric Adams swept into Gracie Mansion on a message of law and order.But since then, mayoral candidates identified with the more liberal wing of the party have notched other notable victories, including Michelle Wu in Boston and Karen Bass in Los Angeles. Last month, Brandon Johnson, a left-leaning Chicagoan, electrified progressive Democrats across the country with his mayoral win.The Philadelphia mayor’s race offers the next significant, if imperfect, citywide test of progressive power. Some of the same players who engaged in other key races — including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, teachers’ union activists and organizations like the Working Families Party — are backing Ms. Gym. Mr. Johnson endorsed her on Friday.Ms. Gym joined striking Writers Guild of America members at a rally in front of the Comcast headquarters in Philadelphia on Friday.Rachel Wisniewski for The New York TimesShe is a veteran community organizer focused in particular on schools, who is pledging to deliver “transformative” change.“My opponents think my plans are too big,” she said in an ad. “I think their ideas are too small.”Mr. Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez are expected to rally with her on Sunday. In an interview, Mr. Sanders sought to connect the candidacies of Mr. Johnson, Ms. Bass and Ms. Gym.“What Karen and Brandon and hopefully Helen will be able to do,” said Mr. Sanders, who is himself the former mayor of Burlington, Vt., “is say, ‘You know what? This government, our governments, are working for you, not just wealthy campaign contributors.’”A low turnout or a slim margin of victory in any direction could make it challenging to draw sweeping conclusions about the mood of the city, but many observers see Ms. Gym’s candidacy as a notable test for the left.“If Helen wins, that’s a big story, because it means the progressive movement won,” said former Gov. Ed Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor who is supporting Ms. Rhynhart.Philadelphia could elect its first female mayor.Philadelphia’s mayors to date have at least one thing in common: They have all been men.“Let’s just say I’ll bring a different touch,” Ms. Parker, a former state representative, says in a campaign ad that highlights images of some of those who would be her predecessors.Ms. Parker, who has advocated for a more robust police presence while stressing her opposition to police abuse, has often used her identity as a mother of a young Black man to argue that she can strike the appropriate balance on matters of public safety.“I am a Black woman who has lived my real life at the intersection of race and gender,” said Ms. Parker, who has the support of much of the party establishment, in an interview. “I know what it feels like to be marginalized.”And Ms. Gym, who could also be the city’s first Asian American mayor, has branded herself a “tough Philly mom” — but she made it clear that the history-making potential of her candidacy was part of a much broader argument.Ms. Rhynhart canvassing with Kayzar Abdul Khabir, a member of her campaign staff, in the business district of West Philadelphia on Friday.Rachel Wisniewski for The New York Times“It is really important that change is more than just a change of faces,” Ms. Gym said. “People want a transformation of how people live.”Ms. Rhynhart, who is running on her government experience while promising to take on the status quo as a critic of the current mayor, took a similar tack.“There’s been 99 male mayors,” she said. “It’s an important time, and likely long overdue, to have a woman as the leader of our city. But I’m focused on being the best overall leader.”The city’s self-image is also at stake.No one doubts the pride many Philadelphians feel in their city, the birthplace of the nation’s democracy and the home of aggressively devoted sports fans.But several current and former city leaders said the city’s challenges with issues surrounding crime, education and other postpandemic concerns had taken a significant toll on morale.Philadelphians, said State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, are looking for someone “who can sort of bring the city back — I think almost in an emotional way.”The current mayor, Jim Kenney, made headlines last year for declaring that he would “be happy” when he was done being mayor, comments he later sought to walk back.“The mood in the city is despair — a lot of people have given up,” Mr. Rendell said. “For a lot of people, it is the last chance to turn it around.”Mr. Rendell was elected mayor in 1991, at a moment of crisis for the city. Mr. Domb drew parallels between that race and the current moment.“This is a turning-point election,” he said.The next mayor could be a prominent player in the 2024 presidential election.When President Biden wants to project patriotism, talk about the future of American democracy or just count on a warm reception, he often heads to Philadelphia, a city he knows well as a former senator from nearby Delaware.There will be a natural opening for Philadelphia’s next Democratic mayor to serve as a party surrogate as Mr. Biden seeks re-election. Philadelphia’s lower turnout rates have also disappointed Democrats in recent federal elections, and a number of candidates pledged in interviews to focus on turnout and voter access as mayor.The Democrats will be looking to increase turnout in Philadelphia in the 2024 presidential election.Al Drago for The New York TimesThe success or failure of the next mayor to manage the city may be noticed by Republicans, said Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat who supports Ms. Parker.“If we have a Democratic mayor in Philadelphia who is not doing well or is unpopular, that does make winning in the Philadelphia metro area more challenging,” he said. “That’s something Republicans would certainly use statewide.”Public safety is the dominant issue.On Monday, a canvasser working with a progressive political organization was fatally shot after a dispute with another canvasser with the group — a stunning moment that underscored how problems of gun violence are shaping the city, and the mayoral race.“Public safety is virtually everyone’s No. 1 issue,” said former Mayor Michael Nutter, who backs Ms. Rhynhart.While the full crime picture in Philadelphia is complex, leading candidates have made it clear that they see it as the biggest force in the contest and have moved assertively to address it in advertising.Some who once opposed an increase in police funding after the killing of George Floyd have struck starkly different tones in discussing law enforcement this primary contest, and there is broad agreement across the ideological spectrum on the need to fill police vacancies, while candidates also denounce police abuse.Certainly, there are notable distinctions in emphasis and policy, too. Mr. Brown has been endorsed by Philadelphia’s police union.“The most urgent concern is crime, and especially violent crimes,” he said. “Philadelphia really isn’t doing well.”Candidates differ about how to balance investments in social services with those in law enforcement, and some have clashed over police stops of citizens.“We can’t go backwards to racist, unconstitutional practices,” Ms. Rhynhart said. “But we can’t have the current chaos.” More

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      Joe Biden’s Greatest Strength Is Also His Greatest Vulnerability

      by

      In February 2020, just before the world shut down, I was waiting for Joe Biden to speak on a Friday night in Henderson, Nev. The next morning I watched Bernie Sanders rally a fairly young, largely Latino crowd in a packed Las Vegas high school cafeteria. The Biden event, held when it looked as if he would not win the nomination, was smaller and more subdued. On the other side of a rope separating media from attendees, a group of Biden supporters were talking about how stressful it would be to be president at their and Mr. Biden’s age. As I remember it, one of them said, “But he feels he has to do it.”Not much has changed about the substance of their conversation since then, other than three long years: Mr. Biden, at 80, is the oldest U.S. president ever. If and when he announces a re-election campaign, he will put into play the idea of an even older president, eventually 86 years old. “Is age a positive thing for him? No,” Nancy Pelosi recently told Maureen Dowd, before adding that age is “a relative thing.” For reasons ultimately only Mr. Biden can know, it seems he feels he has to do it.There’s a straightforward dimension to the problem: The effects of age can get beyond your control, and it’d be a safer bet to leave office before the risk probability elevates to a danger zone. Barney Frank decided well in advance that he would retire from Congress at 75, then did so in his early 70s. You could feel that would be the right choice for Mr. Biden or any other leader over a certain age threshold, and be done with this topic. But age and health knot together different contradictions in America. Everything’s so weird now. Tech types, athletes and people of means are spending millions to keep their bodies youthful, and to defeat decline, if not death. We live in this society where people frequently talk about their resentment of older leadership — and elect and re-elect older leaders.Donald Trump would also, were he to win and serve out a second term, turn 82, and you could view the final days of the first Trump White House through this prism. Nearly a quarter of the Congress was over 70 last year, Insider found, up from 8 percent in 2002. Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican and Iowa’s senior senator, won re-election at age 89 last fall. Two of the most powerful and defining congressional leaders of most of our lives — Mitch McConnell and Ms. Pelosi — are in their 80s, and until the recent hockey line change in House leadership, much of the Democratic congressional leadership was over 70. The Treasury secretary is 76. Two Supreme Court justices are in their 70s; in the last decade, death changed the ideological balance of the court.If he runs for this second term, squarely in this space of all these contradictions, Mr. Biden is making the same ask as he did during the 2020 election — to trust him, to trust that he will be proven right about himself. Qualitatively, Mr. Biden represents familiarity and stability, which both derive from his age and sit in uneasy tension with it.Mr. Biden premised his 2020 campaign on his singular ability to win the presidency, when a good number of people in politics and media didn’t think he could win even the nomination. He predicted a level of congressional function that many people found nostalgic to the point of exotic. This skepticism was, on a deep level, about his age and whether his time had passed and whether he was too distant from the political realities of the 2020s. The thing is: Mr. Biden was right before. He did win the nomination. He did win against Donald Trump. The first two years of the Biden presidency did involve a productive and occasionally bipartisan U.S. Congress. On some level, people like me were wrong. This whole presidency originated with Mr. Biden being right about himself, and therefore his age.And maybe he will be right again! That’s a real possibility, under-discussed in these conversations. Age is relative, as Ms. Pelosi said. Medical science keeps improving, and people keep living longer, healthier lives. Presidents can focus on the big picture and delegate the rest. Mr. Biden’s own parents lived to 86 and 92. Having purpose, professional or otherwise, can rejuvenate all our lives. He looked pretty lively during that State of the Union earlier this month, and certainly in Ukraine and Poland.A generation of old men, from Clement Attlee to Konrad Adenauer, rebuilt Europe after the catastrophic 1930s and 1940s, back when people lived much shorter lives. Mr. Adenauer, the first leader of West Germany, actually served until age 87. We haven’t lived through anything like World War II, but as we convulse through two decades of staggering technological change, that might explain the resurgence of some older and familiar leaders over the last decade. Maybe rather than resenting this generational hold on power that Mr. Biden represents, some segment of people is relieved by the continuity that he offers, and by his distance from our daily lives.It’s complicated to leave office when you have real power. If you were Mr. Sanders (81) or Mitt Romney (75), why would you walk away? Mr. Sanders and Mr. Romney retain their essential selves as public figures — they don’t seem especially changed by age. Neither has said whether he’s going to run again. But if they still feel vital and able, and they are in a position of actual agency and responsibility, then it’s hard to see why they should leave public life.The risk, though, registers at a different pitch with the presidency. Even if we’re not expecting the president to catch a bullet in his teeth or something, we have 100 senators and one president. Hundreds of federal judges, and nine Supreme Court justices. Some stuff matters more than others.This was a problem even at the very beginning of the country’s history. During the Constitutional Convention, a proposal arose about how to proceed if the president were unable to serve. According to James Madison’s notes, the delegate John Dickinson asked “What is the extent of the term ‘disability’ & who is to be the judge of it?” Nobody’s ever precisely resolved this dilemma, even with the 25th Amendment.Mr. Biden could be wrong. He could lose the election because of the way voters perceive his age, or he could make it to a second term only to suffer a serious illness in office. Would the country default to a discomfort with visible age and slant one way on Mr. Biden, or take a more nuanced view?In the fall, while thinking over some of these concerns, I saw Senator John Fetterman speak to a large Saturday afternoon crowd in an indoor sports complex in Scranton, Pa. Mr. Fetterman isn’t old — he’s 53 — but he did suffer a stroke and begin recovery while campaigning for office.That day in Scranton, though he moved fluidly and alertly, he struggled some with the cadence of his speech, which was mostly one-liners about Dr. Mehmet Oz. But the event opened up into a gentler moment when he asked, “How many one [sic] of you in your own life have had a serious health challenge? Hands. Personally. Any of you?” Tons of hands went silently up from the synthetic grass. “How many of your parents?” Nearly all the remaining hands went up and stayed up while he ticked off a few other close relations. Though this eventually segued into another joke about Mr. Oz, the silent, serious quality of this call-response was not how the campaign often played online and in the media, where Mr. Fetterman’s condition became a weapon to be bashed over him. The politics of health and age can be brutal.Last week, Mr. Fetterman entered Walter Reed medical center to treat depression. Annie Karni reported that Mr. Fetterman’s recovery has continued to be challenging as he adjusts to new accommodations and limitations. Though he initially faced criticism for not disclosing enough about his condition, over the last several months he has been public about the changes he has gone through and the accommodations he requires, and about depression, something millions of people face but politicians have rarely disclosed.Aging is different than depression or stroke recovery; but like those experiences, there is no shame in aging, and there’s also no suggesting that everything’s easy about it. The choice for Mr. Biden is only an elevated version of the one many people deal with: When will you know it’s time to retire or step back, and when to keep going? All of us are aging, gaining and losing capacities in ways we may not even be aware of.There’s no automatic test that will prove someone is “too old,” and even if there were, nobody would want to take it.You can drive yourself crazy with war games about the ways an election could go. What if Mr. Biden were to run and face a much younger candidate, instead of Mr. Trump? What if he stepped aside in favor of a younger potential successor who then lost to Mr. Trump, invalidating the entire premise of Mr. Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign?All that there is, in the end, is Mr. Biden’s request — to trust that he is right about himself. He’s been right before, and may well be right again. But the reason this question lingers is the unstable ground of the answer: The source of what makes people worry about the president is also the source of his power and appeal.Ms. Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.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. More

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      Want to Know Why Democrats Lose Rural America?

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      STORM LAKE, Iowa — Democrats are getting their derrières handed to them by the kickers and the Busch Light drinkers from out here on the edge of the Great Plains all the way to Appalachia, where the Republicans roam.So what do the Democrats do?Dump the Iowa caucuses into the ditch. At the hand of President Biden, no less. He decreed that South Carolina’s primary should go first on the presidential nominating calendar, displacing Iowa. The Democratic National Committee seems happy to oblige.We get it. Let someone else take a turn up front. But discarding Iowa is not a great way to mend fences in rural America — where the Democratic brand has become virtually unmarketable. The Democratic big shots hated Iowa’s pride of place since the caucuses rose to prominence a half-century ago because money couldn’t control the outcome. Jimmy Carter broke through from Plains, Ga., with nothing but a toothy smile and an honest streak. Candidates were forced to meet actual voters in village diners across the state. We took our vetting role seriously — you had better be ready to analyze Social Security’s actuarial prospects.Candidates weren’t crazy about it. The media hated Storm Lake ice in January. We did a decent, if imperfect, job of winnowing the field. Along with New Hampshire, we set things up so South Carolina could often become definitive, which it will be no longer.Iowa has its problems. We are too white. The caucuses are complicated, confusing and clunky. The evening gatherings in homes, school gyms and libraries are not fully accessible and not as convenient as a primary for people with jobs and kids at home.But diversity did have a chance here. Barack Obama was vaulted to the White House. Iowa actively encouraged Black candidates to challenge the white establishment. Mr. Obama beat Hillary Clinton here. Iowa had no problem giving a gay man, Pete Buttigieg, and a Jewish democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, the two top tickets out to New Hampshire last cycle. Black, white or Latino, it’s organization that matters in Iowa. You have to herd your people to the caucus and keep them in your pen for an hour while other campaigns try to poach them. It’s town hall democracy. Mr. Obama won with it. Candidates who ran feeble campaigns have to blame something. Latinos in Storm Lake overwhelmingly caucused for Mr. Sanders. Julián Castro can complain all he wants.The talking heads say Iowa messed up by not reporting the results quickly. The problem was that a cellphone app suggested to the Iowa Democratic Party by the Democratic National Committee crashed. The democratic process worked — the app didn’t.Anyone looking for an excuse to excise Iowa and further alienate rural voters could find one. The time was ripe.Mr. Biden doesn’t owe Iowa a thing. He finished fourth in the caucuses. He did owe Representative James Clyburn, the dean of South Carolina Democrats, big time for an endorsement just ahead of the Palmetto State primary, where Black voters put Mr. Biden over the top. It was sweet payback. We get that, too.Actually, the caucuses haven’t been the best thing for Iowa. The TV ads never stop. It puts you in a bad mood to think everything is going wrong all the time. We asked good questions, and the candidates gave good answers, then forgot about it all. Despite all the attention, nothing really happened to stop the long decline as the state’s Main Streets withered, farmers disappeared, and the undocumented dwell in the shadows. Republican or Democrat, the outcome was pretty much the same. At least the Republicans will cut your taxes.So it’s OK that South Carolina goes first. Iowa can do without the bother. The Republicans are sticking with Iowa, the Democrats consider it a lost cause. No Democratic state senator lives in a sizable part of western Iowa. Republicans control the governor’s office, the Legislature and soon the entire congressional delegation. Nobody organized the thousands of registered Latino voters in meatpacking towns like Storm Lake. Democrats are barely trying. The results show it.The old brick factory haunts along the mighty Mississippi River are dark, thanks to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and everyone else who sold us out for “free trade.” Keokuk, the gate city to the river, was once a bustling industrial and shipping hub but recently lost its hospital. Your best hope in rural Jefferson was to land a casino to save the town. You essentially can’t haul a load of hogs to the packinghouse in a pickup anymore — you need a contract and a semi. The sale barn and open markets are quaint memories. John Deere tractor cabs will be made in Mexico, not Waterloo. Our rivers are rank with manure. It tends to frustrate those left behind, and the resentment builds to the point of insurrection when it is apparent that the government is not here to help you.It’s hard to feel from 30,000 feet. So Donald Trump landed in Sioux City on the eve of the midterm election to claim his stake before a large crowd buffeted by the gales out of Nebraska. “The Iowa way of life is under siege,” Mr. Trump bellowed. “We are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation.”They loved him. The Democrats view the crowd as deplorable, and told Iowa to get lost.Art Cullen is the editor of The Storm Lake Times and author of “Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper.”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. More