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      Daines Endorsement Reflects Uneasy Senate G.O.P. Alliance With Trump

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      Senate Republicans, even those who have broken with the former president, say their campaign chief’s decision to back him could boost their push for the majority.WASHINGTON — When Senator Steve Daines, the leader of the Senate Republican campaign arm, quietly informed Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, that he intended to endorse former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. McConnell was fine with the idea.Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, is not on speaking terms with the former president, having abruptly turned against him after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Trump has publicly savaged the senator and repeatedly demeaned his wife with racist statements.But the minority leader, according to a person familiar with his thinking, believed that somebody in the Senate G.O.P. leadership ranks should have a working relationship with the party’s leading presidential contender — and it might as well be the man charged with winning back the Senate majority.Mr. Daines’s endorsement of Mr. Trump this week — and Mr. McConnell’s private blessing of it — highlighted how top Senate Republicans have quietly decided to join forces with their party’s leading presidential candidate, putting aside the toxic relationship that some of them have with him to focus on what they hope will be a mutually advantageous political union.Mr. Daines of Montana, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is the first and so far only member of the Senate G.O.P. leadership team to endorse Mr. Trump. Mr. McConnell, who enabled Mr. Trump and his agenda during much of his presidency before the Capitol riot, has not spoken to the former president since December 2020. His No. 2, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, also has been mercilessly attacked by Mr. Trump.Mr. Thune portrayed Mr. Daines’s embrace of the former president as the cost of doing business — what’s necessary to win.“He’s got a tough job to do,” Mr. Thune told reporters at the Capitol. “He’s got a lot of races around the country that we need to win. And I think he wants as many allies as possible.”Asked about the fact that Mr. Daines has endorsed someone who has attacked both him and Mr. McConnell, the senator was temporarily at a loss for words.“Well,” Mr. Thune said with a pause, “what can I tell you?”Many Senate Republicans, in contrast to their counterparts in the House, view Mr. Trump as a political anchor who cost them the majority in 2020 with baseless claims of voter fraud in Georgia that damaged their runoff chances. Many believe Mr. Trump cost them again in 2022 by endorsing Senate contenders who struggled in the general election. Mr. McConnell has attributed his party’s inability to win the Senate to “candidate quality” problems spurred by Mr. Trump’s primary endorsements.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said that there was “tremendous support nationally and statewide” for the former president, when asked about Senate Republican leaders’ reluctant acceptance of Mr. Daines’s endorsement.“By contrast, DeSantis has embarrassingly tiny support,” Mr. Cheung said.Some Republicans are determined to steer clear of Mr. Trump. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a vocal critic of Mr. Trump’s who voted to convict the former president in both of his impeachment trials, insisted that Mr. Daines’s backing for Mr. Trump should not be regarded as an embrace of the former president by the Senate G.O.P.“Montana is a big Trump-supporting state,” Mr. Romney said on Wednesday. “I don’t think he did that as the leader of the Republican team. Mitch McConnell is our leader, and I doubt he’ll endorse anybody.”A spokesman for Mr. Daines declined to comment on Mr. Romney’s characterization of the endorsement.Some wondered whether Mr. Daines was deliberately defying Mr. McConnell like the last chairman of the party campaign arm, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, did during last year’s midterm elections.“I was surprised,” Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, another member of the party leadership, said this week when asked what she thought of the Daines endorsement. “But all of the senators have the opportunity to endorse who they want to endorse.”In fact, Mr. Daines and Mr. McConnell are on the same page.Mr. Trump’s endorsement highlighted how Senate Republicans shows an uneasy alliance among estranged political players.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesMr. Daines gave Mr. McConnell a heads up that he would be endorsing Mr. Trump ahead of a Monday night appearance on the podcast of Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, according to the person familiar with his thinking.Mr. McConnell views Montana, West Virginia and Ohio — which Mr. Trump won by big margins — as among the most important Senate battlegrounds in 2024, and it will fall to Mr. Daines to keep the former president on friendly terms with the party’s favored candidates, especially in the states where he remains wildly popular.While the rest of Mr. McConnell’s team keeps their distance from the former president, Mr. Daines speaks frequently with Mr. Trump, including as recently as Wednesday night, said a person with direct knowledge of the call who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.So even after Mr. Trump has denigrated Mr. McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, the Senate minority leader has engaged in a familiar game with the former president, with whom he worked closely to cut taxes and stack the federal judiciary with ardent conservatives.Mr. McConnell has said as little as possible about the former president since cutting off all contact with him. He has ignored Mr. Trump’s attacks against him and his wife, and he has refused to follow the approach of former Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, who has said she plans to do whatever she can to stop Mr. Trump from becoming president again.Instead, Mr. McConnell has said he is focused on winning back the Senate, and in service of that goal he is already making accommodations for the former president. He has said he will support Mr. Trump if he wins the 2024 Republican nomination.Like many of his colleagues, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a former chairman of the Republican campaign arm himself, is staying out of Mr. Trump’s way. He said he did not plan to endorse in the primary, but “will support the nominee” in the general election.Mr. Daines, he said, was “entitled to some latitude given the complexity of the political environment that we’re entering into.”Republicans’ goal, Mr. Cornyn added, was to win back the majority.“And I don’t really care what the tactics are,” he said. More

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      Gov. Jim Justice Is Expected to Announce Senate Run for Joe Manchin’s Seat

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      Mr. Manchin is viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democrats in next year’s elections, in a state, West Virginia, that has overwhelmingly trended red.Gov. Jim Justice of West Virginia is set to announce a Senate campaign on Thursday, giving Republicans a strong recruit against Senator Joe Manchin III, one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election in 2024.The West Virginia race is one of the most essential pickup opportunities for Republicans if they are to retake control of the Senate, which Democrats hold by a narrow 51-49 seat margin.Mr. Manchin, who represents by far the most Republican state held by any Democratic senator, has yet to announce whether he will seek re-election, but Republicans are hoping that Mr. Justice’s entry might spur him toward retirement.Mr. Manchin in recent years has been one of the few Democrats who can compete in the overwhelmingly Republican state.Mr. Justice’s team teased a “special announcement” at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. It made a point to note that his English bulldog — Babydog, known for a memorable appearance last year at Mr. Justice’s State of the State speech — would be present for the announcement.The advisory did not specify the nature of the announcement, though it offered a livestream link to a YouTube page with the description “The official YouTube channel for Jim Justice for U.S. Senate, Inc.” Two people with knowledge of Mr. Justice’s plans confirmed he would be entering the Senate race.Before facing Mr. Manchin, Mr. Justice would need to make it through a Republican primary. He will have at least one major opponent, Representative Alex Mooney, who has been closely allied with former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Mooney has already attacked Mr. Justice as a “RINO,” or “Republican in name only,” one of Mr. Trump’s and his allies’ favorite insults.Mr. Mooney has the backing of the Club for Growth, the influential conservative group that has spent heavily in recent Republican primaries, and Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, endorsed him last week.Mr. Justice, a billionaire businessman, was first elected governor in 2016 and re-elected in 2020, making him term-limited next year. He initially ran and won as a Democrat, but switched his party affiliation to Republican in 2017, less than a year into his first term.He made that announcement at a rally alongside Mr. Trump, saying, “Today I will tell you as West Virginians that I can’t help you anymore being a Democrat governor.” As is traditional for politicians who switch allegiances, he said his former party had moved away from him, not the other way around.Top Senate Republicans have been eager to lure Mr. Justice into the race. One Nation, a nonprofit group aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, recently began a $1 million ad campaign against Mr. Manchin for his support of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.Mr. Manchin appeared on Fox News this week, in an interview with Sean Hannity, and attacked the Biden administration for the way it had implemented the legislation. He even threatened to vote to repeal it over its climate provisions.Mr. Hannity asked why Mr. Manchin had remained with the Democratic Party.“Well, they don’t always get my vote, you know that — if I can’t go home and explain, I don’t vote for it,” Mr. Manchin said. “I think about that every day: Why am I a Democrat?”Shane Goldmacher More

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      Tim Scott Set to Announce Presidential Exploratory Committee for 2024

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      Mr. Scott, a Republican senator from South Carolina, will appear on Fox News on Wednesday morning.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the most prominent Black leader in the Republican Party, will start an exploratory committee for a 2024 presidential run on Wednesday, according to three people with knowledge of his plans.The announcement, which was first reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., opens an all-but-declared presidential campaign for Mr. Scott, who will test his message this week in the early primary voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, his home state.An exploratory committee will allow Mr. Scott, who would enter the Republican primary with nearly $21.8 million on hand in his Senate account, to raise money directly for a 2024 campaign and garner more national attention before a formal presidential announcement. He will host a donor retreat in Charleston this weekend, where he is expected to update his top donors on his plans.Allies have already established a super PAC that is expected to be supportive of Mr. Scott, should he make his run official. Last week, the PAC announced that it was expanding through the hiring of two veteran South Carolina political operatives, Matt Moore and Mark Knoop.Mr. Scott also teased his plans to run in a fund-raising email to supporters on Tuesday evening, saying he would make “a major announcement” on Wednesday. He will announce his plans on “Fox and Friends” on Fox News that morning, according to the email.Mr. Scott, who will campaign in Iowa on Wednesday, in New Hampshire on Thursday and in South Carolina on Friday, is expected to heavily emphasize his only-in-America rise, a story he first told on the national stage at the 2020 Republican National Convention.“Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime,” Mr. Scott said. “And that’s why I believe the next American century can be better than the last.” In 2021, he was tapped to deliver the Republican response to President Biden’s first joint address before Congress, a speech that turbocharged Mr. Scott’s online fund-raising.Mr. Scott’s biography, his oratorical skills and his prominence as the top-ranking Black Republican in Congress have him on many Republican short lists to serve as a potential vice president, though advisers to Mr. Scott have rebuffed that as the goal.If and when Mr. Scott officially enters the race, he will be the second South Carolina Republican in the 2024 sweepstakes, following the entry of Nikki Haley, the former governor and former United Nations ambassador. He also joins an increasingly crowded primary field for president: Former President Donald J. Trump, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and the tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have all begun campaigns. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is expected to join the field in the coming months. More

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      Republican Mark Lamb Files to Run for Kyrsten Sinema’s Senate Seat

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      Mark Lamb, a sheriff and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, will run for the seat held by Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat-turned-independent.Mark Lamb, a right-wing sheriff and an ally of former President Donald J. Trump known for his policing of elections and his defiance of a pandemic lockdown, announced Tuesday that he would run for Senate in Arizona next year, a contest that could determine control of the closely divided chamber.Mr. Lamb, 50, became the first high-profile Republican to compete for the seat, one currently held by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party in December to become an independent. Ms. Sinema has not said whether she will run, but if she does, there is already one Democratic challenger: Representative Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democrat from Phoenix.In his announcement video, Mr. Lamb said he would “stand up to the woke left” and “secure our border and support our law enforcement.” He also called out his support for gun rights and his anti-abortion stance in the ad.Mr. Lamb, as the top law enforcement officer in Arizona’s third-most populous county, Pinal, made headlines when he refused to enforce the state’s stay-at-home order in 2020 and then when he expressed sympathy for the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He has also sown doubt over the results of the 2020 election and drawn scrutiny for his embrace of private militias and hard-line positions on immigration.The field appears likely to grow, as Republicans see an opening to retake the seat in the potential matchup between Mr. Gallego and Ms. Sinema, which could split the Democratic and independent voters who have powered victories for the left in the state.Kari Lake, a Republican who refused to accept her defeat in the governor’s race last year, has also signaled that she could jump into the race.Ms. Sinema has infuriated Democrats with her departure and opposition to key planks of their agenda in the Senate. Her split with the party came shortly after it gained an outright majority in the Senate during the midterm elections last fall.Arizona was one of the key battlegrounds in those elections, and in 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory there over Mr. Trump helped him to secure the presidency. More

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      To Boldly Go Where No President Has Gone Before

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I have a clear memory of Democrats defending Bill Clinton tooth and nail for lying under oath in the Paula Jones case, about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. At the time, they said it was “just about sex” and that Clinton lied to protect his family and marriage.Morally speaking, is that better than, worse than or equal to the allegation that Donald Trump falsified business records to cover his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels (and possibly another paramour, too)?Gail Collins: Bret, sex scandal aficionado that I am, I’m sorta tempted to go back and revisit Clinton’s argument that he didn’t lie about Monica Lewinsky because it doesn’t count as having sex if … well, no. Guess not.Bret: To say nothing of Clinton parsing the meaning of the word “is.”Gail: Still, I’d say the Stormy Daniels episode — an ongoing, well-financed cover-up during a presidential campaign — was worse.Bret: Hmm. Trump wasn’t president at the time of the alleged affair the way Clinton was. And Daniels wasn’t a starry-eyed 22-year-old intern whose life got destroyed in the process. And lying under oath is usually a felony, unlike falsifying business records, which is usually treated as a misdemeanor.Gail: If you want to argue that Trump’s not the worst sex-scandal offender, I’m fine with it. Won’t even mention Grover Cleveland …Bret: “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?” Always liked Grover.Gail: Of all the investigations into Trump’s egregious misconduct, this strikes me as almost minor compared with, say, trying to change presidential election results, urging a crowd of supporters to march on the Capitol or illegally taking, retaining and hiding secret government documents or …OK, taking a rest.Bret: Totally agree. My fear is that the indictment will focus the media spotlight on Trump, motivate his base, paralyze his Republican opponents and ultimately help him win the G.O.P. nomination. In the first poll after the indictment, Trump’s lead over his Republican rivals jumped. Maybe that will make it easier for Democrats to hold the White House next year, but it also potentially means we could get Benito Milhous Caligula back in office.The only thing that will hurt Trump is if he’s ignored in the press and beaten at the polls. Instead, we’re contributing to the problem just by speaking about it.Gail: OK, now I’m changing subjects. It hurts my heart to talk about this, but we have to consider the terrible school shooting in Nashville — it doesn’t seem to have moved the needle one centimeter on issues like banning assault weapons or 30-round magazines. Pro-gun lawmakers, in light of the Covenant School shooting, are once again arguing that schools would be safer if the teachers could have their own pistols.Bret: I’m not opposed to an armed cop or a well-trained security guard on school campuses, who might be able to respond much faster to an emergency than the police could. Teachers? Seems like a really, really bad idea.With respect to everything else, I’m sometimes inclined to simply give up. Gun control isn’t realistic in a country with more guns than people. Even if stringent gun control were somehow enacted, it would function roughly the same way stringent drug laws work: People who wanted to obtain guns illegally could easily get them. I think we ought to repeal the Second Amendment, or at least reinterpret it to mean that anyone who wants a gun must belong to a “well-regulated militia.” But in our lifetimes that’s a political pipe dream.So we’re left in the face of tragedies like Nashville’s feeling heartbroken, furious, speechless and helpless.Gail: Your impulse to give up the fight is probably sensible, but I just can’t go there. Gotta keep pushing; we can’t cave in to folks who think it’s un-American to require loaded weapons be stored where kids can’t get at them.Bret: Another side of me wants to agree with you. Let’s ban high-capacity magazines, raise the age threshold for gun purchases and heavily fine people if they fail to properly store weapons. I just wonder if it will make much of a difference.Gail: Well, it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt.Bret: Very true.Gail: Let’s move on before I get deeply depressed. We’re slowly creeping toward an election year — close enough that people who want to run for office for real have to start mobilizing. Anybody you really love/hate out there now?Bret: Next year is going to be a tough one for Senate Democrats. They’re defending 23 of the 34 seats that are up for grabs, including in ever-redder states like Montana and West Virginia.I’d love to see a serious Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz in Texas, and by serious I mean virtually anyone other than Beto O’Rourke. And I’d love to see Kari Lake run for a Senate seat in Arizona so that she can lose again.You?Gail: Funny, I was thinking the same thing about Ted Cruz the other night. Wonderful the way that man can bring us together.Bret: He even brings me closer to Trump. “Lyin’ Ted” was priceless.Gail: Another Senate Republican I hope gets a very serious challenger is Rick Scott of Florida, who made that first big proposal to consider slashing Social Security and Medicare.Bret: Good luck with that. Florida may now be redder than Texas.Gail: You’re right about the Democrats having to focus on defense. The endangered incumbent I’m rooting hardest for is Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who’s managed to be a powerful voice for both liberal causes and my reddish home state’s practical interests.Bret: I once got a note from Brown gently reproaching me for using the term Rust Belt about Ohio. The note was so charming, personable and fair that I remember thinking: “This man can’t have a future in American politics.”Gail: And as someone who’s complained bitterly about Joe Manchin over the years, I have to admit that keeping West Virginia in the Democratic column does require very creative and sometimes deeply irritating political performances.Bret: Aha. I knew you’d come around.I don’t know if you’ve followed this, but Manchin is now complaining bitterly that the Biden administration is trying to rewrite the terms of the Inflation Reduction Act, which, with Manchin’s vote, gave the president his biggest legislative win last year. The details are complicated, but the gist is that the administration is hanging him out to dry. Oh, and he’s also skeptical of Trump’s indictment. Don’t be totally surprised if Manchin becomes a Republican in order to save his political skin.Gail: Hmm, my valuation of said skin would certainly drop . …Bret: Which raises the question: How should partisan Democrats, or partisan Republicans, feel about the least ideologically reliable member of their own parties?Gail: Depends. Did they run as freethinkers who shouldn’t be relied on by their party for a vote? Manchin got elected in the first place by promising to be a Democrat who’d “get the federal government off our backs.” But often this explosion of independence comes as a postelection surprise.Bret: Good point. There should be truth in advertising.Gail: Do they — like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — forget their nonpartisanship when it comes to dipping into donations from partisan fund-raisers?And probably most important — is there a better option? If Sinema had to run for re-election this year, which she doesn’t, I would be a super-enthusiastic supporter if the other choice was Lake, that dreadful former talk show host.Any thoughts on your end?Bret: In my younger, more Republican days, I used to dislike ideological mavericks — they made things too complicated. Now that I’m older, I increasingly admire politicians who make things complicated. I know there’s a fair amount of opportunism and posturing in some of their position taking. But they also model a certain independence of thought and spirit that I find healthy in our Age of Lemmings.Gail: Hoping it’s maybe just the Decade of the Lemmings.Bret: If I had to draw up a list of the Senate heroes of my lifetime, they’d be Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John McCain, Howard Baker, Bob Kerrey and Joe Lieberman. And lately I’d have to add Mitt Romney. All were willing to break with their parties when it counted. How about you?Gail: Well, you may remember that a while back I was contemplating writing a book called “How Joe Lieberman Ruined Everything.”Bret: I recall you weren’t his biggest fan.Gail: Yeah, still blaming him for failing to give Al Gore the proper support in that 2000 recount. But I’ve come around on Mitt Romney. He’s become a strong, independent voice. Of course it’s easier to be brave when you’re a senator from a state that would keep re-electing you if you took a six-year vacation in the Swiss Alps. Nevertheless, I’ve apologized for all that obsessing about his putting the dog on the car roof.Bret: I came around on him too. I was very hard on him in 2012. Either he got better or I got wiser.Gail: I was a big admirer of John McCain. Will never forget following him on his travels when he first ran for president in 2000. He spent months and months driving around New Hampshire talking about campaign finance reform. From one tiny gathering to another. Of all the ambitious pols I’ve known he was the least focused on his own fortunes.Bret: I traveled with McCain on his international junkets. He was hilarious, gregarious, generous, gossipy — a study in being unstudied. If he had won the presidency, the Republican Party wouldn’t have gone insane, American democracy wouldn’t be at risk and Sarah Palin would be just another lame ex-veep.Gail: So, gotta end this with the obvious question, Bret. Republican presidential race! You’re a fan of Nikki Haley, but her campaign doesn’t seem to be going much of anywhere, is it? I know you’ve come to detest Ron DeSantis. Other options?Bret: Biden, cryonics or some small island in the South Atlantic, like St. Helena. Not necessarily in that order.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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      Are We Stuck in This Political Stalemate Forever?

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      Not since Joe Biden first claimed his desk in the Senate half a century ago have either Republicans or Democrats governed the nation through more than one or two election cycles. The score in the past dozen presidential contests is a flat-out tie — six to six. Control of one or both houses of Congress has ping-ponged back and forth since the 1980s as well.The longest stretch of partisan parity in U.S. history has trapped us in a political stalemate with little hope of breaking out. As a result, problems that have long plagued the nation — economic inequality, undocumented immigration, climate change, the undermining of democratic values — persist.A true realignment could shake us from the festering gridlock. But what would it take for one party to dominate American politics again?From the 1820s, when mass elections began, there have been just three periods of prolonged one-party dominance: the Democrats under Andrew Jackson and his disciples; the Republicans for long stretches from McKinley to Hoover; then the Democrats again, for extended periods from Franklin Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson. The first was unique, fueled by a populist appeal to ordinary white male voters and support for Southern slaveholders. But each of the other two was brought on by a profound, utterly gutting economic crisis: a prolonged depression in the 1890s and another one just under four decades later.These were consequential eras. Jackson killed the central bank, and one of his Democratic successors, James Polk, provoked a war with Mexico. During the early 20th century, Republicans enriched homegrown industries and turned the federal judiciary into a dedicated foe of unions. New Deal and Great Society Democrats embraced a growing labor movement and enacted such pillars of the welfare state as Social Security and Medicare, while moving to dismantle racism under law.In many ways, however, our politics remain stuck in the long 1960s. Progressives and conservatives still battle over some of the big issues that roiled the nation half a century ago — affirmative action, the right to abortion, rights for gay men and lesbians, environmental protection and the content of education — with little lasting movement in either direction.Ending our current partisan stalemate may require a crisis on the scale of those that began or ended the earlier sway of majority parties. But even without, say, a financial debacle or outbreak of civil conflict, there may be ways for a party to achieve at least short periods of dominance.Back in 1952, the pollster Samuel Lubell argued there was a “sun” party that set the nation’s agenda and a “moon” party that “shines in reflected radiance of the heat thus generated.” Ronald Reagan’s two landslide victories did not thrust the Democrats into lunar orbit — they ran the House throughout his tenure and took back the Senate in 1986 — but Mr. Reagan did install his brand of conservatism at the center of the political solar system for the next quarter-century.Both George Bushes gained the White House running on Mr. Reagan’s three-part message of a strong defense, a smaller welfare state and “traditional” values. After Democrats lost the House in 1994, Bill Clinton embraced much of that economic gospel too. Famously declaring, “The era of big government is over” and calling for a balanced budget, he signed a “welfare reform” bill that cut back payments to single mothers in need and repealed the law that protected against stock speculation and other risky financial ventures. Not until the Great Recession of 2008 did most Democrats begin talking more like New Dealers and less like budget hawks.To achieve what Mr. Reagan did, a presidential nominee today would most likely have to break with some aspects of his or her party’s orthodoxy, taking stances that would surprise and appeal to voters they have failed to win over before.A project like this has already begun in some corners of the right. Stung by losing the popular vote in the past four presidential contests (and seven of the past eight), a growing number of Republicans now lambaste corporate power in tones that would have shocked Mr. Reagan and his allies in the Chamber of Commerce. “Big business is no friend to conservatives — that’s been clear for years,” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri recently charged. “And it’s increasingly no friend to America.” The influential right-leaning magazine Compact has published articles opposing abortion and transgender rights, as well as pieces endorsing unions in language Bernie Sanders would appreciate. If enough working-class voters across racial lines are happy with this blend of cultural conservatism and economic populism, the G.O.P. might be able to secure a majority again.To accomplish the same, Democrats might have to emphasize a tougher stand on curbing violent crime, an issue that greatly concerns working-class voters of all races. But to do so would estrange progressives, who have increasing clout in the party. So Mr. Biden may have to rely on scaring both Democratic loyalists and independents about the dangers posed to the nation if they fail and the Republicans take back the White House and the Senate.Violence by supporters of Donald Trump following a possible indictment in New York City and perhaps elsewhere would help them make that case, as would Republican candidates around the nation afraid of saying anything to anger the ex-president’s zealous admirers. Would this be enough to bring about a new era in American politics? Probably not. But it could allow Democrats to bind their opponents to the legacy of a failed and unpopular figure as their New Deal predecessors once did to Herbert Hoover.History has few true lessons to teach, but attention should be paid to continuities. The Civil War and two of the longest depressions in U.S. history caused immense pain and left their mark on the nation for years to come. The partisan politicians and social movements that best explained why a crisis took place and compelled the government to respond to it effectively were able to define the next political era, whether for good or for ill. The 2024 election will provide a good test of which party’s leaders, if any, are equipped for that challenge.Michael Kazin (@mkazin) is a professor of history at Georgetown University and the author, most recently, of “What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party.”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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      Ro Khanna Endorses Barbara Lee’s Senate Campaign as He Declines to Run

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      The race in California to succeed Senator Dianne Feinstein is likely to be one of the most expensive in the nation in 2024.Representative Ro Khanna of California said on Sunday that he would not run in an already crowded Democratic field seeking to succeed his state’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, who is retiring at the end of her term.In deep-blue California, the Democratic winner of the primary is likely to join Alex Padilla in representing the state in the Senate. The major Democrats already running are three representatives: Katie Porter, a social media darling of liberal Democrats; Adam Schiff, who led the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump; and Barbara Lee, the sole member of Congress to oppose a broad war authorization after the Sept. 11 attacks.Mr. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, made his announcement on “State of the Union” on CNN, telling the host Jake Tapper that the best place “for me to serve as a progressive is in the House of Representatives.”He added, “I’m honored to be co-chairing Barbara Lee’s campaign for the Senate and endorsing her today. We need a strong antiwar senator, and she will play that role.”The race in California is likely to be one of the most expensive and competitive in the nation in 2024. Mr. Schiff, who represents a Los Angeles-area district, and Ms. Porter, of Orange County, have already raised millions to support their campaigns, while Ms. Lee, whose district includes Oakland, has lagged.Ms. Lee is seeking to become just the third Black woman in the Senate. The House has 28 Black women serving in its ranks, a high-water mark, but the Senate currently has none, a point Mr. Khanna emphasized on Sunday.“Frankly, Jake, representation matters,” he said. “We don’t have a single African American woman in the United States Senate. She would fill that role. She’ll be the only candidate from Northern California and she’s going to, I think, consolidate a lot of progressives. The other two are formidable candidates, but I think Barbara Lee is going to be very, very strong.” More

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      Tucker Carlson Is No Less Dangerous

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      Gail Collins: Bret, we have all kinds of deeply important issues to tackle. But let’s start with Tucker Carlson. We’ve learned he didn’t really believe all the stuff he said on TV about a “stolen” election. Shocking!Bret Stephens: They say that hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, but in this case it’s the tribute that cynicism pays to cowardice.Gail: Since you’re in charge of that side of our world, I really want to hear your opinion.Bret: I sometimes think of Carlson in the same mold as Father Coughlin, but worse: At least Coughlin was an honest-to-God fascist, a sincere bigot, whereas Carlson only plays one on TV for the sake of ratings.Gail: Wow, been a while since I heard a Father Coughlin comparison.Bret: As for Fox, the way in which they are trying to “respect” their viewers is to lie to them. I can only wish Dominion Voting Systems well in its $1.6 billion lawsuit against the network for claiming that their voting machines played a role in Trump’s loss. I believe in strong protections against frivolous lawsuits, but knowingly and recklessly spreading falsehoods about the subject of one’s reporting is the very definition of — dare I say it — fake news.Gail: Glad we can come together on the importance of not making up the news.Bret: But Gail, let’s move on to weightier things. Like President Biden’s dead-on-arrival $6.8 trillion budget. Your thoughts?Gail: Yippee! Whenever I wonder if we’re ever going to have a serious fight again, government spending rears its head.So let’s have at it. Obviously, Biden knows his plans aren’t going anywhere with a Republican-sort-of-controlled House. But he’s laying his cards down, and I think the cards look great.Bret: Explain.Gail: He’s ready to raise taxes on the rich. Good for him! Right now the Republicans seem to be claiming we can keep taxes as they are, or lower, plus protect Social Security and Medicare, plus protect or increase military spending. Which would, I believe, cut the rest of the budget by 70 percent.Bret: To steal a line from “Pride and Prejudice,” “My feelings are so different. In fact, they are quite the opposite.”Gail: Love that you’re bringing up Jane. Even if it’s to disagree with me.Bret: Ten years ago, federal spending was $3.45 trillion. Biden’s budget request is double that, and he has the chutzpah to suggest he wants to reduce the deficit — achieved almost entirely by huge tax increases instead of spending discipline.Gail: I will refrain from referring at length to a super-deficit-exploder named Donald Trump. Who was very much with his party’s program in one sense — pretending to be anti-deficit without proposing anything difficult to reduce it. Of course, the gang is OK with cutting back on, say, child care. Which makes it tougher for single parents to go to work and create a better future for the whole family.Bret: I too will refrain from noting that, godawful as Trump was, his final pre-Covid 2019 budget request was around $4.75 trillion, which is still $2 trillion less than Biden’s current request. I’m also not too thrilled by Biden’s proposal for higher taxes, including a nakedly unconstitutional tax on the appreciated assets of very rich people. It won’t pass, which I guess is the point, since the budget is less of a serious proposal and more of a campaign platform.Speaking of platforms: Your thoughts on the administration’s reported decision to approve an $8 billion oil-drilling project in the Alaskan wilderness?Gail: I’m horrified, actually. We’re supposed to be worrying about global warming and Biden is approving a plan that, as our story pointed out, will have an effect equivalent to adding almost two million more cars a year on the roads.Bret: OK, so now it’s my turn to cheer Biden while you jeer. We’re going to need oil for decades to come no matter how many electric vehicles we build, and the oil has to come from somewhere. Europe has discovered the price of relying on Russia for its energy, and I’d much rather have our gas come from a remote corner of Alaska, extracted by American workers, under American regulations, than from, say, Venezuela or Iran.But I’m really curious to see how this will play out within the Democratic Party. To me it looks like a crucial test of whether the party will again reach out to its old blue-collar manufacturing base or move further into the orbit of knowledge-industry workers with, well, coastal values. What do you think?Gail: The Biden administration is obviously going along with labor, lower-cost energy and all the other stuff you think of when you’re running for re-election. Democrats who worry about the environment may be rightfully horrified, but I doubt it’ll cost Biden votes. When the elections roll around, they’ll realize the other side is worse.Bret: Smart political advice.Gail: Still, the least the oil-drilling forces could do would be to apologize in advance to the kids who are currently in kindergarten and will have to live with the results.Bret: Also known as jobs and energy security.Gail: Hey, talking about youth reminds me of … oldth. I was so sorry to hear Mitch McConnell had fallen and been hospitalized with a concussion. He’s 81 and you can’t help wondering if he’s coming to the end of his career as the Senate Republican leader. Any predictions?Bret: First of all, we’ve got to petition the O.E.D. to make “oldth” a word as the appropriate antonym of youth. Second, I wish the senator a speedy recovery.His bigger problems, though, aren’t his physical stumbles but his political ones. He let Biden score his unexpected political wins last year. He’s fallen between two stools when it came to Trump: not Trumpy enough for Trump and his crowd, but not brave enough to stand up to them and move the party past them — like when he lambasted Trump after Jan. 6 but refused to vote to convict him during his second impeachment trial. And he’s been the Republican Senate leader forever, or at least it feels that way.Gail: So who’s next?Bret: He’d probably be wise to step aside for his whip, South Dakota’s John Thune, except that the Trumpians hate Thune for his anti-denialist position when it came to the 2020 election.Gail: Well, if you want to see the kind of leader that can crawl between the regular Republicans and the Trumpians, there’s … Kevin McCarthy. Senators would be better off with a hospitalized McConnell.Bret: A very good point. Since we’re speaking of Trump, your thoughts on his potential indictment?Gail: So many to choose from! Are we talking about the secret government documents he piled up at Mar-a-Lago, or his attempt to interfere with Georgia’s 2020 ballot counting, or the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, the ex-lover Trump wanted to keep quiet? Although possibly as much about his sexual ineptitude as his marital sins? Pick one, Bret.Bret: My general view with most of these legal efforts is that, merited though they may be, they are more likely to help Trump than to hurt him. The weakest case seems to be the one that may be closest to an actual indictment — the alleged hush money payments to the alleged paramour Stormy Daniels. Problem there is that the star witness, the former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, is an ex-felon with a big-time ax to grind against his former boss.Gail: Well, when your witnesses have to be people who spent a lot of quality time with Donald Trump, the options will almost always be depressing.Bret: The stronger case is the one in Georgia. Then again, is a jury in Georgia going to vote unanimously to convict the former president? Color me skeptical. At this point, the most realistic way for the country to be done with Trump is if Ron DeSantis or some other Republican defeats him, fair and square, in the race for the G.O.P. nomination. Which is why you’re strongly rooting for DeSantis to jump in the race, am I right?Gail: Oh, Bret, it’s so hard to admit I’d rather see Trump as the nominee than DeSantis, but it’s true. I would. Rather have a terrible Republican with no real fundamental values than one who has strong but terrible commitments and is a genuine obsessive on social issues like abortion rights.Bret: That sound you just heard was my jaw hitting the floor. But I’m giving you full points for total honesty.Gail: Plus, if we have to live through two years of presidential politics featuring Joe Biden on one side, I’d rather have the awful, wrong-thinking Republican who isn’t also incredibly boring. Is that shallow?Bret: Other than for the entertainment value, do you prefer to have Trump as the nominee because you think he has no chance of winning the election? You could very well be right. Then again, I remember how that worked out in 2016.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