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      Was Biden’s Democracy Speech Too Harsh?

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      More from our inbox:The Reasons Behind the Teacher ExodusThe Reusable Bag Glut Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “With Malice Toward Quite a Few,” by Bret Stephens (column, Sept. 7):While declaring Donald Trump to be the “gravest threat American democracy faces” out of one side of his mouth, out of the other Mr. Stephens decries President Biden’s harsh words for the MAGA Republicans fervently supporting Mr. Trump.He can’t have it both ways.Many Republicans in Congress to this day refuse to admit that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Until these Republicans can bring themselves (and convince the majority of their party) to acknowledge that the presidency was not stolen from Mr. Trump, sharp words to save our democracy are warranted.Lincoln’s “malice toward none” address was given after the insurgents seeking to destroy the Union were defeated, making Mr. Biden’s identification of threats to democracy timely and vital.Carl MezoffStamford, Conn.To the Editor:Bret Stephens nailed it. The threat to democracy is not Republicans or even just MAGA Republicans. It is the sinister and buffoonish Donald Trump, plus his inner circle that pushed his lies in the aftermath of the 2020 election.Even the Jan. 6 riot was not a threat to democracy. Nor was it an insurrection. It was a violent venting that petered out on its own that same afternoon.But what caused that violent venting? Part of it was Mr. Trump’s lies. But a bigger part of it was the left’s actual attempts to steal the 2016 and 2020 elections, not by miscounting votes, but first by the claims of collusion with Russia (a hoax, as I and many others believe) and later by suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. In between, the Democrats and media did everything possible to evict Mr. Trump from office. If all that was “democracy,” then Watergate wasn’t a crime.Donald Trump is one of the worst sore losers of all time, totally unfit for office. But he was also endlessly pushed and goaded, just as Republicans have been pushed, goaded, demeaned and vilified for decades by the arrogant, condescending left. That’s what brought Mr. Trump to the fore to begin with.Mark GodburnNorfolk, Conn.To the Editor:While I acknowledge the validity of some of Bret Stephens’s criticism of President Biden’s speech in Philadelphia, I take issue with his conclusion: “The gravest threat American democracy faces today isn’t the Republican Party, MAGA or otherwise. It’s Trump.”This overlooks the fact that Trumpism has metastasized and infected the entire Republican Party. And getting rid of Donald Trump won’t eliminate the damage to our politics and electoral system that he leaves in his wake.John J. ConiglioEast Meadow, N.Y.To the Editor:I agree with much of what Bret Stephens says about President Biden’s speech. I was a registered Republican from 1970 to 2016. I left the party the day Donald Trump got the nomination.I think there is one simple litmus test that separates the MAGA deplorables from the regular or moderate Republicans. If you deny that Joe Biden won the election, if you insist that it had to be rigged, if you attended the Jan. 6 riot and acted violently, then yes, you are a MAGA extremist bent on the destruction of our democracy. It’s that simple.Steven SchwartzWest Orange, N.J.To the Editor:Re “Does Biden Truly Think Democracy Is in Crisis?,” by Ross Douthat (column, Sept. 5):Since democracy means that the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner, how could anyone, including Mr. Douthat, not believe that we are in a crisis of democracy, when the other major party candidate and his minions refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden was the winner?Ross ZuckerCastine, MaineThe writer is a retired professor of political science at Touro University.To the Editor:Ross Douthat questions whether President Biden and the Democrats really believe that Donald Trump and his followers are a threat to democracy, because Republicans are not a majority party. But with the Electoral College, voting restrictions, gerrymandering, a Senate biased toward rural states and a Supreme Court tilted way to the right, our system is quite vulnerable to rule by a minority party.If that party becomes authoritarian, it can indeed be a threat to democracy. Those who don’t take such a threat seriously espouse a dangerous complacency.Chris MillerEl Cerrito, Calif.The Reasons Behind the Teacher ExodusHallsville Intermediate School in Hallsville, Mo. The superintendent of the school district there said the pool of qualified teaching applicants has all but dried up in recent years.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “How Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? It Depends on Where You Live” (news article, Aug. 30):Low pay, as the article indicates, is a major reason that young people are not becoming teachers and that older, experienced teachers are leaving the profession.Consider some other reasons:Parents who harass, verbally abuse and even assault teachers in school parking lots and even outside their homes.Schools so inadequately funded that teachers often have to use their own meager paychecks to pay for classroom supplies.Schools so badly in need of repairs that they are dangerous to the health and well-being of everyone who works in them.The prospect of a gunman with an AR-15 rifle walking into a classroom, forcing teachers to put their own bodies between themselves and their students.Threats that teachers can be fired or even jailed for uttering a perfectly legitimate word or phrase that some politicians deem offensive.Politicians have done more than anyone else to create the teacher shortage — and they will have to fix it.Dennis M. ClausenEscondido, Calif.The writer is a professor of American literature and creative writing at the University of San Diego.To the Editor:Today there is a mass exodus from the classroom by many educators, and I can’t blame them. I was a teacher for 31 years. They can make more money at a different job with less stress.Some of my nonteaching friends have asked, “What can we do to support teachers so they stay in the classroom?”You can volunteer in the classroom, donate classroom supplies, speak up for better teacher pay and smaller class sizes, appreciate the demands and constraints of a teacher’s job, and speak highly of teachers in front of your children.According to the National Education Association, 55 percent of teachers are thinking of leaving the profession. We can’t let this happen.To all of the educators staying in the profession, we can’t thank you enough. Teachers can’t do this alone. They need your support. Thank you to all of the supportive, understanding parents out there. We need you.Deborah EngenSugar Land, TexasThe Reusable Bag GlutExperts calculate that a typical reusable plastic bag has to be reused 10 times to account for the additional energy and material used to make it. For cotton tote bags, it’s much higher.Jeenah Moon/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “New Jersey Bag Ban’s Unforeseen Consequence: Too Many Bags” (front page, Sept. 2):Perhaps the New Jersey supermarkets and online food delivery services could take back the previous delivery’s reusable bags — and reuse them.Marianne VaheyWoodbridge, Conn.To the Editor:I also accumulated many reusable bags while grocery shopping online during the pandemic. I’m giving mine to an organization that provides meals for the homeless. Food banks and nonprofit thrift shops can also probably use them.Betsy FeistNew YorkTo the Editor:My local C-Town supermarket packs groceries for delivery or curbside pickup in the corrugated cardboard shipping boxes that they get food in. They are very efficient in their arrangements, so I generally only need two boxes when I might need six bags.Anne BarschallTarrytown, N.Y. More

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      As Johnson Draws a Happy Face, Britons Confront a Run of Bad News

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      There’s a cognitive dissonance between Mr. Johnson’s upbeat appraisal of British life and the ills facing its citizens, including gas and food shortages and fears of rising energy prices.LONDON — Britons are lining up for gas, staring at empty grocery shelves, paying higher taxes and worrying about spiraling prices as a grim winter approaches.But to visit the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this past week was to enter a kind of happy valley, where cabinet ministers danced, sang karaoke and drained flutes of champagne — Pol Roger, Winston Churchill’s favorite brand, naturally.Nobody captured the bonhomie better than Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who told a whooping crowd of party faithful, “You all represent the most jiving, hip, happening, and generally funkapolitan party in the world.”The cognitive dissonance extended beyond the Mardi Gras atmosphere. In his upbeat keynote speech, Mr. Johnson characterized the multiple ills afflicting Britain as a “function of growth and economic revival” — challenging but necessary post-Brexit adjustments on the way to a more prosperous future.It was at least his third explanation for the food and fuel shortages, which continued in some areas after three weeks. Initially, he denied there was a crisis. Then, he said the shortages were not about Brexit — contradicting analysts, union leaders, food producers and business owners — but were hitting every Western country as they emerged from the pandemic. And finally, he cited the stresses as evidence that Brexit was doing its job in shaking up the economy.“It is the ultimate in post-hoc rationalization — the idea that this is a well-thought-out plan, that we intended to do this all along,” said Jill Rutter, a senior research fellow at the U.K. in a Changing Europe, a London think tank.Few politicians have either the indomitable cheer or the ideological flexibility of Mr. Johnson, so it was hardly surprising that he tried to put the best face on Britain’s run of bad news. He remains utterly in command of the Conservative Party, which has an 80-seat majority in the Parliament, and comfortably ahead of the opposition Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, in opinion polls.Cars lined up for gas in Slough, west of London, late last month.Mary Turner for The New York TimesYet political analysts and economists said there were risks in the Panglossian tone he struck in Manchester. With inflation projected to continue at a relatively high level, and the government admitting that shortages could continue until Christmas, voters could quickly sour on Mr. Johnson. Then next year come tax rises, after he broke his promise not to increase them last month.In hindsight, some said, the conference might be seen as a high-water mark for the prime minister.“A few days of disruption to fuel supplies makes the government look foolish,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London. “Much larger fuel bills are a much bigger deal.”Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, said Mr. Johnson could come to resemble James Callaghan, the Labour prime minister who was toppled in 1979 after a winter of fuel shortages and runaway inflation, when he did not appear sufficiently alarmed about the pileup of problems.When Mr. Johnson bounded into the auditorium at the conference last week, stopping to kiss his wife, Carrie, he looked anything but alarmed. Between jokes and jibes at the opposition, he presented a blueprint for a post-Brexit economy that he claimed would deliver high wages for skilled British workers, rather than lower-cost immigrants from the European Union, and put the onus on businesses to foot the bill.Companies and previous governments “reached for the same old lever of uncontrolled immigration to keep wages low,” Mr. Johnson said. “The answer is to control immigration, to allow people of talent to come to this country, but not to use immigration as an excuse for failure to invest in people, in skills and in the equipment, the facilities, the machinery they need to do their jobs.”That model is worlds away from Singapore-on-Thames, the catchphrase once used by the intellectual authors of Brexit to describe an open, lightly regulated, business-friendly hub that they said Britain would become once it cast off the labor laws and other shackles of Brussels. Nobody is talking about removing labor laws now (indeed, Mr. Johnson may soon move to raise Britain’s minimum wage).A shopper browsing empty shelves in a supermarket in London last month.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesContradictions between protectionists and free-marketeers have run through the Brexit movement from the start. “I describe it as Little England versus Global Britain,” Mr. Portes said, noting that Mr. Johnson, because of his lack of fixed convictions, was well-suited to hold this coalition together.Since Mr. Johnson’s landslide election victory in 2019, however, the gravity in the Conservative Party has shifted decisively toward protectionism and anti-immigration policies. That was the message that helped the Tories lure disenchanted, working-class, former Labour voters in the industrial Midlands and North of England.Many of these voters want the jobs that would come with the revival of British heavy industry, not better opportunities for hedge-fund managers in London. Conservative politicians who once championed the Singapore-on-Thames model now play it down.Mr. Johnson has embraced a blame-it-on-business message which, while at odds with his party’s traditional principles, is popular with his new base. He singled out the trucking industry, arguing that its failure to invest in better truck stops — “with basic facilities where you don’t have to urinate in the bushes,” he said — was one of the reasons young people did not aspire to becoming drivers.“It’s all of a piece with his move toward a much more populist style,” Mr. Bale said. “Johnson is pressing the right buttons, as far as these people are concerned.”His tough-on-business language has scrambled the traditional lines in British politics. On Friday, voters were treated to the curious spectacle of Mr. Starmer lashing out at Mr. Johnson for his attacks on business and presenting the Labour Party as the better partner for Britain’s corporations.For Mr. Johnson, critics said, the biggest risk is a lack of credibility. His initial claim that the food and fuel shortages were not caused by Brexit sounded unconvincing, given that his own government predicted rising prices and shortages of both in a 2019 report on the potential disruptions in the event of a “no-deal Brexit,” in which Britain would leave the European Union without a trade agreement.A station that ran out of gas in Slough last month.Mary Turner for The New York TimesThe report, known as Operation Yellowhammer, laid out “reasonable worst-case planning assumptions,” among them that “certain types of fresh food supply will decrease” and that “customer behavior could lead to local shortages” of fuel. Though Britain negotiated a bare-bones trade deal with Brussels, its effect was similar to that of no deal.While it’s true that Mr. Johnson is indisputably setting his party’s agenda, it is not clear that the internal debates over the shape of a post-Brexit future are entirely settled. Rishi Sunak, the popular chancellor of the Exchequer, spoke at the conference about his years in California, and how he viewed Silicon Valley as a model for Britain.“I’m not sure that having a truck-driver shortage is part of that vision,” Ms. Rutter, the research fellow, said. More