Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

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      As Midterms Loom, Mark Zuckerberg Shifts Focus Away From Elections

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      Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, made securing the 2020 U.S. election a top priority. He met regularly with an election team, which included more than 300 people from across his company, to prevent misinformation from spreading on the social network. He asked civil rights leaders for advice on upholding voter rights.The core election team at Facebook, which was renamed Meta last year, has since been dispersed. Roughly 60 people are now focused primarily on elections, while others split their time on other projects. They meet with another executive, not Mr. Zuckerberg. And the chief executive has not talked recently with civil rights groups, even as some have asked him to pay more attention to the midterm elections in November.Safeguarding elections is no longer Mr. Zuckerberg’s top concern, said four Meta employees with knowledge of the situation. Instead, he is focused on transforming his company into a provider of the immersive world of the metaverse, which he sees as the next frontier of growth, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly.The shift in emphasis at Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, could have far-reaching consequences as faith in the U.S. electoral system reaches a brittle point. The hearings on the Jan. 6 Capitol riots have underlined how precarious elections can be. And dozens of political candidates are running this November on the false premise that former President Donald J. Trump was robbed of the 2020 election, with social media platforms continuing to be a key way to reach American voters.Election misinformation remains rampant online. This month, “2000 Mules,” a film that falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump, was widely shared on Facebook and Instagram, garnering more than 430,000 interactions, according to an analysis by The New York Times. In posts about the film, commenters said they expected election fraud this year and warned against using mail-in voting and electronic voting machines.Voters casting their ballots in Portland, Maine, this month.Jodi Hilton for The New York TimesOther social media companies have also pulled back some of their focus on elections. Twitter, which stopped labeling and removing election misinformation in March 2021, has been preoccupied with its $44 billion sale to Elon Musk, three employees with knowledge of the situation said. Mr. Musk has suggested he wants fewer rules about what can and cannot be posted on the service.“Companies should be growing their efforts to get prepared to protect the integrity of elections for the next few years, not pulling back,” said Katie Harbath, chief executive of the consulting firm Anchor Change, who formerly managed election policy at Meta. “Many issues, including candidates pushing that the 2020 election was fraudulent, remain and we don’t know how they are handling those.”Meta, which along with Twitter barred Mr. Trump from its platforms after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has worked over the years to limit political falsehoods on its sites. Tom Reynolds, a Meta spokesman, said the company had “taken a comprehensive approach to how elections play out on our platforms since before the U.S. 2020 elections and through the dozens of global elections since then.”Mr. Reynolds disputed that there were 60 people focused on the integrity of elections. He said Meta has hundreds of people across more than 40 teams focused on election work. With each election, he said, the company was “building teams and technologies and developing partnerships to take down manipulation campaigns, limit the spread of misinformation and maintain industry-leading transparency around political ads and pages.”Trenton Kennedy, a Twitter spokesman, said the company was continuing “our efforts to protect the integrity of election conversation and keep the public informed on our approach.” For the midterms, Twitter has labeled the accounts of political candidates and provided information boxes on how to vote in local elections.How Meta and Twitter treat elections has implications beyond the United States, given the global nature of their platforms. In Brazil, which is holding a general election in October, President Jair Bolsonaro has recently raised doubts about the country’s electoral process. Latvia, Bosnia and Slovenia are also holding elections in October.“People in the U.S. are almost certainly getting the Rolls-Royce treatment when it comes to any integrity on any platform, especially for U.S. elections,” said Sahar Massachi, the executive director of the think tank Integrity Institute and a former Facebook employee. “And so however bad it is here, think about how much worse it is everywhere else.”Facebook’s role in potentially distorting elections became evident after 2016, when Russian operatives used the site to spread inflammatory content and divide American voters in the U.S. presidential election. In 2018, Mr. Zuckerberg testified before Congress that election security was his top priority.“The most important thing I care about right now is making sure no one interferes in the various 2018 elections around the world,” he said.The social network has since become efficient at removing foreign efforts to spread disinformation in the United States, election experts said. But Facebook and Instagram still struggle with conspiracy theories and other political lies on their sites, they said.In November 2019, Mr. Zuckerberg hosted a dinner at his home for civil rights leaders and held phone and Zoom conference calls with them, promising to make election integrity a main focus.He also met regularly with an election team. More than 300 employees from various product and engineering teams were asked to build new systems to detect and remove misinformation. Facebook also moved aggressively to eliminate toxic content, banning QAnon conspiracy theory posts and groups in October 2020.Around the same time, Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated $400 million to local governments to fund poll workers, pay for rental fees for polling places, provide personal protective equipment and other administrative costs.The week before the November 2020 election, Meta also froze all political advertising to limit the spread of falsehoods.But while there were successes — the company kept foreign election interference off the platform — it struggled with how to handle Mr. Trump, who used his Facebook account to amplify false claims of voter fraud. After the Jan. 6 riot, Facebook barred Mr. Trump from posting. He is eligible for reinstatement in January 2023.Last year, Frances Haugen, a Facebook employee-turned-whistle-blower, filed complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission accusing the company of removing election safety features too soon after the 2020 election. Facebook prioritized growth and engagement over security, she said.In October, Mr. Zuckerberg announced Facebook would focus on the metaverse. The company has restructured, with more resources devoted to developing the online world.The team working on elections now meets regularly with Nick Clegg, Meta’s president for global affairs.Christopher Furlong/Getty ImagesMeta also retooled its election team. Now the number of employees whose job is to focus solely on elections is approximately 60, down from over 300 in 2020, according to employees. Hundreds of others participate in meetings about elections and are part of cross-functional teams, where they work on other issues. Divisions that build virtual reality software, a key component of the metaverse, have expanded.What Is the Metaverse, and Why Does It Matter?Card 1 of 5The origins. More

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      Jan. 6 Panel Says It Has New Evidence of Trump’s Pressure on Justice Dept.

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      A hearing at 3 p.m. Thursday will feature the former acting attorney general and other top officials at the department during the Trump era as witnesses.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol plans to unveil new evidence on Thursday about how President Donald J. Trump tried to manipulate the Justice Department to help him cling to power after he lost the 2020 election, aides said on Wednesday.At its fifth public hearing this month, scheduled for 3 p.m. on Thursday, the panel plans to hear testimony from three former top Justice Department officials who are expected to lay out the ways in which Mr. Trump tried to misuse the attorney general’s office to overturn his defeat, an extraordinary instance of a president interfering with the nation’s law enforcement apparatus for his own personal ends.Committee aides said the panel would detail how Mr. Trump unsuccessfully pushed department officials to falsely declare that there was widespread fraud in the election, file lawsuits to benefit his campaign and appoint a conspiracy theorist as a special counsel to investigate the election. It will also trace his failed efforts to send false letters to state officials to subvert the election results and, finally, to replace the acting attorney general, who refused to go along with his plans.Mr. Trump ultimately backed off after agency officials threatened mass resignations, but the committee is presenting his actions as a critical strand in a multilayered effort by the former president to subvert the election.The witnesses scheduled to testify are Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting attorney general; Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general; and Steven A. Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers in declaring victory prematurely and relentlessly pressing claims of fraud he was told were wrong.Day Three: Mr. Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing.Day Four: The committee used its fourth hearing to show how Mr. Trump was personally involved in a scheme to put forward fake electors and highlight the pressure that state officials faced to overturn the election.Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a member of the committee, is expected to play a central role in the questioning of witnesses and presentation of evidence. He has hinted that the hearing could reveal more information about members of Congress who sought pardons after Jan. 6.The story of how Mr. Trump attempted to intervene in the workings of the Justice Department to keep himself in office has been well documented by both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Jan. 6 committee, but aides to the House inquiry said Thursday’s hearing will contain new revelations.Time and again, department officials told Mr. Trump after the election that his claims of widespread fraud were false, and prompted him to back down from some of his most extreme propositions.One dramatic moment came in an Oval Office meeting on Jan. 3, 2021, when Jeffrey Clark, a little-known department lawyer who had been strategizing about how to keep Mr. Trump in power, suggested that the agency issue a legal opinion to Vice President Mike Pence advising him as to what actions he could take during the joint session of Congress set for three days later, when lawmakers were to meet for the official electoral count that would confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.“That’s an absurd idea,” Mr. Engel interjected, according to testimony he provided to the committee. “It is not the role of the Department of Justice to provide legislative officials with legal advice on the scope of their duties.”Mr. Trump then spoke up and told the Justice Department officials, who repeatedly told him his claims of widespread fraud were false, that they were not to speak to Mr. Pence.“Nobody should be talking to the vice president here,” Mr. Trump said, according to Mr. Engel.Mr. Trump would go on to repeatedly push Mr. Pence to try to overturn the election results.Also at that meeting, Mr. Trump proposed firing Mr. Rosen, who was advising him that the 2020 election was not stolen, and replacing him with Mr. Clark, who was willing to do his bidding.“Sir, I would resign immediately,” Mr. Donoghue spoke up, according to a deposition he gave. “There is no way I’m serving one minute under this guy,” he said of Mr. Clark.Mr. Trump then turned to Mr. Engel and said, “Steve, you wouldn’t resign, would you?” Mr. Engel replied: “Absolutely I would, Mr. President. You’d leave me no choice.”The Justice Department officials were also witnesses to interactions between Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel, and Mr. Trump. The committee has called for Mr. Cipollone to testify publicly, but he has so far refused.Mr. Cipollone pushed back against a plan put forward by Mr. Clark, who wanted to distribute official letters to multiple state legislatures falsely alerting them that the election may have been stolen and urging them to reconsider certified election results.“That letter that this guy wants to send — that letter is a murder-suicide pact,” Mr. Cipollone told Mr. Trump, according to Mr. Donoghue. “It’s going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter. I don’t ever want to see that letter again.”The panel is planning at least two more hearings for July, according to its chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi. Those sessions are expected to detail how a mob of violent extremists attacked Congress and how Mr. Trump did nothing to call off the violence for more than three hours. More

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      In Trump Electors Investigation, Justice Dept. Issues More Subpoenas

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      Federal prosecutors sought information from two men who had worked on behalf of the Trump campaign and a third who signed up as a Trump elector in Georgia, a state won by President Biden.The Justice Department stepped up its criminal investigation of a plan by President Donald J. Trump and his allies to create slates of so-called fake electors in a bid to keep Mr. Trump in power during the 2020 election, as federal agents delivered grand jury subpoenas on Wednesday to at least four people connected to the plan.One of those who received a subpoena, according to two people familiar with the matter, was Brad Carver, a lawyer and official of the Georgia Republican Party who claimed to be one of Mr. Trump’s electors in the state, which was won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Another subpoena recipient was Thomas Lane, an official who worked on behalf of Mr. Trump’s campaign in Arizona and New Mexico, the people said.A third person, Shawn Flynn, a Trump campaign aide in Michigan, also got a subpoena, according to the people familiar with the matter.A fourth subpoena was issued to David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, who also served as a fake elector for Mr. Trump.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers in declaring victory prematurely and relentlessly pressing claims of fraud he was told were wrong.Day Three: Mr. Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing.Day Four: The committee used its fourth hearing to show how Mr. Trump was personally involved in a scheme to put forward fake electors and highlight the pressure that state officials faced to overturn the election.Mr. Shafer’s lawyer declined to comment. None of the other three men could be reached for comment about the subpoenas.The issuance of new subpoenas was reported earlier by The Washington Post.The fake elector plan is the focus of one of two known prongs of the Justice Department’s broad grand jury investigation of Mr. Trump’s multiple and interlocking attempts to subvert the election. The other has focused on a wide cast of political organizers, White House aides and members of Congress connected in various ways to Mr. Trump’s incendiary speech near the White House that directly preceded the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.This latest round of activity in the Justice Department’s inquiry came amid the House Jan. 6 committee’s high-profile hearings into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse the outcome of the election.It also comes less than a month after an earlier round of grand jury subpoenas revealed that prosecutors were seeking information on any role that a group of pro-Trump lawyers might have played in the fake elector effort. Those lawyers included Rudolph W. Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, James Troupis and Justin Clark. Although testimony to the House committee has presented evidence of the roles of some of them in the plan, including Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Eastman and Mr. Chesebro, it is not clear what role, if any, some of the others might have played.The subpoenas, issued by a grand jury sitting in Washington, have also sought records and information about other pro-Trump figures like Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and a longtime ally of Mr. Giuliani.Many of the lawyers named in the subpoenas were also mentioned on Tuesday at the House select committee’s public hearing exploring Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging pressure campaign to persuade state officials to help him stay in office.At the hearing, the committee for the first time directly connected Mr. Trump to the plan, introducing a recorded deposition from Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, in which she recounted how Mr. Trump called her and put Mr. Eastman on the phone “to talk about the importance of the R.N.C. helping the campaign gather these contingent electors.”The first subpoenas in the fake elector inquiry were largely sent to people in key swing states who almost took part in the plan but eventually did not for various reasons. This new round of subpoenas appears to be the first time that Trump campaign officials were brought into the investigation, marking a small but potentially significant step closer to Mr. Trump himself.The plan to create pro-Trump electors in states won by Mr. Biden was among the earliest and most expansive of several plots by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election. It involved lawyers, state officials, White House and campaign aides, and members of Congress.The plan was developed as Mr. Trump and his allies sought to promote baseless assertions of widespread election fraud in key swing states and persuade state officials to reverse their certification of Mr. Biden’s victory. It aimed to have the pro-Trump slates in place by the time Vice President Mike Pence oversaw the official certification of electoral votes during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Trump and others close to him mounted a relentless effort in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 to persuade Mr. Pence either to count the pro-Trump electors and hand Mr. Trump a victory in the Electoral College or to declare that the election was uncertain because competing slates of electors had been received in several states.The idea was to buy Mr. Trump more time to pursue his baseless claims of fraud or potentially to send the election to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation would get a single vote. Because more delegations were controlled by Republicans than by Democrats, Mr. Trump could have won.Adam Goldman More

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      A Year Later, Some Republicans Second-Guess Boycotting the Jan. 6 Panel

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      The decision by Representative Kevin McCarthy not to appoint Republicans to the committee has given Democrats the chance to set out an uninterrupted narrative.WASHINGTON — The four hearings held in the past few weeks by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, with their clear, uninterrupted narratives about President Donald J. Trump’s effort to undercut the peaceful transfer of power, have left some pro-Trump Republicans wringing their hands with regret about a decision made nearly a year ago.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, chose last summer to withdraw all of his nominees to the committee — amid a dispute with Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her rejection of his first two choices — a turning point that left the nine-member investigative committee without a single ally of Mr. Trump.Mostly in private, Republicans loyal to Mr. Trump have complained for months that they have no insight into the inner workings of the committee as it has issued dozens of subpoenas and conducted interviews behind closed doors with hundreds of witnesses.But the public display this month of what the panel has learned — including damning evidence against Mr. Trump and his allies — left some Republicans wishing more vocally that Mr. Trump had strong defenders on the panel to try to counter the evidence its investigators dig up.“Would it have made for a totally different debate? Absolutely,” said Representative Brian Mast, Republican of Florida. “I would have defended the hell out of him.”Among those second-guessing Mr. McCarthy’s choice has been Mr. Trump.“Unfortunately, a bad decision was made,” Mr. Trump told the conservative radio host Wayne Allyn Root this week. He added: “It was a bad decision not to have representation on that committee. That was a very, very foolish decision.”The committee employed more than a dozen former federal prosecutors to investigate the actions of Mr. Trump and his allies in the buildup to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.With former television producers on staff, the committee has built a narrative told in chapters about the former president’s attempts to cling to power.As it has done so, the committee has not had to contend with speechifying from the dais about Mr. Trump’s conservative policy achievements. There has been no cross-examination of the panel’s witnesses. No derailing of the hearings with criticism of President Biden. No steering the investigation away from the former president. Ultimately, there has been no defense of Mr. Trump at all.The committee presented considerable evidence this month of Mr. Trump’s role, laying out how the former president pressured Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to unilaterally overturn his election defeat even after he was told it was illegal.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee showed how Mr. Trump ignored aides and advisers in declaring victory prematurely and relentlessly pressing claims of fraud he was told were wrong.Day Three: Mr. Trump pressured Vice President Mike Pence to go along with a plan to overturn his loss even after he was told it was illegal, according to testimony laid out by the panel during the third hearing.Day Four: The committee used its fourth hearing to show how Mr. Trump was personally involved in a scheme to put forward fake electors and highlight the pressure that state officials faced to overturn the election.On Tuesday, the panel directly tied Mr. Trump to a scheme to put forward fake slates of pro-Trump electors and presented fresh details of how the former president sought to bully, cajole and bluff his way into invalidating his 2020 defeat in states around the country.The committee has also used prominent Republicans as witnesses to make its case, leaving Mr. Trump’s allies with an impossible task: How are they to defend him — even from the outside — when the evidence against him comes from Republican lawyers, a widely respected conservative judge, his campaign advisers and even his own daughter?The effectiveness of the hearings in putting Mr. Trump at the heart of the effort to overturn the election results has drawn the attention of, among others, Mr. Trump. He has made plain this week that he wants more Republicans defending him, and is displeased as the hearings play out on national television without pro-Trump voices.The only Republicans on the committee are two who have lined up squarely against Mr. Trump: Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. They were appointed by Ms. Pelosi, not Mr. McCarthy.Mr. McCarthy figured in July that it was better politically to bash the committee from the sidelines rather than appoint members of his party acceptable to Ms. Pelosi. He has said he had to take a stand after she rejected two of his top picks for the panel: Representatives Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio.Ms. Pelosi said she could not allow the pair to take part, based on their actions around the riot and comments they had made undercutting the investigation. (Mr. Jordan has subsequently been issued a subpoena by the committee because of his close dealings with Mr. Trump.) The speaker’s decision led directly to Mr. McCarthy’s announcement that Republicans would boycott the panel.“When Pelosi wrongfully didn’t allow them, we should’ve picked other people,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News. “We have a lot of good people in the Republican Party.”Mr. Trump has grumbled openly about the makeup of the panel, according to a person familiar with his remarks. Some members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus have also privately complained about the lack of pro-Trump Republicans on the panel, the person said.Those close to Mr. McCarthy argue that the Democrats who control the committee would most likely not have allowed his nominees much power or influence over the panel’s work.The hearings will pick up again on Thursday with a session devoted to Mr. Trump’s effort to install a loyalist at the top of the Justice Department to carry out his demands for more investigations into baseless claims of election fraud.The panel is planning at least two more hearings for July, according to its chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi. Those hearings are expected to detail how a mob of violent extremists attacked the Capitol and how Mr. Trump did nothing to call off the violence for more than three hours.Asked on Tuesday about the former president’s comments about the Jan. 6 committee, Mr. McCarthy instead talked about inflation and gas prices.“They focused on an issue the public is not focused on,” he said of the committee. Mr. McCarthy added that he spoke with Mr. Trump this week.One of the Republicans whose nomination Mr. McCarthy withdrew from the committee, Representative Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, was a defense lawyer before being elected to Congress.Ms. Pelosi had approved of Mr. Armstrong serving on the panel, along with Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois and Representative Troy Nehls of Texas.Mr. Armstrong said he had watched the hearings as the committee laid out evidence in a “choreographed, well-scripted way.”Had he been allowed to serve on the committee, he would have tried to steer the investigation and its questions at public hearings into security failures at the Capitol, he said, echoing a line of criticism that many Republicans have tried to direct at Ms. Pelosi.“It would be a lot less scripted. We’d ask questions,” Mr. Armstrong said. “There are real questions to be answered. My heart goes out to the law enforcement officials. They needed more people down there.”Still, he said, he stands by the decision made by Mr. McCarthy, who is considered the leading candidate to become speaker if Republicans win control of the House in the midterm elections in November.“I was in the room when we made that decision, and I still think it was the right decision,” he said, arguing that House Republicans had to take a stand after Ms. Pelosi removed Mr. Jordan and Mr. Banks. “I think it was the only option.”Mr. Trump’s comments have sparked much discussion among House Republicans over whether it was the right decision.“Everybody’s got a different opinion on that,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma. “Personally, I think the leader made the right call. The minute the speaker decides who the Republican members are, it turned against the legitimacy of it.”Representative Daniel Crenshaw, Republican of Texas, said he would have preferred to see an exchange of opposing views on the panel. “Let the public see how that debate goes,” he said. “That would have been better, of course.”But Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican who voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the attack on the Capitol and is retiring from Congress, said he saw nothing but hypocrisy and foolishness in Mr. Trump’s complaints. He noted that Mr. Trump made the strategic error of opposing a bipartisan commission, with no current lawmakers involved, to investigate the attack on the Capitol.That commission would have had to finish its work last year. Instead, Mr. Trump’s miscalculation led to the creation of the House Jan. 6 committee, which is continuing to investigate him, Mr. Upton said.“Trump opposed the bipartisan commission,” Mr. Upton said. “Once again, he’s rewriting history.”Stephanie Lai More

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      Your Summer Politics Quiz

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(min-width:480px){.lede-question-adventure .multiple-choice-question .response p,.lede-question-adventure .multiple-select-question .response p{font-size:17px;line-height:1.625rem}}.lede-question-adventure .multiple-choice-question .text-block.lede-question p,.lede-question-adventure .multiple-select-question .text-block.lede-question p{text-align:center;font-size:20px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto}@media only screen and (min-width:480px){.lede-question-adventure .multiple-choice-question .text-block.lede-question p,.lede-question-adventure .multiple-select-question .text-block.lede-question p{font-size:27px}}.quiz figcaption:first-of-type,.quiz figure:first-of-type img{max-width:600px;margin:0 auto} Thomas Barwick/Getty ImagesHey, people, it’s officially summer! Many Americans find it soothing to take a vacation from politics this time of year, but I know you just can’t let it go.
      Here’s a solstice quiz. Pick the best answer for each question:
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      ‘Patriotic and Honest Republicans’ Telling the Truth

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      More from our inbox:But Your 2020 Election Was Not Fraudulent?The Supreme Court’s Ruling on Religion and SchoolsDon’t Erase Tolstoy’s NameBook Browsing, in a BookstoreThe Jan. 6 committee heard from a group of witnesses who were pressured by former President Donald J. Trump to overturn the election.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Pressured States to Comply on Fake Electors” (front page, June 22):There is a silver lining that I did not expect in the Jan. 6 hearings. I am a lifelong Democrat. The Republicans in the news over the last several years have been frightening in their cruel and vicious remarks and extreme agendas on race relations, gay marriage and abortion and, most important, in their devotion to the ex-president.But the hearings have brought some very reasonable, patriotic and honest Republicans to the front. There are people who voted for Donald Trump and supported his platform, but when faced with his drive to overturn a fair election, they are coming through. They are telling the truth about the lies and corruption and putting their careers and maybe their lives on the line.It gives me hope that there is a way out of the nightmare of the last administration’s corruption and a way forward with sane debate and compromise.Joan BancroftDenverTo the Editor:Of all the crimes Donald Trump may have committed, or inspired his deluded faithful to commit, the malicious attack on two election workers, Wandrea Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, is the single most shameless act of deceit and cowardice of his entire pathetic career.Two humble women worked selflessly during a pandemic to uphold our democracy. Donald Trump misused the power of the presidency to maliciously destroy the good reputation of these women in his quest to undermine our democracy.If no other details or testimony from these hearings are remembered, future generations will ask how someone who had no sense of decency could actually be president of the United States.Asher FriedCroton-on-Hudson, N.Y.To the Editor:As the victims of threats and verbal assaults, Wandrea Moss, her mother and other members of the family should be as eligible to receive 24/7 security and peace of mind as Brett Kavanaugh and other Supreme Court justices and their families. We owe them their lives back.Lois BerkowitzOro Valley, Ariz.But Your 2020 Election Was Not Fraudulent?A resolution adopting the false claim that former President Donald J. Trump was the victim of a stolen election in 2020 was passed by Republican state-party delegates in Texas.Leah Millis/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Texas G.O.P. Adopts Stolen Election Claims” (news article, June 20):Many Republicans who reject President Biden’s 2020 victory are occupying seats in statehouses or in Congress to which they themselves were elected in that very same “illegitimate” election. If that election was so fraudulent, how could these same Republican election deniers (so conveniently) accept their own 2020 elections?David E. CohenNorth Haledon, N.J.The Supreme Court’s Ruling on Religion and Schools Pete Marovich for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Justices Deliver Win to Schools Based in Faith” (front page, June 22):Whatever you may think of government offers to pay the tuition for the private education of children, the paying of that tuition to religious institutions is clearly a violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition against the government establishment of religion, despite the current Supreme Court’s majority holding to the contrary.There is no more clear government support of religious institutions than sending public money their way, exactly the kind of government action that the First Amendment prohibits. It is not the court’s duty to support religion, only to guarantee that government stays out of the business of religion and does not prohibit its free exercise.What we have instead is a court bent on strengthening religion in this country. Never mind that the Constitution provides otherwise.Bruce NeumanWater Mill, N.Y.To the Editor:Once a state provides funding for private schools, it cannot then refuse to fund religious schools. People who believe that this exclusion is justified based on the “separation of church and state” are getting it wrong.Andrea EconomosHartsdale, N.Y.Don’t Erase Tolstoy’s NameTo the Editor:Re “So Long, Tolstoy Station? Cities ‘Decolonize’ by Erasing Russian Names” (news article, June 8):Having visited Ukraine, including Kyiv, in more peaceful times, I can certainly understand that eliminating the names of prominent Russians from public places in an effort to “decolonize” this wonderful nation is very much in order. However, the name of the author Leo Tolstoy, a true person of peace and good will, should remain.Tolstoy was one of the greatest, most positive influences on both Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Among many other actions, Gandhi named a farm he established, as a refuge for passive resisters and their indigent families, the Tolstoy Farm.James K. RileyPearl River, N.Y.Book Browsing, in a BookstoreApps have struggled to reproduce the kind of real-world serendipity that puts a book in a reader’s hand.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:The headline on your June 9 article about browsing in bookstores read, “Can Any App Capture This Experience?” The answer is obvious — of course not.Book browsing is a physical experience, involving visual, tactile and sometimes even olfactory sensations. In a physical bookshop, people are moved to pull a book off a shelf and take a closer look for many reasons, some obvious, some subtle and some downright mysterious.Every book browser has experienced those magical instances in which they have found books they weren’t looking for or even knew existed, but which to some degree affected their life.The possibility of making another such serendipitous discovery is why people love to browse in bookstores. It can’t be engineered or made subject to an algorithm.M.C. LangChevy Chase, Md. More

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      Un juicio penal contra Donald Trump tendría desafíos para el Departamento de Justicia

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      Durante las audiencias del comité que investiga el asalto al Capitolio han surgido pruebas y testimonios que aumentan la presión para iniciar un proceso judicial contra el expresidente. Pero especialistas legales consideran que sería un caso difícil.Cuando durante la semana pasada surgieron nuevos cuestionamientos sobre un posible juicio penal contra el expresidente Donald Trump por tratar de anular las elecciones de 2020, este emitió un confuso comunicado de 12 páginas.Dicho comunicado contenía la habitual combinación de sus aseveraciones estrafalarias, exageraciones y rotundas mentiras, pero también algo que los aliados de Trump y los expertos jurídicos señalaron como llamativo y diferente: el inicio de una defensa jurídica.Casi en todas las páginas, Trump daba explicaciones de por qué estaba convencido de que le habían hecho trampa en las elecciones de 2020 y por qué tenía todo el derecho de cuestionar los resultados a través de cualquier medio disponible.Trump escribió que lo que ocurrió en el Capitolio el 6 de enero de 2021 fue resultado de un intento de los estadounidenses “de responsabilizar a las autoridades electorales por las claras señales de actividades delictivas a lo largo del proceso electoral”.Esta aseveración, aunque infundada, tenía especial significado debido al creciente interés acerca de si enfrentaría acciones penales. Si el Departamento de Justicia entablara un juicio en su contra, los fiscales tendrían que demostrar que él sabía —o debía haber sabido— que su postura se basaba en afirmaciones falsas sobre un fraude electoral generalizado o que su intento de impedir la certificación de los resultados por parte del Congreso era ilegal.Como una posible defensa, la táctica presente en el comunicado de Trump está lejos de ser una garantía para que no lo procesen y tiene problemas de credibilidad evidentes. Trump cuenta con un largo historial de que es capaz de decir lo que sea con tal de lograr sus objetivos, sin importar si es verdad o no. Y algunas de las medidas que tomó después de las elecciones de 2020, como presionar a las autoridades de Georgia para que encontraran los votos suficientes como para cambiar el resultado en ese estado a su favor, habla de un intento decidido de mantenerse en el poder y no de abordar algunos puntos débiles más generales percibidos en el sistema electoral.Pero su continua sarta de mentiras pone de manifiesto algunas de las dificultades para entablar cualquier proceso penal en su contra, a pesar de lo bien establecidos que están en este momento los hechos primordiales.Además, el comunicado también señala las medidas que Trump está tomando tras bambalinas para formar un nuevo equipo de abogados a fin de que hagan frente a una serie de investigaciones, como, por ejemplo, su campaña de presión con la que intentaba cambiar los resultados de las elecciones en Georgia y el hecho de que extrajera documentos clasificados cuando dejó el cargo.Según dos personas enteradas de este asunto, en la elaboración del borrador del documento participó Evan Corcoran, un abogado defensor para delitos de cuello blanco y exfiscal federal designado por Trump. Corcoran también ha representado a Steve Bannon, un aliado de Trump que el Departamento de Justica ha acusado de rehusarse a cooperar con el comité de la Cámara Baja que investiga los hechos del 6 de enero.Ni Corcoran ni la portavoz de Trump respondieron a la solicitud de ofrecer comentarios.El comunicado llegó en una semana en la que las audiencias del comité de la Cámara de Representantes dejaron clara la posibilidad de someter a Trump a procesos penales y civiles al enfatizar el testimonio de sus asesores y colaboradores que documentaron lo que le habían dicho, y cuándo, acerca de la validez de las acusaciones de fraude electoral y la legitimidad de su estrategia para mantenerse en el poder.En su tercera audiencia del jueves de la semana pasada, el comité argumentó que Trump había seguido adelante con el plan de hacer que el vicepresidente Mike Pence revocara de manera unilateral las elecciones de 2020 a pesar de que le habían dicho a Trump que no se contaba con bases legales para hacerlo.El Departamento de Justicia está investigando una serie de elementos relacionados con el asalto al Capitolio y con el intento más general de Trump y sus aliados para conservar la Casa Blanca pese al triunfo de Joe Biden. El fiscal general Merrick Garland no ha dado indicios de que el departamento esté armando un caso contra Trump, quien desde hace mucho tiempo ha sostenido que las investigaciones sobre el ataque del 6 de enero son partidistas e infundadas y cuya versión de los hechos no ha sido presentada en las audiencias del comité de la Cámara Baja.Pero las investigaciones del panel ya han arrojado pruebas que podrían aumentar la presión a Garland para que avance con mayor firmeza, plan de acción que conllevaría tremendas implicaciones legales y políticas. Después del acicate del Departamento de Justicia, en estos últimos días, el comité de la Cámara Baja dio señales de que ya el mes entrante comenzaría a compartir con los fiscales federales algunas transcripciones de sus entrevistas con los testigos.Greg Jacob, a la izquierda, quien fue abogado jefe del vicepresidente Mike Pence y J. Michael Luttig, un exjuez conservador, prestan su declaración en una audiencia del comité selecto de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el asalto al Capitolio del 6 de enero.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesEn una demanda civil relacionada con el trabajo del comité, un juez federal concluyó en marzo que lo más probable era que Trump y un abogado que lo había asesorado, John Eastman, hubieran cometido un delito en su intento de anular las elecciones. “La ilegitimidad del plan era evidente”, concluyó en ese caso el juez David O. Carter del Tribunal de Distrito de Estados Unidos para el Distrito Central de California.Carter hizo referencia a dos delitos que, según él, era probable que estos hombres hubieran cometido: conspiración para cometer fraude contra Estados Unidos y obstruir los procedimientos del Congreso. Los miembros del comité de la Cámara Baja han hecho insinuaciones parecidas y algunos abogados han sostenido que hay probabilidades de que también acusen de sedición a Trump.No obstante, llevar a juicio con éxito las posibles acusaciones sugeridas por Carter y otras personas podría depender de establecer cuáles eran las intenciones de Trump, un asunto que, al parecer, abordó su comunicado de la semana pasada con el argumento de que él creía que su impugnación de los resultados se basaba en dudas legítimas sobre la realización de las elecciones.Daniel L. Zelenko, un abogado defensor para delitos de cuello blanco y exfiscal federal, señaló que en todos los posibles delitos que se estaban analizando relacionados con el comportamiento de Trump, el Departamento de Justicia tendría que demostrar que el expresidente tenía la intención de cometer un delito. Zelenko comentó que, aunque los nuevos detalles revelados por el comité ayudarían a los fiscales a probar sus intenciones, el gobierno seguía teniendo que afrontar una serie de otras dificultades para entablar cualquier juicio.“Lo fundamental es tener pruebas actuales de que él dijera que sabía que las elecciones no habían sido fraudulentas, pero que de todas maneras estaba tratando de mantenerse en el poder”, explicó Zelenko, copresidente del ejercicio de la defensa de delitos de cuello blanco en Crowell & Moring. “El problema con Trump es que tenemos que intentar meternos en su cabeza, y su historial de mentiras y embustes es tal, que resulta difícil determinar qué es lo que en realidad cree”.Aparte de las pruebas que el comité ya ha revelado, el panel ha recibido otros testimonios que socavan la afirmación de Trump de que pensaba que realmente había ganado las elecciones. Según dos personas informadas del asunto, Alyssa Farah Griffin, la directora de Comunicaciones de la Casa Blanca en los días posteriores a las elecciones, declaró recientemente al comité que Trump le dijo en noviembre de 2020 palabras del estilo de: ¿puedes creer que perdí contra Biden?En su audiencia del jueves de la semana pasada, el comité de la Cámara de Representantes armó un caso en el que Trump se lanzó de cabeza a un plan para que Pence anulara unilateralmente la elección a pesar de que se le había dicho a Trump que no tenía ninguna base legal.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn una entrevista por televisión el otoño pasado, Griffin, que no respondió a una solicitud de comentarios, reconoció uno de los factores que complican establecer lo que Trump puede haber creído. Dijo que Trump podría haber cambiado de opinión después de las elecciones.“Me dijo poco después que sabía que había perdido, pero entonces, ya sabes, la gente que lo rodea…”, dijo Griffin en la CNN, refiriéndose a los asesores externos que impulsaron falsas afirmaciones de fraude electoral. “Consiguieron información delante de él, y pienso que su opinión realmente podría haber cambiado sobre eso, y eso da miedo, porque sí perdió, y los hechos están al alcance de todos”.Samuel W. Buell, profesor de Derecho en la Universidad Duke y exfiscal federal, mencionó que cualquier acción penal contra Trump tendría que comenzar por establecer que él sabía que lo que estaba haciendo no era correcto.“Hay que demostrar que sabía que lo que estaba haciendo no era correcto y que no tenía sustento legal para hacerlo”, comentó. “No digo que tenga que pensar: ‘Lo que estoy haciendo es un delito’. Se trata de probar que pensaba: ‘Sé que no tengo ningún argumento jurídico, sé que he perdido las elecciones, pero seguiré adelante con una afirmación que sé que es falsa y un plan que no tiene sustento legal’”.Las audiencias del comité de la Cámara Baja no son un juicio. El panel tiene la libertad de ser selectivo con respecto al testimonio que usa para plantear una acusación contra Trump y el expresidente no tiene aliados en el comité que puedan cuestionar a los testigos ni proporcionarle información que le sea de utilidad.Sin embargo, las audiencias han hecho hincapié en una serie de testigos que dijeron que antes del 6 de enero le habían dicho de manera directa y constante a Trump que sus aseveraciones de que un fraude electoral le hubiese costado la reelección no estaban fundamentadas.Además, el comité presentó un testimonio corto, pero posiblemente muy crucial del abogado jefe de Pence, Greg Jacob. En una declaración, Jacob le dijo al panel que, el 4 de enero de 2021, Eastman —quien estaba urdiendo un plan para que Pence impidiera o retrasara la certificación del conteo del Colegio Electoral— le dijo a Trump que este plan transgrediría la ley de conteo electoral, la cual es la ley federal que rige el proceso.En las investigaciones que se centran casi exclusivamente en la acción física, como las agresiones, los asaltos y los asesinatos, los fiscales no necesitan centrarse en probar la intención, ya que el vínculo entre la acción y el daño suele ser claro.La cuestión de la intención, sin embargo, puede ser confusa cuando el delito investigado implica una acción en la que el estado mental del acusado puede ser difícil de establecer. Los delitos que, según los expertos jurídicos, puede haber cometido Trump —obstrucción al Congreso, defraudación al pueblo estadounidense y conspiración sediciosa— caen en esa categoría.En esos casos, el gobierno se enfrenta a una serie de obstáculos que debe superar para demostrar la intención. La forma más limpia es encontrar pruebas de que el acusado sabía que estaba haciendo algo malo.En el caso de Trump, dijeron los abogados, eso podría tomar la forma de pruebas directas de que él sabía que sus afirmaciones de fraude electoral generalizado eran infundadas o que sabía que la estrategia que estaba llevando a cabo era ilegal.Si el Departamento de Justicia no pudiera establecer ninguna prueba directa de lo que Trump sabía, los fiscales tendrían que recurrir a pruebas circunstanciales. Para hacerlo, por lo general dependerían de lo que los expertos y las personas con autoridad de su alrededor le estuvieran diciendo acerca de si las elecciones en realidad habían sido fraudulentas o si sería legal el tipo de estrategias para impugnar el resultado.Los abogados explicaron que las recomendaciones de un experto casi siempre son suficientes para demostrarle al jurado lo que sabía el acusado. Pero, según ellos, esto se podría dificultar en el caso de Trump porque se sabe que, desde hace mucho tiempo, no escucha ni a los expertos ni a sus propios asesores.Debido a las dificultades de demostrar lo que Trump sabía en realidad, hay otra manera en que los fiscales podrían demostrar que no tenía buenas intenciones: probar lo que a menudo se denomina “ignorancia deliberada”.Según ese principio, el gobierno tendría que demostrar que Trump creía que existía una alta probabilidad de que los expertos y sus asesores le estuvieran diciendo la verdad cuando dijeron que las elecciones no habían sido fraudulentas, pero que él tomó medidas deliberadas para no saber por qué ellos creían eso.Zelenko comentó que entendía por qué muchos estadounidenses que observaron las audiencias estarían convencidos de que había buenas posibilidades de entablar un juicio en contra del expresidente. Pero advirtió que los criterios para usar pruebas contra un acusado son más exigentes en el tribunal, donde casi siempre los jueces insisten en que los fiscales se basen en testimonios de primera mano, se puede contrainterrogar a los testigos y los fiscales tienen que probar sus argumentos más allá de una duda razonable.Michael S. Schmidt es corresponsal en Washington y cubre investigaciones federales y de seguridad nacional. Formó parte de dos equipos que ganaron el Pulitzer en 2018: uno por informar sobre acoso sexual en el trabajo y el otro por la cobertura del presidente Trump y los vínculos de su campaña con Rusia. @NYTMikeMaggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y formó parte de un equipo que ganó un Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores de Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. @maggieNYT More

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      Las democracias no siempre se comportan de manera democrática

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      Cuando los líderes políticos se enfrentan a una crisis constitucional, como la del 6 de enero en EE. UU., el proceso de decidir colectivamente cómo responder puede ser desordenado, arbitrario y, a veces, cambiar la naturaleza del propio sistema.Cuando buscamos casos similares en el mundo al momento del año pasado en el que el entonces vicepresidente Mike Pence se negó a ceder ante la presión del presidente Donald Trump para ayudarlo a revertir su derrota electoral, algo queda claro casi de inmediato.Este tipo de crisis, en las que el destino de la democracia queda en manos de un puñado de funcionarios, rara vez se resuelven únicamente sobre la base de principios legales o constitucionales, aunque luego sean citados como justificación.En su lugar, por lo general la resolución está determinada por las élites políticas que logran formar rápidamente una masa crítica a favor de un resultado. Y esos funcionarios pueden seguir cualquier motivación —principios, antipatía partidista, interés propio— que los movilice.En conjunto, la historia de las crisis constitucionales modernas destaca algunas duras verdades sobre la democracia. Las normas supuestamente fundamentales, como elecciones libres o el Estado de derecho, aunque se presenten como si estuvieran cimentadas de manera irreversible en las bases de la nación, en realidad solo son tan sólidas como el compromiso de quienes estén en el poder. Y si bien una crisis puede ser una oportunidad para que los líderes refuercen las normas democráticas, también puede ser una oportunidad para revisarlas o revocarlas por completo.Por ejemplo, en medio de las elecciones de Yugoslavia de 2000, la oposición declaró que había obtenido suficientes votos para destronar al presidente Slobodan Milosevic, cuyo gobierno aseguró falsamente que la oposición se había quedado corta.Ambas partes apelaron a los principios constitucionales, los procedimientos legales y, con furiosas protestas, a la voluntad del pueblo. Al final, una masa crítica de funcionarios del gobierno y de la policía, incluidos algunos en puestos necesarios para certificar el resultado, señalaron que, por razones que variaban de persona a persona, tratarían a Milosevic como el perdedor de las elecciones. Posteriormente, el nuevo gobierno lo extraditó para enfrentar cargos por crímenes de guerra en La Haya, en los Países Bajos.Slobodan Milosevic, expresidente de Yugoslavia, aplaudiendo durante una ceremonia en la academia militar de Belgrado, en 2000. Milosevic fue declarado perdedor de unas disputadas elecciones y posteriormente extraditado para ser acusado de crímenes de guerra en La Haya.Agence France-PresseLos estadounidenses parecieran tener más cosas en común con Perú. Allí, en 1992, el entonces presidente Alberto Fujimori disolvió el Congreso controlado por la oposición, que estaba haciendo gestiones para destituirlo. Los legisladores de todo el espectro votaron rápidamente para remplazar a Fujimori con su propio vicepresidente, quien se había opuesto al abuso de poder presidencial.Ambos bandos aseveraron estar defendiendo la democracia de la amenaza que representaba el otro. Ambos apelaron a las fuerzas militares de Perú, que tradicionalmente había desempeñado un rol de árbitro final, de forma casi similar al de una corte suprema. El pueblo, profundamente polarizado, se dividió. Los militares también se dividieron en dos bandos.En el momento más crítico, una cantidad suficiente de élites políticas y militares indicó su apoyo a Fujimori y logró que prevaleciera. Se juntaron de manera informal, cada uno reaccionando a los eventos de manera individual. Muchos apelaron a diferentes fines, como la agenda económica de Fujimori, la sensación de estabilidad o la posibilidad de que su partido prevaleciera bajo el nuevo orden.Perú cayó en un cuasi-autoritarismo, con derechos políticos restringidos y elecciones celebradas, pero bajo términos que favorecían a Fujimori, hasta que fue destituido de su cargo en 2000 por acusaciones de corrupción. El año pasado, su hija se postuló para la presidencia como una populista de derecha y perdió por menos de 50.000 votos.La América Latina moderna ha enfrentado repetidamente este tipo de crisis. Esto, según muchos académicos, no se debe tanto a rasgos culturales compartidos, sino más a una historia de intromisión de Guerra Fría que debilitó las normas democráticas. También surge de sistemas presidenciales de estilo estadounidense y de la profunda polarización social que allana el camino para el combate político extremo.Las democracias presidenciales, al dividir el poder entre ramas en competencia, crean más oportunidades para que cargos rivales se enfrenten, incluso hasta el punto de usurparse unos a otros los poderes. Dichos sistemas también enturbian las preguntas sobre quién está al mando, lo que obliga a sus ramas o poderes a resolver disputas de manera informal, sobre la marcha y, en ocasiones, por la fuerza.Venezuela, que solía ser la democracia más antigua de la región, sufrió una serie de crisis constitucionales cuando el entonces presidente Hugo Chávez se enfrentó con jueces y otros órganos gubernamentales que bloquearon su agenda. Cada vez, Chávez —y luego su sucesor, Nicolás Maduro— apeló a los principios legales y democráticos para justificar el debilitamiento de esas instituciones hasta que, con el tiempo, las acciones de los líderes, en apariencia para salvar la democracia, prácticamente las destriparon.Hugo Chávez, expresidente de Venezuela, llegando a la Asamblea Nacional para su discurso anual sobre el estado de la nación en Caracas, en 2012. Él y su sucesor apelaron a los principios legales y democráticos para justificar su debilitamiento de las instituciones democráticas.Ariana Cubillos/Associated PressLas presidencias no son comunes en las democracias occidentales. Una de las pocas, en Francia, experimentó su propia crisis constitucional en 1958, año en el que se evitó un intento de golpe militar cuando el líder Charles de Gaulle se otorgó poderes de emergencia para establecer un gobierno de unidad que satisficiera a los líderes civiles y militares.Si bien otros tipos de sistemas pueden caer en grandes crisis, a menudo se debe a que, al igual que en una democracia presidencial, los centros de poder en rivalidad chocan hasta el punto de intentar invadir al otro.Aun así, algunos académicos argumentan que los estadounidenses que esperan comprender la trayectoria de su país no deberían mirar a Europa, sino a América Latina.Ecuador estuvo cerca del precipicio en 2018 debido al esfuerzo del entonces presidente Rafael Correa de extender sus propios límites de mandato. Pero cuando los votantes y la élite política se opusieron, Correa dejó el cargo de manera voluntaria.En 2019, Bolivia se sumió en el caos en medio de una elección disputada. Aunque la opinión pública estuvo dividida, las élites políticas y militares señalaron que creían que el líder de izquierda en funciones en aquel momento, Evo Morales, debía dejar el cargo y prácticamente lo obligaron a hacerlo.Sin embargo, cuando el remplazo de derecha de Morales no pudo evitar meses de inestabilidad y turbulencia y luego se dispuso a posponer las elecciones, muchas de esas mismas élites presionaron para que estas se realizaran rápidamente, lo que benefició al sucesor elegido por Morales.Evo Morales, expresidente de Bolivia, hablando con la prensa el día de las elecciones en La Paz, en octubre de 2019. El país se sumió en el caos tras las elecciones, que fueron objeto de controversia.Martin Alipaz/EPA vía ShutterstockLa frase “élites políticas” puede evocar imágenes de poderosos que fuman puros y se reúnen en secreto para mover los hilos de la sociedad. En realidad, los académicos usan el término para describir a legisladores, jueces, burócratas, autoridades policiales y militares, funcionarios locales, líderes empresariales y figuras culturales, la mayoría de los cuales nunca coordinarían directamente, muchos menos acordarían qué es lo mejor para el país.Aun así, son esas élites las que, en colectivo, preservan la democracia día a día. Del mismo modo en que el papel moneda solo tiene valor porque todos lo tratamos como valioso, las elecciones y las leyes solo tienen poder porque las élites se despiertan cada mañana y las consideran primordiales. Es una especie de pacto, en el que los poderosos se vinculan voluntariamente a un sistema que también los restringe.“Una democracia organizada y en buen funcionamiento no nos exige pensar activamente en qué la sostiene”, me dijo Tom Pepinsky, politólogo de la Universidad Cornell, poco después de los disturbios en el Capitolio, el 6 de enero de 2021. “Es un equilibrio; todos están motivados a participar como si continuara”.Pero en una enorme crisis constitucional, cuando las normas y reglas destinadas a guiar la democracia se ponen en duda o se dejan de lado por completo, esas élites, súbitamente, se enfrentan a la pregunta de cómo —o si se debe— mantener su pacto democrático.No siempre estarán de acuerdo sobre cuál es el mejor camino para la democracia, para el país o para ellos mismos. En ocasiones, el impacto de ver la vulnerabilidad de la democracia los llevará a redoblar su compromiso con ella. En otras, a deshacerse de ese sistema en parte o en su totalidad.El resultado, a menudo, es una lucha de élites que se presionan entre sí directamente, como lo hicieron muchos republicanos de alto rango y asesores de la Casa Blanca durante el 6 de enero, o mediante declaraciones públicas dirigidas a los miles de funcionarios que operan la maquinaria del gobierno.Los académicos denominan esto como un “juego de coordinación”, en el que todos esos actores intentan comprender o influir en la manera en que otros responderán, hasta que surja un consenso mínimamente viable. Puede no parecerse tanto a una trama bien definida, sino más bien a una manada de animales asustados, por lo que el resultado puede ser difícil de predecir.Antes del 6 de enero, no había muchas razones para cuestionar el compromiso de los legisladores con la democracia. “No se había cuestionado si apoyaban o no la democracia en un sentido interno real; eso nunca había estado en juego”, afirmó Pepinsky.Ahora, una crisis los había obligado a decidir si anular las elecciones, y eso demostró que no todos esos legisladores, de tener esa opción, votarían para defender la democracia. “Me ha sorprendido demasiado cuánto de esto en realidad depende de 535 personas”, confesó Pepinsky, refiriéndose a la cantidad de legisladores en el Congreso.Max Fisher es reportero y columnista de temas internacionales con sede en Nueva York. Ha reportado sobre conflictos, diplomacia y cambio social desde cinco continentes. Es autor de The Interpreter, una columna que explora las ideas y el contexto detrás de los principales eventos mundiales de actualidad. @Max_Fisher • Facebook More