Trump, Donald J

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      Democrats and the Case of Mistaken Identity Politics

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      Some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke.Donald Trump won a majority of white women and remarkable numbers of Black and Latino voters and young men.Democratic insiders thought people would vote for Kamala Harris, even if they didn’t like her, to get rid of Trump. But more people ended up voting for Trump, even though many didn’t like him, because they liked the Democratic Party less.I have often talked about how my dad stayed up all night on the night Harry Truman was elected because he was so excited. And my brother stayed up all night the first time Trump was elected because he was so excited. And I felt that Democrats would never recover that kind of excitement until they could figure out why they had turned off so many working-class voters over the decades, and why they had developed such disdain toward their once loyal base.Democratic candidates have often been avatars of elitism — Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and second-term Barack Obama. The party embraced a worldview of hyper-political correctness, condescension and cancellation, and it supported diversity statements for job applicants and faculty lounge terminology like “Latinx,” and “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, People of Color).This alienated half the country, or more. And the chaos and antisemitism at many college campuses certainly didn’t help.“When the woke police come at you,” Rahm Emanuel told me, “you don’t even get your Miranda rights read to you.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Elites Had It Coming

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      Everyone has a moment when they first realized that Donald Trump might well return, and here is mine. It was back in March, during a visit to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, when I happened to read the explanatory text beside an old painting. This note described the westward advance of the United States in the 19th century as “settler colonialism.” I read it and I knew instantly where this nation was going.My problem with this bit of academic jargon was not that it was wrong, per se, or that President Biden was somehow responsible for putting it there, but rather that it offered a glimpse of our poisoned class relations. Some curator at one of our most exalted institutions of public instruction had decided to use a currently fashionable, morally loaded academic keyword to address a visitor to the museum — say, a family from the Midwest, doing the round of national shrines — and teach them a lesson about American wickedness.Twenty years ago I published a book about politics in my home state of Kansas where white, working-class voters seemed to be drifting into the arms of right-wing movements. I attributed this, in large part, to the culture wars, which the right framed in terms of working-class agony. Look at how these powerful people insult our values!, went the plaint, whether they were talking about the theory of evolution or the war on Christmas.This was worth pointing out because working people were once the heart and soul of left-wing parties all over the world. It may seem like a distant memory, but not long ago, the left was not a movement of college professors, bankers or high-ranking officers at Uber or Amazon. Working people: That’s what parties of the left were very largely about. The same folks who just expressed such remarkable support for Donald Trump.My Kansas story was mainly about Republicans, but I also wrote about the way the Democrats were gradually turning away from working people and their concerns. Just think of all those ebullient Democratic proclamations in the ’90s about trade and tech and globalization and financial innovation. What a vision they had: All those manifestoes about futurific “wired workers” or the “learning class” … all those speeches about how Democrats had to leave the worker-centric populism of the 1930s behind them … all those brilliant triangulations and reaching out to the right. When I was young, it felt like every rising leader in the Democratic Party was making those points. That was the way to win voters in what they called “the center,” the well-educated suburbanites and computer-literate professionals whom everybody admired.Well, those tech-minded Democrats got exactly what they set out to get, and now here we are. At the Republican convention in July, JD Vance described the ruination visited on his working-class town in Ohio by NAFTA and trade with China, both of which he blamed at least in part on Mr. Biden, and also the human toll taken by the Iraq War, which he also contrived to blame on Mr. Biden. Today Mr. Vance is the vice president-elect, and what I hope you will understand, what I want you to mull over and take to heart and remember for the rest of your life, is that he got there by mimicking the language that Americans used to associate with labor, with liberals, with Democrats.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      This Is All Joe Biden’s Fault

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      Kamala Harris lost the election this week, but I mostly don’t blame her. At least, I don’t blame her because of anything she did recently. Since she became the unofficial nominee in July, she played a difficult hand about as well as she could have, running a disciplined campaign that sought to reassure Americans about the economic issues that trouble them most, in a political environment that was very rough for Democrats and for incumbent parties around the world.But where did that bad hand come from? It was dealt to her by two people: President Biden, who produced a governing record she could not effectively defend or run away from; and herself, with all the toxic position-taking she did in 2019, generating endless attack ad fodder for Donald Trump. And Mr. Biden even bears blame for Ms. Harris’s pre-2020 baggage, since he put her on the ticket in full awareness that she was carrying it.In his own campaign rhetoric, Mr. Biden focused on the idea that democracy itself was on the ballot this year. But if democracy was on the ballot, his actions should have matched his rhetoric at every turn to ensure Democrats would win the election. Instead, he prioritized his own ego and profile.His electoral instincts weren’t always so misguided. During the 2020 primary campaign, Mr. Biden seemed to understand that the left-wing fever dreams that drove that Democratic cycle were electorally hazardous. So, unlike Ms. Harris, he never pledged to ban fracking or abolish private health insurance. He never even filled out the A.C.L.U. questionnaire that prompted Ms. Harris to support federally funded gender-transition surgery for prisoners and detained immigrants.After winning the nomination, Mr. Biden made his first big mistake that would set Democrats on a path with no route to win the 2024 election: He selected Ms. Harris as his running mate.Perversely, Ms. Harris’s apparent weakness as a potential presidential candidate was an asset to Mr. Biden. It helped insulate him from calls to step aside. The case for him running again was simple, and I even made it myself, before June’s disastrous debate: Ms. Harris had run a terrible campaign in 2019, and at the time she regularly polled worse than he did; if Mr. Biden did not seek re-election, it was highly likely that she would end up as the nominee; therefore, he had better run again.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump and Harris Supporters on Election Night

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      The election results came a lot faster than most people expected. On Tuesday, it was just voting and waiting and anxiety and an inner sense that anything was possible, and then by Wednesday morning, one answer: Donald Trump had shifted the country toward him in a decisive win.A scene in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Nov. 6.Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesTimes Opinion sent a group of photographers — including two students — to Kamala Harris’s watch party at Howard University in Washington, and Mr. Trump’s watch party in West Palm Beach, Fla., to document reactions to the election.At Howard University, supporters of Vice President Harris celebrate as they await the election results.Damon Winter/The New York TimesWaiting for election results at a Trump watch party at the Palm Beach Convention Center.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesHarris supporters in Phoenix show their enthusiasm.Jesse Rieser for The New York TimesAt the election night parties, the photographers captured the true supporters, people experiencing the surge of promise in the results and then the diverging paths. First, in Florida, the exultation of each success as it rolls in, feelings of vindication and validation of Mr. Trump’s decisive win, and an almost disbelief at it. In Washington, there is a hopeful crowd; then, in later photos, the slow and devastating realization that their earlier excitement and vision of the future has faded.Before and after the parties, in other parts of the country, photographers also captured people not knowing what the outcome would be, or knowing it and grasping it in celebration or still recalling the remnants of their Monday excitement that had become, by Wednesday, for Harris supporters, disorienting disappointment.Harris supporters linger on the Howard University campus the day after the election.Damon Winter/The New York TimesHarris supporters at Howard University.Mia Butler for The New York TimesIn Philadelphia, the day after the election.Jonno Rattman for The New York TimesThe sheer size and diversity of the country — at least 69 million people voting for one candidate and at least 73 million voting for the other, joined together by American flags — can be hard to visualize. All of us have been living through the Trump era, which will be another four years.Trump supporters celebrated near Mar-a-Lago the day after the election.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesSupporters of Vice President Harris listening to her concession speech at Howard University.Mia Butler for The New York TimesKatherine Miller is a staff writer and editor in Opinion.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads. More

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      The Book That Predicted the 2024 Election

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      The Book That Predicted the 2024 ElectionThe G.O.P. pollster Patrick Ruffini’s book “Party of the People” outlined the realignments reflected in this year’s election results.This is an edited transcript of an episode of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the conversation by following or subscribing on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.You should be skeptical of anyone with a very detailed, confident take on the dynamics of the 2024 election right now. At the very least, you should be if they didn’t tell you before the election.But Patrick Ruffini, a longtime Republican pollster who is a founding partner at Echelon Insights, did tell you before the election. In 2023, he published a book called “Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.”What he argued in that book is really two things: First, the educational divide reshaping American politics would continue, with non-college voters swinging right and college-educated voters swinging yet further left. But second, he argued that the 2020 election results, weird as they seemed to many, weren’t a fluke.Donald Trump performed a lot better in 2020 than the polls said he would. A major reason he performed so much better is that he did better among Black, Hispanic and Asian voters. That was, to put it very mildly, not what Democrats expected. Trump was the xenophobe in chief. Democrats were appalled by the way he talked about immigrants, about Muslims, about China, about Black communities. The theory was that Trump was using racism and nationalism to drive up his margins among white voters.And then what actually happens after four years of his presidency is that Biden in 2020 does a bit better than Clinton did among white voters. And Trump in 2020 improves quite a bit among nonwhite voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Weighs Key Personnel Choices, Schooled by His First-Term Experience

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump is not known for adherence to a disciplined and rigorous personnel selection process, but behind the scenes his advisers and allies have been preparing lists of candidates for the most important jobs in his administration.Three days after he decisively won a second term, Mr. Trump held his first formal transition meetings on Friday to turn his attention to the choices he faces.He is most keenly interested, aides and advisers say, in a handful of roles: attorney general, C.I.A. director, White House counsel and secretaries of Defense, State and Homeland Security. At one point during the 2024 campaign, he demanded the resignation of the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, whom he had appointed in 2017.He has put little focus so far on who will lead other cabinet departments, though he has told aides he wants to let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “do whatever he wants” with the health agencies, and perhaps be secretary of Health and Human Services if he can be confirmed by the Senate.Mr. Trump is relying in part on the work done by Howard Lutnick, the billionaire chief executive of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, who has spent months overseeing a team that has drawn up lists and done vetting for any red flags.But Mr. Trump, who is a mix of competing impulses, is also doing what he always does: calling around to friends and associates, asking them who they think he should pick.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Long Global Trail of Resentment Behind Trump’s Resurrection

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      As the Cold War wound down almost four decades ago, a top adviser to the reformist Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, warned the West that “we are going to do the most terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.”In the celebrations of the triumph of Western liberal democracy, of free trade and open societies, few considered how disorienting the end of a binary world of good and evil would be.But when the spread of democracy in newly freed societies looked more like the spread of divisive global capitalism, when social fracture grew and shared truth died, when hope collapsed in the communities technology left behind, a yearning for the certainties of the providential authoritarian leader set in.“In the absence of a shared reality, or shared facts, or a shared threat, reason had no weight beside emotion,” said Nicole Bacharan, a French political scientist. “And so a dislocated world of danger has produced a hunger for the strongman.”A different Russia, briefly imagined as a partner of the West, eventually became an enemy once more. But by the time it invaded Ukraine in 2022, disillusionment with Western liberalism had gone so far that President Vladimir V. Putin’s tirades against the supposed decadence of the West enjoyed wide support among far-right nationalist movements across Europe, in the United States and elsewhere. Western allies stood firm in defense of Ukrainian democracy, but even that commitment is wobbling.The curious resurrection and resounding victory of Donald J. Trump amounted to the apotheosis of a long-gathering revolt against the established order. No warning of the fragility of democracy or freedom, no allusion to 20th-century cataclysm or Mr. Trump’s attraction to dictators, could hold back the tide.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Will NYC Revive Congestion Pricing After Trump’s Victory?

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul, facing pressure from supporters of the contentious tolling plan, is said to be exploring options for adopting it in some form.Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is exploring options for reviving a congestion pricing plan for New York City before President-elect Donald J. Trump has a chance to kill it, according to four people familiar with the matter.Ms. Hochul’s move to salvage the contentious plan comes as she faces pressure from various corners, including a group that represents transit riders and is planning to start an advertising blitz on Monday in support of the tolling program.The plan that Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, is now exploring differs slightly from the one she halted in June. She is trying to satisfy opponents who had complained about the $15 congestion-pricing toll that most motorists would have had to pay as well as supporters who want to reduce car traffic and fund mass transit improvements.The governor has talked to federal officials about the possibility of a $9 toll and about whether such a change might require the lengthy, involved process of additional environmental review, according to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member familiar with the matter. The discussions were first reported by Politico.Mr. Trump, a Republican, has said he opposes congestion pricing, and his victory on Tuesday has apparently pushed Ms. Hochul to try to find a compromise.“The timing is everything,” said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for Riders Alliance, the riders’ group that is planning the ad blitz. If congestion pricing has not started by January, he added “it’s very unlikely it would start.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More