Trump, Donald J

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Wrestling With Inequality, Some Conservatives Redraw Economic Blueprint

      by

      A growing number of Republican politicians and theorists are challenging party orthodoxy on pocketbook issues, corporate power and government’s role.More Republicans are coming to the view that economic inequality, or a lack of social mobility, is a problem in the United States — and that more can be done to enable families to attain or regain a middle-class life.Though discussions about inequality tend to be most visible among liberals, about four in 10 Republican or Republican-leaning adults think there is too much economic inequality in the country, according to a Pew Research survey. And among Republicans making less than about $40,000 a year who see too much economic inequality, 63 percent agree that the economic system “requires major changes” to address it.But a growing debate among conservative thinkers, politicians and the party base — online, in books and in public forums — reveals a group divided about how, in practice, to address pocketbook issues and the extent to which the government should be involved.“I don’t think just having a bigger government is a solution to a lot of these problems,” said Inez Stepman, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum and a fellow with the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank widely credited with giving Trumpism an intellectual framework. “But I do think that we could stand to think a little bit more on the right about how to make that 1950s middle-class life possible for people.”These yearnings and ideological stirrings have picked up as both whites without college degrees and the broader working class have grown as a share of Republican voters. (Hillary Clinton won college-educated white voters by 17 percentage points in her 2016 race against Donald J. Trump; four years earlier, Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, carried that group.)A notable swipe against longtime Republican economic thinking has come from Sohrab Ahmari, a conservative who served as an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal and the opinion editor of The New York Post. The metamorphosis of his worldview is laid out in a recently published book, “Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty — and What to Do About It.”“I was writing editorials preaching the gospel of low taxes, free trade, et cetera,” Mr. Ahmari said in an interview. But Mr. Trump’s election inspired him to research how “American life in general for the lower rungs of the labor market is unbelievably precarious,” he said, and his politics changed.Mr. Ahmari recently endorsed a second term for Mr. Trump, but he has written that “while ferociously conservative on cultural issues,” he is also “increasingly drawn to the economic policies of the left — figures like Senators Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.”In their own ways, Republican presidential primary candidates are jostling for ways to validate the populist energy and financial unease that Mr. Trump tapped into with a mix of pronouncements and policy promises. Some have set out economic goals that, according to many experts, are hard to square with their promises to reduce public debt and taxes and make deep cuts to government programs — especially now that many Republicans have backed away from calls to cut entitlement benefits.In a campaign speech in New Hampshire this summer called “A Declaration of Economic Independence,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican presidential contender, sharply critiqued China, diversity programming, “excessive regulation and excessive taxes” — a familiar set of modern conservative concerns. Yet he also echoed complaints and economic goals often heard from the left.“We want to be a country where you can raise a family on one sole income,” he told the crowd.“We cannot have policy that kowtows to the largest corporations and Wall Street at the expense of small businesses and average Americans,” he added. “There’s a difference between a free-market economy, which we want, and corporatism.”Critics on the left and the right argue that Mr. DeSantis has failed to clearly define how he would achieve those goals. The DeSantis campaign declined to comment for this article, but he has cited pathways to broader prosperity that include bringing industrial jobs back from abroad, increasing work force education and technical training, removing “red tape” faced by small businesses and aiming for annual U.S. economic growth of at least 3 percent.Though the fissures on the right over economic issues were evident when Mr. Trump upended the political scene eight years ago, the realignments are maturing and deepening, causing fresh tensions as factions disagree on the extent to which inequality, globalization and growing corporate power should be seen as problems.Some conservatives remain more concerned with the trajectory of federal spending and unlocking greater overall prosperity, rather than its distribution.Last year, Phil Gramm, a Republican who steered the passage of major tax cuts and deregulation during his time representing Texas in Congress from the 1970s to the early 2000s, published a book with his fellow economists Robert Ekelund and John Early called “The Myth of American Inequality.” The book — filled with alternative tabulations of impoverishment and living standards — argues that inequality is not high and rising as “the mainstream” suggests.It argues that when including welfare transfers, income inequality has been more stable than government figures suggest, and that the share of Americans living in poverty fell from 15 percent in 1967 to only 1.1 percent in 2017.“The point of the book is to get the facts straight,” Mr. Gramm said in an interview, adding that “we’re having these debates” with numbers that are “verifiably false.” (Some scholars have vehemently disagreed with the authors’ analysis.)Scott Lincicome, a vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that he largely agreed with Mr. Gramm’s thesis and that Americans were mostly wrestling with “keeping up with the Joneses,” not a loss of economic traction.“In general, folks at the bottom, up to the median, are doing better,” Mr. Lincicome concluded. “They’re not winning the game, but they’re doing better than the same group was 30-plus years ago.”He added: “You know, economists can debate all day long whether we’re better off, worse off overall or whatever. But when you factor in all the factors, I personally think things are fine.”To the extent that these debates have popular reach, the most public face of the revisionist camp may be Oren Cass, an adviser to Mr. Romney’s 2012 campaign, who has become immersed in a collective project among some right-leaning thinkers to “rebuild capitalism.”Mr. Cass and his allies want to use government spending and power to promote economic mobility with traditionalist goals in mind — like reducing the cost of living for the heads of married, two-parent households.Mr. Cass praised Mr. Ahmari’s book as one that “bravely goes where few conservatives dare tread, to the ideologically fraught realm in which the market appears inherently coercive and capitalism appears in tension with economic freedom.” (Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, is talking at a book event with Mr. Ahmari this month at the National Press Club in Washington.)Many economists and political scientists contend that the ideological realignment on the right is overblown, confused with a broader, hard-to-quantify loyalty to Mr. Trump rather than an explicit ideology giving life to Trumpism.“In a way,” Mr. Ahmari said, his critics — “the people who say, ‘Yeah, sure, you’re just a couple of guys: you, Oren, and a few others at magazines and think tanks’” — are “not wrong institutionally,” as there is little donor support for their efforts.“But they are wrong in terms of voters,” he added.Ms. Stepman of the Claremont Institute says she is personally “more traditional right” than thinkers like Mr. Ahmari but agrees they are tapping into something real.“There is a very underserved part of the political spectrum that is genuinely left of center on economic issues, right of center on cultural issues,” she said, pointing to issues including immigration, gun laws, education, gender norms and more.Gabe Guidarini is one of them.Growing up in Lake Bluff, Ill., in a working-class household where MSNBC often played in the background at night, Mr. Guidarini felt his view that “the status quo in this country is corrupt” was validated by the “anti-establishment” voices of both Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump. But he came to the view that “you can’t get away with” social views that stray from progressive orthodoxy and still be accepted by Democrats. Now, at 19, he is the president of the University of Dayton College Republicans.In 2022, he worked as a campaign intern for J.D. Vance — the author of “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” who aligned himself with Trumpism after his 2016 book was credited for providing a “reference guide” for Mr. Trump’s electoral success. Mr. Vance, an Ohio Republican, was elected to the U.S. Senate.In line with Tucker Carlson and some other conservatives, Mr. Guidarini thinks the party “should be taking policy samples from Viktor Orban in Hungary, and what he’s doing with family policies that aim to increase family creation, increase childbirth and make it easier to live a decent life as a working or middle-class taxpayer,” he said. “That’s what’s going to return the American dream for so many people, because to young people — and I feel like a lot of other people in America today — the American dream feels dead.”Mr. Guidarini, like many on the right, is wary of achieving those goals by increasing taxes on the wealthy. But according to Pew Research, more Republican or Republican-leaning adults support raising tax rates for those with incomes over $400,000 (46 percent) than say those rates should go unchanged (29 percent) or be lowered (24 percent). And more than half of low-income Republicans support higher taxes on the highest earners.For now, though, all economic debates are “tangential,” said Saagar Enjeti, a conservative millennial who is a co-host of two podcasts that often feature competing voices across the right.“‘What are we going to do when the Trump tax cuts expire?’ These are not the fights that are happening,” Mr. Enjeti said. “I wish they were, but they’re not. They’re just not.”With consensus on policy solutions elusive and “the culture wars” in the campaign forefront, Mr. Enjeti said, Republicans will mostly rally around what he believes will be Mr. Trump’s simple economic message: “Make America 2019 Again” — a time when unemployment, inflation and mortgage rates were low and, for all of life’s challenges, at least cultural conservatives were in the White House. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Ad Wars in 3 Governor’s Races Leave Out Trump and Biden

      by

      Offering a look at both parties’ political strategies this year, the ads focus largely on issues like education, the economy, jobs and taxes, as well as local scandals and crime.Just over a year before the 2024 elections, three races for governor in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi are offering a window into the parties’ political strategies and how they might approach statewide and congressional contests next year.Strikingly, even as former President Donald J. Trump’s indictments and President Biden’s polling struggles have consumed the national political conversation, the two men rarely show up in advertising for the three governor’s races.Since July, nearly 150 ads have been broadcast across the contests. Just one ad mentioned Mr. Trump. Three brought up Mr. Biden.Instead, the ads focus largely on issues like education, the economy, jobs and taxes, according to an analysis of ad spending data from AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. Attack ads about local scandals and controversies are frequent, and crime is the top advertising issue in the Kentucky governor’s race.Much as education was a dominant theme in Glenn Youngkin’s successful campaign for governor of Virginia in 2021, the issue remains one of the top advertising topics in both Kentucky and Louisiana, with nearly one in five ad dollars spent focusing on education over the past 60 days, according to AdImpact data.“Glenn Youngkin winning an off-year gubernatorial race in Virginia is the playbook,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who has researched political advertising. “You go with the last playbook.”Allies of Daniel Cameron, the Republican looking to unseat Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, have seized on a message about education similar to the one that helped propel Mr. Youngkin to victory.“The radical left has declared war on parents, and Andy Beshear is with them,” proclaims one ad from Kentucky Values, a group affiliated with the Republican Governors Association.Mr. Beshear has countered by praising teachers, running an ad calling them “heroes” and pledging to increase their pay and expand universal preschool.“Our teachers are heroes, and public schools are the backbones of our communities,” Mr. Beshear says in the ad, standing in the middle of a classroom.Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi, a Republican running for re-election, is running an ad boasting that he “got us back to school fast” during the coronavirus pandemic and criticizing other states for closing schools.In Louisiana, Jeff Landry, the Republican front-runner, is putting money behind an ad criticizing “woke politics” in schools and pledging to bring school agendas “back to basics.”No issue is getting more attention, in terms of total spending, than crime is in Kentucky. Twenty-five percent of ad spending in the state has focused on crime in the past month, according to AdImpact data.Ads from allies of Mr. Cameron warn of dangerous criminals flooding the streets as a result of a commutation program Mr. Beshear signed during the pandemic.Ads from allies of Daniel Cameron, the Republican nominee for governor of Kentucky, warn about the early release of prison inmates. School Freedom FundOf course, these three states are all deep-red bastions in the South and are not representative of the country’s broader politics.Abortion, perhaps the biggest issue in major battleground states, is barely registering in these three governor’s races; in the past 30 days, not a single campaign ad has been broadcast on the topic in Kentucky or Louisiana. In Mississippi, the only ad regarding abortion is from Brandon Presley, the Democratic nominee for governor, who has diverged from many in his party by supporting abortion restrictions.“Sometimes the family Bible is the only place you have to turn,” Mr. Presley says, sitting at a table next to a dog-eared Bible that he says is his family’s. “It’s shaped who I am and what I believe. It’s why I’m pro-life.”Given that Mr. Trump carried all three states by double digits in 2020, his absence from the airwaves shows he may not be helpful to Republican campaigns in a general election.“These campaigns are really smart and have done in-depth analytics on who their target voter is who’s actually going to move in this election, and he’s probably not helpful to that group of people,” said Michael Beach, the chief executive of Cross Screen Media, a media analytics firm.That one mention of Mr. Trump? It was in an ad from Mr. Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, boasting that he had followed the former president’s lead in releasing prison inmates early. More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      The Everlasting Pain of Losing a Child

      by

      More from our inbox:Clarence Thomas’s EthicsPolitical NovicesDon’t Kill the LanternfliesIgnoring the Truth About Trump Karlotta FreierTo the Editor:Re “Life After Loss Is Awful. I Need to Believe It’s Also Beautiful,” by Sarah Wildman (Opinion, Aug. 27):I just read your essay, Ms. Wildman, about your daughter Orli, and I know everything you are saying and am crying with you and for you and for myself.I know what it is to look for your child everywhere, in a rainstorm, in trees and butterflies. I even looked for my son, Jack, in an exhibit of Goya paintings, seeing him in a young man of about his age and size, even though the clothes and setting were of another era.I used to pretend, as long as I could, that the person coming toward me on the trail near our house was Jack. When I hugged his friends, I’d pretend I was hugging him. Unlike you, we lost Jack suddenly, and we had him for what I think of as a third of a life, 26 years. He died skiing in an avalanche in Montana in 1999, almost as long ago as he got to live.That longing ache, the feeling of having failed him, that I should have tamped down his physical daring — I know those too. I am so sorry for your loss that nothing can make go away.We used to say: “We’ve been really good and grieved well. Can we have him back now?” I guess we were saying it to the universe.Bonnie GilliomChapel Hill, N.C.To the Editor:There is overwhelming grace and dignity to this piece and to its earlier companion in the aftermath of Sarah Wildman’s daughter’s death (“My Daughter’s Future Was Taken From Her, and From Us,” May 21).A palpable cascading sadness and grief, resting side by side with a longing to remain attached to what was beautiful in Orli’s universe and what remains so even now that she has passed. Two universes colliding, a mother trying to reconcile these impossibly irreconcilable differences.I am thankful that Ms. Wildman has allowed us into her world. That she has given us permission to see and feel what such devastating loss looks like, how it manifests itself, how to try to manage it even as it cannot be managed.There can be no greater pain, no greater loss than that of watching a child slip through one’s grasp as you try desperately to hold on. But Orli will remain forever present through the words of her mother.And though she may no longer be able to protect her daughter, Ms. Wildman has been able to preserve her and her memory. It is a mother’s last loving gift to her wonderful child.Robert S. NussbaumFort Lee, N.J.To the Editor:I have finished reading Sarah Wildman’s essays on the loss of her daughter. I too have lost a child, although he was 42 years old. I still weep at times that have no connection to losing him. He was my “baby,” and there are days when I can still feel his presence even though he died almost six years ago.Ms. Wildman’s articulation of the grief as ever-changing but everlasting was heartbreaking, but consoling as well. Just knowing that other parents have felt the soul-wrenching pain of this awful loss and continue on with their lives as I have feels like a warm hug.I don’t ever have to end this grieving of my loss. I can allow the memories I hold of him to live with me. I often want to tell family and friends that talking about my son doesn’t have to be off limits. Remembering him for the loving, sensitive and funny person he was is a way to honor and celebrate his memory.Patricia KoulepisPhoenix, Md.Clarence Thomas’s EthicsJustice Clarence Thomas had requested a 90-day extension for his financial disclosures.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Thomas Defends His Private Trips With Billionaire” (front page, Sept. 1):Justice and ethics both require adherence to what is morally right. In his flagrant disregard for such principles, Justice Clarence Thomas has done irreparable harm to a once respected institution.The Supreme Court may never regain the public trust it once held, but Chief Justice John Roberts could make a small beginning by urging Justice Thomas to resign. The perks that Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia, have already enjoyed should be enough for a lifetime.He could do a great service to history and to his own legacy by doing the just, ethical and statesmanlike thing: a graceful resignation in the interest of the court and the country.Fran Moreland JohnsSan FranciscoThe writer is an author and activist.Political NovicesWhen asked about some past comments, Vivek Ramaswamy has denied ever making them or claimed to have been misquoted, even as those denials have been refuted.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Ramaswamy’s Repeated Aversion to the Facts Mirrors Trump’s Pattern” (news article, Aug. 31):The idea has taken hold that a person with no government experience, particularly a successful businessman, can be president. You wouldn’t want a neophyte to remove your gallbladder or give you a haircut, but apparently a lot of people feel differently about picking a president.Donald Trump — with no legislative, foreign policy or executive branch experience, little knowledge of history or government, and little understanding of the powers of the president — was elected and is still wildly popular with his party.What Donald Trump taught us is that the skill and experience it takes to become president, to get the job, and the skill and experience it takes to be president, to do the job, are not the same. It isn’t that they are not exactly the same; it is that they are totally different. The Venn diagram circles, Mr. Trump has taught us, do not intersect. He has also taught us that the second skill doesn’t have to be on your résumé to get the job.At least one person, Vivek Ramaswamy, has learned this lesson. If this works, it is democracy’s Achilles’ heel.Clem BerneSouth Salem, N.Y.Don’t Kill the LanternfliesEncouraging the public to kill spotted lanternflies can help raise awareness of the problem while scientists seek a lasting solution, experts said. These lanternflies were flattened by a photographer.Ali Cherkis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:New York City’s lanternfly bloodsport is sending our children the wrong message. “Swatting and Stomping in a Lanternfly Summer” (news article, Sept. 3) encourages us to continue the killing despite its obvious futility.First, it’s absurd to think that we can control the pest population one stomp at a time. Second, you don’t have to be a follower of ahimsa (the ancient Indian principle of nonviolence) to see that encouraging our children to destroy a life is problematic, even, or especially, a small and annoying one. Third, it teaches our children that the lanternfly is the problem while ignoring the root problem: us.Humanity’s sprawling globalization, ignoring its effects on nature, created the pest by introducing it into a new environment. Perhaps a better lesson for our children would be to point out the lanternfly as an unintended consequence of human practices and to teach them to be a better steward of our planet than we were.Ari GreenbaumTeaneck, N.J.Ignoring the Truth About TrumpTo the Editor:Remember when we were kids and someone was going to say something that we didn’t want to hear? We’d stick our fingers into our ears or make a lot of noise to drown out the anticipated comment.Isn’t this essentially what Matt Gaetz and other Republicans are doing in their proposal to defund Jack Smith’s investigation of former President Donald Trump?Yeah, growing up can be hard. We often hear things we’d prefer to remain ignorant of. For some, ignorance is still bliss.Robert SelverstoneWestport, Conn. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Consistent Signs of Erosion in Black and Hispanic Support for Biden

      by

      It’s a weakness that could manifest itself as low Democratic turnout even if Trump and Republicans don’t gain among those groups.President Biden is underperforming among nonwhite voters in New York Times/Siena College national polls over the last year, helping to keep the race close in a hypothetical rematch against Donald J. Trump.On average, Mr. Biden leads Mr. Trump by just 53 percent to 28 percent among registered nonwhite voters in a compilation of Times/Siena polls from 2022 and 2023, which includes over 1,500 nonwhite respondents.The results represent a marked deterioration in Mr. Biden’s support compared with 2020, when he won more than 70 percent of nonwhite voters. If he’s unable to revitalize this support by next November, it will continue a decade-long trend of declining Democratic strength among voters considered to be the foundation of the party.Democratic share of major party vote among nonwhite voters More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Ex-Trump Aide Peter Navarro to Face Trial Over Defiance of Jan. 6 Panel

      by

      A federal judge allowed the trial to proceed after finding little evidence that the former president authorized Mr. Navarro to ignore a subpoena from Congress.For weeks after the 2020 election had been called, Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald J. Trump, worked closely with other senior aides to keep Mr. Trump in power for a second term.After being subpoenaed last year by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, which sought to learn more about those efforts, Mr. Navarro refused to comply, insisting that Mr. Trump had directed him not to cooperate and dismissing the subpoena as “illegal” and “unenforceable.”Now, after more than a year of legal wrangling, Mr. Navarro, 74, will defend those claims in a trial that starts Tuesday, when jury selection is expected to begin in Federal District Court in Washington. The case centers on a relatively simple question: whether he showed contempt for Congress in defying the House committee’s request for documents and testimony.The trial itself may be relatively short, and if Mr. Navarro were to be convicted on the two counts of contempt of Congress he is charged with, he could face up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $100,000 for each count.Since Mr. Navarro was indicted in June of last year, he has maintained that he is protected by the former president’s claim of executive privilege.Prosecutors intend to argue that Mr. Navarro refused of his own volition and that neither Mr. Trump nor his lawyers have confirmed whether Mr. Navarro sought or received his approval.The judge in the case, Amit P. Mehta, has already dealt a blow to Mr. Navarro, ruling that he cannot rely on executive privilege as a pillar of his defense. He refused to dismiss the case after concluding that Mr. Navarro had failed to produce convincing evidence that he and Mr. Trump ever discussed his response to Congress.Describing Mr. Navarro’s defense as “pretty weak sauce,” Judge Mehta emphasized that he had presented no written communications or even a “smoke signal” that would bolster his contention.“I still don’t know what the president said,” Judge Mehta said. “I don’t have any words from the former president.”“I don’t think anyone would disagree that we wish there was more here from President Trump,” Mr. Navarro’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., replied.Still, outside of court, Mr. Navarro has continued to frame the case as a fundamental dispute between the legislative and executive branches, calling the fight over executive privilege “open questions” in the law and pledging to appeal.Mr. Navarro is one of two Trump aides to face criminal charges after the House committee’s investigation. Stephen K. Bannon, another of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers, was convicted last summer on two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison.After the 2020 election, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Navarro concocted a plan, known as the Green Bay Sweep, aimed at delaying certification of the outcome of the election. The strategy involved persuading Republican lawmakers to halt the counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 by repeatedly challenging the results in various swing states.When the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued a subpoena, Mr. Bannon similarly refused to comply.Others in Mr. Trump’s inner circle were less combative in resisting the panel’s efforts.Two of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Roger J. Stone Jr. and Michael T. Flynn, ultimately appeared before the committee but declined to answer most of its questions by citing their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and his deputy, Dan Scavino, negotiated the terms of their responses to subpoenas, providing documents but not testimony. None of the four men faced criminal charges.The filing of charges against Mr. Navarro was widely seen as proof that the Justice Department was willing to act aggressively against one of Mr. Trump’s top allies as the House scrutinized the actions of the former president and his advisers and aides in the events leading up to and during the Capitol attack.The trial could also shed new light on Mr. Navarro’s communications with the White House at key moments during Mr. Trump’s final days in power.One possible witness for the defense is Liz Harrington, a communication aide for Mr. Trump who helped spread false claims of election irregularities in the months after the 2020 election. Ms. Harrington had been set to testify last week about Mr. Navarro’s claims of executive privilege, but could instead provide written testimony about the extent of Mr. Navarro’s contact with Mr. Trump and his aides.Alan Feuer More

    • 63 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Plus-Size Female Shoppers ‘Deserve Better’

      by

      More from our inbox:Why Trump’s Supporters Love HimChatGPT Is PlagiarismThe Impact of China’s Economic WoesThe ‘Value’ of CollegeKim SaltTo the Editor:Re “Just Make It, Toots,” by Elizabeth Endicott (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 20):Despite the fact that two-thirds of American women are size 14 or above, brands and retailers continue to overlook and disregard plus-size women whose dollars are as green as those held by “straight size” women.The root cause is simple, and it’s not that it’s more expensive or time-consuming; these excuses have been bandied about for years. There are not enough clothes available to plus-size women because brands and retailers assume that larger women will just accept whatever they’re given, since they have in the past.As Ms. Endicott pointed out in her essay, this is no longer the case — women are finding other ways to express themselves through clothing that fits their bodies, their styles and their budgets, from making clothes themselves to shopping at independent designers and boutiques.We still have a long way to go, but for every major retailer that dips a toe into the market and just as quickly pulls back, there are new designers and stores willing to step in and take their place.Plus-size women deserve more and deserve better. Those who won’t cater to them do so at their own peril.Shanna GoldstoneNew YorkThe writer is the founder and C.E.O. of Pari Passu, an apparel company that sells clothing to women sizes 12 to 24.To the Editor:Plus-size people aren’t the only folks whose clothing doesn’t fit. I wore a size 10 for decades, but most clothes wouldn’t fit my wide well-muscled shoulders. Apparently being really fit is just as bad as being a plus size.I wasn’t alone; most of my co-workers had similar problems. Don’t even get me started about having a short back and a deep pelvis. I found only one brand of pants that came close to fitting and have worn them for almost 40 years. They definitely are not a fashion statement.Eloise TwiningUkiah, Calif.To the Editor:Thank you, Elizabeth Endicott, for revealing the ways that historically marginalized consumers grapple with retail trends. You recognized that “plus size is now the American average.”As someone who works for a company that sells clothing outside of the traditional gender binary, I’d add that gender neutral clothing will also soon be an American retail norm. It’s now up to large-scale retailers to decide if they want to meet this wave of demand, or miss out on contemporary consumers.Ashlie GrilzProvidence, R.I.The writer is brand director for Peau De Loup.Why Trump’s Supporters Love HimSam Whitney/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Thing Is, Most Republicans Really Like Trump,” by Kristen Soltis Anderson (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 30):Ms. Anderson writes that one of the most salient reasons that Republican voters favor Donald Trump as their presidential nominee is that they believe he is “best poised” to beat Joe Biden. I do not concur.His likability is not based primarily on his perceived electability. Nor is his core appeal found in policy issues such as budget deficits, import tariffs or corporate tax relief. It won’t even be found in his consequential appointments to the Supreme Court.Politics is primarily visceral, not cerebral. When Mr. Trump denounces the elites that he claims are hounding him with political prosecutions, his followers concur and channel their own grievances and resentments with his.When Mr. Trump rages against the professional political class and “fake news,” his acolytes applaud because they themselves feel ignored and disrespected.Mr. Trump is more than an entertaining self-promoter. He offers oxygen for self-esteem, and his supporters love him for it.John R. LeopoldStoney Beach, Md.ChatGPT Is Plagiarism“I do want students to learn to use it,” Yazmin Bahena, a middle school social studies teacher, said about ChatGPT. “They are going to grow up in a world where this is the norm.”Ricardo Nagaoka for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Schools Shift to Embrace ChatGPT,” by Natasha Singer (news article, Aug. 26):What gets lost in this discussion is that these schools are authorizing a form of academic plagiarism and outright theft of the texts authors have created. This is why over 8,000 authors have signed a petition to the A.I. companies that have “scraped” (the euphemistic term they use for “stolen”) their intellectual properties and repackaged them as their own property to be sold for profit. In the process, the A.I. chatbots are depriving authors of the fruits of their labor.What a lesson to teach our nation’s children. This is the very definition of theft. Schools that accept this are contributing to the ethical breakdown of a nation already deeply challenged by a culture of cheating.Dennis M. ClausenEscondido, Calif.The writer is an author and professor at the University of San Diego.The Impact of China’s Economic WoesThe Port of Oakland in California. China only accounted for 7.5 percent of U.S. exports in 2022.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “China’s Woes Are Unlikely to Hamper U.S. Growth” (Business, Aug. 28):Lydia DePillis engages in wishful thinking in arguing that the fallout of China’s deep economic troubles for the U.S. economy probably will be limited.China is the world’s second-largest economy, until recently the main engine of world economic growth and a major consumer of internationally traded commodities. As such, a major Chinese economic setback would cast a dark cloud over the world economic recovery.While Ms. DePillis is correct in asserting that China’s direct impact on our economy might be limited, its indirect impact could be large, particularly if it precipitates a world economic recession.China’s economic woes could spill over to its Asian trade partners and to economies like Germany, Australia and the commodity-dependent emerging market economies, which all are heavily dependent on the Chinese market for their exports.Desmond LachmanWashingtonThe writer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.The ‘Value’ of CollegeSarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group — Los Angeles Daily News, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Let’s Stop Pretending College Degrees Don’t Matter,” by Ben Wildavsky (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 26):There are quite a few things wrong with Mr. Wildavsky’s assessment of the value of a college education. But I’ll focus on the most obvious: Like so many pundits, he equates value with money, pointing out that those with college degrees earn more than those without.Some do, some don’t. I have a Ph.D. from an Ivy League university, but the electrician who dealt with a very minor problem in my apartment earns considerably more than I do. So, for that matter, does the plumber.What about satisfaction, taking pleasure in one’s accomplishments? Do we really think that the coder takes more pride in their work than does the construction worker who told me he likes to drive around the city with his children and point out the buildings he helped build? He didn’t need a college degree to find his work meaningful.How about organizing programs that prepare high school students for work, perhaps through apprenticeships, and paying all workers what their efforts are worth?Erika RosenfeldNew York More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Nikki Haley Has a Playbook for Winning Tough Races, but 2024 Is Different

      by

      Still pitching herself as a political outsider, Ms. Haley now has a political résumé that includes a stint in the Trump administration. Then there’s Mr. Trump himself.Nikki Haley was polling in the low digits, fighting for oxygen among better-known and better-funded rivals in a contest clouded by scandal and involving the man whose job they all sought.This was 2009, and Ms. Haley was the underdog candidate for governor of South Carolina. At the state Republican Party’s convention that year, she was the last contender to speak. Before she took the podium, Katon Dawson, then the state party’s chairman, handed her a rust-coated nail from a jar collected from an old building in Orangeburg.“‘Honey, this is a tenpenny, rusty nail,’” Mr. Dawson recalled he told Ms. Haley. “‘You’re going to need to be meaner and tougher than that to get through this.’”In Mr. Dawson’s telling, Ms. Haley was unfazed, responding: “‘No problem, I’m going to be governor.’”More than a dozen years later, Ms. Haley — who did become governor, went on to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and is now running for president — hopes to replicate the kind of surprise success that made her a conservative star. As in prior races, she’s on a tight budget, spending conservatively, and keeping up a grueling schedule of appearances. As in campaigns past, her allies view the debate stage as crucial to building name recognition and buzz, and her poll numbers have climbed since her breakout performance onstage in Milwaukee.But the 2024 contest, in which Ms. Haley still trails former President Donald J. Trump as well as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in national surveys, presents different challenges in a vastly altered political landscape.Though she is still pitching herself as an outsider who can take on the establishment, Ms. Haley now has a lengthy political résumé that includes a stint in the Trump administration. And much of the grass-roots support that helped power her victories in South Carolina has rallied behind her former boss, Mr. Trump.“The craziest, toughest, wildest, most stressful day working or running on a statewide gubernatorial campaign — that is three times a day, every day on a presidential,” said Kevin Madden, a former Republican operative who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 and 2008 presidential campaigns.Ms. Haley with former President Donald J. Trump when he accepted her resignation as ambassador to the U.N. in 2018.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesMs. Haley first stunned her party in 2004 when she ran for the State Legislature in a conservative district in Lexington County. She unseated Larry Koon, the longest-serving member in the South Carolina House of Representatives at the time and a fellow Republican with deep familial roots in the state.The daughter of Indian immigrants, Ms. Haley, 51, was an accountant helping her mother expand her international clothing shop. She had no political experience, and top consultants spurned her. She lagged in fund-raising and spent most of the race polling in the single digits. Even so, she was the target of ugly, racist attacks.Ms. Haley took those in stride, her friends said. She countered with the aggressive campaign schedule and retail politics that have become her signature, knocking on doors and passing out doughnuts.“I was discounted because I was a girl,” she writes of that first campaign in her memoir, “Can’t Is Not an Option.” “I was discounted because I was Indian. I was discounted because I was young.”Without leaning into any of those identities, Ms. Haley beat Mr. Koon by more than 9 percentage points.In the state House, Ms. Haley initially had few friends but soon earned the respect of colleagues for her work ethic and focus on policy. On the debate floor, she could be searing and was known to pick fights on issues she believed in.“I vividly remember her being active on several floor debates, and she was already a leader — that’s unusual for freshmen,” said David Wilkins, then the state House speaker who later led Ms. Haley’s transition team when she became governor and is now one of her presidential campaign donors.She turned a legislative dispute with Republican leadership — she wanted to hold more roll call votes — into a major policy issue of transparency in her first campaign for governor.As a freshman legislator, Ms. Haley quickly earned the respect of colleagues for her work ethic and focus on policy.Erik Campos/The State, via Associated PressMr. Dawson said that none of the “good ol’ boys” in South Carolina politics — himself included, at first — believed she had a real shot in that race. Her primary opponents were political heavyweights: Henry McMaster, a former state attorney general who is now governor; Gresham Barrett, then a popular U.S. Congress member; and André Bauer, then the state’s lieutenant governor.The race was complicated by Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican ally who had all but officially endorsed Ms. Haley before he was swept up in a scandal over an extramarital affair. She faced more racist attacks. A conservative political blogger claimed he had an affair with Ms. Haley, which she vehemently denied.But she stuck to her playbook. Allies recalled her campaigning across the state on a shoestring budget while saving the little money she had for television ads. She drew the endorsements of powerful Republican allies who helped her thread the needle between big Republican donors and grass-roots Tea Party supporters. Among those allies were Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who was looking ahead to a second presidential run, and Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican Party vice-presidential nominee.She also had the support of Mr. Sanford’s wife, Jenny Sanford McKay, a popular figure in the state. The women had been acquainted ever since Ms. Haley’s first state House bid, when Mr. Dawson suggested Ms. Sanford McKay call and give the candidate weathering derogatory and racist attacks a pep talk. Ms. Haley did not really need it, she recalled.“She knew what she was doing, she knew why she was running and she seemed very confident,” Ms. Sanford McKay, who is now a Haley campaign donor, said in an interview.Ms. Haley celebrating with her family after winning the primary election for the South Carolina governor race in 2010.Travis Dove for The New York TimesOn the debate stage in Milwaukee, Ms. Haley did not surprise those who had watched her tussle with opponents in the past. Both allies and detractors have observed her talent for seizing opportunities — and for navigating changes to her own positions amid shifting political terrain, such as when she eventually supported removing the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol.As governor, Ms. Haley had initially expressed little to no interest in discussing the removal of the flag. But she changed her mind in 2015, after a white supremacist killed nine Black parishioners at an African American church in Charleston, S.C., including the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator. Joel Lourie, a former Democratic state senator who considered Mr. Pinckney a friend, said he had been one of Ms. Haley’s harshest critics until she “rose to the occasion.”“She is as tactical, talented and ambitious of a politician you will ever meet,” he said of Ms. Haley.Still, what worked for Ms. Haley in the past may not be enough in 2024, as she positions herself as both a friend to Mr. Trump, and the candidate best able to move the party beyond him in order to beat President Biden.“I can understand why she might have supreme confidence in her ability to win right now,” said Adolphus Belk, a political analyst and political science professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., recalling her strong performances at campus forums during her first bid for governor and later as governor.But the same Tea Party wave Ms. Haley tapped as part of her rise — grass-roots energy with deep strains of racism and white racial grievance that Ms. Haley and other Republican presidential candidates have continued to downplay — created the space for Mr. Trump’s climb to the White House and has allowed him to retain his dominance in the party and presidential field, Mr. Belk said.One striking example of how Republican politics has changed: Support from Mr. Romney, now a U.S. senator from Utah and a fierce critic of Mr. Trump’s, would be unlikely to help endear Ms. Haley to the primary voters she needs to woo.“She has managed to be pretty effective at contradiction over the years,” said Chip Felkel, a longtime South Carolina G.O.P. strategist. “But this is a bigger stage.”Ms. Haley sparring with Vivek Ramaswamy during a breakout performance in the first Republican primary debate last month in Milwaukee.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThis time around, a bright spot has been a robust network of donors, and Ms. Haley raised more than $1 million in less than 72 hours after the debate, according to her campaign. She has held more than 90 events in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and Ms. Haley’s campaign says the plan now is to keep up the pace. A super PAC backing her candidacy has started to pour money into advertising, with more than $9 million planned in spending in Iowa and New Hampshire from July to October, according to an analysis by AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. She has qualified for the second G.O.P. debate, which is scheduled for Sept. 27.Still, with months to go before the first nominating contest, Mr. Trump’s grip on the race has only appeared to tighten. He remains the top choice for G.O.P. voters nationally and in South Carolina, where Ms. Haley has been neck and neck for third or fourth place with her home state rival, Senator Tim Scott.“I’ll just say — take a deep breath,” Mr. Wilkins, one of Ms. Haley’s donors, said when asked about her position in the race. “She’s coming.” More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      New Hampshire Voters Like Ramaswamy, but More as a No. 2

      by

      At campaign stops across the state, the political newcomer has drawn big crowds and praise from voters. But some wonder if he needs more political seasoning.Vivek Ramaswamy, the only top-polling presidential candidate to hit the campaign trail over Labor Day weekend, is enjoying the attention of his newfound status.Across five events in New Hampshire on Saturday, part of an 11-stop swing in the Granite State, Mr. Ramaswamy drew hundreds of attendees, often exceeding the number of seats or the space provided at venues from a state fair in Contoocook to a country store in Hooksett.But the crowds and attention being showered on the 38-year-old political newcomer come with something of a caveat: Many of those showing up at his events and driving his rise in the polls see him as a possible vice president or a great future president — but not necessarily a president yet.“I have socks older than him,” said Pamela Coffey, 69, who came from Peterborough, N.H., to see the candidate in person.Mr. Ramaswamy, who entered the race in February with little name recognition and no political experience, has campaigned at a grueling pace in early states and adopted an everywhere-all-the-time media strategy that in recent weeks has propelled him to third place in the race, just behind Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.A combative performance in the first Republican presidential debate last month, in which he was attacked more than any other candidate onstage, put a spotlight on him that translated into heightened attendance at his campaign events. But some voters in New Hampshire said they still had reservations about Mr. Ramaswamy’s youth and inexperience.Mr. Ramaswamy has used his status as the first millennial to run as a Republican candidate to lament his generation’s being “hungry for a cause” — primarily to older audiences. One of the most reliable applause lines at his New Hampshire events was his controversial proposal to require that high schoolers pass a civics test before they can vote.Mr. Ramaswamy drew big crowds at his Saturday events, including one at the Hopkinton State Fair in Contoocook, N.H.Sophie Park for The New York TimesMr. Ramaswamy’s “America First” platform and outsider standing are fashioned after former President Donald J. Trump’s, down to his predisposition toward falsehoods. Like Mr. Trump, for example, Mr. Ramaswamy has expressed disdain for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: He scoffed at “Zelenskyism” and called the president the “pied piper of Hamelin in cargo pants” as cows mooed in the background at an event in Dublin, N.H.Pat Cameron of Goffstown, N.H., said he saw Mr. Ramaswamy as a “great candidate” with “a lot of really good ideas grounded in what this country really believes in.” But he added: “I honestly believe that Trump would be the best. Personally, I would have loved to see President Trump take him as his running mate for vice president.”And Mr. Trump himself complimented Mr. Ramaswamy last week, spurring questions about whether the Republican presidential front-runner would consider Mr. Ramaswamy to run as No. 2 on his ticket if he wins the nomination.On Tuesday, the former president told the conservative commentator Glenn Beck that he thought Mr. Ramaswamy was “a very, very intelligent person.”“He’s got good energy,” Mr. Trump continued. “He could be some form of something.”But Mr. Ramaswamy, who has said repeatedly that he is not running to be second in command, reiterated that stance on Saturday. “I think President Trump and I share this in common: Neither of us would do well in a No. 2 position,” he said at a town hall in Newport, N.H., just after calling Mr. Trump, as he did in the Republican debate, the “best president of the century.”Despite Mr. Ramaswamy’s frequent praise for Mr. Trump — and repeated promises to pardon him, if he wins the presidency — he has sought to differentiate himself in subtle ways. While Mr. Trump has continued to invoke the 2020 election and the indictments he faces, Mr. Ramaswamy calls for a forward-thinking vision of the United States as a “nation in our ascent” with revived patriotism under a drastically altered executive branch.And Mr. Ramaswamy has recently alluded to questions of Mr. Trump’s electability, saying on Saturday that the “America First movement does not belong to one man” and that 2024 “can’t be another 50.1 election.”“I’m the only candidate in this race who can win in a landslide that reunites this country, that brings young people along,” he said in Dublin.Mr. Ramaswamy greeted voters after a house party in Dublin, N.H., on Saturday, one of the day’s five campaign events.Sophie Park for The New York TimesNonetheless, many voters who came to hear him speak in New Hampshire uttered his name with that of Mr. Trump, unprompted.“I like that he’s not like a normal politician,” said Reed Beauchesne, 54, of Concord, N.H. “He reminds me of Trump, in a way. I think he and Trump would be great together, actually.”And for the voters searching for an alternative to Mr. Trump, not being a “normal politician” can be interpreted as a hindrance.“He’s got some points that resonate with everybody, so that’s wonderful, but my biggest concern is his lack of experience,” said David Leak, 63, who added that he preferred Mr. DeSantis. “Every politician talks great on the stump, the speeches are well rehearsed, but what do they do after they get in?” More