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      Some Very Difficult Questions About Israel and the War in Gaza

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      It’s become something of a tradition on “The Ezra Klein Show” to end the year with an “Ask Me Anything” episode. So as 2023 comes to a close, I sat down with our new senior editor, Claire Gordon, to answer listeners’ questions about everything from the Israel-Hamas war to my thoughts on parenting.We discuss whether the war in Gaza has affected my relationships with family members and friends; what I think about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; whether the Democrats should have voted to keep Kevin McCarthy as House speaker; how worried I am about a Trump victory in 2024; whether A.I. can really replace human friendships; how struggling in school as a kid shaped my politics as an adult; and much more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Courtesy of Ezra KleinThis episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Emefa Agawu and Rollin Hu. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      Poll Finds Wide Disapproval of Biden on Gaza, and Little Room to Shift Gears

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      Voters broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Palestinians, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found, with younger Americans far more critical than older voters of both Israel’s conduct and of the administration’s response to the war in Gaza.Voters are also sending decidedly mixed signals about the direction U.S. policy-making should take as the war in Gaza grinds into its third month, with Israelis still reeling from the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, thousands of Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the Biden administration trying to pressure Israel to scale back its military campaign. Nearly as many Americans want Israel to continue its military campaign as want it to stop now to avoid further civilian casualties.That split appears to leave the president with few politically palatable options.The findings of the Times/Siena poll hold portents not only for Mr. Biden as he enters the 2024 re-election year but also for long-term relations between the Jewish state and its most powerful benefactor, the United States.The fractured views on the conflict among traditionally Democratic voter groups show the continued difficulty Mr. Biden faces of holding together the coalition he built in 2020 — a challenge that is likely to persist even as economic indicators grow more positive and legal troubles swirl around his expected opponent, former President Donald J. Trump.Overall, registered voters say they favor Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden in next year’s presidential election by two percentage points, 46 percent to 44 percent. The president’s job approval rating has slid to 37 percent, down two points from July.But there is considerable uncertainty over whether disaffected voters will even vote. While it is still early, the race is flipped among the likely electorate, with Mr. Biden leading by two percentage points.Economic concerns remain paramount, with 34 percent of registered voters listing economic- or inflation-related concerns as the top issue facing the country. That’s down from 45 percent in October 2022, but still high. More

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      Group Backing Trump Turns Its Attention to Attacking Haley

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      An ad buy slated to begin Tuesday in New Hampshire will be the first time the former president’s super PAC runs TV ads against Nikki Haley.The super PAC aligned with former President Donald J. Trump is putting money for the first time behind television ads attacking Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, who has gained momentum in the Republican primary.Make America Great Again, Inc., is set to air an ad in New Hampshire on Tuesday that targets Ms. Haley, according to a filing with a television network. The ad is expected to run from Tuesday until Sunday, the filing indicated.Ms. Haley pre-emptively responded on Monday night to the ad, writing on the social media platform X, “Two days ago, Donald Trump denied our surge in New Hampshire existed. Now, he’s running a negative ad against me. Someone’s getting nervous. #BringIt.”Ms. Haley has ascended to second place in New Hampshire, according to a recent CBS News poll. Mr. Trump and his affiliated super PAC had previously put resources into bashing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has slipped in the polls and is now battling Ms. Haley for second place in the early primary states. For much of his campaign, Mr. DeSantis was the only candidate Mr. Trump treated as a serious threat. While Mr. Trump sometimes mocked Ms. Haley and called her names, he more often criticized Mr. DeSantis by name at rallies, and Mr. Trump’s allies have waged a persistent online campaign against Mr. DeSantis. Mr. Trump’s super PAC last funded an ad buy against Mr. DeSantis in October accusing him of supporting statehood for Puerto Rico.But as Mr. DeSantis has amped up his attacks against Mr. Trump, the former president has turned his attention elsewhere. Chris Jankowski, the former chief executive of Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis, said this past summer that such a shift in Mr. Trump’s attention would be worrisome.“What would concern me is if I woke up one day, and Trump and his team were not attacking Never Back Down and Ron DeSantis,” Mr. Jankowski told The New York Times in July. “That would be concerning. Other than that, we’ve got them right where we want them.”He resigned from the embattled super PAC last month, among a string of resignations and firings that has roiled the group, the latest being the resignation of Jeff Roe, a chief strategist, on Saturday night. On Monday, a campaign watchdog group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing the super PAC of effectively serving as Mr. DeSantis’s campaign.In recent weeks, Ms. Haley has been endorsed by Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s popular Republican governor, and has made gains in the state — though she still trails Mr. Trump by double digits. Her rise has been fueled by a lean campaign operation and strong debate performances that positioned her as a more moderate Republican candidate than some of her counterparts.Ms. Haley has spent little resources attacking her former boss. At a crowded town hall on Monday in Iowa, where Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis are locked in a heated race for second place, she instead highlighted that Mr. Trump was set to attack her.“So stay tuned,” she said. “We’ll have fun with that one.” Maggie Haberman More

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      New Group Backing DeSantis Has a George Santos Connection

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      The super PAC, which spent more than $283,000 on mailers in Iowa, lists as its treasurer an operative who played a mysterious role in the New York congressman’s saga.A veteran political operative who played a mysterious role in the George Santos scandal now appears to be spearheading a newly formed super PAC that is supporting Ron DeSantis in Iowa.The new super PAC, set up amid turmoil in the network of outside organizations supporting Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign, lists Thomas Datwyler as its treasurer. Mr. Datwyler was also briefly listed as the treasurer for Mr. Santos’s campaign after the Republican congressman first came under scrutiny for his widespread fabrications.On Monday, the super PAC, Renewing Our Nation, spent more than $283,000 sending pro-DeSantis mailers across Iowa, according to a federal campaign finance filing. The contents of the mailers were not immediately clear. Neither was the source of the group’s funding or the reason for its involvement in the presidential race. The group is not required to file detailed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission until Jan. 31.Aside from the connection to Mr. Santos, Mr. Datwyler’s résumé adds an additional layer of curiosity: He is listed as an executive at the compliance arm of the sprawling political firm owned by Jeff Roe, who until this past weekend was the chief strategist for Never Back Down, the main super PAC supporting Mr. Desantis’s campaign.Mr. Roe, who resigned from Never Back Down on Saturday, did not immediately provide a comment on Monday.In another oddity, the person listed as the manager of the sole vendor of Renewing Our Nation was, like Mr. Santos, unable to finish his term in Congress.That person, former Representative Trey Radel of Florida, runs Cross Step Media, a Florida-based company that sent out the pro-DeSantis mailers in Iowa, according to the filing.Mr. Radel, a Republican, was elected to represent the state’s 19th Congressional District in 2012, but served for just one year: He resigned under pressure in early 2014 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession. (He had bought 3.5 grams from an undercover police officer. His record was expunged after one year of probation.)Renewing Our Nation has not yet reported other spending besides the mailers.Mr. Datwyler and Mr. Radel did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did Never Back Down and Mr. DeSantis’s campaign.As Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has faltered, the outside groups supporting him have become a frequent source of distractions. Never Back Down and the DeSantis campaign have sometimes worked at cross-purposes, with their disagreements aired through public memos, an awkward dance necessitated by a ban on coordination between campaigns and super PACs. (Never Back Down and the DeSantis campaign were accused of violating that ban by a nonprofit watchdog group on Monday.)The tensions between the two sides have grown so extreme that last month, three DeSantis allies started their own super PAC, Fight Right, to air negative television ads in Iowa about Mr. DeSantis’s closest rival, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina.Now, Renewing Our Nation has entered the political arena as the third super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis’s presidential bid. The group was formed on Nov. 20, according to campaign finance filings. Its address is listed as a post office box in Wisconsin. Little other information was available about the group from F.E.C. filings.It is not unheard-of for major political donors to route their contributions through newly formed entities to create separation from existing groups.Mr. Datwyler played a brief but bizarre supporting role in the saga of Mr. Santos, the former congressman from New York. After Mr. Santos’s original campaign treasurer resigned in January amid revelations about irregularities in Mr. Santos’s filings, Mr. Datwyler was briefly listed on filings as his treasurer.The arrangement made headlines when Mr. Datwyler’s lawyer sent a letter to the F.E.C., accusing Mr. Santos of listing him in the role without his permission. Mr. Datwyler “would not be taking over as treasurer,” the lawyer, Derek Ross, wrote, adding that there appeared to be “some disconnect.”Then followed a head-spinning sequence of events in which Mr. Santos listed a new, previously unknown treasurer, leading to speculation that this person might not be real, but another alter ego of the congressman’s.Mr. Santos has denied such claims, and has argued that Mr. Datwyler came up with a plan to supervise and oversee the Santos campaign filings using the name of an associate, rather than his own, to avoid blowback from being associated with the controversial congressman.Reporting by The Daily Beast supported Mr. Santos’s account, leading to a notable reversal: Mr. Datwyler’s own lawyer, Mr. Ross, wrote to the F.E.C. to retract his earlier letter.“Regrettably, recent public reporting has caused me to lose confidence in the accuracy and veracity of the information provided by Mr. Datwyler,” Mr. Ross wrote.Maggie Haberman More

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      Don’t Give In to Political Despair. Trump Is Too Great a Threat.

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      Shortly after Donald Trump was elected in 2016, I spoke to a friend in Istanbul about my boundless horror, and while I can’t remember the exact words she said in response, they amounted to “Welcome to my world.” I told her about all the protests breaking out, and she gently warned me not to get my hopes up. She’d also demonstrated against Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, she said, but eventually those protests had died out, and ours would too.Over the next four years, I was often relieved that her prediction hadn’t come true. The Resistance, as the broad alliance of anti-Trump Americans came to be known, never flagged. An obvious reason for its endurance is that Americans enjoy robust civil rights protections that the opponents of ruling regimes in many other countries do not. Despite my friend’s generous empathy, there was in fact no real comparison between our situations; while Trump demonized journalists, Erdogan imprisoned them. In the absence of serious state repression, Trump’s critics rarely had to hide their sentiments, making it easier to maintain hope that they, and not their freakish madman of a president, represented this country’s future.I fear that in a second Trump administration it will be much harder to keep the faith. The first Trump presidency seemed like a grotesque accident, a civic disaster that befell us because we were too blithely arrogant to see it coming. Trump redux, however, is something we’re lurching toward with eyes wide open. If he wins again, it won’t be a shock, and no one will be able to claim, as so many did before, that this is not who we are.Right now, general election polls are blaring like sirens: A recent survey from Bloomberg News/Morning Consult has Trump leading in all seven swing states. He has made no secret of how he intends to govern: He wants to round up undocumented immigrants by the millions and imprison them in a network of new detention camps while they await deportation. He will, he’s said, free many of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists — he calls them “hostages” — and use the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies. As The Washington Post reported, his associates have drafted plans to invoke the Insurrection Act as soon as he takes power so that he can deploy the military against protesters.The ex-president’s rhetoric is increasingly Hitlerian; he’s repeatedly said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country, language that echoes “Mein Kampf.” This month, he approvingly quoted Vladimir Putin about the “rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy,” and he has said he wants to be a dictator on the first day of a second presidency. He should be taken seriously, even if we’ve all grown too numb to maintain the appropriate level of alarm.Faced with this onrushing nightmare, anti-Trump forces seem stunned and dejected. As progressives turn on Joe Biden over the war in Gaza, people too young to remember Ralph Nader’s spoiler campaign in 2000, which helped give us the George W. Bush presidency and thus the Iraq war, are threatening to vote for third-party or independent candidates like Jill Stein and Cornel West. Meanwhile, the flood of money that kept the Resistance flush through the Trump years has slowed to a trickle. In November, the liberal behemoth MoveOn became the latest progressive group to face layoffs, a sign, The New York Times reported, “of a slowdown in donations from small donors to left-leaning causes and candidates.”I was alarmed by something the painter Adam Pendleton said in a roundup of trendsetters’ 2024 predictions published by T, The Times’s style magazine. “We’ll turn toward abstraction,” he said. “I predict that Donald Trump is going to win the election and, when people seek some sort of relief valve or means to move forward, I don’t think they’re going to do that by looking at a bunch of figurative paintings.” I have nothing against abstract art, but I was disturbed both by his resignation and by the idea that a new Trump term might be met not with relentless pushback but with aesthetic escapism.Before we can fight authoritarianism, we have to fight fatalism. My great hope for 2024 is that anti-Trump Americans can transcend exhaustion, burnout and self-protective pessimism to mobilize once again for the latest most important election of our lifetimes. It’s perfectly understandable that many people galvanized by abhorrence of Trump would step back once his immediate threat to the Republic receded. The obsession with politics that took over the country during his administration was neither sustainable nor healthy. But if you don’t want an even uglier and more despairing replay of those years, the time to act is now.One place to start is with donations to grass-roots organizations working on voter turnout, which are desperately underfunded. (The Movement Voter Project has a clickable map with links to such groups all over the country.) You can also get involved with the campaigns to put referendums protecting abortion rights on the ballot in states like Arizona and Florida, efforts that could both undo cruel abortion bans and drive voter turnout.It’s going to be especially important next year to give people reasons to vote beyond the presidential election. I didn’t want Biden to run again and wish there had been a competitive Democratic primary, but it’s too late for a serious challenge now. Faced with an unenthusiastic electorate, Democrats will need down-ballot candidates who can motivate people to go the polls. Few are doing more to bring exciting new candidates into the political process than Run for Something, which recruits and trains young progressives to run for office.“As we look to our strategy for ’24, we want to make sure especially that we’re prioritizing resources for local candidates whose races can have an impact at the top of the ticket,” said Amanda Litman, Run for Something’s co-founder. Young voters, she said, “are not particularly psyched about Joe Biden right now. But thanks to years of education and each of these special elections, they deeply understand the need to show up locally.”Here’s hoping she’s right. Next year is going to be hard. It’s up to all of us whether it’s going to be disastrous.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, X and Threads. More

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      Trump Mixes Grievance Politics With Bread-and-Butter G.O.P. Issues

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      Though the former president often draws attention for his more extreme policy proposals and rhetoric, a set of core conservative issues appear to resonate even more with his supporters.Former President Donald J. Trump has consistently generated headlines on the campaign trail for his apocalyptic, often violent rhetoric and for extreme policy proposals that would reshape long-held norms of American government.They include his vow to use the Justice Department to prosecute his foes, his statement that he would be a dictator but only on the first day of his presidency and his use of language echoing authoritarian leaders.But those comments are wrapped around more traditional political statements. A significant portion of Mr. Trump’s stump speech focuses on core conservative issues that are the bread and butter of Republican politics.Though they draw less media attention, his statements on those issues, which often push the edge of truth, appear to resonate more with his audiences. Here are some of Mr. Trump’s biggest applause lines from a speech in Reno, Nev., on Sunday, many of which have been fixtures of his appeals to voters throughout his campaign.Law and orderIn his 2024 bid, Mr. Trump is building on two safety-related messages from his previous campaigns, when he stoked fear about urban crime in Democratic-run cities and staked out a hard-line position on immigration, in part by using anti-immigrant rhetoric to paint migrants as criminals.“On my first day back in the White House, I will terminate every ‘open borders’ policy of the Biden administration.”Since leaving the White House, Mr. Trump has consistently attacked President Biden’s record on immigration, criticizing him as doing little to deter the record number of migrants crossing the border. This proposal is one of several in which Mr. Trump promises to restore and strengthen his previous immigration policies, which were hugely popular with his supporters. Mr. Biden has recently signaled a willingness to enact new restrictions on migration.“As soon as we win the election, the momentum of our great victory will immediately begin stopping the hordes of illegal-alien migrants who are charging across our border by the hundreds of thousands.”Underlying this line is Mr. Trump’s oft-repeated notion that Mr. Biden is a weak leader who has made America’s adversaries see the country as vulnerable. With statements like these, Mr. Trump suggests that he projects such an image of strength that his election alone — which he presents as an inevitability — will deter migrants from illegally crossing the border.“Safety will again be restored so that children can go outside with their parents — mother and father — and play in the park without being beat up, molested or shot.”Mr. Trump presents a dark, often dystopian, vision of an America that is ravaged by crime, building on his message in 2020 that the nation’s cities were decaying. He is again trying to present himself as a “law-and-order” candidate, vaguely alluding to crime in cities led by Democrats, for which he blames progressive politicians, activists and policies. (Mr. Trump sometimes exaggerates crime statistics to make his point.)“Drill, baby, drill” has become a rallying cry for Mr. Trump.Max Whittaker for The New York TimesEnergy and the economyPocketbook concerns are central to Mr. Trump’s campaign this year. He has recently begun using the slogan “Better Off With Trump,” telling voters that the economy was better when he was president.“I will rapidly end crooked Joe Biden’s inflation nightmare, end his war on American energy, and we will drill, baby, drill.”“Drill, baby, drill,” a mantra during the 2008 presidential campaign, has become a rallying cry for Mr. Trump, who insists that America must be less reliant on imports of oil and gas. He presents greater domestic production of fossil fuels as a solution to rising energy prices that he blames chiefly for inflation in the United States. And he is critical of environmental restrictions imposed by the Biden administration that limit drilling for oil and gas.“They’re going to make all electric cars in our country, but not when I’m in there. I’ll end that the first day.”Mr. Trump draws roars of approvals when he talks about rolling back the Biden administration’s efforts to encourage Americans to transition to electric vehicles. (The administration does not have a federal electric vehicle mandate, as Mr. Trump often claims.)He often tailors his criticism to his audience. In Nevada, he suggested that initiative would hurt automobile union workers, a criticism he has made in other speeches. But when in Iowa, Mr. Trump deems electric vehicles a threat to ethanol, a fuel that is made from corn and other crops and that is a major factor in the state’s economy.Cultural battlesOften toward the end of his stump speech, Mr. Trump turns to a set of divisive social issues that have become rallying cries for the Republican Party.“On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.”These vows, which encapsulate a number of issues that fire up Mr. Trump’s conservative base, consistently elicit some of the loudest responses at his events. His views largely align with his 2024 rivals for the nomination. Republicans have hoped such “parental rights” issues could help them win over suburban voters in particular.“I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or mask mandate.”Mr. Trump often played down the effectiveness of masks during the coronavirus pandemic. Even as his vaccine development program, Operation Warp Speed, spurred progress, the vaccines are deeply unpopular with his Republican base, and he has railed against requiring them as an affront to personal freedom.“I will keep men out of women’s sports.”This line effectively cements the belief by many conservatives that gender is fixed at birth and based on biological sex. After saying it, Mr. Trump will often marvel that politicians even have to talk about it, a way for him to ridicule L.G.B.T. rights activists. The sentence has been criticized as offensive by L.G.B.T. rights activists for misgendering transgender women athletes.Retribution and the excesses of the leftUnderlying Mr. Trump’s campaign speeches are two key grievances: his false claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him and his position that the four indictments against him are politically motivated. He draws on both as he condemns his opponents and suggests he would exact vengeance if elected.“Every time the radical-left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of honor. Because I am being indicted for you.”Mr. Trump faces 91 total felony counts in four criminal cases. He devotes considerable time in his stump speech accusing Mr. Biden of masterminding all four. With this line, Mr. Trump positions himself as a kind of Christlike political martyr: a victim of corrupt political enemies who is absorbing their blows to spare his conservative supporters.“Our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom.”Mr. Trump consistently portrays himself as the last bulwark defending American democracy from an onslaught of forces, among them the political left. With this sentence, he turns his legal woes into a collective problem. He often adds, “In the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I just happen to be standing in the way.” More

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      There Wasn’t Much to Love About 2023

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. This is our last conversation for the year, so let me first wish you and Dan a Merry Christmas.Gail: Thanks, Bret. And the best of course to you and Corinna and your kids.Bret: As much as I’ve loved our exchanges, I can’t say I’ve loved the year. From Donald Trump’s political resurrection, to Congress failing to come together to help Ukraine, to America’s premier university presidents being unable to say that calling for the genocide of Jews violates campus policies, to this latest ludicrous impeachment inquiry, to the clown show that made Kevin McCarthy speaker of the House and then the clown show that brought him down, to Vivek Ramaswamy merely opening his mouth, it feels like the year in which America slipped into terminal decline.Gail Collins: Hey, let’s go for something a little less drastic. I admit any year in which all the most positive stories seemed to involve Taylor Swift wasn’t exactly great for politics. But looking back I see some bright spots.Bret: I’m all ears.Gail: Even though people can’t wrap their heads around it, the economy’s really improved. Lots of jobs available. The unemployment rate is, gee, nearly the lowest since I was in grad school. Biden’s battle against global warming has been showing signs of progress. Electric car sales, for example, are up. Solar is energy booming.Bret: Much of it lining the pockets of Elon Musk, 2023’s third-biggest blowhard.Gail: Representative George Santos is gone — so deeply gone he’s joined Rudy Giuliani in the world of cameo video sales. And while it’s hard for America to find issues on which a strong majority can get together, I’ll bet one is the conviction that Vivek Ramaswamy is the most irritating presidential candidate in recent world history.Bret: Your point about the remarkable resilience of the American economy is a good one, and maybe it will even help Joe Biden politically as inflation finally cools off and interest rates start to fall. He’ll need that, since right now more than 60 percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy.Biden might just get another political assist if the Supreme Court, in its supreme unwisdom, fails to overturn a lower court decision to sharply restrict the distribution of abortion pills, which will almost surely energize a lot of independent voters to stick with him. There’s a bitter sort of irony in thinking that the only thing that might save abortion rights in America for the long term is their restriction in the short term.Gail: The struggle over abortion rights is one of the most fascinating political stories of our era. It seems to be getting a very strong, very positive response from a wide swath of the public. Not just limited to liberals or Democrats.Bret: Even conservatives like me shudder to think of what happens in this country if we turn the clock back 60 years on reproductive rights.Gail: The most recent controversies are going to bring even more voters into the abortion-rights camp. We had the story of the Texas Supreme Court blocking an abortion for a young woman who wanted to have a baby, then learned the fetus she was carrying would almost certainly not survive — and that following through with the delivery might make it impossible for her to have children in the future. Hard to get a more sympathetic saga.Bret: Remarkable how people who claim to believe in the sanctity of life are willing to wreck lives to get what they want.Gail: And the abortion pills work so early in a pregnancy … opposition is pretty much limited to people with a religious conviction against ending pregnancy at all.I’m very sure a majority of the Supreme Court justices don’t want to have to deal with this issue. They’re conservative, but not totally crazy.Bret: Very sure? I can see John Roberts, the chief justice, and Neil Gorsuch, the most libertarian of the justices, joining the three liberals in overturning the appeals court. But it’s going to be uncomfortably close.Gail: Fingers crossed.Bret: Returning to my preferred tale of woe, Gail, homelessness in America just rose to its highest recorded rate. Levels of illegal immigration continued to rise this year to stratospheric levels, despite Biden’s repeated promises to get the border under control. Both problems contribute to a palpable sense that things are not under control. And I don’t quite understand why Democrats don’t want to move more aggressively on these fronts, since they are big liabilities for the party.You’re in charge of the Dems: What’s up with that?Gail: Hmmph. I clearly remember recently that when something strange was going on in the House, I mentioned that you were in charge of Republicans and you protested. So don’t stick all the Democrats on me.Bret: Turnabout is fair play!Gail: OK, we’re talking about two issues here. I blame much of the housing crisis on suburban zoning laws that make it hard to build a lot of affordable homes for working families. Not that it’s all that easy to get large apartment complexes for the non-rich built in cities, either.To really tackle housing on a national scale, we’d need new programs coming from Congress, where the Republican House majority is hard pressed to work efficiently enough to brew coffee.Bret: The question isn’t whether House Republicans can brew coffee, Gail. It’s about what the president knew about Hunter’s coffee brewing — and when he knew it.Gail: Oh please, let’s skip the nonissue of Hunter Biden today.Bret: About the coffee: I was kidding. About housing: I don’t pretend to be an expert, but my impression is that the homelessness crisis has a lot to do with the opioid, meth and mental-health crises. I’m all for easing zoning laws, but I doubt we’ll make much headway until we find a way to address our catastrophic drug and mental-health problems, which often reinforce each other. Reversing misbegotten efforts to decriminalize hard drugs in places like Oregon, as well as a terrible Ninth Circuit ruling that made it difficult for cities to enforce ordinances against public camping, would do some good.Gail: Too bad we’re not doing the negotiations. I can envision possible trade-offs.The border is definitely a huge problem, but the Republicans are just using it as an excuse not to do anything the Biden administration proposes on any issue. While there have been some modest administration reforms, really getting the border situation under control requires bipartisan agreement that these House Republicans will never, ever allow.Bret: I’ve always been in favor of comprehensive and liberal immigration reform, but we didn’t have this scale of crisis when any of Biden’s recent predecessors were in office. The problem started when the administration came to office determined to be the un-Trump — and doing so at precisely the moment when much of Latin America was falling apart. Biden then spent two years in denial about the crisis until Democratic mayors in cities like New York and the governor of Massachusetts started crying foul. And the solution, I’m afraid, is to effectively militarize the border until would-be migrants get the message that the only way into the United States is through legal channels.Gail: Have a feeling we’ll be arguing about this throughout 2024. Meantime, give me some thoughts on Republican presidential politics. (Not that you’re in charge of the Republicans or anything.)Bret: If only!Gail: Next time we converse, the Iowa Republican caucus will be right around the corner, followed by the New Hampshire primary.The only candidate who seems to have a sliver of a chance of embarrassing Trump is Nikki Haley. She’s been picking up steam in New Hampshire and some people think she might actually be able to win there if Chris Christie dropped out of the race. Think you could talk him into it?Bret: Well, hope springs eternal — or at least until Super Tuesday. If Christie dropped out of the race tomorrow and threw his political weight behind Haley, she might have a chance of edging out Ron DeSantis for second place in Iowa, behind Trump, which would at least give her a symbolic victory. Ditto for New Hampshire, where the combined Haley-Christie vote, according to polls, stands at about 32 percent compared with Trump’s 44 — almost a contest! But the biggest problem Haley faces is that while she would probably trounce Biden in a general election, it now looks like Trump will win, too, which defeats the argument among Republicans that the 45th president is unelectable as the 47th.Gail: Awful but electable, the Donald Trump story.Bret: In short, the only thing that can turn things around for Republicans is Biden stepping down. Which, as you’ve correctly been telling me these past months, ain’t likely to happen. How very, very depressing.Gail: Yeah, we’ve been wishing for ages that Biden would make the smart, generous move and announce he’s not running for re-election. Now, with the primaries right around the corner, it’s almost too late for him to change his mind anyway. Sigh.Bret: Gnash teeth. Beat breast. Wail.Gail: Well, the one thing I think we can count on is a non-boring new year. It’s true the Republican presidential primaries could be really dreary, but I refuse to believe that a man who’s under indictment for a jillion different offenses is just going to coast to victory.And we’ll have lots of House and Senate races to argue about. For instance, did you see that in Arizona — no, I’m gonna stop and hold that thought for the new year. This one’s been hard enough.Bret, one of my favorite things is waiting, every week, for you to end the conversation with some great piece of prose or poetry. Let’s have one more for the holidays.Bret: Well, the most delightful piece of prose that I’ve read in The Times in the last few days is Jonathan Kandell’s obituary for Sanche Charles Armand Gabriel de Gramont, better known in this country as the journalist Ted Morgan (an anagram for “de Gramont”). The son of a French aristocrat, Morgan chose to become an American, led a life of adventure as a soldier and journalist, and even won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting when he covered the death of the opera baritone Leonard Warren, who died at the Met in 1960 while singing Verdi’s aria “Urna fatale del mio destino” — “the fatal urn of my destiny.”“There was an awesome moment as the singer fell,” Morgan reported. “The rest of the cast remained paralyzed. Finally someone in the capacity audience called out, ‘For God’s sake, bring down the curtain!’”And that’s my wish, Gail, for 2023.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, X and Threads. More

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      in Elections

      The Secret to Trump’s Success Isn’t Authoritarianism

      by

      If the presidential election were held today, Donald Trump could very well win it. Polling from several organizations shows him gaining ground on Joe Biden, winning five of six swing states and drawing the support of about 20 percent of Black and roughly 40 percent of Hispanic voters in those states.For some liberal observers, Mr. Trump’s resilience confirms that many Americans aren’t wedded to democracy and are tempted by extreme ideologies. Hillary Clinton has described Mr. Trump as a “threat” to democracy, and Mr. Biden has called him “one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history.”In a different spirit, some on the right also take Mr. Trump’s success as a sign that Americans are open to more radical forms of politics. After Mr. Trump’s win in 2016, the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin crowed that the American people had “started the revolution” against political liberalism itself. Richard Spencer declared himself and his fellow white nationalists “the new Trumpian vanguard.”But both sides consistently misread Mr. Trump’s success. He isn’t edging ahead of Mr. Biden in swing states because Americans are eager to submit to authoritarianism, and he isn’t attracting the backing of significant numbers of Black and Hispanic voters because they support white supremacy. His success is not a sign that America is prepared to embrace the ideas of the extreme right. Mr. Trump enjoys enduring support because he is perceived by many voters — often with good reason — as a pragmatic if unpredictable kind of moderate.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?  More