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      Next Front Line in the Abortion Wars: State Supreme Courts

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      Court challenges to sweeping rollbacks of abortion rights must go through state supreme courts, many of which have been shaped by years of conservative activism.WASHINGTON — Fresh from the political thicket of the United States Supreme Court, the struggle over abortion is now moving to venues that are poised to become the next front line in the country’s partisan warfare: state supreme courts.In Florida, seven justices appointed by Republican governors will decide whether the State Constitution’s explicit right to privacy, which protected abortion rights in past rulings, remains a precedent. In Michigan, a court with a 4-3 majority of Democratic nominees has been asked to conclude whether a 91-year-old law banning abortions is constitutional. In Kentucky, a decision on a ban on almost all abortions appears bound to a Supreme Court composed largely of nonpartisan elected justices.In those states and others, the federal reversal of Roe v. Wade tosses one of the nation’s most politically explosive issues into courtrooms that, until recently, had operated mostly beneath the radar of national politics.The increasing political pressure on justices — and the rightward drift of some courts — suggests that options for abortion rights advocates to soften the impact of the federal abortion ruling may be limited. It also reflects how partisan politics is emerging as a driving force in how some justices rule.Abortion rights protesters gathered at the Florida Supreme Court in May.Kenny Hill/USA TODAY NETWORKOver the past decade or so, the national Republican Party and other conservative groups have spent heavily to move both state legislatures and courts rightward. The party’s Judicial Fairness Initiative says it has spent more than $21 million since its formation in 2014 to elect conservatives to state courts, and will spend more than $5 million this year. The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative advocacy group that has been a principal backer of recent Republican nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, also has invested money in state supreme court races.The Democratic Party has also poured growing sums of money into court elections, as have allies like labor unions — but not as much, and not for as long, as have Republicans. But the rightward lurch of federal courts increasingly is leading progressives to see state courts as potential bulwarks against more conservative gains, said Joshua A. Douglas, an elections and voting rights scholar at the University of Kentucky.The right’s focus on the courts could pay off handsomely in legal battles over abortion, according to Douglas Keith, an expert on state judicial issues at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.Consider Iowa, whose Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the due process clause in the State Constitution guaranteed a right to abortion. Aided by an advertising campaign financed by the Judicial Crisis Network, the General Assembly then revised the judicial nominee process, handing more control to the governor, Kim Reynolds.Gov. Kim Reynolds has turned the Iowa Supreme Court into a conservative bastion.Nick Rohlman/The Gazette, via Associated PressMs. Reynolds, a Republican, turned the court into a conservative bastion. Last month, a week before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its ruling in Roe v. Wade, the Iowa justices reversed their own 2018 ruling on abortion.Montana also recognizes a constitutional right to abortion. In the nonpartisan primary election last month for one of its Supreme Court’s seven seats, both the Judicial Fairness Initiative and the state Republican Party spent money to ensure that a candidate endorsed by abortion opponents, James Brown, would oppose an incumbent judge, Ingrid Gustafson, in November. Ms. Gustafson was nominated to the bench in 2017 by the governor at the time, Steve Bullock, a Democrat.The reversal of abortion rights in Iowa “is not the last one we might see,” Mr. Keith said. “The lack of attention that these courts have gotten from the left, comparatively, is going to come home to roost.”From Opinion: The End of Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s decision to end ​​the constitutional right to abortion.David N. Hackney, maternal-fetal medicine specialist: The end of Roe “is a tragedy for our patients, many of whom will suffer and some of whom could very well die.”Mara Gay: “Sex is fun. For the puritanical tyrants seeking to control our bodies, that’s a problem.”Elizabeth Spiers: “The notion that rich women will be fine, regardless of what the law says, is probably comforting to some. But it is simply not true.”Katherine Stewart, writer: “​​Breaking American democracy isn’t an unintended side effect of Christian nationalism. It is the point of the project.”A major test looms in Florida, where the State Constitution’s Bill of Rights declares that “every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life.”The Florida Supreme Court previously cited that explicit guarantee of privacy in striking down laws that restricted access to abortion. That precedent now appears endangered.In 2019, the last three justices who had been nominated by a Democratic governor retired. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has made opposition to abortion a centerpiece of a possible presidential campaign, replaced them with conservatives.From voting rights to redistricting, the State Supreme Court has ruled reliably in support of conservatives in recent years. Daniel A. Smith, a University of Florida political scientist who watches the court, said he believed that was unlikely to change.“I think the U.S. Supreme Court is sending a signal to justices in state high courts that precedent no longer matters,” he said. Dr. Smith predicted that the constitutional guarantee of privacy “will be whittled away” when the state court makes its abortion ruling.Attorney General Daniel Cameron of Kentucky, a Republican, on Sunday asked the State Supreme Court to issue an emergency order suspending a lower court decision allowing the state’s only abortion provider to remain open. The court denied the request on Tuesday.In elections to the State Supreme Court this fall, State Representative Joseph Fischer, perhaps the Legislature’s leading opponent of abortion, is running to unseat Michelle M. Keller, who was appointed to the court in 2013 by Steve Beshear, a Democrat who was then the governor.State Representative Randy Bridges gave a thumbs down as protesters chanted “bans off our bodies” at the Kentucky State Capitol in April.Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader, via Associated PressNational political parties and interest groups will focus their money and attention this fall on state supreme courts in four states — Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio — where elections could flip the courts’ majority from Democratic to Republican or vice versa. But other states could be in play.Six of seven justices on the Democratic-led Supreme Court in Kansas must stand for retention elections, and some are likely to become targets of Republicans infuriated by the court’s ruling in 2019 that abortion is a constitutional right. Arkansas Republicans are backing a former chairman of the state party against a Democratic incumbent justice in an effort to scrub remaining moderates from the already conservative court.Even more than abortion, the focus on state courts has reflected the politics of redistricting, particularly after a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that left oversight of partisan gerrymanders to state legislatures and courts. National Republicans say changing state supreme courts is the only way to stop Democrats from gaining power by successfully suing to overturn gerrymandered Republican political maps, a strategy they mockingly call “sue till it’s blue.”“If Republicans and conservatives want to control the redistricting process, then winning control of state legislatures is not enough. You also need to control the supreme courts,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for the Republican State Leadership Committee.Kelly Burton, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which has backed many of those suits, said the battle was more about stopping a creeping autocracy than about changing political boundaries.“It’s about voting rights cases,” she said. “It’s about fights over access to abortion. And fundamentally, we’re trying to protect these courts as neutral arbiters, while Republicans want to make them less independent and more partisan.”Some justices say they feel caught in the middle as partisan pressures surge.Maureen O’Connor, a Republican who is chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, was threatened with impeachment by some in her party this spring after she voted with Democratic justices to strike down political maps gerrymandered by Republicans.To some people, she said, her vote on redistricting “shows integrity and independence and respect for the rule of law and the Constitution. To others, I am a traitor.”Chief Justice Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court has campaigned for years to scrap the state’s system of partisan elections for judicial positions.Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty ImagesNathan Hecht, the chief justice of the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court, has campaigned for years to scrap the state’s system of partisan elections for judicial positions. “Texas has one of the stupidest systems in the world,” he said, and he worries that growing partisanship will make it even worse.Still, he said he thought there was a good chance that as divisive issues like abortion “devolve down to the states, the states will find ways to reach a middle ground that federal lawmakers have not been able to find.” But he added, “I’m not going to bet on that.”On Friday, the Texas court lifted a lower-court freeze on a 1925 law that bans abortions and holds out the prospect of imprisonment for those who provide them. A full hearing on the law will be held later.Sheelagh McNeill More

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      in World Politics

      The Abortion of American Democracy Has Been Bloody and Messy

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in Elections

      An American’s Murky Path From Russian Propagandist to Jan. 6

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      Charles Bausman, a former financial executive who runs websites that promote far-right views, recorded footage in the Capitol for a Russian television producer. Soon after, he fled to Moscow as a “political refugee.”In security footage from Jan. 6, it is easy to overlook the thin man wearing a red Trump hat who filters into the U.S. Capitol Building to record the mayhem with his phone.He blends in with the mob, seemingly unexceptional by the chaotic standards of that day. But what he did afterward was far from routine.Within 24 hours, the man, Charles Bausman, gave his recordings and commentary to a Russian television producer for a propaganda video. He then decamped to Moscow, where, appearing on a far-right television network owned by a sanctioned oligarch, he recently accused American media of covering up for neo-Nazis in Ukraine.“We must understand that in the West,” Mr. Bausman told Russian viewers, “we are already in a situation of total lies.”For Mr. Bausman — an American alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy and Wesleyan University who speaks fluent Russian — it was the latest chapter in a strange odyssey. Once a financial executive who voted for President Barack Obama, he emerged in 2014 as a public critic of the left and of the United States, boosted by Russian state-sponsored organizations through speaking invitations, TV appearances and awards.Central to his transformation was a series of websites he created pushing anti-America, pro-Russia themes, as well as racist and homophobic messaging. Some of his posts have racked up millions of views, and his 5,000-word screed on “the Jewish problem” has been hailed by antisemites around the world and translated into multiple languages.Mr. Bausman’s path in some ways tracks a broader shift on the political right that embraces misinformation and sympathy toward Russia while tolerating an increasingly emboldened white nationalism. For its part, the Kremlin has sought to court conservatives in the United States and sow discord through a network of expats, collaborators and spies.People who have written for Mr. Bausman’s websites or promoted his work have come under scrutiny by American intelligence, and the founder of a pro-Russia forum that hosted him and others was charged in March with being an unregistered agent of Moscow.Mr. Bausman initially gained some prominence as a Russia apologist, but he has lowered his profile in recent years as he has espoused more extreme views. Yet he has been Zelig-like in exploiting cultural and political flash points, racing from cause to cause.After surfacing as a voluble defender of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, Mr. Bausman became an outspoken Trump supporter. With white nationalism on the rise, he threw himself into promoting it, relocating to rural Pennsylvania and hosting neo-Nazis at his property. He joined Republican protests against coronavirus restrictions and the 2020 election and most recently has reappeared in Russian media to criticize the West’s response to the war in Ukraine.Mr. Bausman attended a 2015 conference hosted by RT, a news channel tied to the Kremlin.Mikhail Voskresenskiy/Sputnik, via APKonstantin Malofeev, an influential oligarch indicted by the United States over alleged sanctions violations, said he had asked Mr. Bausman to appear on his television network because Mr. Bausman was one of the few Russian-speaking Americans willing to do it.“Who else is there to invite?” Mr. Malofeev asked.Mr. Bausman, 58, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. No charges have been brought against him related to the events of Jan. 6, though he appears inside the Capitol in video clips introduced in court cases against others. When a Russian TV host referred to him as “a participant” in storming the Capitol, Mr. Bausman interrupted to say that the description could get him into trouble, and that he was a journalist.Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine WarHistory and Background: Here’s what to know about Russia and Ukraine’s relationship and the causes of the conflict.How the Battle Is Unfolding: Russian and Ukrainian forces are using a bevy of weapons as a deadly war of attrition grinds on in eastern Ukraine.Russia’s Brutal Strategy: An analysis of more than 1,000 photos found that Russia has used hundreds of weapons in Ukraine that are widely banned by international treaties.Outside Pressures: Governments, sports organizations and businesses are taking steps to punish Russia. Here are some of the sanctions adopted so far and a list of companies that have pulled out of the country.Stay Updated: To receive the latest updates on the war in your inbox, sign up here. The Times has also launched a Telegram channel to make its journalism more accessible around the world.But, on other occasions, he has described himself differently. Speaking on a white nationalist podcast in April, in which he attacked critics of Russia as “evil pedophile globalists” who control the “enslaved West,” he explained why he was back in Moscow:“I’m a political refugee here.”Connecticut to MoscowPresident Vladimir V. Putin had just invaded Crimea in 2014 when Mr. Bausman said he had an idea. He would create an alternative news source to counter what he called Western media’s “inaccurate, incomplete and unrealistically negative picture of Russia.”The website, Russia Insider, was directed at an English-speaking audience and offered stories like, “Putin to Obama: You’re Turning the U.S.A. Into a Godless Sewer,” and “Anti-Christian Pogrom Underway in Ukraine.” Content was often aggregated from other pro-Russia sources, including RT, the Kremlin-funded television network.The role of online agitator was not an obvious one for Mr. Bausman, who grew up in the wealthy suburb of Greenwich, Conn., attended prep school and went on to earn a history degree from Wesleyan and study business at Columbia. His experience with Russia dates to his childhood, when his father served as the Moscow bureau chief for The Associated Press.Mr. Bausman with his father, who worked in Moscow for The Associated Press.As a college graduate in the late 1980s, he returned to Russia, and, with help from his father’s connections, worked briefly for NBC News. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, Mr. Bausman found a new role: as a multilingual fixer for entrepreneurs scrambling to cash in on the emerging economy.A. Craig Copetas, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent who wrote a book about the post-Soviet business era, said Mr. Bausman worked with Russians who “were the forerunners of the oligarchs.”“Charlie speaks excellent Russian,” he said, “so he was a valuable asset — he was like the young American prince of Moscow.”Mr. Bausman’s early success was not to last. There are gaps in his résumé, and U.S. court records show that he filed for bankruptcy in 1999.A former business associate recalled Mr. Bausman’s father beseeching people to “help my son” with his career. This person — one of several who did not want to be identified because of Mr. Bausman’s ties to extremists — described him as “just this lost guy” who seemed to struggle professionally despite impressive qualifications. He worked a succession of Russian private equity jobs, never staying in any position longer than a few years.Mr. Bausman’s last role was with the agribusiness investor AVG Capital Partners. A 2012 company presentation, which listed him as director of investor relations, boasted of “strong partnerships” with Russian authorities and included a photo of Mr. Putin.The exact timing of Mr. Bausman’s switch to propagandist is murky, but two profiles on the Russian social media platform VK offer a clue. The first, from 2011, is a sparse page featuring a wan Mr. Bausman in a suit and a link to a group interested in tennis.In the second profile, from two years later, he looks tan and confident in an open-collared shirt. The VK groups he joined were strikingly radical, including a militant Russian Orthodox sect and another called the Internet Militia, whose goal echoed what would soon become Mr. Bausman’s focus: “to protect and defend our native information field” against American attack.Oligarch ConnectionsPublicly, Mr. Bausman turned to crowd funding to pay for Russia Insider. Behind the scenes, however, he was in contact with Mr. Malofeev, a promoter of Orthodox nationalist propaganda.Leaked emails made public in 2014 revealed Mr. Bausman corresponding with a Malofeev associate, saying “we published your Serbia info” and asking for money. In an email to Mr. Malofeev, the associate praised Mr. Bausman’s site as “pro-Russian” and noted that he “wants to cooperate.”Mr. Malofeev was backing another media project at the time with a similar agenda: Tsargrad TV, which he created with a former Fox News employee, John Hanick. Both Mr. Hanick and Mr. Malofeev were charged by the United States this year with violating sanctions imposed in 2014.Mr. Bausman has appeared on the television network of Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian oligarch indicted by the U.S. for alleged sanctions violations.Tatyana Makeyeva/ReutersIn an interview, Mr. Malofeev said he believed Mr. Bausman “has done a great job and that he is a very brave person,” but he denied they had “a financial relationship.”Mr. Bausman has always said he did not receive support from Russian authorities. But there is little doubt that his emergence as an American salesman of pro-Kremlin views was aided greatly by entities controlled by or tied to the Russian state.After Russia Insider went live, Mr. Bausman began appearing on RT and other Russian media, and a news crew from a major state-owned TV channel traveled to his parents’ home in Connecticut to film him discussing his new website. On Facebook, he boasted that “our traffic exploded after this aired.”He was invited to join panel discussions at another state-owned outlet, received an award in 2016 named after a pro-Russia journalist killed in Ukraine, and spoke at a Kremlin-sponsored youth conference in newly captured Crimea. He gave interviews to Russian Orthodox figures, speaking approvingly of Mr. Malofeev.In April 2016, Mr. Bausman’s work was promoted by a Russian website, RIA FAN, that has been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch indicted by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller. The website initially shared an address with the Internet Research Agency, the Russian government “troll factory” accused of using fake social media accounts and online propaganda to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Russia analysts who have followed Mr. Bausman’s work say it has the hallmarks of a disinformation project. Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis who researches Russian propaganda campaigns, said his messaging merged seamlessly with that of Mr. Putin’s government.“The initial purpose of his outlet was to muddle the truth in American circles about Crimea,” she said. “And then you see his outlet and others repurposed to support the Kremlin narrative about Syria, and then the 2016 U.S. elections.“It appears,” she said, “to be a classic Russian influence operation.”Hard-Right TurnWith Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, Mr. Bausman’s media outlet began to promote more extreme views. In a celebratory post after the election, he struck a militant chord that shocked old friends.“Trump’s election is perhaps akin to Luther nailing his theses to the door, but now the demons are wakened, and they know they must fight or be killed, and as in the 16th century, they will not go quietly,” he wrote. “And there will be blood. Let us hope that it is the figurative, digital kind, and not the real, red, hot, sticky stuff.”A turning point came in January 2018, when Mr. Bausman posted a lengthy polemic, “It’s Time to Drop the Jew Taboo,” that was both an antisemitic manifesto and a call to action for the alt-right.“The evidence suggests that much of human enterprise dominated and shaped by Jews is a bottomless pit of trouble with a peculiar penchant for mendacity and cynicism, hostility to Christianity and Christian values, and in geopolitics, a clear bloodlust,” he wrote.It was welcomed by white nationalist figures like Richard Spencer, who called it “a major event.”Outside the far right, Mr. Bausman’s embrace of antisemitism was widely condemned. The U.S. State Department flagged it in a report on human-rights concerns in Russia, and the diatribe prompted a disavowal from RT.After the death in August 2018 of his mother, who left an estate valued at about $2.6 million, Mr. Bausman bought two properties in Lancaster, Pa., where his family had roots.His older sister, Mary-Fred Bausman-Watkins, said last year that her brother “was always short on money” and that their parents frequently helped him out, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has compiled several reports on his activities. Ms. Bausman-Watkins died in May.“They funded his whole life,” she told the center, “and then he inherited their money when they died, and they’re still funding his life.”The InsurrectionWhile living in Lancaster with his Russian wife and two young daughters, Mr. Bausman turned his attention to two new websites devoted largely to white nationalist content. Headlines included: “Out of Control Black Violence” and “Jewish Intellectuals Call on Gays to Perform Sex Acts in Front of Children.”Mr. Bausman concealed his ownership of one of these sites, National Justice, through a private registration, which The New York Times confirmed by reviewing data leaked last year from Epik, a web-hosting service favored by the far right. The site has the same name as a white nationalist organization and featured posts by one of its leaders, though it is not the group’s official site, according to its chairman, Michael Peinovich.In an interview, Mr. Peinovich said Mr. Bausman had hosted party members at his farmstead for an inaugural meeting in 2020 (a large event first reported by a local news outlet, LancasterOnline). But afterward, he said, his group “went our own way” because it did not agree with Mr. Bausman’s preoccupation with supporting Mr. Trump.Three days before Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Bausman allowed Rod of Iron Ministries, a gun-themed religious sect led by a son of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, to meet at his property, according to photos on social media. Members of the sect had been active in “Stop the Steal” rallies, some of which Mr. Bausman had also attended, and were at the Capitol on Jan. 6.On Facebook, Mr. Bausman posted an appeal for people to go to Washington “to support Trump.” At various points during the riot, Mr. Bausman can be seen inside the Capitol, often using his phone to record the chaos.Mr. Bausman, right, has said he entered the Capitol in the capacity of a journalist.via YouTubeAfterward, he returned to Lancaster and gave a lengthy interview for a video about the insurrection produced by Arkady Mamontov, a Russian television host known for splashy pro-Kremlin propaganda pieces. The video also included footage of Mr. Bausman outside his home that appears to have been filmed months earlier. Mr. Mamontov did not respond to a request for comment.In the video, Mr. Bausman suggested, without evidence, that federal agents had instigated the violence at the Capitol to “discredit Trump,” and he painted a dystopian, conspiratorial picture of American society. It is a theme that he has carried forward to more recent appearances on Mr. Malofeev’s television network, in which he has accused Western media of lying about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.It is not clear when Mr. Bausman left the U.S., but he was in Moscow for a TV appearance on the day of President Biden’s inauguration, two weeks after the insurrection at the Capitol. In the white nationalist podcast interview he gave in April from Russia, he said he had not been back home since.When asked by the host if he was still a Trump fan, Mr. Bausman said he was not, before adding with a laugh that there was one thing that could restore his loyalty.“When he pardons me for Jan. 6,” he said.Anton Troianovski More

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      in Elections

      Why on Earth Is Pelosi Supporting the Trumpists?

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      The Democratic Party is behaving recklessly and unpatriotically. So far, Democrats have spent tens of millions to help Trumpist candidates in Republican primaries.In Illinois alone, the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker spent at least $30 million to attack a Trumpist’s moderate gubernatorial opponent. In Pennsylvania, a Democratic campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads intended to help a Trumpist candidate win the G.O.P. gubernatorial primary. A political action committee affiliated with Nancy Pelosi worked to boost far-right Republican House candidates in California and Colorado.They are doing it because they think far-right Trumpist candidates will be easier to beat in the general elections than more moderate candidates.What the Democrats are doing is sleazy in the best of circumstances. If you love your country more than your party, you should want the best candidates to advance in either party. And in these circumstances, what they are doing is insane: The far-right candidates whom Democrats are supporting could easily wind up winning.Many Democrats, living in their own information bubble and apparently having learned nothing from 2016, do not seem to understand the horrific electoral landscape they are facing. They do not seem to understand how much their business-as-usual approach could lead to a full Republican takeover in 2025 — which as this week’s Jan. 6 insurrection hearing reminded us yet again, would be a disaster for our democracy.Many Democrats hope that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision will mobilize their voters for the coming midterms, and that seems to have happened, at least in the short term. But I’m convinced this election will primarily be about the economy and the existential state of the country. Things look extremely grim for the ruling party.A staggering 83 percent of Americans believe the economy is poor or not so good, according to a May Wall Street Journal-NORC poll. And an equally staggering 83 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, according to a Gallup poll.Parties get punished when they make mistakes. Recently, Democrats have made the kind of mistakes that make voters furious.Liberal economists underestimated the inflation threat, and Democratic fiscal policy, ignoring that threat, seems to have escalated it. The Democratic Party as a whole became associated with progressives who saw policing simply through a racial injustice lens. That’s an important lens, but progressives ignored the public safety lens and were unprepared for the widespread public anger over the increase in crime.Similarly, many progressives argued that cancel culture wasn’t a thing or was being severely exaggerated. Americans who are afraid to think out loud think the left has become too censorious, and the Democratic Party once again is held guilty by association. Progressives have also largely failed to address the shortcomings of their governing model. The rampant inequality, homelessness and other social ills plaguing San Francisco and other cities are there for all to see.We are living in an age of menace, an age when people feel unsafe on a variety of fronts. These are ages when voters tend to flock to conservative parties, which they associate with law and order.And then there is the underlying problem, which has gone unaddressed since Donald Trump surged to his unexpected victory in 2016, which is that while Democrats support many popular policies, progressives are associated with a series of social and cultural values that are unpopular with most Americans. According to a new More in Common survey, 69 percent of Americans believe that America is a country where if you get a good education, develop your talents and are open to innovation, you can do anything. Only 36 percent of progressive activists agree with this.That’s just a basic difference in how people see the country, and time and time again Democratic politicians have been punished for the messages that come out of progressive educational and cultural institutions.The Republican Party has grown pretty extreme over the past few years. But it’s important to remember Americans believe that the Democratic Party has grown extreme, too. According to a CNN survey, 46 percent of Americans believe the G.O.P. is “too extreme” and 48 percent believe the Democratic Party is “too extreme.” My guess is that this is not about Democratic domestic policies, many of which are popular, but about progressive cultural and social stances. It’s about people feeling alienated from metropolitan elites.I’ve had a recurring mystification over the past six years: How is it possible that Democrats are not crushing these guys? The G.O.P. has worked full time to disgrace itself over these years. And yet experts expect the Republicans to easily retake the House and perhaps the Senate. That’s kind of amazing when you stop to think about it.And this is all going to get catastrophically worse for Democrats if the economy further deteriorates and if a recession comes.In 2020 Biden was the candidate who didn’t seem to be pinioned to the coastal elites. But Democrats are still being battered because of that association. And what are they doing to fix the problem? Spending money to support Trumpists.Those crazies could be running the country in a few years.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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      in Elections

      Your Summer Politics Quiz

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      Las democracias no siempre se comportan de manera democrática

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

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