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      Macron Vows Ambitious Green Policies, Wooing the Left in Runoff

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      France’s president is trying to tap into the country’s large pool of left-wing voters, but many are hesitant to back him.MARSEILLE, France — On a stage erected on lush green lawns overlooking the sun-soaked Mediterranean port of Marseille, President Emmanuel Macron declared on Saturday to a crowd of supporters, “The politics that I will carry out in the next five years will be environmental, or will not be!”It was an ambitious promise for a president whose green policies have been criticized at repeated climate protests, condemned by courts for “inaction” and marked by failure to meet goals. But above all, Mr. Macron’s vow was a direct appeal to voters to his left, who hold the key to a final victory in the second round of the presidential election — and for whom climate has become a key issue.Mr. Macron devoted about three-quarters of his hour-and-a-half speech to environmental issues. He promised to appoint ministers responsible for long-term environmental planning, to plant 140 million trees by 2030 and to rapidly cut dependence on oil and gas by developing nuclear and renewable energy.“Inaction — not for me!” he told a cheering crowd of some 4,000 people who gathered in the Parc du Pharo, on the heights of Marseille, for what was possibly Mr. Macron’s last rally before the April 24th vote.The event symbolized Mr. Macron’s strategy for the runoff between the centrist incumbent and his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen: wooing the left with progressive policies and campaigning in working-class cities where he is trying to shed his image as an aloof president detached from everyday realities. If large numbers of left-wing voters stay home for the second round of voting, or migrate to Ms. Le Pen’s camp, it could spell serious trouble for Mr. Macron.Stewart Chau, an analyst for the polling firm Viavoice, said Mr. Macron’s main goal was to “seek voters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon,” the far-left candidate who came in third overall in the first round of voting — but first in Marseille, with 31 percent of the vote.In September, the president unveiled a multibillion-euro plan to tackle crime and poverty in Marseille.Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate, held a news conference on her foreign policy agenda this week in Paris.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockPromising a “complete renewal” if he is re-elected, Mr. Macron also used his speech to attack Ms. Le Pen, accusing her of wanting to curtail freedom of the press, challenge gender equality and lead France out of the Europe Union. He is trying to revive the “dam” that mainstream voters have long formed by voting for anyone over a Le Pen — either his current opponent or her father, Jean-Marie, leaders of the French far right since the 1970s.Saturday’s rally capped an intense week of campaigning for Mr. Macron, touring the country since Monday to make up for a lackluster initial campaign. Visiting only places where Ms. Le Pen or Mr. Mélenchon came out on top in the first round, he is risking engaging with angry residents, in an attempt to show that he, too, can feel their pain.By contrast, Ms. Le Pen, who has long striven to soften her public image, has been more risk-averse, limiting her campaign trips this week. Instead, she has tried to cement her credibility with two news conferences on her institutional overhaul proposals and her foreign policy agenda.But those events partly backfired after her party’s refusal to accredit some media outlets caused a stir, and as she detailed contentious plans to seek rapprochement with Russia and quit NATO’s integrated military command.Ms. Le Pen has been more exposed to scrutiny since another far-right candidate, Éric Zemmour, failed to make the runoff. His incendiary comments opposing immigration and Islam drew much of the attention away from Ms. Le Pen, who has long been known for similar stances.“The form confronts the substance,” said Mr. Chau, the analyst, adding that Ms. Le Pen’s sanitized image now clashed with “the reality of her ideas, which are anything but appeased, anything but softened.”At a rally on Thursday in the southern city of Avignon, Ms. Le Pen mentioned immigration only three times, despite it being the cornerstone of her platform. She has proposed deporting foreigners after they have been unemployed for one year, giving priority to native-born French for social housing and benefits, and abolishing the right to citizenship through birth in France.Supporters of Ms. Le Pen on Thursday in Avignon.Daniel Cole/Associated PressHer supporters were blunter. “She still wants to kick out the immigrants,” said Aline Vincent, a French flag in her right hand, who attended Ms. Le Pen’s rally along with about 4,000 others. “But she doesn’t say it the same way.”In Marseille, Daniel Beddou, said he “was very worried” about the rise of the far right. Holding a European flag in his left hand, he said he was pleased by Mr. Macron’s environmental plans. He said they embodied the president’s “at the same time” approach, referring to his habit of borrowing policies from both the left and right.As he appeals to the 7.7 million voters who backed Mr. Mélenchon in the first round and appear to hold the key to a final victory, Mr. Macron has toned down some of his proposals, like a plan to raise the legal retirement age to 65 from 62, which he now says could be softened.On Saturday, he also insisted on long-term “environmental planning” — a concept that was a cornerstone of Mr. Mélenchon’s platform — promising to appoint a minister “directly responsible” for it, assisted by two ministers in charge of the energy and environmental transition.“There’s a real willingness to speak to a working-class electorate, a left-wing electorate that we lacked in the first round,” said Sacha Houlié, a lawmaker and spokesman for Mr. Macron’s campaign.What to Know About France’s Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4Heading to a runoff. More

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      Will Democrats Soon Be Locked Out of Power?

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      Throughout the Trump era it was a frequent theme of liberal commentary that their political party represented a clear American majority, thwarted by our antidemocratic institutions and condemned to live under the rule of the conservative minority.In the political context of 2016-20, this belief was overstated. Yes, Donald Trump won the presidential election of 2016 with a minority of the popular vote. But more Americans voted for Republican congressional candidates than Democratic congressional candidates, and more Americans voted for right-of-center candidates for president — including the Libertarian vote — than voted for Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein. In strictly majoritarian terms, liberalism deserved to lose in 2016, even if Trump did not necessarily deserve to win.And Republican structural advantages, while real, did not then prevent Democrats from reclaiming the House of Representatives in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 and Senate in 2021. These victories extended the pattern of 21st century American politics, which has featured significant swings every few cycles, not the entrenchment of either party’s power.The political landscape after 2024, however, might look more like liberalism’s depictions of its Trump-era plight. According to calculations by liberalism’s Cassandra, David Shor, the convergence of an unfavorable Senate map for Democrats with their pre-existing Electoral College and Senate disadvantages could easily produce a scenario where the party wins 50 percent of the congressional popular vote, 51 percent of the presidential vote — and ends up losing the White House and staring down a nearly filibuster-proof Republican advantage in the Senate.That’s a scenario for liberal horror, but it’s not one that conservatives should welcome either. In recent years, as their advantages in both institutions have increased, conservatives have defended institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College with variations of the argument that the United States is a democratic republic, not a pure democracy.These arguments carry less weight, however, the more consistently undemocratic the system’s overall results become. (They would fall apart completely in the scenario sought by Donald Trump and some of his allies after 2020, where state legislatures simply substitute their preferences for the voters in their states.)The Electoral College’s legitimacy can stand up if an occasional 49-47 percent popular vote result goes the other way; likewise the Senate’s legitimacy if it tilts a bit toward one party but changes hands consistently.But a scenario where one party has sustained governing power while lacking majoritarian support is a recipe for delegitimization and reasonable disillusionment, which no clever conservative column about the constitutional significance of state sovereignty would adequately address.From the Republican Party’s perspective, the best way to avoid this future — where the nature of conservative victories undercuts the perceived legitimacy of conservative governance — is to stop being content with the advantages granted by the system and try harder to win majorities outright.You can’t expect a political party to simply cede its advantages: There will never be a bipartisan constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate, on any timeline you care to imagine. But you can expect a political party to show a little more electoral ambition than the G.O.P. has done of late — to seek to win more elections the way that Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon won them, rather than being content to keep it close and put their hopes in lucky breaks.Especially in the current climate, which looks dire for the Democrats, the Republicans have an opportunity to make the Electoral College complaint moot, for a time at least, by simply taking plausible positions, nominating plausible candidates and winning majorities outright.That means rejecting the politics of voter-fraud paranoia — as, hopefully, Republican primary voters will do by choosing Brian Kemp over David Perdue in the Georgia gubernatorial primary.It means rejecting the attempts to return to the libertarian “makers versus takers” politics of Tea Party era, currently manifested in Florida Senator Rick Scott’s recent manifesto suggesting tax increases for the working class — basically the right-wing equivalent of “defund the police” in terms of its political toxicity.And it means — and I fear this is beyond the G.O.P.’s capacities — nominating someone other than Donald Trump in 2024.A Republican Party that managed to win popular majorities might still see its Senate or Electoral College majorities magnified by its structural advantages. But such magnification is a normal feature of many democratic systems, not just our own. It’s very different from losing the popular vote consistently and yet being handed power anyway.As for what the Democrats should do about their disadvantages — well, that’s a longer discussion, but two quick points for now.First, to the extent the party wants to focus on structural answers to its structural challenges, it needs clarity about what kind of electoral reforms would actually accomplish something. That’s been lacking in the Biden era, where liberal reformers wasted considerable time and energy on voting bills that didn’t pass and also weren’t likely to help the party much had they been actually pushed through.A different reform idea, statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, wouldn’t have happened in this period either, but it’s much more responsive to the actual challenges confronting Democrats in the Senate. So if you’re a liberal activist or a legislator planning for the next brief window when your party holds power, pushing for an expanded Senate seems like a more reasonable long ball to try to train your team to throw.Second, to the extent that there’s a Democratic path back to greater parity in the Senate and Electoral College without structural reform, it probably requires the development of an explicit faction within the party dedicated to winning back two kinds of voters — culturally conservative Latinos and working-class whites — who were part of Barack Obama’s coalition but have drifted rightward since.That faction would have two missions: To hew to a poll-tested agenda on economic policy (not just the business-friendly agenda supported by many centrist Democrats) and to constantly find ways to distinguish itself from organized progressivism — the foundations, the activists, the academics — on cultural and social issues. And crucially, not in the tactical style favored by analysts like Shor, but in the language of principle: Rightward-drifting voters would need to know that this faction actually believes in its own moderation, its own attacks on progressive shibboleths, and that its members will remain a thorn in progressivism’s side even once they reach Washington.Right now the Democrats have scattered politicians, from West Virginia to New York City, who somewhat fit this mold. But they don’t have an agenda for them to coalesce around, a group of donors ready to fund them, a set of intellectuals ready to embrace them as their own.Necessity, however, is the mother of invention, and necessity may impose itself upon the Democratic Party soon enough.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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      Macron Sets Out to Build a ‘Dam’ Against Le Pen. Can It Hold?

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      After Sunday’s vote, when nearly a third of ballots went to the extreme right, a united front of mainstream voters looked more precarious than ever. PARIS — A day after Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, emerged as his challenger for the final round of France’s presidential election in less than two weeks, President Emmanuel Macron immediately set about on Monday to build the “dam.”Dams are the mainstream French voters who, time and again, have put political differences aside in the second round and voted for anyone but a Le Pen in a so-called “Republican front” to deny the far right the presidency.But after Sunday’s first round, when 32 percent of French voters supported candidates on the extreme right — a record — the dam may be more precarious than ever.Mr. Macron, widely criticized for a listless campaign, moved quickly Monday to shore it up, directly challenging Ms. Le Pen and her party, the National Rally, in the economically depressed north where she dominated Sunday.In Denain, a city won by Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Macron spoke of the worries of the youth in Denain and other social issues. He tried to remind voters of the extremist roots of Ms. Le Pen’s party, referring to it by its old name, the National Front.At a campaign stop of her own in a rural area, Yonne, Ms. Le Pen said that the dam was a dishonest strategy to win an election, adding that “it’s a way to save yourself when you don’t deserve it.’’In a triumphant speech against the majestic backdrop of the Louvre Museum five years ago, Mr. Macron had launched his presidency by pledging to unite the French so that there would be “no reason at all to vote for the extremes.’’But in addition to Ms. Le Pen’s second-place finish, with 23 percent of the vote, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftist veteran, won 22 percent of Sunday’s votes to finish a strong third. Mr. Mélenchon’s supporters — split in their attitudes toward Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen — could now help determine the election’s final outcome on April 24.Outside a small market in Amiens, France, in March. Mr. Macron quickly moved Monday to challenge Ms. Le Pen in the economically depressed north where he lost to her even in Amiens, his hometown.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesAfter five years of Mr. Macron, who trounced Ms. Le Pen in the 2017 runoff, the far-right leader emerged stronger than ever. She has softened her image in a successful process of “undemonizing’’ and focused relentlessly on ordinary voters’ economic hardship.In Yonne, Ms. Le Pen hammered away at the themes that carried her through to the second round. Meeting with a cereal farmer, she spoke of how rising prices of fuel and fertilizers following the war in Ukraine would raise the cost of staples at supermarkets and hurt the most vulnerable.The far right’s record performance on Sunday resulted from a combination of factors, including Ms. Le Pen’s own efforts to revamp her image, a successful cultural battle waged by conservative forces in recent years, and a series of Islamist attacks in France since 2015. But critics say that it also reflected Mr. Macron’s continued strategy of triangulating France’s electoral landscape. While Mr. Macron was regarded as a center-left candidate five years ago, he shifted rightward during his presidency, sensing that his main challenge would come from Ms. Le Pen. That shift was embodied by a series of laws toughening France’s stance on immigration, empowering the police, and combating Islamist extremism. Many working French also felt that his economic policies unfairly favored the rich and have left them more adrift.If Mr. Macron’s intention was to defuse Ms. Le Pen’s appeal by stripping her of her core issues, critics say the approach backfired by ushering the talking points of the far right deeper into the mainstream political debate. Then, Ms. Le Pen also shifted her message to pocketbook issues that have now resonated even more broadly as energy prices spike because of the war in Ukraine.Sacha Houlié, a lawmaker and a spokesman for Mr. Macron’s campaign, said that the president was aiming to strengthen the dam strategy. He acknowledged that there have been “some mistakes” and “blunders,” noting that some government ministers had picked up themes and expressions promoted by the far right. Supporters of Ms. Le Pen singing the national anthem at her rally after voting results were announced on Sunday. Mr. Macron has described the far-right leader as a danger to French democracy.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut Mr. Houlié denied that Mr. Macron had normalized far-right ideas, saying his government had mainly tried to respond to people’s growing concerns on crime and immigration. “We cannot sweep the dust under the carpet,” he said, referring to the issues. But many, especially Mr. Mélenchon’s supporters of the left, feel so betrayed that Mr. Macron may have a harder time in this next election persuading them to join his call for unity by building a dam against Ms. Le Pen, whom the president has called a danger to democracy. Alexis Lévrier, a historian who has written about Mr. Macron’s relations with the news media, said that as Mr. Macron tried to reshape French politics around a strict divide between his mainstream movement and Ms. Le Pen, he “contributed to the rise in power of the far right.” Unwittingly, “he’s a pyromaniac firefighter,” Mr. Lévrier said.A resident of Guyancourt — a well-off, left-leaning city southwest of Paris where Mr. Mélenchon came in first Sunday — Stéphanie Noury said that, in 2017, she gave Mr. Macron her vote as part of a dam against the far right. But this time, she planned to stay home for the final round.“Macron played into the hands of the extreme right,’’ said Ms. Noury, 55, a human resources manager who voted Sunday for Mr. Mélenchon. “He told himself that he would always win against the extreme right.’’Compared to 2017, Ms. Le Pen’s share of the first-round vote went up by a couple of percentage points despite the direct challenge of a new rival, the far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, who urged his supporters to vote for Ms. Le Pen in the upcoming showdown.On Sunday, Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Zemmour and a third far-right candidate, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, together got 32 percent of the vote. In 2017, Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Dupont-Aignan collected 26 percent in the first round.Ms. Le Pen meeting supporters at a rally in Stiring-Wendel, France, on April 1. The far-right candidate has sought to soften her image.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesVoters first formed a dam against the extreme right in 2002 when Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, shocked the political establishment by making it into a runoff against Jacques Chirac. Another dam helped defeat Ms. Le Pen in 2017.To gain credibility on the right, in 2019, Mr. Macron gave his first long interview on the sensitive issues of immigration and Islam to Valeurs Actuelles, a magazine that straddles the right and far right.“By talking to us, Emmanuel Macron came to seek some legitimacy on these subjects, from right-wing people who felt he was doing nothing,” said Geoffroy Lejeune, the publication’s editor. “He knows that by doing this, he’s sending a big signal.” Aurélien Taché, a lawmaker once allied with Mr. Macron, said the president was elected in 2017 thanks to voters who put aside their political differences and united against Ms. Le Pen. He said Mr. Macron should have taken those votes — mainly from the left — into account in his policies afterward.“He did not consider them,” he said, adding that Mr. Macron instead worked to “set up this cleavage’’ between him and Ms. Le Pen, leading to a “high-risk rematch.”“There have been, on a whole range of topics, very strong concessions made to the far right,” Mr. Taché said, also citing tougher immigration rules and the application of a stricter version of French secularism, called laïcité.A migrant family waiting for emergency accommodation with a host family in front of the Paris City Hall last year. Some allies distanced themselves from Mr. Macron after he toughened his stance on immigration.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut Mr. Taché, who quit Mr. Macron’s party in 2020 over the president’s shift to the right, was especially critical of the government’s landmark law against separatism, which has been criticized inside and outside France, including by the U.S. envoy on international religious freedom. The law amounted to “making Islam and Muslims invisible,” Mr. Taché said. Some academics, political opponents and Muslim organizations have also criticized the law as discriminating against French Muslims by leading to the widespread closing of mosques, Muslim associations and schools.That resentment may now also complicate Mr. Macron’s dam-building effort. To be re-elected this time, for instance, he will have to persuade voters in places likes Trappes, a working-class city with a large Muslim population southwest of Paris, to join the dam against Ms. Le Pen. A longtime stronghold of Mélenchon supporters, Trappes strongly backed Mr. Macron in the 2017 runoff. But comments by voters Sunday suggested that the dam might not be as effective this time. Frédéric Renan, 47, a computer programmer, said he would abstain or cast a blank vote in a showdown between Mr. Macron and Ms. Le Pen.“Macron opened the door to the extreme right,’’ Mr. Renan said, adding that the president’s economic policies hurt the poor and fueled the rise of the far right. “I don’t see how voting for Macron is a vote in a dam against the extreme right,” he said. “Some people will say that not participating in the dam against the extreme right is irresponsible, that the threat of the extreme right is greater than what Emmanuel Macron proposes, but I’m not convinced.’’The Islamic Center of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in Trappes, a Paris suburb, on Sunday. To be re-elected, Mr. Macron will need to woo voters in places likes Trappes, a working-class city with a large Muslim population.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesAdèle Cordonnier More

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      How Marine Le Pen Threatens to Upend French Elections

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      The far-right presidential candidate has opened up about her personal life and tweaked her policies to gain sympathy and credibility among more mainstream voters.STIRING-WENDEL, France — Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader making her third attempt to become president of France, already had the backing of voters who came to listen to her recently in Stiring-Wendel, a former coal-mining town struggling to reinvent itself.But after a 40-minute speech focusing on the rising cost of living, Ms. Le Pen succeeded in doing what even few of her supporters would have predicted just months ago: impressing them. Voters trickling out of an auditorium into the cold evening said she had become “less extreme,” more “mature” and “self-assured” — even “presidential.”“She has softened, she is more composed, calmer, more serene,” said Yohan Brun, 19, a student who grew up in Stiring-Wendel and had come to listen to Ms. Le Pen because “she cares more about the French people than the other candidates.”As France votes on Sunday, polls are predicting that this election will be a rematch of the previous one, pitting Ms. Le Pen against President Emmanuel Macron in a second-round showdown. But that does not mean that precisely the same Ms. Le Pen is running.Ms. Le Pen has revamped her image since the last election five years ago. She has pragmatically abandoned certain ideas that had alienated mainstream voters. She has held on to others that certify her far-right credentials. And she has shifted emphasis toward pocketbook issues.Some who attended Ms. Le Pen’s speech in Stiring-Wendel said she had become “less extreme,” more “mature” and even “presidential.”Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesBut as important, she has self-consciously sanded the rough edges off her persona in an effort to make herself appear more presidential and voter-friendly.The makeover is part of a long and deliberate strategy by Ms. Le Pen to “undemonize” herself and her party, and ultimately gain the French presidency. While the effort remains unconvincing to many who consider her a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it has nonetheless succeeded in giving her a last-minute surge in the polls before Sunday’s election that is worrying Mr. Macron’s camp.“Marine Le Pen appears more sympathetic than Emmanuel Macron,” said Pierre Person, a national lawmaker of the president’s party, adding that he was worried that she could win. More

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      How Hungary’s Viktor Orban Won

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      BUDAPEST — Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party just won its fourth consecutive election by a landslide. As was the case four years ago, Mr. Orban’s election was not a fair contest between the Hungarian government and the opposition. Voters could vote for whomever they chose, but the playing field was tilted in favor of the current government, including campaign regulations that favored Fidesz, biased media coverage and a blurring of the line between the ruling political party and the state.The Hungarian prime minister’s win was due in part to how he protected his economic legitimacy during a cost-of-living crisis by issuing government handouts. He also strengthened his already solid position in rural Hungary. He won the clash of narratives over the war in Ukraine by portraying himself as the guarantor of peace and security, while accusing his challenger, Peter Marki-Zay, and the united opposition of potentially bringing Hungary into war.The consistent line throughout Mr. Orban’s public policies and communication is the concept of protection — a commitment to halting otherwise rapid changes in the demographic makeup of the country, extending even to cultural transformations and economic shifts. Who or what Mr. Orban thinks Hungarians need to be protected from changes from time to time. Over the past decade, he has fought against migration, the European Union institutions, the U.S.-Hungarian billionaire George Soros, nongovernmental organizations, Western liberals, the I.M.F. and high utility bills, among other enemies.Protection has been translated by Mr. Orban and his party into the language of family policy and an attack on Hungary’s L.G.B.T.Q. community (see the eventually invalid “Child Protection Referendum,” held on the same day as the parliamentary elections), which suggests that the concept of family is under threat and needs the state’s protection.In the 2022 election campaign, Fidesz’s most dangerous opponent was the cost-of-living crisis. Several studies done by Policy Solutions, of which I am the director, have shown that by 2021, the government’s parsimonious, socially insensitive handling of the economic effects of the pandemic had made living costs the most serious problem for Hungarians. This has been exacerbated in the past year by a soaring inflation rate, one of the highest in the E.U.During the campaign, Mr. Orban put in place welfare benefits a few months before the election (income tax rebate for families with children, 13th-month pension, minimum wage increase, exemption from income tax for Hungarians under 25), as well as a price freeze on fuel and some basic food products. The aim of these measures was to dampen the feeling, at least until the elections, that the economy was in a dire situation, and by taking extraordinary economic measures, the Orban government managed to maintain its economic legitimacy in the run-up to the election.To be competitive against Fidesz, the opposition had two important strategic tasks since the last parliamentary elections in 2018: to unite and overcome the fragmentation that had made Mr. Orban’s earlier challengers unsuccessful and to strengthen the opposition’s support in rural areas. It was already clear from the 2019 municipal elections that if Mr. Orban’s opposition failed to make inroads in rural Hungary, it would be limited to success only in Budapest and a few other cities.The success of Fidesz in rural districts and its defeat in Budapest show that the country is not only severely divided politically, but also increasingly polarized in geographic and educational terms. Fidesz is highly popular in villages and among the less-educated and older age groups but doesn’t perform as well in cities and among more-educated people and younger age groups.The highly unequal Hungarian media environment also played a role. It is precisely among demographic groups that are hardest to reach online that Fidesz performed strongest. In terms of traditional media, Mr. Orban’s party dominates, which allows it to effectively communicate its own message to its voters and protect them from opposing views.The battle to interpret the war in Ukraine shows the power of the Fidesz media empire. It’s a textbook example of how Mr. Orban can quickly give his voters a grip on even the most unpleasant issues.The Russian invasion pushed to center stage the question of whether Hungary is leaning toward the East or the West and the question of how reliable the country is as a member of the European Union and NATO. Yet Mr. Orban refused to let the opposition’s East vs. West narrative be seen by the whole of Hungarian society as a way of understanding the war issue. He instead transformed himself into a guarantor of peace and security, while accusing the opposition of trying to drag the country into war — a message trumpeted by public media, hundreds of pro-government media outlets and thousands of billboards across the country.By appealing to society’s craving for security and stability, Mr. Orban ensured that the election did not become a “Putin or Europe?” referendum. According to one poll, 91 percent of opposition voters said the invasion of Ukraine was more “aggression” than “defense” by Russia, compared with merely 44 percent among Fidesz voters. And a quarter of Fidesz voters identify with Russian propaganda.Despite its fourth election success in a row, it is safe to say that the Orban government cannot expect a honeymoon period. A huge budget hole created by its own measures now awaits it, double-digit inflation is in sight, and European Union funds are not flowing to Hungary because of concerns about corruption and the rule of law. The Orban government is already expecting a significant slowdown in the economy as a result of the war in Ukraine, and the public’s perception of the economy is likely to sour if temporary price-capping measures are rolled back.The next Orban government will also have to deal with Hungary’s place in the world. Its trademark Eastern Opening policy has become a failure, and — as its deteriorating relations with its most important ally, the Polish government, shows — if Mr. Orban does not change his stance on Russia, it will be impossible to recover. It seems that his reputation could suffer lasting damage from how his government has approached the war in Ukraine.All in all, the state of the economy and foreign policy make it likely that in spite of another big victory, this will be a difficult term for the Orban government.András Bíró-Nagy is a political scientist and the director of Policy Solutions, a Hungarian think tank. He is also a senior research fellow at the Center for Social Sciences in Budapest and a member of the board at the Hungarian Political Science Association. His main areas of expertise include Hungarian politics, European integration and radical-right parties.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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      Pro-Putin Leaders in Hungary and Serbia Set to Win Re-election

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      Viktor Orban declared victory, and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic seemed likely to emerge on top. Both pledged to stay out of Russia’s war in Ukraine.BUDAPEST — Overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, elections on Sunday in Hungary and Serbia appear to have extended the tenures of Europe’s two most Kremlin-friendly leaders, both populist strongmen fortified by their overwhelming control of the media and cheap energy from Russia.With more than 60 percent of the votes counted in Hungary, preliminary results indicated that Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister since 2010, and already Europe’s longest serving leader, had won a fourth consecutive term despite accusations by the opposition that he has enabled Russia’s military onslaught by cozying up for years to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.“We won a victory so big that you can perhaps see it from the moon, and certainly from Brussels,” Mr. Orban told a jubilant crowd of supporters late Sunday, taking a dig at the European Union, which he has long accused of pushing L.G.B.T.Q. and migrant rights in defiance of the democratic will of Hungarian voters.The preliminary results dashed the hopes of Mr. Orban’s political foes that an unusually united opposition camp could break his ruling Fidesz party’s increasingly authoritarian grip on the Central European nation next to Ukraine. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking early Sunday in his capital, Kyiv, described Mr. Orban as “virtually the only one in Europe to openly support Mr. Putin.”Asked about Mr. Zelensky’s assessment after casting his vote in Budapest on Sunday morning, Mr. Orban said curtly: “Mr. Zelensky is not voting today. Thank you. Are there any other questions?”Voting Sunday in Hungary’s elections at a school in Budapest, the capital.Nanna Heitmann for The New York TimesPresident Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia, also Moscow-friendly, has governed Serbia since 2012, and was expected to win re-election after rallying his nationalist and pro-Russian base by refusing to join the European Union in imposing sanctions on Russia. Serbia hopes to become a member of the European bloc, but its application has stalled.An unusually high turnout in Serbia of nearly 60 percent forced officials to keep polling stations open late into the evening in some areas. Amid complaints of foul play by the opposition, the central election commission in Belgrade, the capital, said it would not issue results until Monday morning.But exit polls indicated that Mr. Vucic would win a new term as president and that his Serbian Progressive Party would retain its hold on Parliament, albeit with a reduced majority. The opposition said it had won control of the municipal government in Belgrade.Hungary and Serbia have very different histories. Mr. Orban governs a country that, until he came to power, viewed Russia with great distrust as a result of its past suffering at Russia’s hands, most notably when Moscow sent troops to brutally crush an anti-communist uprising in 1956. Mr. Vucic’s nation, however — Slavic and Orthodox Christian, like Russia — has long looked to Moscow as its ally and protector.But under the two strongmen leaders, both countries have over the past decade drastically reduced the space for critical media voices, turning television stations with national reach into propaganda bullhorns and moving toward authoritarian rule. Each has cultivated close ties with Mr. Putin, who endorsed the Hungarian leader’s election campaign when he visited Moscow in February shortly before the invasion of Ukraine.Mr. Orban’s supporters at the rally on Friday. Nanna Heitmann for The New York TimesSerbia declined to impose sanctions on Russia while Hungary, a member of the European Union since 2004, agreed to an initial round of European sanctions but has strongly resisted extending them to include restrictions on energy imports from Russia.In contrast to leaders in neighboring Poland, previously a close ally of Mr. Orban thanks to their shared hostility to liberal values, the Hungarian leader has also refused to let weapons destined for Ukraine pass though his country.Before Hungary’s election, Mr. Orban hit back to counter opposition charges that his policy on Ukraine had betrayed not only foreign allies but also Hungary’s own painful memories of aggression by Russia. Mr. Orban mobilized the news media, most of which is controlled by the state and by friendly tycoons, to cast his opponents as warmongers bent on sending Hungarian troops to fight against Russia. The election offered a “choice between war and peace,” pro-government media warned.The campaign seems to have worked, even among some older voters who remember the suffering caused by Moscow’s troops in 1956. “Why should Hungarian boys fight for Ukraine?” asked Janos Dioszegi, who was 13 at the time of the Hungarian uprising and whose father was imprisoned for 14 years by Soviet-backed authorities for his part in the anti-Moscow uprising. He said “of course” he chose Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party when he voted in Nagykovacsi, a small town near Budapest.Echoing a line frequently aired in Fidesz-controlled media outlets, Mr. Dioszegi said there was no need to help Ukraine defend itself because it had provoked the war by becoming “a military base for America.” Until Mr. Putin sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, the centerpiece of Mr. Orban’s election campaign was an inflammatory referendum, timed for the day of the parliamentary election, on whether young children should be taught in school about gender transition surgery treatment, and exposed without restriction to sexually explicit material.The war next door in Ukraine, however, derailed Mr. Orban’s effort to get voters to focus on transgender individuals and gays, forcing a reboot focused on painting his opponents as eager to take Hungary to war.Demonstrations in Budapest on Saturday, where people gathered in solidarity with Ukraine.Nanna Heitmann for The New York TimesWhen hundreds of pro-Ukrainian Hungarians and refugees from Ukraine gathered on Saturday in central Budapest to denounce the government’s fence-sitting on the war, the main state-controlled television station, M1, described the event as a “pro-war rally.” Anna Olishevska, a 24-year-old Ukrainian from Kyiv who took part, praised the ordinary Hungarians who she said had helped her after she fled across the border. More than 500,000 Ukrainians have crossed into Hungary over the past month, far fewer than the more than two million who have entered Poland but still a large number for a country where venomous hostility to foreign migrants had long been the cornerstone of Mr. Orban’s often xenophobic political platform.While delighted by her reception in Hungary, Ms. Olishevska said the government had been so tentative in condemning Russia’s invasion and resistant to helping Ukraine defend itself, that she worries about staying in Hungary if Mr. Orban won another term.“I can’t stay in a country where the government supports Russia,” she said, waving a hand-painted sign telling Mr. Putin where to stick his rockets.Some prominent supporters of Mr. Orban’s party have even blamed Ukraine for the bloodshed in 1956, with Maria Schmidt, a historian and museum director, claiming falsely on Saturday that Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Soviet leader who ordered troops into Hungary that year, was Ukrainian. He was Russian. Ms. Schmidt misrepresented the Soviet leader’s origins in response to a tweet by the British comedian John Cleese, who urged Hungarian voters to consider whether it was Russia or Ukraine that invaded Hungary in 1956.Election Day in Budapest, the capital. Government control of the news media has fortified Mr. Orban’s position. Nanna Heitmann for The New York TimesThe blizzard of distortions and falsehoods in Hungarian news media outlets controlled by Fidesz has left opposition supporters in despair.“They just repeat lies over and over, day after day,” Judit Barna, 81, a doctor, said outside a central Budapest polling station, where she had just voted for a united opposition ticket headed by Peter Marki Zay, a conservative small town mayor.Referring to Mr. Orban’s early political career as an anti-Moscow firebrand who in 1989 demanded that Soviet troops leave, she asked: “How is it possible after 40 years of Soviet occupation and 30 years of democracy that the same guy who once shouted, ‘Russians, go home’ can now say that Russia is fighting a just war in Ukraine?”Thanks to Fidesz’s stranglehold on the media, she added: “Half of Hungary’s population eats up all these lies. This is Hungary’s shame.” More

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      Race to Replace Don Young Is Set to Be a Fascinating Political Experiment

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      The election to fill the seat of the Alaska congressman, who died last week, promises to be a Yukon adventure. It’s also a fascinating political experiment in the making.How do you replace a man who once willingly put his hand in a steel trap during a congressional hearing until it turned blue? Who waggled an 18-inch walrus penis bone at a top administration official? Who held a knife to the throat of a fellow lawmaker?How, in sum, do you replace Don Young?The death of Representative Young at age 88 last week leaves a void that won’t easily be filled, Alaskan political insiders tell us. Young was the longest-serving Republican in the history of Congress, a living relic who decorated his House office with stuffed animal trophies and larded his speech with profanity. He cultivated the image of a crude frontiersman in Washington while protecting Alaska’s extractive industries and, as our colleague Emily Cochrane writes today, steering billions of federal dollars to pet projects back home.Young flouted ethics rules with abandon. Regulators once forced him to repay nearly $60,000 for trips to hunting lodges that had been financed through campaign money. On another occasion, he was accused of taking bribes, though no formal charges were brought against him. His irascible outbursts often got him into trouble, as when he referred to Latino immigrants with an ethnic slur or when, before an audience of high school students, he used a profane term for anal sex when describing a photography exhibit.In a replacement, Alaskans are looking for “someone who will go to Washington, give the bureaucrats hell and bring home the pork,” said Michael Carey, a columnist for The Anchorage Daily News and a longtime Young observer. “But I don’t think anybody can wrap themselves in his mythos.”Just days after Young’s death, the race to succeed him is well underway. Friday is the deadline to file official paperwork, and potential candidates are already lining up.Al Gross, a former orthopedic surgeon who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2020, is running as a “nonpartisan.” He is perhaps best known for a goofy music video promoting his candidacy that includes the line, “He’s killed a bear, caught lots of fish, not swayed by party politics” and ends by describing him as “Alaska’s own bear doctor.”John Coghill, a former state senator with ties to the evangelical community, is running as a Republican. Nick Begich III, the Republican scion of Alaskan political royalty, has also indicated that he will enter the race, as has Christopher Constant, an openly gay Democrat who is a member of the Anchorage Assembly.Few expect Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor and the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, to run. She told Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, last week that she was weighing whether to “throw my hat in the ring,” but made no commitment.Some in the Republican establishment favor Joshua Revak, an Iraq war veteran who previously worked for Young and is now a state senator. There’s also Tara Sweeney, an Alaska Native whose husband, Kevin Sweeney, is a consultant for Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election campaign. Tara Sweeney served in the Trump administration as assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs.Young’s death came as he faced growing doubts about his political longevity, with the prospect of being squeezed from left and right for the first time.“For years, Don was this untouchable Alaskan institution,” said John-Henry Heckendorn, a political consultant in Anchorage. “He had always been able to turn his fire and intensity on one enemy. But he had never really had to fight a war on two fronts.”Alaska’s political experimentWhoever ultimately decides to run, the House special election to replace Young will be watched closely. For the first time, the state will be using its unique “top four” primary system — and Alaskans aren’t sure what to expect.In the first round of the special election, to be held on June 11, every candidate appears on the same ballot. Voters each pick one candidate, and the four top vote-getters move ahead to the special general election, scheduled for Aug. 16. Voters then rank up to four favorites, including a write-in option. If no one earns an outright majority, election officials eliminate the lowest-ranking candidate, repeating the process up to three times until there is a winner.Supporters of the system say it will break the stranglehold political parties have over primary elections, give voters more choices and create incentives for bipartisan cooperation.“We’re already seeing more and different kinds of names, which is great for voters,” said Jason Grenn, the executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections, a nonprofit group that promotes the top-four system.Some confusion might be inevitable. In a quirk of scheduling prompted by Young’s death, the regular open primary for his seat will be held the same day as the special general election for his seat. That means Alaskans will be choosing someone to represent them in Washington for the next two years even as they also choose someone to represent them for the remainder of 2022. It could be the same person — or someone completely different. Senator Lisa Murkowski is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesThe Murkowski factorThe top-four system will also be used in Alaska’s Senate election, a fact that has spawned accusations of political intrigue.Former President Donald Trump has made it his mission to oust Murkowski, who is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger. Murkowski was one of only seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during the impeachment trial last year, earning her a rebuke from the state’s Republican Party. As an incumbent, she has the backing of Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, pitting the party’s establishment against its Trump wing.Tshibaka’s campaign team claims that the top-four system, which was adopted by ballot initiative in 2020, was devised to aid Murkowski’s re-election.There’s little evidence of that, though Kathryn Murdoch, an independent donor who helped fund the ballot initiative, said in an interview this month that the top-four system “allows Lisa Murkowski to be herself instead of worrying about her extreme right flank.”The claim prompts a chuckle from supporters of the system, who say that it is meant to alleviate the gridlock that often paralyzes Alaskan politics, and that it is not a product of Washington power games.“I haven’t talked to Lisa Murkowski in three or four years,” said Grenn, who is also a former state legislator. “There are no dark shadows behind the scenes.”What to read Republicans in Florida and Ohio are pushing for a greater advantage on their congressional maps.President Biden’s budget request for fiscal year 2023 includes about $45 billion to take on climate change, which will be crucial to setting U.S. policy ahead of the midterms.California leaders are drafting legislation to help make the state a sanctuary for transgender youths and for people seeking abortions, as conservative states move forward with anti-abortion and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws.Federal prosecutors and congressional investigators have found growing evidence that a tweet by Donald Trump in December 2020 urging supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 was a catalyst for far-right militants.briefing bookJustice Clarence Thomas with his wife, Virginia Thomas, before he spoke at the conservative Heritage Foundation in October.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe ballad of Clarence and GinniCongressional investigators want to know why Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, exchanged conspiracy-theory-tinged texts with Trump administration officials about overturning the 2020 election in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot. Democrats are calling for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any Supreme Court cases about the events of Jan. 6, while they press for more details about her involvement in that day’s drama.To better understand this unorthodox Washington pair, we chatted with Danny Hakim, an investigative reporter for The New York Times who recently wrote, with Jo Becker, a deeply reported Times Magazine article on the Thomases. Here’s our conversation:What first sparked your interest in them as a couple?The court has really moved toward Justice Thomas in the post-Trump era, since the pick of Amy Coney Barrett took place in the waning days of the Trump administration. For years, Justice Thomas was known for solo dissents or sharply written dissenting opinions, but now some of those might become majority opinions as the court’s dynamics have tilted.At the same time, his wife was a hard-line activist on the fringes of the party before she flourished in the Trump era, to the point she had direct access to the president. She has remained an important figure in the Trump wing of the party.There’s a line in your article that mentions that Ginni Thomas was in a group she later denounced as a “cult.” Were you able to learn anything more about her time there?The group was called Lifespring, and it was popular for a while. The best story I read about it was a 1987 piece in The Washington Post by Marc Fisher, who went to some meetings. The group would sort of break you down and get you crying and then try to build you back up, but it was quite controversial. One trainee told Fisher it was “like an enema of your emotions.”Ms. Thomas took part in the group in the early 1980s and then rejected it. And she took Clarence Thomas with her to at least one meeting of an anti-cult group that she attended in the wake of her departure from Lifespring.Ginni Thomas refers to her “best friend” in one of the texts that has emerged. Is it a leap to assume that’s a reference to her husband?We can’t say for sure, but they have used that kind of language when they describe each other. In his memoir, Justice Thomas refers to his wife as his “best friend.” She has called him “the best man walking the face of the Earth,” and friends of theirs whom we talked with told us they referred to each other that way. Justice Thomas has gone even further and called the two of them “one being — an amalgam.”Is your sense that Ginni Thomas is someone whose advice carries weight in the Republican Party, or is she someone who is humored because of her political connections and because of who her husband happens to be?It’s a good question. I think both. Her proximity to Justice Thomas is central to her influence, and it’s the reason she got the access she did to the Trump White House. She does not hesitate to invoke her husband’s name in her interactions with party officials and activists.At the same time, while establishment Republicans are often exasperated by her and see some of her views as outlandish, she does have a following among the hard-line wing of the party that is so prominent now, and she has spent years working in Washington alongside people like Steve Bannon to move the party to the right.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Democrats and Republicans Won’t Stop Committing Political Malpractice

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      In the spring of a new president’s second year in office, political junkies know all too well what to expect from the midterm elections.A president (of whatever party), elected largely thanks to public distaste for his opponent, came in with his party in control of Congress and intent on not wasting an opportunity for transformative policy change. For all his talk of building new coalitions, he focused on the priorities of his party’s core activists, and by now it’s pretty clear that most voters don’t love what they see. The only way his party will avoid losing at least one house of Congress is if the other party somehow makes itself even more obnoxious. The question for November is whom the public will like less.Something like this has been the pattern of our politics for three decades now — long enough that we rarely stop to wonder much at just how strange it is or how we might change it. Neither party does much to expand its appeal or its coalition. Both double down on the voters they can count on, hoping they add up to a slim, temporary majority. If that doesn’t work, they just do it again.For political parties, whose very purpose is to build the broadest possible coalitions, such behavior is malpractice. So why has it persisted for so long? Why is public disaffection not pushing politicians to change their strategies or their agendas and seek durable majorities?The very fact that voters are unhappy with both parties makes it hard for either one to take a hint from its electoral failures. Even more than polarization, it is the closeness of elections that has degraded the capacity of our democracy to respond to voter pressure. In an era of persistent, polarized deadlock, both parties are effectively minorities — but each continues to think it is on the verge of winning big.To see why, it’s worth first noticing how unusual such persistent deadlock is. As the political scientist Morris Fiorina showed in his 2017 book, “Unstable Majorities,” our two-party system has usually produced durable partisan patterns of governance. Realignments have occasionally transformed a longstanding minority into the dominant party of a new era, but long stretches in which power has shifted back and forth have been rare. The only previous one was from 1874 to 1894. Ours has already been longer.Consider the previous hundred years or so. Republicans won seven of the nine presidential elections from 1896 to 1928 and controlled both houses of Congress for most of that stretch. Then from 1932 through 1950, Democrats won five presidential elections in a row and controlled Congress for all but two years. After that came more than four decades of durably divided government: Republicans won seven of 10 presidential elections from the 1950s through the 1980s — including a 24-year stretch with only one, single-term, Democratic presidency. But in that time, the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for 40 straight years and the Senate for 34 of those years. You might say that was an age of two overlapping majorities, in contrast to our age of two polarized minorities.But since 1992, elections for president and Congress have been consistently up for grabs. Two presidents have been elected while losing the popular vote, which happened only twice in the previous two centuries. Control of Congress has swung back and forth more rapidly than in any previous era.The effects of this flux have been perverse. You might think that two minority parties would each feel pressure to expand its coalition and become a majority, but actually both have behaved as if they were the rightful majorities already. Each finds ways to dismiss the other’s wins as narrow flukes and treat its own as massive triumphs.This is sustainable only because elections are so close. Politicians learn big lessons from big losses or big wins, so neither of our parties has learned much in a long time, and neither can quite grasp that it just isn’t very popular and could easily lose the next election.This dynamic has many causes — from the advent of party primaries to the evolution of the media and much in between. Polarization doesn’t have to mean deadlock, but a long-term pattern of growing negative polarization, in which each party sees the other as the country’s biggest problem, creates incentives for the parties to seek narrower but ideologically purer wins rather than build broader if less ideologically coherent coalitions.Yet the pattern isn’t inevitable, and it’s crucial to see that the very closeness of elections blinds politicians to potential ways of breaking out of it. As the political scientist Frances Lee has shown, the minority party in Congress now always thinks it’s one election away from power and so sees no reason to change its appeal or to bargain to address the country’s longer-term needs. Younger politicians who have known only this period assume there is no other way — that short-termism is unavoidable and governing means frantically expending rather than patiently amassing political capital.This also intensifies party cohesion. As the political scientist Daniel DiSalvo has argued, internal factions let parties evolve toward new voters and vice versa, but our era has seen fewer and weaker factions. Narrow elections invite strict unity, so the parties now hunt heretics rather than seek converts. Witness, for instance, the Arizona Republican and Democratic Parties censuring Gov. Doug Ducey and Senator Kyrsten Sinema for undermining party unity. Both parties act as if they have too many voters, rather than too few.Breaking this pattern would have to start by acknowledging a truism: Bigger majorities are possible if politicians seek broader support. That sounds obvious, yet it has eluded our leaders for a generation because it requires seeing beyond our age of deadlock.That doesn’t mean reaching for the center in a shallow ideological sense, let alone hoping swing voters catch up with the priorities of party activists. It requires not so much offering different answers to the questions that have long shaped our political divisions but taking up some new questions better rooted in the public’s contemporary concerns — about new sources of financial insecurity and high living costs, threats to parenthood and childhood, dangers of concentrated corporate power, sources of cultural dislocation, perils of internet governance and other challenges that scramble familiar partisan dogmas. Such questions can be answered in right-leaning or left-leaning ways, but they first need to be asked.Some Republicans have long pointed to the need to move beyond the terms of Reaganism, and some even hoped that Donald Trump’s ascent might enable such a move. But Mr. Trump’s vile cult of personality only reinforced the trench-warfare dynamics. He mostly offered a model of how to squander opportunity: He won independents by six percentage points in 2016 and then lost them by 13 in 2020. That Republicans are even contemplating nominating him again shows they are not attuned to the need to break out of the age of deadlock.Some Democrats can see the problem, too. In an important recent paper for the Progressive Policy Institute, two veterans of the Clinton White House, William Galston and Elaine Kamarck, raised the alarm about the narrowness of their party’s appeal. “Unless they want to spend their careers in a minority party,” they argued, Democrats “must acknowledge the need to win swing states — and the political implications of this necessity.” But such arguments can barely be heard over the din of party activists who aggressively alienate potential swing voters with heedless cultural radicalism.Each party is therefore left pursuing a losing strategy and saved from disaster only by the fact that the other party is doing the same. The first to realize that this is not working will face a real opportunity. The party that grasps that it has been losing for a generation will have a chance to make itself the next big winner in our politics.Yuval Levin is a contributing Opinion writer and is the editor of National Affairs and the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream.”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