Friday, February 11, 2022

On Politics: The traveling Trump show

Rallies and conferences have taken on the flavor of religious revival, a mix of protest and party.
On Politics

February 11, 2022

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Our colleague Jennifer Medina traveled recently to South Texas to cover how Republicans are making inroads in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. She sends this dispatch from a gathering put on by allies of former President Trump.

A group of Trump supporters praying along the border wall in Mission, Texas, last month.Jason Garza for The New York Times

'Stop the Steal,' on the Rio Grande

Author Headshot

By Jennifer Medina

National Reporter, Politics

HIDALGO, Texas — Organizers of the three-day We Stand America gathering were clearly frustrated on Day Two: In an arena built to accommodate thousands of spectators, only a few hundred people had shown up.

On a stage in the South Texas border city of Hidalgo, they blamed the lackluster crowd on liberal media and activists, claiming that they maliciously swiped up the free tickets that had been intended for veterans and law enforcement officials to keep the seats empty.

It was only the first conspiracy theory of the day.

Within minutes, there were multiple false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen. "Not since Hitler himself have we seen evil come across the country," said Mark Finchem, an Arizona lawmaker who is running for secretary of state there. He described Arizona's current top elections official as both a "demon" and "a plant" (and not the horticultural variety).

'Don't poke the mama bears'

The event held late last month in the Rio Grande Valley — which featured a parade of conservative stars, including Ted Nugent and Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser — was just one of many right-wing symposiums and conferences that are happening across the country on a nearly weekly basis.

These events are something akin to religious revivals, a mix between protest and party. There's anger, but also celebration. There are tailgate parties and barbecues and prayer services, the threads that make up the social fabric of Trumpism. The conferences illustrate how Trump and his false claims about the election have become a culture as much as a cause.

In Hidalgo, there were FJB bumper stickers in the parking lot — JB for Joe Biden, F for an expletive — along with flags proclaiming "Stolen, Rigged, Fraud, Election 2020." T-shirts read, "Don't California My Texas."

One speaker referred to President Biden as "this freak in the White House," adding that the "people in charge hate you and hate freedom."

Christie Hutcherson, one of the organizers, described the event as nonpolitical, claiming the focus was on the "humanitarian effort" to save children who were crossing the border illegally with the help of coyotes, as human smugglers are called in the border region. She claimed, without evidence, that young children were being kidnapped and killed for "organ harvesting."

Ms. Hutcherson, the founder of Women Fighting for America, a group that describes part of its mission as protecting values and spreading "biblical truth," referred to herself as a "mama bear." Countless other speakers and attendees embraced the moniker. "Don't poke the mama bears," said one woman, who declined to give her name. "We're fed up and you've messed with the wrong people."

Mark Finchem and Christie Hutcherson were among speakers who voiced grievances before a lackluster crowd at the Rio Grande Valley event.Jason Garza for The New York Times

Republican gains

Republicans have been making inroads in South Texas, a majority-Hispanic region that had been a Democratic stronghold for decades. In 2020, Trump won Starr County, a rural community along the border that he had lost back in 2016 by 33 percentage points. And while Biden won in other more populous counties along the South Texas border, including Hidalgo County, many voters swung sharply toward Trump.

The crowd at the We Stand America events, however, seemed to have more out-of-towners than locals and more white participants than Hispanic ones. Many attendees flew in from Albuquerque and Phoenix, or drove down from Dallas and Oklahoma City.

The highlight of the three days for many of them was a Sunday morning march to the border fence.

Maria Elena Veliz, a resident of nearby Edinburg and one of the local conservatives in the crowd at the Sunday protest, sat on a chair at the edge of the scene. She said she has attended protests at a local abortion clinic weekly for more than a decade in her own effort to stop women from having abortions.

"I am not one of these people who thinks anything you do is right, that we can make excuses for it," she said. "That is my No. 1 issue and I will do anything to support people who agree with me. I am here for the unborn and born babies."

Another woman who declined to give her name as she marched said she was "disgusted by open-border Democrats who don't care about what is happening to the children."

The group was accompanied by one man with a military-style rifle strapped across his chest. They prayed when they arrived at the fence, in an area near the National Butterfly Center. The center, the victim of right-wing misinformation spreading online, had closed down that weekend because of threats and security concerns.

Protesters prayed to "stop slave trading on our borders." Some raised their hands in the air. Others held American flags. A few got down on their knees on the dirt hill. And they closed by singing Amazing Grace.

What to read tonight

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VIEWFINDER
People lined up to capture a glimpse of President Biden's arrival by helicopter in Brandy Station, Va.Al Drago for The New York Times

Watching the president

On Politics regularly features work by Times photographers. On Thursday, Al Drago watched Marine One, the presidential helicopter, arrive at a regional airport in Brandy Station, Va., as President Biden traveled to an event about prescription drug prices. Here's what he told us about capturing this image:

The president usually travels with multiple helicopters, in part as a security measure. Although President Biden typically flies on Air Force One, when we travel to smaller regional airports that are too small to handle the big plane or are close enough to Washington, the presidential envoy will use a series of helicopters. Typically, Secret Service, White House staff and the press pool will fly ahead in four V-22 Nighthawk Ospreys, operated by Marine Helicopter Squadron One. With their massive rotating turboprops, they make for quite the spectacle.

On Thursday, once we had landed following the 20-minute flight from Joint Base Andrews, we lined up against the edge of the tarmac to capture the president's arrival on Marine One, which is one of three identical Sikorsky VH-3D Sea Kings. I noticed a bit of cloud cover, causing the light to change every few moments. The press pool cast a shadow on the terminal windows, giving us a glimpse inside.

You aren't supposed to know which helicopter the president is riding, so I photographed a series of images as people pressed up against the glass with their cameras and smartphones as Marine One began to approach. I joked to a fellow photographer that the small boy probably had a better camera than me.

Thanks for reading. We'll see you on Monday.

— Blake & Leah

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Thursday, February 10, 2022

On Politics: How Republicans saw inflation coming

Democrats were slow to recognize the political potency of rising prices. But Republicans had a plan.
On Politics

February 10, 2022

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Republicans have made inflation the centerpiece of their re-election pitch to voters as prices for a variety of goods rise for consumers.Amir Hamja for The New York Times

'They are losing the working class'

If Democrats lose control of Congress in November, it seems safe to say that inflation will be a major reason for their defeat.

Consumer prices have risen by 7.5 percent over the last year — the fastest rate in 40 years. President Biden's approval rating is just 41 percent, according to the latest CNN poll, and it's doubtful those two numbers are a coincidence. Food and gas are more expensive, and voters are upset about it. Rocket science it's not.

While Democrats have struggled to deliver a consistent message on the economy, Republicans have been disciplined. Dating back to the spring, they've made inflation the centerpiece of their re-election pitch to voters. And that didn't happen by accident.

It began, to no small degree, at the grocery store.

Early last year, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who was then campaigning to become the No. 3 Republican in the House, began to notice that the prices of fruit, bacon, milk and eggs were creeping up. At the time, economists were still debating whether Biden's rescue plan would set off an inflationary spiral. The White House and the Federal Reserve pushed back, insisting that inflation was a "transitory" phenomenon. But Stefanik had a hunch.

"I'm the grocery shopper in my family, so I go by my gut," Stefanik told us. As a new mother, she also saw diapers and formula growing more expensive.

"And I'll tell you," she added, "babies use a lot of diapers."

Stefanik had stumbled on a potent issue, and not just at the ballot box. She rallied her colleagues around a new economic message as she sought to oust Representative Liz Cheney from the leadership role. She said Cheney was "leaving these issues on the table" as chair of the House Republican conference. In a May 12 letter to her colleagues, Stefanik promised to go "on offense" every day.

Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, walking with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, ascended to the No. 3 Republican leadership spot emphasizing an economic message.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Three days later, by a vote of 134-46, House Republicans elected her to succeed Cheney. Soon thereafter, her staff began breaking out the prices of various goods — used cars, frozen chicken, canned vegetables — and emailing them to members each week.

In meetings, she would hammer home the importance of talking to voters about the rising prices. "Every time we talked about inflation, I could see the heads nodding," Stefanik said.

As for Democrats, "they are losing the working class," Stefanik said. "I feel that in my district. And their dismissiveness will be devastating in November."

Painful inflation memories

One Democrat who is not dismissive is William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as a domestic policy adviser to Bill Clinton. Now 76, he lived through a time of high inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"It was vividly etched in my memory," Galston said, sounding over the phone as if he was wincing while recalling it all. "It seized the center of domestic politics and wouldn't let go for years."

Galston watched inflation wreck the re-election hopes of Jimmy Carter in 1980. Then, when he was policy director for Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota, the Federal Reserve crushed inflation in the early part of Ronald Reagan's first term, causing a severe recession. In 1983, Reagan's approval rating was 35 percent, and Mondale, the expected Democratic nominee, was leading him in hypothetical matchups by nine percentage points.

Then the economy rebounded, setting Reagan on course for "Morning in America" and the comeback narrative that got him re-elected in the greatest landslide in history.

The lesson, Galston says, is that inflation can be beaten. "The question," he said, "is whether you're willing to endure the pain."

'You have to be caught trying'

There are signs that some Democrats are beginning to panic.

This week, a group of Democratic senators, led by Mark Kelly of Arizona and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, called for suspending the federal gas tax, which is 18.4 cents per gallon.

The move likely wouldn't have much impact, said Joshua Linn, an economist at the University of Maryland who studies the relationship between energy consumption and climate change. At most, he said, suspending the tax would save families a few hundred dollars a year.

The federal gas tax, which goes to the Highway Trust Fund, hasn't risen since 1993. That has forced Congress to bail it out repeatedly, because the fund doles out more in spending than it takes in from taxes. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that it would run up shortfalls of $195 billion over the next decade.

But the political calculus for these endangered Democrats is pretty obvious: They want to signal that they're doing something about inflation, even if the amount is mostly symbolic. As senators, there's not much else they can do.

And once again, Republicans are already ahead of them. Last year in the Virginia governor's race, Glenn Youngkin ran an entire ad to call for cutting the state's tax on groceries, which is 2.5 percent. He also proposed rolling back the gas tax by 5 cents a gallon.

And it worked. "We saw that in our polling when we tested those messages and we saw it in real time once those ads went up," said Chris Wilson, the chief pollster for the Youngkin campaign.

Governors elsewhere took notice. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has asked lawmakers to "zero out" the state's 26.5 cents-per-gallon gas tax. In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt has called for eliminating the state's 4.5 percent sales tax on groceries.

It's not really clear, now that his legislative agenda has stalled, that Biden has a plan of his own. In November, he released 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but gas prices have gone up since then.

Asked if the president supported suspending the gas tax, a White House spokeswoman, Emilie Simons, gave a two-sentence response.

"President Biden is using every tool available to reduce prices," she said, pointing to the petroleum release. "All options remain on the table looking ahead."

Economists say there's not much Biden can do to stop inflation at this point, short of calling on the Fed to raise rates. Regardless, Galston said that Biden needs to be much more active in showing he's working on it.

"Presidents are supposed to wield these godlike powers over the economy," Galston said. And even if that's not really true, voters believe it to be true.

He recalled a lesson that his former boss, Bill Clinton, once imparted about politics: "Look, you may not be able to fix the problem right away, but you have to be caught trying."

What to read tonight

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FRAMEWORK
Senator Raphael Warnock declared in his new ad, "People are hurting."Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

New mood, new ad

Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia started his last campaign with a funny ad. This time, running for re-election for a full-term, he went with something else: something far more somber.

Warnock, whose Senate race could determine whether Democrats keep their majority, declares at the start of the ad, "People are hurting." He describes the ways they're hurting as the camera pans over images of families and others, all looking stonily at the camera. The music is cheerless, and there's no sunlight. The scene then shifts to Warnock speaking to the camera, saying, "At my heart, I am and always will be a pastor."

After a brief montage of him talking to constituents, the camera pans back to Warnock: "What I want voters to know is I see you, I hear you, I am you," he said.

In 2020, Warnock ran as a political newcomer who took issue with the leadership of Senate Republicans. His message was centered around mismanagement of the pandemic and the need for leaders who care about their constituents.

That year, facing Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, Warnock used his first ad to mock the attacks he'd soon be facing.

That spot opened with clips of Warnock engaging in evil behavior, such as eating pizza with a fork and hating puppies. It was so over the top — ominous music and all — that it was clear Warnock was in on the joke. Then, it shifted to a brighter shot, with Warnock sitting on a stoop, talking directly to the camera. He warned that his opponent is about to unleash campaign attacks against him to distract from her own shortcomings, and that he, in fact, loves puppies. (A beagle named Alvin became a motif throughout his campaign.)

The shift in tone in his new ad captures Democrats' new challenge since the last election. No longer the party in the Senate minority, Democrats are figuring out how to take ownership of the pandemic without being punished for persisting problems.

"To get rehired in the midterms, Democrats don't have to show that we're better off than four years ago, just that we're back up off the mat and facing the right direction," Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist, told us. "This ad starts to do that."

Thanks for reading. We'll see you tomorrow.

— Blake & Leah

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