newyorker--2020-11-01--How Latino Grassroots Organizers Are Fighting to Lift Biden in Florida

Sahid became involved in politics only recently—he was groomed in the world of theatre , and now runs an actors society for Latino youth .
At forty-six , he comes across as a sturdy man , with carefully combed hair , warm eyes , and a jaunty smile .
Like other Puerto Ricans , he has taken Donald Trump ’ s demeaning of the island personally , and sees Maria as a thorn in the President ’ s side .
To this date , he vividly remembers the call he placed to his parents back on the island when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2017 .
“ Many of the phone lines were down , because everyone was calling , ” he said .
When he finally got his father on the phone , he learned that their apartment was flooded ankle-deep in seawater .
Shortly after , Puerto Rico slipped into a blackout , and eight days passed before Sahid was able to reach his parents again .
Trump ’ s callousness and ineptitude stunned him .
“ Everything changed when I saw he wasn ’ t paying the slightest attention to Puerto Rico , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ throw paper towels at us , ” he said .
“ It felt as if he were offering a Band-Aid at a time when we desperately needed surgery.
” In the aftermath of the hurricane , Trump declared that he had done an “ A-plus ” job in Puerto Rico .
During his only visit to the island , which lasted less than four hours , the President blamed local authorities for any problems and downplayed the damage .
In reality , the official government death toll was 2,975 , a higher number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hurricane that devastated New Orleans , in 2005 .
In parts of Puerto Rico , American citizens were left without electricity or clean water for months .
The island has yet to fully recover from the disaster , which wrought an estimated hundred billion dollars in damage on a population whose local government was already heavily burdened by debt .
Last month , in a transparent , last-minute effort to earn votes , Trump pledged a package of thirteen billion dollars in federal disaster funding to Puerto Rico .
But many , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political ploy by a President who reportedly wanted to hand over the U.S. territory to the highest foreign bidder .
“ First he wanted to sell us , then he wanted to swap us for Greenland , and now he wants to buy us ?
” he said ruefully .
Feeling increasingly frustrated , Sahid looked for ways to become more engaged in politics and came across the grassroots groups Boricuas con Biden and Cubanos con Biden .
“ There , I found thousands of people airing similar grievances , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m not alone.
” According to the Pew Research Center , Latinos make up seventeen per cent of the electorate in Florida—the largest share of any battleground state .
A staple of Florida politics is that Cuban-Americans reliably vote Republican ; this year , they are expected to overwhelmingly support Trump .
There are , in fact , more Puerto Rican eligible voters in the state than Cuban-Americans , and , together with myriad other groups , including Mexicans , Dominicans , Nicaraguans , and Ecuadorians , they constitute nearly three-quarters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The result of the battle for their support could decide whether Trump or Biden wins the state .
“ Unlike 2016 , this has been a much more contested environment , ” Carlos Odio , the co-founder of the research group EquisLabs , told me .
“ If you ’ re Biden , what you ’ re trying to do is maximize votes .
Trump has an easier job—he just needs to bat a few balls away.
” To win Florida , Odio estimates that Joe Biden likely must secure around seventy per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of support reached both by Barack Obama , in 2012 , and Hillary Clinton , in 2016 .
The last time that Equis polled for Biden , his support hovered around sixty per cent .
But he ’ s since made modest gains in Miami-Dade , Florida ’ s most populous county , aided by a heavy investment in advertising thanks to Michael Bloomberg ’ s half-million-dollar donation there and a wave of volunteers working to turn out the vote .
Addressing a small crowd of organizers in Miami Springs last weekend , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ promote his Vice-President , emphasized just how momentous their work could prove , saying , “ If you bring Florida home , this thing ’ s over.
” Initially , the number of registered Democrats who had cast their ballots early in Florida outpaced Republicans by two-to-one .
But in the last week , registered Republicans have steadily closed that gap , and now trail Democrats by less than a hundred thousand votes .
In Miami-Dade , a Democratic stronghold , Republicans have an advantage in turnout of more than eight per cent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Latino registered voters have yet to cast their ballots in the state .
Privately , Latino political activists , and even Biden campaign staffers in the state , say that the Florida Democratic Party , which runs Biden ’ s coördinated campaign , has not invested enough money in direct voter contact among Puerto Ricans , Mexicans , Colombians , Venezuelans , and other potential supporters .
“ I ’ ve emptied my pockets , ” one of the staffers said , of having to make up for the lack of budget @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overheard others say they ’ re “ being sent to the front lines just like soldiers without bullets.
” But the campaign contends it has spent six figures over the last week in get-out-the-vote efforts and events at early polling locations .
“ We are leaving no stone unturned , ” Christian Ulvert , a senior adviser in Florida , said .
Although research has long shown that there is a racial and ethnic disparity in the use of vote-by-mail , some are frustrated by what they see as the state campaign ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Latino turnout , despite the Biden campaign having raised a record $ 1.5 billion nationally , and working with a hundred-million-dollar donation from Bloomberg .
But they also recognize an all-too-familiar pattern , which , in their view , explains why Democrats have not won a statewide election in Florida since 2012 : the Democratic Party is not making a large enough effort in a state where demographics trends favor them .
“ Florida doesn ’ t have to go to the margins , ” the staffer said .
Now some of them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ repeat of the 2000 Presidential election , when the contest was settled in George W. Bush ’ s favor by five hundred and thirty-seven votes .
If Republicans continue to turn out their voters in droves , Biden staffers fear that they may not be able to keep up with their lead .
“ If we don ’ t get the Hispanic vote out today and tomorrow , it ’ s game over , ” the staffer told me on Saturday .
“ At this rate , they ’ re going to catch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staffer argued that it was impossible to make up in a matter of days for work that should have been done over the last year .
“ At this point , I ’ m praying for a miracle , ” the staffer said .
What may offset the campaign ’ s neglect is that many Latino voters believe their livelihoods and integrity are on the ballot this year .
For the nearly fifty thousand Puerto Ricans who moved to Florida after Hurricane Maria , November 3rd may well determine the future for their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two hundred thousand Venezuelans , Hondurans , and Salvadorans living in Florida , it may be a question of undoing Trump ’ s attacks on the Temporary Protected Status program , which allows immigrants from countries beset by violence , repressive regimes , or natural disasters to remain in the United States .
And for the more than three hundred thousand voters of Mexican descent , it may be a matter of standing up for their dignity .
Across nationalities , Latino voters are fed up with being treated as second-class citizens .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they see in Trump the authoritarian instincts displayed by leaders of the nations they fled .
“ The reason why I ’ m horrified by Trump is because I see Daniel Ortega in him , ” Carolina Chamorro , a Nicaraguan sociologist who moved to Florida in the nineteen-eighties , said , referring to the Sandinista leader .
“ All he ’ s doing is manipulating the masses.
” Much of Trump ’ s bigoted rhetoric has been aimed at Latinos—and , in cases like the mass shooting of twenty-two people last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the gunman set out to kill as many Mexicans as possible , it ’ s proved fatal .
For Maria José Wright and Fred Wright , the notion that Trump is viewed as a pro-life leader is painfully ironic .
Their son , Jerry , was one of the forty-nine victims of the Pulse night-club shooting , in Orlando , in 2016 .
Until that year , the Wrights had invariably voted Republican .
“ A lot of people don ’ t know this , but the shooter at Pulse , who took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ radicalized because Trump started talking about banning [ immigrants from ] Muslim states , ” Fred , an Ecuadorian-American businessman , said .
“ To us , he is pro-death.
” Maria José expressed regret that many conservative Latinos who support the President limit their pro-life defense to the unborn , when more than a hundred Americans are killed by guns every day , and more than two hundred and thirty thousand have died as a result of COVID-19 .
“ It ’ s shameful , ” she told me .
Maria José @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
's personality cult , and by Trump ’ s debasement of the press , scientists , and his opponents .
“ It scares the living crap out of me , ” she said .

On a scorching afternoon in early October, Miguel Sahid walked over to a freshly painted mural in Wynwood, Miami’s art district. When Sahid reached the wall, tears began flowing from his closed eyes. Looming above him was an image of a Taíno woman wrapped in a Puerto Rican flag, her lips sealed with the word “Reclama,” or “Demand.” Her right arm was raised as high as Lady Liberty’s, but instead of a torch, she held a banner reading “Tu Voto es Mi Voto”—“Your Vote Is My Vote.” Sahid and others had commissioned the mural as a memorial to the victims of Hurricane Maria—but also as a rallying cry for the nearly nine hundred thousand eligible Puerto Rican voters in Florida, urging them to make their voices heard this November.
Sahid became involved in politics only recently—he was groomed in the world of theatre, and now runs an actors society for Latino youth. At forty-six, he comes across as a sturdy man, with carefully combed hair, warm eyes, and a jaunty smile. Like other Puerto Ricans, he has taken Donald Trump’s demeaning of the island personally, and sees Maria as a thorn in the President’s side. To this date, he vividly remembers the call he placed to his parents back on the island when the hurricane made landfall, in September of 2017. “Many of the phone lines were down, because everyone was calling,” he said. When he finally got his father on the phone, he learned that their apartment was flooded ankle-deep in seawater. Shortly after, Puerto Rico slipped into a blackout, and eight days passed before Sahid was able to reach his parents again. Trump’s callousness and ineptitude stunned him. “Everything changed when I saw he wasn’t paying the slightest attention to Puerto Rico, and that all he bothered to do was throw paper towels at us,” he said. “It felt as if he were offering a Band-Aid at a time when we desperately needed surgery.”
In the aftermath of the hurricane, Trump declared that he had done an “A-plus” job in Puerto Rico. During his only visit to the island, which lasted less than four hours, the President blamed local authorities for any problems and downplayed the damage. In reality, the official government death toll was 2,975, a higher number of victims than during Katrina, the hurricane that devastated New Orleans, in 2005. In parts of Puerto Rico, American citizens were left without electricity or clean water for months. The island has yet to fully recover from the disaster, which wrought an estimated hundred billion dollars in damage on a population whose local government was already heavily burdened by debt. Last month, in a transparent, last-minute effort to earn votes, Trump pledged a package of thirteen billion dollars in federal disaster funding to Puerto Rico. But many, including Sahid, saw this as a cynical political ploy by a President who reportedly wanted to hand over the U.S. territory to the highest foreign bidder. “First he wanted to sell us, then he wanted to swap us for Greenland, and now he wants to buy us?” he said ruefully. Feeling increasingly frustrated, Sahid looked for ways to become more engaged in politics and came across the grassroots groups Boricuas con Biden and Cubanos con Biden. “There, I found thousands of people airing similar grievances,” he said. “It made me realize that I’m not alone.”
According to the Pew Research Center, Latinos make up seventeen per cent of the electorate in Florida—the largest share of any battleground state. A staple of Florida politics is that Cuban-Americans reliably vote Republican; this year, they are expected to overwhelmingly support Trump. There are, in fact, more Puerto Rican eligible voters in the state than Cuban-Americans, and, together with myriad other groups, including Mexicans, Dominicans, Nicaraguans, and Ecuadorians, they constitute nearly three-quarters of the community’s voters. The result of the battle for their support could decide whether Trump or Biden wins the state. “Unlike 2016, this has been a much more contested environment,” Carlos Odio, the co-founder of the research group EquisLabs, told me. “If you’re Biden, what you’re trying to do is maximize votes. Trump has an easier job—he just needs to bat a few balls away.” To win Florida, Odio estimates that Joe Biden likely must secure around seventy per cent of the non-Cuban Latino vote—a level of support reached both by Barack Obama, in 2012, and Hillary Clinton, in 2016. The last time that Equis polled for Biden, his support hovered around sixty per cent. But he’s since made modest gains in Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county, aided by a heavy investment in advertising thanks to Michael Bloomberg, and a wave of volunteers working to turn out the vote.
Addressing a small crowd of organizers in Miami Springs last weekend, Obama, who was in Florida to promote his Vice-President, emphasized just how momentous their work could prove, saying, “If you bring Florida home, this thing’s over.” Initially, the number of registered Democrats who had cast their ballots early in Florida outpaced Republicans by two-to-one. But in the last week, registered Republicans have steadily closed that gap, and now trail Democrats by less than a hundred thousand votes. In Miami-Dade, a Democratic stronghold, Republicans have an advantage in turnout of more than eight per cent. The numbers also reveal that half of Latino registered voters have yet to cast their ballots in the state. Privately, Latino political activists, and even Biden campaign staffers in the state, say that the Florida Democratic Party, which runs Biden’s coördinated campaign, has not invested enough money in direct voter contact among Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Colombians, Venezuelans, and other potential supporters. “I’ve emptied my pockets,” one of the staffers said, of having to make up for the lack of budget with personal money. The staffer has overheard others say they’re “being sent to the front lines just like soldiers without bullets.” But the campaign contends it has spent six figures over the last week in get-out-the-vote efforts and events at early polling locations. “We are leaving no stone unturned,” Christian Ulvert, a senior adviser in Florida, said.
Although research has long shown that there is a racial and ethnic disparity in the use of vote-by-mail, some are frustrated by what they see as the state campaign’s failure to invest more heavily in Latino turnout, despite the Biden campaign having raised a record $1.5 billion nationally, and working with a hundred-million-dollar donation from Bloomberg. But they also recognize an all-too-familiar pattern, which, in their view, explains why Democrats have not won a statewide election in Florida since 2012: the Democratic Party is not making a large enough effort in a state where demographics trends favor them. “Florida doesn’t have to go to the margins,” the staffer said. Now some of them are dreading a Trump victory or a repeat of the 2000 Presidential election, when the contest was settled in George W. Bush’s favor by five hundred and thirty-seven votes. If Republicans continue to turn out their voters in droves, Biden staffers fear that they may not be able to keep up with their lead. “If we don’t get the Hispanic vote out today and tomorrow, it’s game over,” the staffer told me on Saturday. “At this rate, they’re going to catch up to us by Monday.” Another staffer argued that it was impossible to make up in a matter of days for work that should have been done over the last year. “At this point, I’m praying for a miracle,” the staffer said.
What may offset the campaign’s neglect is that many Latino voters believe their livelihoods and integrity are on the ballot this year. For the nearly fifty thousand Puerto Ricans who moved to Florida after Hurricane Maria, November 3rd may well determine the future for their relatives back home. For the nearly two hundred thousand Venezuelans, Hondurans, and Salvadorans living in Florida, it may be a question of undoing Trump’s attacks on the Temporary Protected Status program, which allows immigrants from countries beset by violence, repressive regimes, or natural disasters to remain in the United States. And for the more than three hundred thousand voters of Mexican descent, it may be a matter of standing up for their dignity. Across nationalities, Latino voters are fed up with being treated as second-class citizens. What’s more, some say that they see in Trump the authoritarian instincts displayed by leaders of the nations they fled. “The reason why I’m horrified by Trump is because I see Daniel Ortega in him,” Carolina Chamorro, a Nicaraguan sociologist who moved to Florida in the nineteen-eighties, said, referring to the Sandinista leader. “All he’s doing is manipulating the masses.”


newyorker--2020-10-31--If We Are Going to Recover from Trumpism, We Must Deny Charity to Trump’s Henchmen

The problem with anonymity is that you don ’ t know who is speaking .
That ’ s not as obvious as it sounds : we tend to think that ideas can exist entirely outside of the people who bring them to light .
Miles Taylor , who on Wednesday identified himself as the author of the September , 2018 , Times Op-Ed in which he claimed to be a part of the “ resistance ” inside the Trump Administration , and of a book that followed , in 2019 , called “ A Warning , ” has adopted the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for publishing anonymously .
He told CNN ’ s Chris Cuomo , “ The things I said in that book were ideas I wanted Donald Trump to challenge on their merits .
.
.
.
I wanted that work to stand on its own two legs and deprive the President of an opportunity to do one more personal attack to distract from his record.
” Taylor was the chief of staff for Kirstjen Nielsen , the Secretary of Homeland Security , and then Kevin McAleenan , who replaced Nielsen as the department ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2019 .
The Times and his book publisher , Twelve , an imprint of Hachette , identified Taylor as a senior official in the Trump Administration , which was technically correct but to most people probably suggested someone more advanced both in age and job title .
Taylor , who is thirty-three , has been labelled the youngest political appointee in George W. Bush ’ s Administration , suggesting that he was still in college when he had that job .
His career was further accelerated by the Trump Administration , which swept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into positions of great responsibility ; Taylor was a congressional-committee staffer before landing at D.H.S .
The D.H.S .
is the heart , soul , and shock troops of the Trump Administration .
Ending immigration as we know it was Trump ’ s obsession and the dominant theme of his Presidential campaign .
He pledged to build a border wall and close the country to Muslims , and he began delivering on these campaign promises as soon as he took office .
He proceeded to destroy the asylum system by reversing Obama-era rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence and domestic violence , by requiring people in need of international protection to stay in Mexico while their cases were being reviewed , and by implementing a policy of separating children from their parents at the border , placing them in separate detention facilities .
At the time Taylor published his Op-Ed , his department had implemented all of those policies .
Children were in cages .
Refugee camps were forming at the southern border .
Taylor didn ’ t mention immigration in his Op-Ed .
In “ A Warning , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had done to America ’ s international relationships , his attacks on the media , his destruction of the system of separation of powers , his betrayal ( in Taylor ’ s view ) of Republican economic policies , but , most of all , on Trump ’ s unhinged , uncouth ways—his tendency to act as though the government were his henchmen .
A few passages on immigration policy and a few brief mentions of D.H.S .
are wedged between discussions of those other issues .
In the first chapter , devoted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Taylor mentions that Trump “ warmed to ” the idea of declaring migrants to be “ enemy combatants ” : Here , Taylor was bizarrely understated in his metaphors and his statements of the facts .
Suggesting that refugees be declared “ enemy combatants ” is not in the same category of derangement as assuming your nephew might take interest in your mountain-climbing trip .
And Nielsen didn ’ t “ insinuate ” —she explicitly equated people arriving at the southern border with gang members , drug smugglers , and other “ dangerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speech on the state of homeland security that she delivered in March , 2019 , when Taylor was her right-hand man .
At the time , he was either already writing his book or about to start .
Near the end of the book comes Taylor ’ s mea culpa , or what he might have hoped would pass for one once his identity was known : They also , it seems , found themselves inventing policies aimed at keeping people out of the U.S. An inspector-general report dated October 27th—the day before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public days later found that , in 2018 , D.H.S .
officials artificially limited the number of people in need of international protection who were processed at points of entry at the southern border , and , in a direct violation of U.S. law and international conventions , returned to Mexico people who had already entered the U.S. All indications are that this policy was not dictated by the President , who has the capacity neither to think so specifically nor to refrain from speaking publicly about inventing a new cruelty .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Taylor was serving as a top official .
Buried in a particularly bizarre paragraph in the middle of the book is what might have read as a damning description of agency brass when Anonymous was still anonymous , but now reads as a preëmptive attempt at self-justification .

The problem with anonymity is that you don’t know who is speaking. That’s not as obvious as it sounds: we tend to think that ideas can exist entirely outside of the people who bring them to light. Miles Taylor, who on Wednesday identified himself as the author of the September, 2018, Times Op-Ed in which he claimed to be a part of the “resistance” inside the Trump Administration, and of a book that followed, in 2019, called “A Warning,” has adopted the concept of stand-alone ideas as his explanation for publishing anonymously. He told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “The things I said in that book were ideas I wanted Donald Trump to challenge on their merits. . . . I wanted that work to stand on its own two legs and deprive the President of an opportunity to do one more personal attack to distract from his record.”
Taylor was the chief of staff for Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and then Kevin McAleenan, who replaced Nielsen as the department’s acting secretary, until June, 2019. The Times and his book publisher, Twelve, an imprint of Hachette, identified Taylor as a senior official in the Trump Administration, which was technically correct but to most people probably suggested someone more advanced both in age and job title. Taylor, who is thirty-three, has been labelled the youngest political appointee in George W. Bush’s Administration, suggesting that he was still in college when he had that job. His career was further accelerated by the Trump Administration, which swept a number of people with little experience into positions of great responsibility; Taylor was a congressional-committee staffer before landing at D.H.S.
The D.H.S. is the heart, soul, and shock troops of the Trump Administration. Ending immigration as we know it was Trump’s obsession and the dominant theme of his Presidential campaign. He pledged to build a border wall and close the country to Muslims, and he began delivering on these campaign promises as soon as he took office. He proceeded to destroy the asylum system by reversing Obama-era rules that granted asylum to victims of gang violence and domestic violence, by requiring people in need of international protection to stay in Mexico while their cases were being reviewed, and by implementing a policy of separating children from their parents at the border, placing them in separate detention facilities. At the time Taylor published his Op-Ed, his department had implemented all of those policies. Children were in cages. Refugee camps were forming at the southern border.
Taylor didn’t mention immigration in his Op-Ed. In “A Warning,” he focussed on the damage the President had done to America’s international relationships, his attacks on the media, his destruction of the system of separation of powers, his betrayal (in Taylor’s view) of Republican economic policies, but, most of all, on Trump’s unhinged, uncouth ways—his tendency to act as though the government were his henchmen. A few passages on immigration policy and a few brief mentions of D.H.S. are wedged between discussions of those other issues. In the first chapter, devoted to Trump’s erratic ways, Taylor mentions that Trump “warmed to” the idea of declaring migrants to be “enemy combatants”:
Trump toyed with the shocking proposal in meetings having nothing to do with the subject, asking random advisors what they thought. Word got around. It’s times like these when people freeze and don’t know what to say. They’ll give him one of those polite smiles reserved for a deranged relative who thinks you want to hear about his soul-searching solo retreat to the Rockies. . . . Migrants seeking shelter in the United States are not “enemy combatants.” They are not engaged in hostilities against the United States on behalf of foreign states or terror groups, even though the president and his border agencies like to insinuate that the throngs of arriving migrants could have dangerous militants in their midst.
Here, Taylor was bizarrely understated in his metaphors and his statements of the facts. Suggesting that refugees be declared “enemy combatants” is not in the same category of derangement as assuming your nephew might take interest in your mountain-climbing trip. And Nielsen didn’t “insinuate”—she explicitly equated people arriving at the southern border with gang members, drug smugglers, and other “dangerous criminals.” She did this in a speech on the state of homeland security that she delivered in March, 2019, when Taylor was her right-hand man. At the time, he was either already writing his book or about to start.
Near the end of the book comes Taylor’s mea culpa, or what he might have hoped would pass for one once his identity was known:
Those who keep their heads down will live to regret it. Cautionary tales are plentiful. Go no further than the president’s homeland security leaders, who, in a sickening display of bad judgment, conceded to a policy that increased the number of children ripped from the arms of their parents at the US-Mexico border. It left a stain on their reputations, their department, and the country. It was a seminal moment of Trumpism gone too far and a lesson for others. Trump’s character rubs off on people who came into government to do what is right. Before long, they find themselves supporting and defending policies they never imagined they would.
They also, it seems, found themselves inventing policies aimed at keeping people out of the U.S. An inspector-general report dated October 27th—the day before Taylor revealed his identity—but released to the public days later found that, in 2018, D.H.S. officials artificially limited the number of people in need of international protection who were processed at points of entry at the southern border, and, in a direct violation of U.S. law and international conventions, returned to Mexico people who had already entered the U.S. All indications are that this policy was not dictated by the President, who has the capacity neither to think so specifically nor to refrain from speaking publicly about inventing a new cruelty. The credit goes to the agency at which Taylor was serving as a top official. Buried in a particularly bizarre paragraph in the middle of the book is what might have read as a damning description of agency brass when Anonymous was still anonymous, but now reads as a preëmptive attempt at self-justification.


newyorker--2020-10-31--Will Trump’s Broken Promises to Working-Class Voters Cost Him the Election?

Nearly a thousand workers have since lost their jobs .
The layoffs came at an inauspicious time for Donald Trump , who won the Presidency , in 2016 , by flipping Michigan , Wisconsin , and Pennsylvania by a combined total of seventy-seven thousand votes .
( His winning margin in Michigan , barely ten thousand votes , was the slimmest of any state . )
Two days before Election Day , Trump had held a rally in Macomb County , Michigan , a national bellwether for the white working-class voters who were once known as Reagan Democrats .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from going to Mexico and China and all over the world , ” Trump said .
“ We will make Michigan into the manufacturing hub of the world once again.
” A Republican Presidential candidate had not won Macomb County since 2004 ; Trump carried it by nearly fifty thousand votes .
The political importance of trade and manufacturing derives from the fact that the sector ’ s average pay , including benefits , is close to forty dollars an hour , roughly twice as much as the average job in retail .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ who represent more than sixty per cent of the American workforce , the industry is one of the few that offers family-supporting jobs with benefits .
And yet American manufacturing has been in decline for decades .
Altogether , the U.S. has lost ninety-one thousand plants and five million manufacturing jobs since 1997 .
As President , Trump continued staging rallies across the Rust Belt , promising a manufacturing revival .
In July , 2017 , at an event in Youngstown , Ohio ( “ Steeltown , U.S.A. ” ) , Trump promised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s abandoned mills would be “ all coming back.
” He implored the crowd , “ Don ’ t move .
Don ’ t sell your house .
We ’ re going to fill up those factories.
” To complement such messaging , the Trump Administration has touted its trade policies .
One of its most significant moves came in March , 2018 , when the President imposed import tariffs of twenty-five per cent on steel and ten per cent on aluminum .
Both U.S. Steel and United Steelworkers lobbied for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rebound to the American steel industry .
Four months after implementing the tariffs , Trump travelled to Granite City , Illinois , to celebrate the reopening of a U.S. Steel mill that had been closed for three years .
“ After years of shutdowns and cutbacks , today the blast furnace here in Granite City is blazing bright , ” he said .
“ Workers are back on the job , and we are once again pouring new American steel into the spine of our country.
” But , like with many aspects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ masked a profound failure .
The Administration ultimately exempted Mexico , Canada , and Australia from the tariffs , and a few other countries were exempted in exchange for accepting a quota on their exports .
In June , 2019 , only seventeen per cent of the steel imported by the U.S. was subject to the trade policy .
“ It was a short-term sugar rush—it didn ’ t deal with the long term , ” Scott Paul , the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing , told me .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weren ’ t protective enough.
” America ’ s industrial base has actually deteriorated further during Trump ’ s Presidency ; more than two hundred thousand jobs have been lost to offshoring and trade , according to the U.S. Labor Department .
( Other estimates have found that as many as seven hundred thousand jobs were lost in just 2017 and 2018 . )
General Motors has closed three U.S. plants , including one that recently employed nearly five thousand people in Lordstown , Ohio ; the company is now the largest automaker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have offshored thousands of jobs to low-wage countries , with no significant response from the Trump Administration .
In fact , a new report by Public Citizen ’ s Global Trade Watch found that more than four hundred billion dollars in federal contracts have gone to companies which offshored jobs during the Trump Presidency .
After winning the 2016 election , Trump dispatched Vice-President-elect Mike Pence to negotiate a deal with Carrier Corporation , an air-conditioning manufacturer that had announced plans to move fourteen hundred jobs to Mexico .
The company agreed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its Indianapolis plant , in exchange for seven million dollars in state tax credits .
“ This is the way it ’ s going to be , ” Trump told the Times .
“ Corporate America is going to have to understand that we have to take care of our workers also.
” But United Technologies , Carrier ’ s parent company , has since offshored nearly sixteen hundred jobs .
At the same time , the Trump Administration has given the company fifteen billion dollars in government contracts .
Although Trump has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manufacturing promises , he continues to campaign as though he had .
Recently , he gave a speech in Janesville , Wisconsin , touting his deal to bring a Foxconn manufacturing plant to the state despite the fact that the project has become a notorious boondoggle .
Wisconsin taxpayers have shelled out at least four hundred million dollars so far for a nonexistent LCD factory and fewer than three hundred jobs of the thirteen thousand that the company has promised to create .
Similarly , at an event near Saginaw , Michigan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ saved the auto industry ” and brought the state “ a lot of car plants.
” But Michigan has lost fifty thousand manufacturing jobs since the start of Trump ’ s Presidency , about half of them in the auto industry .
Jobs in Michigan lost to offshoring actually increased by more than two hundred per cent during the first three years of Trump ’ s Presidency , compared with the last three years of Obama ’ s .
Andrea Hunter , the president of Local 1299 , who was with Kemper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be idled , saw the power that Trump ’ s false promises had on some of her members .
In the summer of 2018 , she was in the midst of negotiations over a new contract with U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh .
During the talks , Trump declared , at a rally in Tampa , Florida , that U.S. Steel was building six new mills .
“ When Trump said it , we were all laughing , ” Hunter said , recalling an exchange between the union representatives and company executives .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want to give us any money , but check out these new plants coming.
’ They said , ‘ We don ’ t know what he ’ s talking about.
’ Then I have to come back to my membership and say it ’ s not true .
And some member will say , ‘ Yes , it is.
’ Now they ’ re calling me a liar.
” On a Tuesday morning in September , Jeanelle Jones came to the hall to sign up for a workshop offered by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that helps workers who ’ ve lost their jobs to foreign trade find new careers .
Jones is sixty-three and worked at Great Lakes for seven years , first as an overhead-crane operator and then as a safety representative .
Before that , she worked on the assembly line at an axle plant in Detroit , but she took a severance package when the company began closing the factory and moving most of its production to Mexico .
“ My biggest fear right now is my age , ” Jones said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sixty-three-year-old woman ?
” Jones also worries that a bout with lung cancer , in 2011 , might dissuade a company from hiring her .
“ Normally you get asked , ‘ Have you been diagnosed with something in the last ten years ?
’ ” she said .
“ I won ’ t be past that until next year.
” Jones signed up for the workshop with her friend and former co-worker Brandy Folks .
Unemployment was about to run out for both of them .
Folks , who has a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a job that paid anything close to what she made as a steelworker .
“ I am not looking for a Bugatti , ” she said .
“ I am looking to pay off my car and my mortgage without the worry that ’ s looming in my head.
” Folks ’ s parents had met while working at Great Lakes ( which was then owned by National Steel ) in the nineteen-seventies .
Her mother , Pat , was one of the first women hired at the plant , and Folks ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1299 ’ s union hall .
After living in California , Nevada , and Kentucky , where she worked as a deputy sheriff , Folks returned to Michigan , in 2008 , to be closer to her family .
On her first day at the plant , she said , “ I made the same amount of money as both of my parents , who were still working at that time.
” But it was dangerous work .
At the mill , Folks worked as a slab burner , cutting steel to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in masonry , relining thirty-foot-deep iron and steel ladles with brick .
“ We don ’ t pinch our fingers , we don ’ t break them—we lose hands and legs , ” she said .
“ Or you just die.
” During her time at the plant , two 1299 members were killed on the job .
Folks said that she knows several laid-off workers who had come to Detroit on their second transfer , after losing their jobs at U.S. Steel plants in Granite City and then Lorain , Ohio .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a mill in Fairfield , Alabama .
“ If I wasn ’ t married , ” Jones said .
“ I would probably have went to Fairfield.
” Exit polls after Trump ’ s victory showed that he had won sixty-one per cent of white voters without a college degree in Michigan .
Among households with a union member , Hillary Clinton beat Trump by thirteen points , but that was twenty points fewer than Barack Obama ’ s margin over Mitt Romney four years earlier .
Bob Kemper estimates that as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lakes supported Trump .
“ Trump was the great savior of the steel industry , ” Folks said , sarcastically .
“ I ’ m not going to be surprised if he does win again .
He ’ s done an excellent job of fearmongering.
” After Trump took office , a new level of divisiveness came into the plant .
Complaints brought to the union over racial harassment soared .
Folks said that she had experienced racism and misogyny at work before Trump ’ s election , but it became more brazen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Folks , who is Black , told me .
“ It became very polarizing , very much us versus them.
” One source of tension came during lunch hour , when some co-workers started wearing MAGA hats at the table .
“ Some people are saying , ‘ Trump allowed me to be able to be me—I ’ m going to speak the way I choose to speak , ’ ” Jones , who is also Black , said .
“ Trump cares about one thing , and that ’ s green @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He cares about the people that he feels somewhere down the road is going to be able to contribute to him , not the working-class people , not the poor-class people .
Trump could care less about color .
It ’ s about rich versus poor.
” The Republican National Committee chose Detroit as the site of its 1980 convention , where Reagan , during his acceptance speech , promised to “ make America great again.
” ( Trump trademarked the phrase in 2015 . )
Reagan won every state in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ landslide victory over Carter .
But deindustrialization only deepened ; by the end of Reagan ’ s second term , virtually all of the steel industry—some fifty thousand well-paying jobs—had vanished from Youngstown and the surrounding Mahoning Valley .
In September , 1984 , Walter Mondale , the Democratic Presidential nominee , spoke to a few hundred workers at a rally outside a steel plant in Cleveland .
Throughout his long political career , Mondale had been a strong supporter of the same free-trade agenda that Reagan had ultimately pursued in office .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a successful filibuster to kill a labor-supported measure to limit cheap textile imports ; as Vice-President , in the Carter Administration , he was associated with a recession and an eight-per-cent unemployment rate .
Now , trailing Reagan badly in the polls , he was making a desperate attempt in Ohio and Michigan to win back Reagan Democrats .
In Cleveland , he reminded the crowd of the promises that Reagan had made to the laid-off steelworkers in Youngstown .
“ First time , his fault , ” Mondale said .
“ Second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allowed foreign steel to take over more than a third of the U.S. market , Mondale said , “ turning our industrial Midwest into a rust bowl .
”

Last December, Bob Kemper, the grievance chairman of United Steelworkers Local 1299, was summoned to a conference room at Great Lakes Works, a U.S. Steel plant just south of Detroit. A cohort of senior managers told Kemper and three other union officers that the automotive industry, which buys almost all of the plant’s steel, was cutting its car production. With reduced demand for its product, most of Great Lakes would be “indefinitely idled.” Kemper knew this meant that members were getting laid off, but the terminology was unfamiliar. “Our contract says the facility has to be declared shut down in order for our members to get a severance,” Kemper told me. “We were trying to figure out what the fuck ‘indefinitely idled’ means.”
Nearly a thousand workers have since lost their jobs. The layoffs came at an inauspicious time for Donald Trump, who won the Presidency, in 2016, by flipping Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania by a combined total of seventy-seven thousand votes. (His winning margin in Michigan, barely ten thousand votes, was the slimmest of any state.) Two days before Election Day, Trump had held a rally in Macomb County, Michigan, a national bellwether for the white working-class voters who were once known as Reagan Democrats. “We are going to stop the jobs from going to Mexico and China and all over the world,” Trump said. “We will make Michigan into the manufacturing hub of the world once again.” A Republican Presidential candidate had not won Macomb County since 2004; Trump carried it by nearly fifty thousand votes.
The political importance of trade and manufacturing derives from the fact that the sector’s average pay, including benefits, is close to forty dollars an hour, roughly twice as much as the average job in retail. For workers without a college degree, who represent more than sixty per cent of the American workforce, the industry is one of the few that offers family-supporting jobs with benefits. And yet American manufacturing has been in decline for decades. Altogether, the U.S. has lost ninety-one thousand plants and five million manufacturing jobs since 1997. As President, Trump continued staging rallies across the Rust Belt, promising a manufacturing revival. In July, 2017, at an event in Youngstown, Ohio (“Steeltown, U.S.A.”), Trump promised that the jobs lost from the area’s abandoned mills would be “all coming back.” He implored the crowd, “Don’t move. Don’t sell your house. We’re going to fill up those factories.”
To complement such messaging, the Trump Administration has touted its trade policies. One of its most significant moves came in March, 2018, when the President imposed import tariffs of twenty-five per cent on steel and ten per cent on aluminum. Both U.S. Steel and United Steelworkers lobbied for the change, and it initially brought a rebound to the American steel industry. Four months after implementing the tariffs, Trump travelled to Granite City, Illinois, to celebrate the reopening of a U.S. Steel mill that had been closed for three years. “After years of shutdowns and cutbacks, today the blast furnace here in Granite City is blazing bright,” he said. “Workers are back on the job, and we are once again pouring new American steel into the spine of our country.”
But, like with many aspects of the Trump Administration, such boasting masked a profound failure. The Administration ultimately exempted Mexico, Canada, and Australia from the tariffs, and a few other countries were exempted in exchange for accepting a quota on their exports. In June, 2019, only seventeen per cent of the steel imported by the U.S. was subject to the trade policy. “It was a short-term sugar rush—it didn’t deal with the long term,” Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, told me. “It may sound counterintuitive, but the tariffs weren’t protective enough.”
America’s industrial base has actually deteriorated further during Trump’s Presidency; more than two hundred thousand jobs have been lost to offshoring and trade, according to the U.S. Labor Department. (Other estimates have found that as many as seven hundred thousand jobs were lost in just 2017 and 2018.) General Motors has closed three U.S. plants, including one that recently employed nearly five thousand people in Lordstown, Ohio; the company is now the largest automaker in Mexico. Boeing and General Electric have offshored thousands of jobs to low-wage countries, with no significant response from the Trump Administration. In fact, a new report by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch found that more than four hundred billion dollars in federal contracts have gone to companies which offshored jobs during the Trump Presidency.
Bob Kemper at the Local 1299 union hall, in River Rouge, Michigan.
After winning the 2016 election, Trump dispatched Vice-President-elect Mike Pence to negotiate a deal with Carrier Corporation, an air-conditioning manufacturer that had announced plans to move fourteen hundred jobs to Mexico. The company agreed to keep about seven hundred jobs, in its Indianapolis plant, in exchange for seven million dollars in state tax credits. “This is the way it’s going to be,” Trump told the Times. “Corporate America is going to have to understand that we have to take care of our workers also.” But United Technologies, Carrier’s parent company, has since offshored nearly sixteen hundred jobs. At the same time, the Trump Administration has given the company fifteen billion dollars in government contracts.
Although Trump has failed to deliver on many of his manufacturing promises, he continues to campaign as though he had. Recently, he gave a speech in Janesville, Wisconsin, touting his deal to bring a Foxconn manufacturing plant to the state despite the fact that the project has become a notorious boondoggle. Wisconsin taxpayers have shelled out at least four hundred million dollars so far for a nonexistent LCD factory and fewer than three hundred jobs of the thirteen thousand that the company has promised to create. Similarly, at an event near Saginaw, Michigan, last month, Trump boasted that he “saved the auto industry” and brought the state “a lot of car plants.” But Michigan has lost fifty thousand manufacturing jobs since the start of Trump’s Presidency, about half of them in the auto industry. Jobs in Michigan lost to offshoring actually increased by more than two hundred per cent during the first three years of Trump’s Presidency, compared with the last three years of Obama’s.
Andrea Hunter, the president of Local 1299, who was with Kemper when management announced that Great Lakes would be idled, saw the power that Trump’s false promises had on some of her members. In the summer of 2018, she was in the midst of negotiations over a new contract with U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh. During the talks, Trump declared, at a rally in Tampa, Florida, that U.S. Steel was building six new mills. “When Trump said it, we were all laughing,” Hunter said, recalling an exchange between the union representatives and company executives. “We said, ‘Y’all don’t want to give us any money, but check out these new plants coming.’ They said, ‘We don’t know what he’s talking about.’ Then I have to come back to my membership and say it’s not true. And some member will say, ‘Yes, it is.’ Now they’re calling me a liar.”
Local 1299’s union hall, in River Rouge, is down the street from the Great Lakes mill. Its squat brick façade and small white steeple are meant to evoke Independence Hall. An auditorium inside is decorated with a mural painted, in the late sixties, by a steelworker named J. J. Janiec. Titled “Forgotten History,” it depicts some of the American labor movement’s bloodiest battles—the Ludlow Massacre of 1914, in Colorado; the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937, in Chicago—foregrounded by a portrait of Philip Murray, a Scottish immigrant and coal miner who was the first president of the steelworkers’ union. (The painter’s grandson, a third-generation steelworker, lost his job at Great Lakes last year.) In the hall’s entranceway, near a plaque depicting Franklin D. Roosevelt—labor’s greatest ally in the White House—a stack of flyers advertised jobs with the Detroit Police Department.
On a Tuesday morning in September, Jeanelle Jones came to the hall to sign up for a workshop offered by Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal program that helps workers who’ve lost their jobs to foreign trade find new careers. Jones is sixty-three and worked at Great Lakes for seven years, first as an overhead-crane operator and then as a safety representative. Before that, she worked on the assembly line at an axle plant in Detroit, but she took a severance package when the company began closing the factory and moving most of its production to Mexico. “My biggest fear right now is my age,” Jones said. “How many people are going to employ a sixty-three-year-old woman?” Jones also worries that a bout with lung cancer, in 2011, might dissuade a company from hiring her. “Normally you get asked, ‘Have you been diagnosed with something in the last ten years?’ ” she said. “I won’t be past that until next year.”
Jones signed up for the workshop with her friend and former co-worker Brandy Folks. Unemployment was about to run out for both of them. Folks, who has a six-year-old son, was concerned about finding a job that paid anything close to what she made as a steelworker. “I am not looking for a Bugatti,” she said. “I am looking to pay off my car and my mortgage without the worry that’s looming in my head.”
Brandy Folks, who was laid off from Great Lakes Works, with her partner, Glennisha.
Folks’s parents had met while working at Great Lakes (which was then owned by National Steel) in the nineteen-seventies. Her mother, Pat, was one of the first women hired at the plant, and Folks’s baby shower was held at Local 1299’s union hall. After living in California, Nevada, and Kentucky, where she worked as a deputy sheriff, Folks returned to Michigan, in 2008, to be closer to her family. On her first day at the plant, she said, “I made the same amount of money as both of my parents, who were still working at that time.” But it was dangerous work. At the mill, Folks worked as a slab burner, cutting steel to the parameters of particular orders, and then in masonry, relining thirty-foot-deep iron and steel ladles with brick. “We don’t pinch our fingers, we don’t break them—we lose hands and legs,” she said. “Or you just die.” During her time at the plant, two 1299 members were killed on the job.


newyorker--2020-10-31--The Battle to Count All of Wisconsin’s Absentee Votes

Already , more than 1.7 million voters have cast ballots in Wisconsin , a state that Donald Trump won by the slimmest of margins in 2016 , and almost certainly needs to win again , if he is to be reëlected .
Courthouse skirmishing over election rules started early , with Democrats trying to make it easier for votes to be counted and Republicans warning darkly of disorder and fraud .
On Monday , the Supreme Court supported the Republican position , ruling that no mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day will be counted , even if they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warned that ballots received after November 3rd could flip the outcome .
Justice Elena Kagan , in a dissent signed by Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer , replied acidly that “ there are no results to ‘ flip ’ until all valid votes are counted.
” Neil Albrecht , the former director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission , predicted that some ballots from voters who follow the rules will not be tallied .
“ We will have late-arriving absentee ballots , particularly in the two days following the election , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he told me .
Following the Supreme Court ruling , Meagan Wolfe , the administrator of the state election commission , warned that “ time is running out ” to submit ballots .
On Friday , Ben Wikler , the leader of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin , tweeted that “ it ’ s too late now to mail them in , ” but said that mail-in ballots could be hand-delivered to drop boxes or to clerks .
“ We ’ re organizing & cranking out digital ads to make it happen , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Democrats see it , is that a failure to count mail-in votes in a state facing record levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths will most deeply affect the Democratic precincts of Milwaukee and other large cities .
They remember the primary election in April , when thousands of ballots arrived after Election Day , although , in that case , a court did allow them to be counted .
This time , thousands of poll watchers and lawyers have been recruited to observe in-person voting and the counting of ballots—and to run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ When you have a close state , you need to be ready , ” Andrew Hitt , the Republican Party chairman , told me .
This week ’ s Marquette Law School Poll showed a five-point lead for Joe Biden , but everyone recalls that Hillary Clinton led in late polls four years ago , only to become the first Democratic Presidential nominee since Walter Mondale , in 1984 , to lose the state .
With the ballot count , by law , not starting until Election Day , clerks expect that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be ready until sometime on November 4th .
The job of Wisconsin ’ s nineteen hundred and twenty-two clerks has rarely , if ever , been more challenging .
In addition to the complications of running an election during an intense COVID-19 outbreak , Wisconsin has some of the country ’ s most restrictive voting rules , which were enacted by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed by former governor Scott Walker , who lost a bid for reëlection two years ago .
A new photo I.D .
law helped to diminish turnout in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remains a consultant for the City of Milwaukee Election Commission .
Describing an election beset by confusion , he told me that the new rule was hardest on the poor , students , and seniors .
“ It changed how people had been voting for over a century .
That really takes time to trickle down and be processed by the public , ” Albrecht said .
“ There are still some people who will not be able to vote because of that requirement.
” This year , many voters are struggling for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filling out absentee ballots .
“ The absentee rules are very confusing , and the printing on those envelopes is very small and squished together , ” Kono , who marks key parts with a yellow highlighter before mailing a blank ballot , said .
If a ballot envelope is returned without the signature of the voter or witness or is missing the witness ’ s address , she follows up .
Early one recent morning , she tracked down a voter—a relative of her husband ’ s—who had skipped a step or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his house , and I knocked on the door , and I walked in , ” she recounted .
“ I knew that he would be eating breakfast at that time , because he ’ s a farmer .
He signed it , and his wife signed.
” That level of service is easier to muster in rural counties , but clerks across the state describe similar efforts .
In Madison and Milwaukee , election workers report that they sometimes find voters and alert them to problems or fill in the addresses of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
Attentive voters with access to technology can check online to see if their absentee ballot has been accepted without errors .
The Republican and Democratic Parties have been purchasing data files that show the same thing , allowing them to contact voters whose ballots have been rejected or were not received .
The task grows harder as volumes of ballots increase and Election Day draws nearer .
If voters deliver ballots with missing details too close to Election Day—or on Election Day itself—it could be too late to fix them .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ April primary , as COVID-19 took hold , showed that about twenty-three thousand ballots were thrown out .
In a majority of cases , the ballot was rejected because the voter or the witness failed to sign the ballot envelope or include the address of the witness .
By comparison , Trump won Wisconsin four years ago by only 22,748 votes out of about three million cast .
If next week ’ s election is close , Democrats expect that Republicans will pay particular attention to absentee ballots in heavily Democratic areas , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A central goal of the Wisconsin Democrats , working with the Biden campaign , is to keep the election from being so close that the result could be disputed .
To increase turnout , organizers with a broad array of groups have been helping Wisconsinites register to vote and obtain ballots .
Jacob Peña directs a project at Voces de la Frontera Action that has mobilized a network of twenty thousand voters , many of them Latino immigrants , often helping them to go online and request a ballot .
In Green Bay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to encourage voting , a group of volunteers ran a drive-through line to help residents snap photos of their identification documents , register to vote , and request ballots .
More than a thousand people showed up this month at a Milwaukee drive-through event that combined voter registration with the distribution of food , gift cards , and coronavirus P.P.E.
, which was sponsored by the Milwaukee Bucks and Michelle Obama ’ s When We All Vote .
The group ’ s C.E.O.
, Kyle Lierman , said that the project targets unregistered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social-media pages , including Facebook , urging them to register .
Some efforts faced Republican opposition .
When the city of Madison scheduled a project called Democracy in the Park , deploying election workers in bright yellow vests to two hundred and six public parks to register voters and collect ballots , a lawyer for the state ’ s top elected Republicans objected , calling it “ unsecure and unlawful.
” When the Milwaukee Brewers proposed using the team ’ s baseball park as an early-voting site , Hitt , the Republican chairman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which was eventually dropped for other reasons .
He said that the presence of players or the team ’ s “ racing sausages ” mascots—Brat , Polish , Chorizo , Hot Dog , and Italian—would amount to illegal electioneering .
He made a similar argument about the Bucks , who had offered their basketball arena .
When I asked Hitt about this , he said that he was only thinking about the voters .
“ We want to make sure that everybody clearly understands the law , ” he said , “ so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a situation where votes potentially don ’ t count.
” After speaking with Hitt , I tracked down Alex Lasry , a Bucks executive and former Obama White House aide , who has been a big part of the team ’ s efforts to boost voting .
He had marched against police violence in Kenosha , after a police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back .
Lasry , whose father is the Bucks ’ principal owner , called Hitt ’ s claims about electioneering “ ridiculous ” and saw them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ At the end of the day , there are some people who want to make it harder for people to vote , and there are other people who want to make it easier , ” he said .
The A.C.L.U .
is spending about a million dollars on a pitch to Wisconsin voters that voting rights themselves are on the November ballot .
I asked Molly McGrath , an A.C.L.U .
strategist and longtime advocate for voting rights , about the nonpartisan mobilizing campaign , which targets Black and Latino voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than forty .
“ Wisconsin is a hotbed for voter suppression , ” McGrath , an attorney who made voting her signature theme as Miss Wisconsin 2004 , said .
“ Any time you erect needless obstacles to the right to vote and make voting harder , that ’ s voter suppression .
I have sat in the living rooms of voters and held their hand when they told me what it was like not to be able to vote , to not have their vote counted , for the very first time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law .
”

Melissa Kono is a part-time election clerk in Burnside, Wisconsin, a farming community in rural Trempealeau County, which touches the Mississippi River. She recruits poll workers, paying twelve dollars an hour for a thirteen-hour shift. She sends absentee ballots to any of the town’s two hundred and seventy voters who properly request them. She also trains hundreds of election workers in surrounding counties in Wisconsin’s election rules, describing everything from checking photo I.D.s to coping with a power outage. She sees how much these election workers care, and she hates when she hears someone—the President of the United States, for example—malign them. “Personally, I am offended when people say the elections are rigged,” she said. “I’m responsible for my neighbor’s vote, and my election workers are responsible for their neighbors’ votes. I don’t just mail ballots out into the world.”
Already, more than 1.7 million voters have cast ballots in Wisconsin, a state that Donald Trump won by the slimmest of margins in 2016, and almost certainly needs to win again, if he is to be reëlected. Courthouse skirmishing over election rules started early, with Democrats trying to make it easier for votes to be counted and Republicans warning darkly of disorder and fraud. On Monday, the Supreme Court supported the Republican position, ruling that no mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day will be counted, even if they are postmarked in time. Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned that ballots received after November 3rd could flip the outcome. Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissent signed by Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, replied acidly that “there are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted.”
Neil Albrecht, the former director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, predicted that some ballots from voters who follow the rules will not be tallied. “We will have late-arriving absentee ballots, particularly in the two days following the election, and those votes will be lost,” he told me. Following the Supreme Court ruling, Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the state election commission, warned that “time is running out” to submit ballots. On Friday, Ben Wikler, the leader of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, tweeted that “it’s too late now to mail them in,” but said that mail-in ballots could be hand-delivered to drop boxes or to clerks. “We’re organizing & cranking out digital ads to make it happen,” he wrote.
The risk, as Democrats see it, is that a failure to count mail-in votes in a state facing record levels of COVID-19 cases and deaths will most deeply affect the Democratic precincts of Milwaukee and other large cities. They remember the primary election in April, when thousands of ballots arrived after Election Day, although, in that case, a court did allow them to be counted. This time, thousands of poll watchers and lawyers have been recruited to observe in-person voting and the counting of ballots—and to run to the courthouse, if necessary. “When you have a close state, you need to be ready,” Andrew Hitt, the Republican Party chairman, told me. This week’s Marquette Law School Poll showed a five-point lead for Joe Biden, but everyone recalls that Hillary Clinton led in late polls four years ago, only to become the first Democratic Presidential nominee since Walter Mondale, in 1984, to lose the state. With the ballot count, by law, not starting until Election Day, clerks expect that a nearly final statewide result will not be ready until sometime on November 4th.
The job of Wisconsin’s nineteen hundred and twenty-two clerks has rarely, if ever, been more challenging. In addition to the complications of running an election during an intense COVID-19 outbreak, Wisconsin has some of the country’s most restrictive voting rules, which were enacted by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed by former governor Scott Walker, who lost a bid for reëlection two years ago. A new photo I.D. law helped to diminish turnout in 2016, according to Albrecht, who remains a consultant for the City of Milwaukee Election Commission. Describing an election beset by confusion, he told me that the new rule was hardest on the poor, students, and seniors. “It changed how people had been voting for over a century. That really takes time to trickle down and be processed by the public,” Albrecht said. “There are still some people who will not be able to vote because of that requirement.”
This year, many voters are struggling for the first time with the intricacies of filling out absentee ballots. “The absentee rules are very confusing, and the printing on those envelopes is very small and squished together,” Kono, who marks key parts with a yellow highlighter before mailing a blank ballot, said. If a ballot envelope is returned without the signature of the voter or witness or is missing the witness’s address, she follows up. Early one recent morning, she tracked down a voter—a relative of her husband’s—who had skipped a step or two. “I just went to his house, and I knocked on the door, and I walked in,” she recounted. “I knew that he would be eating breakfast at that time, because he’s a farmer. He signed it, and his wife signed.”
That level of service is easier to muster in rural counties, but clerks across the state describe similar efforts. In Madison and Milwaukee, election workers report that they sometimes find voters and alert them to problems or fill in the addresses of witnesses themselves, when they can confirm them. Attentive voters with access to technology can check online to see if their absentee ballot has been accepted without errors. The Republican and Democratic Parties have been purchasing data files that show the same thing, allowing them to contact voters whose ballots have been rejected or were not received. The task grows harder as volumes of ballots increase and Election Day draws nearer. If voters deliver ballots with missing details too close to Election Day—or on Election Day itself—it could be too late to fix them.
An analysis of absentee balloting in the April primary, as COVID-19 took hold, showed that about twenty-three thousand ballots were thrown out. In a majority of cases, the ballot was rejected because the voter or the witness failed to sign the ballot envelope or include the address of the witness. By comparison, Trump won Wisconsin four years ago by only 22,748 votes out of about three million cast. If next week’s election is close, Democrats expect that Republicans will pay particular attention to absentee ballots in heavily Democratic areas, looking for reasons to disqualify them.
A central goal of the Wisconsin Democrats, working with the Biden campaign, is to keep the election from being so close that the result could be disputed. To increase turnout, organizers with a broad array of groups have been helping Wisconsinites register to vote and obtain ballots. Jacob Peña directs a project at Voces de la Frontera Action that has mobilized a network of twenty thousand voters, many of them Latino immigrants, often helping them to go online and request a ballot. In Green Bay, where the city sponsored a mural to encourage voting, a group of volunteers ran a drive-through line to help residents snap photos of their identification documents, register to vote, and request ballots. More than a thousand people showed up this month at a Milwaukee drive-through event that combined voter registration with the distribution of food, gift cards, and coronavirus P.P.E., which was sponsored by the Milwaukee Bucks and Michelle Obama’s When We All Vote. The group’s C.E.O., Kyle Lierman, said that the project targets unregistered voters with digital ads on their personal social-media pages, including Facebook, urging them to register.
Some efforts faced Republican opposition. When the city of Madison scheduled a project called Democracy in the Park, deploying election workers in bright yellow vests to two hundred and six public parks to register voters and collect ballots, a lawyer for the state’s top elected Republicans objected, calling it “unsecure and unlawful.” When the Milwaukee Brewers proposed using the team’s baseball park as an early-voting site, Hitt, the Republican chairman, raised questions about the plan, which was eventually dropped for other reasons. He said that the presence of players or the team’s “racing sausages” mascots—Brat, Polish, Chorizo, Hot Dog, and Italian—would amount to illegal electioneering. He made a similar argument about the Bucks, who had offered their basketball arena. When I asked Hitt about this, he said that he was only thinking about the voters. “We want to make sure that everybody clearly understands the law,” he said, “so that we don’t get in a situation where votes potentially don’t count.”


newyorker--2020-11-01--Why Trump Can’t Afford to Lose

Why Trump Can’t Afford to Lose

The downfall of Richard Nixon , in the summer of 1974 , was , as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein relate in “ The Final Days , ” one of the most dramatic in American history .
That August , the Watergate scandal forced Nixon—who had been cornered by self-incriminating White House tape recordings , and faced impeachment and removal from office—to resign .
Twenty-nine individuals closely tied to his Administration were subsequently indicted , and several of his top aides and advisers , including his Attorney General , John Mitchell , went to prison .
Nixon himself , however @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gerald Ford , granted him a pardon , in September , 1974 .
No American President has ever been charged with a criminal offense .
But , as Donald Trump fights to hold on to the White House , he and those around him surely know that if he loses—an outcome that nobody should count on—the presumption of immunity that attends the Presidency will vanish .
Given that more than a dozen investigations and civil suits involving Trump are currently under way , he could be looking at an endgame even more perilous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said of Trump , “ If he loses , you have a situation that ’ s not dissimilar to that of Nixon when he resigned .
Nixon spoke of the cell door clanging shut.
” Trump has famously survived one impeachment , two divorces , six bankruptcies , twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct , and an estimated four thousand lawsuits .
Few people have evaded consequences more cunningly .
That run of good luck may well end , perhaps brutally , if he loses to Joe Biden .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and financial threats will loom over his second term .
Two of the investigations into Trump are being led by powerful state and city law-enforcement officials in New York .
Cyrus Vance , Jr. , the Manhattan District Attorney , and Letitia James , New York ’ s attorney general , are independently pursuing potential criminal charges related to Trump ’ s business practices before he became President .
Because their jurisdictions lie outside the federal realm , any indictments or convictions resulting from their actions would be beyond the reach of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expenses alone are likely to be daunting .
( By the time Bill Clinton left the White House , he ’ d racked up more than ten million dollars in legal fees . )
And Trump ’ s finances are already under growing strain .
During the next four years , according to a stunning recent Times report , Trump—whether reëlected or not—must meet payment deadlines for more than three hundred million dollars in loans that he has personally guaranteed ; much of this debt is owed to such foreign creditors as Deutsche @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the lenders , he will be on the hook .
The Financial Times , meanwhile , estimates that , in all , about nine hundred million dollars ’ worth of Trump ’ s real-estate debt will come due within the next four years .
At the same time , he is locked in a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over a deduction that he has claimed on his income-tax forms ; an adverse ruling could cost him an additional hundred million dollars .
To pay off such debts , the President , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be two and a half billion dollars , could sell some of his most valuable real-estate assets—or , as he has in the past , find ways to stiff his creditors .
But , according to an analysis by the Washington Post , Trump ’ s properties—especially his hotels and resorts—have been hit hard by the pandemic and the fallout from his divisive political career .
“ It ’ s the office of the Presidency that ’ s keeping him from prison and the poorhouse , ” Timothy Snyder , a history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me .
The White House declined to answer questions for this article , and if Trump has made plans for a post-Presidential life he hasn ’ t shared them openly .
A business friend of his from New York said , “ You can ’ t broach it with him .
He ’ d be furious at the suggestion that he could lose.
” In better times , Trump has revelled in being President .
Last winter , a Cabinet secretary told me Trump had confided that he couldn ’ t imagine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real-estate developer .
As the Cabinet secretary recalled , the two men were gliding along in a motorcade , surrounded by throngs of adoring supporters , when Trump remarked , “ Isn ’ t this incredible ?
After this , I could never return to ordering windows .
It would be so boring.
” Throughout the 2020 campaign , Trump ’ s national poll numbers have lagged behind Biden ’ s , and two sources who have spoken to the President in the past month described him as being in a foul mood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won both Presidential debates , contrary to even his own family ’ s assessment of the first one .
And he has raged not just at the polls and the media but also at some people in charge of his reëlection campaign , blaming them for squandering money and allowing Biden ’ s team to have a significant financial advantage .
Trump ’ s bad temper was visible on October 20th , when he cut short a “ 60 Minutes ” interview with Lesley Stahl .
A longtime observer who spent time with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d never seen Trump so angry .
The President ’ s niece Mary Trump—a psychologist and the author of the tell-all memoir “ Too Much and Never Enough ” —told me that his fury “ speaks to his desperation , ” adding , “ He knows that if he doesn ’ t manage to stay in office he ’ s in serious trouble .
I believe he ’ ll be prosecuted , because it seems almost undeniable how extensive and long his criminality is .
If it doesn ’ t happen at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the state level.
” She described the “ narcissistic injury ” that Trump will suffer if he is rejected at the polls .
Within the Trump family , she said , “ losing was a death sentence—literally and figuratively.
” Her father , Fred Trump , Jr. , the President ’ s older brother , “ was essentially destroyed ” by her grandfather ’ s judgment that Fred was not “ a winner.
” ( Fred died in 1981 , of complications from alcoholism . )
As the President ponders potential political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ a terrified little boy.
” Barbara Res , whose new book , “ Tower of Lies , ” draws on the eighteen years that she spent , off and on , developing and managing construction projects for Trump , also thinks that the President is not just running for a second term—he is running from the law .
“ One of the reasons he ’ s so crazily intent on winning is all the speculation that prosecutors will go after him , ” she said .
“ It would be a very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if Trump loses , “ he ’ ll never , ever acknowledge it—he ’ ll leave the country.
” Res noted that , at a recent rally , Trump mused to the crowd about fleeing , ad-libbing , “ Could you imagine if I lose ?
I ’ m not going to feel so good .
Maybe I ’ ll have to leave the country—I don ’ t know.
” It ’ s questionable how realistic such talk is , but Res pointed out that Trump could go “ live in one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adding , “ He can do business from anywhere.
” It turns out that , in 2016 , Trump in fact made plans to leave the United States right after the vote .
Anthony Scaramucci , the former Trump supporter who served briefly as the White House communications director , was with him in the hours before the polls closed .
Scaramucci told me that Trump and virtually everyone in his circle had expected Hillary Clinton to win .
According to Scaramucci , as he and Trump milled around Trump Tower , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing tomorrow ?
” When Scaramucci said that he had no plans , Trump confided that he had ordered his private plane to be readied for takeoff at John F. Kennedy International Airport , so that the next morning he could fly to Scotland , to play golf at his Turnberry resort .
Trump ’ s posture , Scaramucci told me , was to shrug off the expected defeat .
“ It was , like , O.K.
, he did it for the publicity .
And it was over .
He was fine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and money , but move on.
” Scaramucci said that , if 2016 is any guide , Trump would treat a loss to Biden more matter-of-factly than many people expect : “ He ’ ll go down easier than most people think .
Nothing crushes this guy.
” Mary Trump , like Res , suspects that her uncle is considering leaving the U.S. if he loses the election ( a result that she regards as far from assured ) .
If Biden wins , she suggested , Trump will “ describe himself as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country and say , ‘ It doesn ’ t deserve me—I ’ m going to do something really important , like build the Trump Tower in Moscow.
’ ” The notion that a former American President would go into exile—like a disgraced king or a deposed despot—sounds almost absurd , even in this heightened moment , and many close observers of the President , including Tony Schwartz , the ghostwriter of Trump ’ s first best-seller , “ The Art of the Deal , ” dismiss the idea .
“ I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Schwartz told me .
“ But I don ’ t think he ’ ll leave the country .
Where the hell would he go ?
” However , Snyder , the Yale professor , whose specialty is antidemocratic regimes in Eastern Europe , believes that Trump might well abscond to a foreign country that has no extradition treaty with the U.S. “ Unless you ’ re an idiot , you have that flight plan ready , ” Snyder said .
“ Everyone ’ s telling me he ’ ll have a show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll have a show on RT ” —the Russian state television network .
In Snyder ’ s view , such desperate maneuverings would not have been necessary had Trump been a more adept autocrat .
Although the President has recently made various authoritarian gestures—in June , he threatened to deploy the military against protesters , and in July he talked about delaying the election—Snyder contends that Trump ’ s predicament “ is that he hasn ’ t ruined our system enough.
” Snyder explained , “ Generally , autocrats will distort the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in power .
Usually , it means warping democracy before they get to where Trump is now.
” For an entrenched autocrat , an election is mere theatre—but the conclusion of the Trump-Biden race remains unpredictable , despite concerns about voter suppression , disputed ballot counts , and civil unrest .
On Election Day , the margin of victory may be crucial in determining Trump ’ s future .
If the winner ’ s advantage in the Electoral College is decisive , neither side will be able to easily dispute the result .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ associates told me that if there is any doubt at all—no matter how questionable—the President will insist that he has won .
Michael Cohen , Trump ’ s former attorney , told me , “ He will not concede .
Never , ever , ever.
” He went on , “ I believe he ’ s going to challenge the validity of the vote in each and every state he loses—claiming ballot fraud , seeking to undermine the process and invalidate it.
” Cohen thinks that the recent rush to confirm Amy Coney @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in part by Trump ’ s hope that a majority of Justices would take his side in a disputed election .
Cohen , who pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and to various financial crimes , including making an illegal contribution to Trump ’ s Presidential campaign , has faced questions about his credibility .
But he affirmed , “ I have heard that Trump people have been speaking to lawyers all over the country , taking their temperatures on this topic.
” One of Trump ’ s personal attorneys , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has initiated legal actions across the nation challenging mail-in voting , on behalf of the Republican Party , the Trump campaign , and a dark-money group that calls itself the Honest Elections Project .
And a former Trump White House official , Mike Roman , who has made a career of whipping up fear about nonwhite voter fraud , has assumed the role of field general of a volunteer fleet of poll watchers who refer to themselves as the Army for Trump .
Cohen is so certain that Trump will lose that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ He ’ ll blame everyone except for himself , ” Cohen said .
“ Every day , he ’ ll rant and rave and yell and scream about how they stole the Presidency from him .
He ’ ll say he won by millions and millions of ballots , and they cheated with votes from dead people and people who weren ’ t born yet .
He ’ ll tell all sorts of lies and activate his militias .
It ’ s going to be a pathetic show .
But , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll think he can get an injunction .
Trump repeats his lies over and over with the belief that the more he tells them the more people will believe them .
We all wish he ’ d just shut up , but the problem is he won ’ t. ” Schwartz agreed that Trump “ will do anything to make the case he didn ’ t lose , ” and noted that one of Trump ’ s strengths has been his refusal to admit failure , which means that “ when he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loses he also wins.
” But if Trump loses by a landslide , Schwartz said , “ he ’ ll have many fewer cards to play .
He won ’ t be able to play the election-was-stolen-from-me card—and that ’ s a big one.
” Clearly , this was a reference to Trump .
But , because in recent decades the Justice Department has held that a sitting President can ’ t be prosecuted , the U.S. Attorney ’ s office wrapped up its case after Cohen ’ s conviction .
Vance appears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Attorney left off .
The direction of Vance ’ s inquiry can be gleaned from Cohen ’ s sentencing memo : it disclosed that , during the 2016 Presidential campaign , Cohen set up a shell company that paid a hundred and thirty thousand dollars to Daniels .
The Trump Organization disguised the hush-money payment as “ legal expenses.
” But the government argued that the money , which bought her silence , was an illegal campaign contribution : it helped Trump ’ s candidacy , by suppressing damaging facts , and far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundred dollars .
Moreover , because the payment was falsely described as legal expenses , New York laws prohibiting the falsification of business records may have been violated .
Such crimes are usually misdemeanors , but if they are committed in furtherance of other offenses , such as tax fraud , they can become felonies .
Court documents stated that Cohen “ acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1 ” —an allegation that Trump has vehemently denied .
It has become clear that the Manhattan D.A.
’ s investigation involves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Secrecy surrounds Vance ’ s grand-jury probe , but a well-informed source told me that it now includes a hard-hitting exploration of potentially illegal self-dealing in Trump ’ s financial practices .
In an August court filing , the D.A.
’ s office argued that it should be allowed to subpoena Trump ’ s personal and corporate tax records , explaining that it is now investigating “ possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.
” The prosecutors didn ’ t specify what the grand jury was looking into , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraud , insurance fraud , and “ schemes to defraud , ” which is how New York penal law addresses bank fraud .
As the Times ’ recent reports on Trump ’ s tax records show , he has long made aggressive , and potentially fraudulent , use of accounting gimmicks to all but eliminate his income-tax burden .
One minor but revealing detail is that he deducted seventy thousand dollars for hair styling , which ordinarily is a personal expense .
At the same time , according to congressional testimony that Cohen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insurance companies with inflated income statements , in effect keeping two sets of books : one stating losses , for the purpose of taxes , the other exaggerating profits , for business purposes .
Trump ’ s lawyers have consistently refused to disclose his tax records , fighting subpoenas in both the circuit courts and the Supreme Court .
Trump has denied any financial wrongdoing , and has denounced efforts to scrutinize his tax returns as “ a continuation of the worst witch hunt in American history.
” But his legal team has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and may be running out of arguments .
It ’ s possible that New York ’ s legal authorities will back off .
Even a Trump critic such as Scaramucci believes that “ it ’ s too much of a strain on the system to put an American President in jail.
” But a former top official in New York suggested to me that Vance and James are unlikely to abandon their investigations if Trump loses on November 3rd , if only because it would send an unwanted message : “ If you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and you drop the case the moment he ’ s out of office , you ’ re admitting it was political .
”

The President was despondent. Sensing that time was running out, he had asked his aides to draw up a list of his political options. He wasn’t especially religious, but, as daylight faded outside the rapidly emptying White House, he fell to his knees and prayed out loud, sobbing as he smashed his fist into the carpet. “What have I done?” he said. “What has happened?” When the President noted that the military could make it easy for him by leaving a pistol in a desk drawer, the chief of staff called the President’s doctors and ordered that all sleeping pills and tranquillizers be taken away from him, to insure that he wouldn’t have the means to kill himself.
The downfall of Richard Nixon, in the summer of 1974, was, as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein relate in “The Final Days,” one of the most dramatic in American history. That August, the Watergate scandal forced Nixon—who had been cornered by self-incriminating White House tape recordings, and faced impeachment and removal from office—to resign. Twenty-nine individuals closely tied to his Administration were subsequently indicted, and several of his top aides and advisers, including his Attorney General, John Mitchell, went to prison. Nixon himself, however, escaped prosecution because his successor, Gerald Ford, granted him a pardon, in September, 1974.
No American President has ever been charged with a criminal offense. But, as Donald Trump fights to hold on to the White House, he and those around him surely know that if he loses—an outcome that nobody should count on—the presumption of immunity that attends the Presidency will vanish. Given that more than a dozen investigations and civil suits involving Trump are currently under way, he could be looking at an endgame even more perilous than the one confronted by Nixon. The Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said of Trump, “If he loses, you have a situation that’s not dissimilar to that of Nixon when he resigned. Nixon spoke of the cell door clanging shut.” Trump has famously survived one impeachment, two divorces, six bankruptcies, twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits. Few people have evaded consequences more cunningly. That run of good luck may well end, perhaps brutally, if he loses to Joe Biden. Even if Trump wins, grave legal and financial threats will loom over his second term.
Two of the investigations into Trump are being led by powerful state and city law-enforcement officials in New York. Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney, and Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, are independently pursuing potential criminal charges related to Trump’s business practices before he became President. Because their jurisdictions lie outside the federal realm, any indictments or convictions resulting from their actions would be beyond the reach of a Presidential pardon. Trump’s legal expenses alone are likely to be daunting. (By the time Bill Clinton left the White House, he’d racked up more than ten million dollars in legal fees.) And Trump’s finances are already under growing strain. During the next four years, according to a stunning recent Times report, Trump—whether reëlected or not—must meet payment deadlines for more than three hundred million dollars in loans that he has personally guaranteed; much of this debt is owed to such foreign creditors as Deutsche Bank. Unless he can refinance with the lenders, he will be on the hook. The Financial Times, meanwhile, estimates that, in all, about nine hundred million dollars’ worth of Trump’s real-estate debt will come due within the next four years. At the same time, he is locked in a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over a deduction that he has claimed on his income-tax forms; an adverse ruling could cost him an additional hundred million dollars. To pay off such debts, the President, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be two and a half billion dollars, could sell some of his most valuable real-estate assets—or, as he has in the past, find ways to stiff his creditors. But, according to an analysis by the Washington Post, Trump’s properties—especially his hotels and resorts—have been hit hard by the pandemic and the fallout from his divisive political career. “It’s the office of the Presidency that’s keeping him from prison and the poorhouse,” Timothy Snyder, a history professor at Yale who studies authoritarianism, told me.
The White House declined to answer questions for this article, and if Trump has made plans for a post-Presidential life he hasn’t shared them openly. A business friend of his from New York said, “You can’t broach it with him. He’d be furious at the suggestion that he could lose.” In better times, Trump has revelled in being President. Last winter, a Cabinet secretary told me Trump had confided that he couldn’t imagine returning to his former life as a real-estate developer. As the Cabinet secretary recalled, the two men were gliding along in a motorcade, surrounded by throngs of adoring supporters, when Trump remarked, “Isn’t this incredible? After this, I could never return to ordering windows. It would be so boring.”
Throughout the 2020 campaign, Trump’s national poll numbers have lagged behind Biden’s, and two sources who have spoken to the President in the past month described him as being in a foul mood. He has testily insisted that he won both Presidential debates, contrary to even his own family’s assessment of the first one. And he has raged not just at the polls and the media but also at some people in charge of his reëlection campaign, blaming them for squandering money and allowing Biden’s team to have a significant financial advantage. Trump’s bad temper was visible on October 20th, when he cut short a “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl. A longtime observer who spent time with him recently told me that he’d never seen Trump so angry.
The President’s niece Mary Trump—a psychologist and the author of the tell-all memoir “Too Much and Never Enough”—told me that his fury “speaks to his desperation,” adding, “He knows that if he doesn’t manage to stay in office he’s in serious trouble. I believe he’ll be prosecuted, because it seems almost undeniable how extensive and long his criminality is. If it doesn’t happen at the federal level, it has to happen at the state level.” She described the “narcissistic injury” that Trump will suffer if he is rejected at the polls. Within the Trump family, she said, “losing was a death sentence—literally and figuratively.” Her father, Fred Trump, Jr., the President’s older brother, “was essentially destroyed” by her grandfather’s judgment that Fred was not “a winner.” (Fred died in 1981, of complications from alcoholism.) As the President ponders potential political defeat, she believes, he is “a terrified little boy.”
Barbara Res, whose new book, “Tower of Lies,” draws on the eighteen years that she spent, off and on, developing and managing construction projects for Trump, also thinks that the President is not just running for a second term—he is running from the law. “One of the reasons he’s so crazily intent on winning is all the speculation that prosecutors will go after him,” she said. “It would be a very scary spectre.” She calculated that, if Trump loses, “he’ll never, ever acknowledge it—he’ll leave the country.” Res noted that, at a recent rally, Trump mused to the crowd about fleeing, ad-libbing, “Could you imagine if I lose? I’m not going to feel so good. Maybe I’ll have to leave the country—I don’t know.” It’s questionable how realistic such talk is, but Res pointed out that Trump could go “live in one of his buildings in another country,” adding, “He can do business from anywhere.”
It turns out that, in 2016, Trump in fact made plans to leave the United States right after the vote. Anthony Scaramucci, the former Trump supporter who served briefly as the White House communications director, was with him in the hours before the polls closed. Scaramucci told me that Trump and virtually everyone in his circle had expected Hillary Clinton to win. According to Scaramucci, as he and Trump milled around Trump Tower, Trump asked him, “What are you doing tomorrow?” When Scaramucci said that he had no plans, Trump confided that he had ordered his private plane to be readied for takeoff at John F. Kennedy International Airport, so that the next morning he could fly to Scotland, to play golf at his Turnberry resort. Trump’s posture, Scaramucci told me, was to shrug off the expected defeat. “It was, like, O.K., he did it for the publicity. And it was over. He was fine. It was a waste of time and money, but move on.” Scaramucci said that, if 2016 is any guide, Trump would treat a loss to Biden more matter-of-factly than many people expect: “He’ll go down easier than most people think. Nothing crushes this guy.”
Mary Trump, like Res, suspects that her uncle is considering leaving the U.S. if he loses the election (a result that she regards as far from assured). If Biden wins, she suggested, Trump will “describe himself as the best thing that ever happened to this country and say, ‘It doesn’t deserve me—I’m going to do something really important, like build the Trump Tower in Moscow.’ ”
The notion that a former American President would go into exile—like a disgraced king or a deposed despot—sounds almost absurd, even in this heightened moment, and many close observers of the President, including Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Trump’s first best-seller, “The Art of the Deal,” dismiss the idea. “I’m sure he’s terrified,” Schwartz told me. “But I don’t think he’ll leave the country. Where the hell would he go?” However, Snyder, the Yale professor, whose specialty is antidemocratic regimes in Eastern Europe, believes that Trump might well abscond to a foreign country that has no extradition treaty with the U.S. “Unless you’re an idiot, you have that flight plan ready,” Snyder said. “Everyone’s telling me he’ll have a show on Fox News. I think he’ll have a show on RT”—the Russian state television network.
“We decided to combine Halloween and Thanksgiving this year.” Cartoon by Carolita Johnson Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
In Snyder’s view, such desperate maneuverings would not have been necessary had Trump been a more adept autocrat. Although the President has recently made various authoritarian gestures—in June, he threatened to deploy the military against protesters, and in July he talked about delaying the election—Snyder contends that Trump’s predicament “is that he hasn’t ruined our system enough.” Snyder explained, “Generally, autocrats will distort the system as far as necessary to stay in power. Usually, it means warping democracy before they get to where Trump is now.” For an entrenched autocrat, an election is mere theatre—but the conclusion of the Trump-Biden race remains unpredictable, despite concerns about voter suppression, disputed ballot counts, and civil unrest.
On Election Day, the margin of victory may be crucial in determining Trump’s future. If the winner’s advantage in the Electoral College is decisive, neither side will be able to easily dispute the result. But several of Trump’s former associates told me that if there is any doubt at all—no matter how questionable—the President will insist that he has won. Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, told me, “He will not concede. Never, ever, ever.” He went on, “I believe he’s going to challenge the validity of the vote in each and every state he loses—claiming ballot fraud, seeking to undermine the process and invalidate it.” Cohen thinks that the recent rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court was motivated in part by Trump’s hope that a majority of Justices would take his side in a disputed election.
Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and to various financial crimes, including making an illegal contribution to Trump’s Presidential campaign, has faced questions about his credibility. But he affirmed, “I have heard that Trump people have been speaking to lawyers all over the country, taking their temperatures on this topic.” One of Trump’s personal attorneys, the Supreme Court litigator William Consovoy, has initiated legal actions across the nation challenging mail-in voting, on behalf of the Republican Party, the Trump campaign, and a dark-money group that calls itself the Honest Elections Project. And a former Trump White House official, Mike Roman, who has made a career of whipping up fear about nonwhite voter fraud, has assumed the role of field general of a volunteer fleet of poll watchers who refer to themselves as the Army for Trump.