Author: Lance Garrison
To the Editor:Re “The Democrats Are Their Own Worst Enemies,” by Pamela Paul (column, Nov. 3), about why polls are showing a loss of support for the party among minorities and the working class:Ms. Paul writes that “the Democratic Party cannot win and America cannot flourish if it doesn’t prioritize the economic well-being of the American majority over the financial interests and cultural fixations of an elite minority.”That, she says, is the reason that “the Democratic Party’s reliable base — the working class, middle-class families, even Black and Latino Americans and other ethnic minorities — have veered toward the G.O.P.”Is…
Prosecutors formally advised lawyers for former Vice President Mike Pence this past June that he would not be charged for retaining classified materials after leaving office. I expect that the special counsel Robert Hur will similarly soon announce that President Biden will not face charges for his own handling of classified documents. The merits of those determinations, no less than the one to indict Donald Trump for hoarding such documents in Mar-a-Lago’s bathrooms and ballrooms, are properly debated.Criminal investigations into holders of high office invariably raise questions about equal treatment and equal justice under the law. Is there, people ask,…
To the Editor:Re “My Father Didn’t Want to Live if He Had Dementia. But Then He Had It,” by Sandeep Jauhar (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 28):As a hale elder, about to become 90, I have a terrible fear of getting dementia. I can relate entirely to the way Dr. Jauhar’s father felt in his healthier days, but I think Dr. Jauhar is missing something that his father likely felt, which he may not have articulated in his advance directive.I suspect that he never wanted to be a burden on his children. That is certainly what underlies my urgency to beseech…
In the emotional life of the liberal mediasphere, there was so little space between the release of the New York Times/Siena poll showing President Biden losing to Donald Trump handily across a range of swing states (doom! doom!) and the Democratic overperformance in Tuesday’s elections (sweet relief!) that one of the striking features of the polling passed with relatively little comment.This was the remarkably strong showing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent candidacy. When added to the swing-state polls, Kennedy claimed 24 percent of registered voters against 35 percent for Trump and 33 percent for Biden.That number is notable along…
It’s been almost three years since, on Jan. 6, 2021, Ivanka Trump, swaddled in a black coat, stood beside her father inside a tent on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. Until her walk up the steps of the New York State Supreme Courthouse on Wednesday, that was one of her last public family appearances in an official capacity.In a hand-held video from 2021, she and Donald Trump are glued to TV coverage of the crowd, still figures in a fishbowl of pre-riot excitement: Kimberly Guilfoyle swaying to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” and Mark Meadows bustling into the frame, and someone, barely…
This may well be true. But harping on people to get married from high up in the ivory tower fails to engage with the reality on the ground that heterosexual women from many walks of life confront: that is, the state of men today. Having written about gender, dating, and reproduction for years, I’m struck by how blithely these admonitions to get married skate over people’s lived experience. A more granular look at what the reality of dating looks and feels like for straight women can go a long way toward explaining why marriage rates are lower than policy scholars…
The Biden administration has made clear it is aware of the tensions. “I continue to be alarmed about extremist settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank; pouring gasoline on fire is what it’s like,” President Biden recently said. “It has to stop now.” The administration also took the unusual step of seeking, and getting, assurances from Israel that none of the thousands of American assault weapons sought by Israel would go to civilians in the West Bank settlements.Mr. Netanyahu, however, has shown little interest in restraining his allies. Though he formed a special war cabinet with opposition leaders to…
Joe Biden versus Donald Trump is not the choice America wants. But it is the choice we need to face.Yes, both men are unpopular, remarkably so. Only a third of Americans view President Biden favorably, and two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters want to nominate someone else for the presidency (no one in particular, just someone else, please). Trump is the overwhelming favorite to become the Republican nominee for the third consecutive time, but his overall approval rating is lower than Biden’s. And while 60 percent of voters don’t want to put Trump back in the White House, 65 percent…
With the Middle East spiraling in the wrong direction, with too many fresh graves in Israel and Palestine alike, with children maimed and killed in Gaza in staggering numbers, with anger and bigotry spinning away to poison hearts around the world, the last, best hope may be President Biden.It may not be possible to end the Gaza war this year, establish a post-Hamas peace in Gaza and restart a process to give Palestinians the state they deserve. But if there is a path, it’s difficult to see who could blaze it other than Biden.Biden may be the single most popular…
I started drawing New York over 30 years ago when I first arrived in the city as a visitor from London. Since then, I have witnessed the city as its architecture and population changed. I saw the city coping with loss and recorded scenes at ground zero in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. And now I have seen the new trauma of a city divided.As October turned into November, Times Opinion asked me to explore the city looking for the reverberations of the war between Israel and Gaza through protests and other visual clues. The idea was to…