U(D547FD)v+%!$!/!?!z
A production of “Godspell” in the Berk-
shires is a public health test. PAGE 6ARTS & LEISUREThe Stage and Safety
All dressed up and nowhere to go?
Even before the pandemic, the fashion
industry was starting to unravel. So
what happens now?THE MAGAZINESweatpants Forever Former workers say the therapy-by-
text company was cavalier about re-
specting client confidentiality. PAGE 1SUNDAY BUSINESSIssues With Talkspace
Are you returning to work soon after
months of telecommuting? There are
things to keep in mind. PAGE 3AT HOMEUpdated Rules for the Office
New post-Brexit trade rules could mean
up to 2,000 freight trucks at a time
idling at a sprawling British customs
center being built near Dover. PAGE 13
INTERNATIONAL 13-
27 Acres of Purgatory
The Washington insider Christopher
Dodd was asked to assist with finding
the ideal running mate. PAGE 16
NATIONAL 16-
Biden’s Friend Helps Him Pick
After a long pause for pro tennis be-
cause of the pandemic, Serena Williams
is gearing up for the United States Open
in hopes of tying Margaret Court’s
Grand Slam singles title record. PAGE 29SPORTS 29-Serving for No. 24 in Queens
Isabel Wilkerson compares America’s
racial order with other nations’. PAGE 1BOOK REVIEW‘Caste’ in Stone
Katie Hill, who left Congress last year,
has a book, a podcast and a PAC. PAGE 1SUNDAY STYLESHow to Survive a Scandal
David Brooks PAGE 4
SUNDAY REVIEWSIOUX CENTER, Iowa — They walked
to the sanctuary in the frozen silence be-
fore dawn, footsteps crunching over the
snow. Soon, hundreds joined in line. It was
January 2016, and the unlikely Republican
front-runner, Donald J. Trump, had come
to town.
He was the boastful, thrice-married,
foul-mouthed star of “The Apprentice.”
They were one of the most conservative
Christian communities in the nation, with
19 churches in a town of about 7,500 peo-
ple.
Many were skeptical, and came to wit-
ness the spectacle for themselves. A hand-
ful stood in silent protest. But when the
doors opened and the pews filled, Mr.
Trump’s fans welcomed him by chanting
his name. A man waved a “Silent Majority
Stands With Trump” sign. A woman
pointed a lone pink fingernail up to the
sky.
In his dark suit and red tie, Mr. Trumpof Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and
“wouldn’t lose any voters” — overshad-
owed another message that morning.
“I will tell you, Christianity is under
tremendous siege, whether we want to
talk about it or we don’t want to talk about
it,” Mr. Trump said.
Christians make up the overwhelming
majority of the country, he said. And then
he slowed slightly to stress each next
word: “And yet we don’t exert the power
that we should have.”
If he were elected president, he prom-
ised, that would change. He raised a fin-
ger.
“Christianity will have power,” he said.
“If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty
of power, you don’t need anybody else.
You’re going to have somebody represent-
ing you very, very well. Remember that.”
Nine days later, the Iowa caucuses
kicked off the most polarizing road to the
White House in memory. Mr. Trump large-
ly lost the evangelicals of Sioux Countystood in front of a three-story-tall pipe or-
gan and waved his arms in time with their
shouts: Trump, Trump, Trump.
The 67-minute speech Mr. Trump gave
that day at Dordt University, a Christian
college in Sioux Center, would become in-
famous, instantly covered on cable news
and to this day still invoked by his critics.
But the line that gained notoriety — the
promise that he “could stand in the middleA home in Sioux Center, Iowa, above. In 2016, Donald J. Trump said at a Christian college in Sioux Center, “You’re going to
have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.” Below, the Schouten family reading a daily devotional.TIM GRUBER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES‘Christianity Will Have Power’
How a Promise by Trump Bonded Him to White Evangelicals
Continued on Page 20By ELIZABETH DIASJENN ACKERMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESLONG LEGAL FIGHT
MAY FOLLOW VOTE
ON ELECTION DAY
STAGE SET FOR CONFLICT
Trump Lays Groundwork
to Discredit Result —
Biden Gets Ready
This article is by Peter Baker,
Nick Corasaniti, Michael S.
Schmidt and Maggie Haber.The stormy once-in-a-lifetime
Florida recount battle that polar-
ized the nation in 2000 and left the
Supreme Court to decide the pres-
idency may soon look like a high
school student council election
compared with what could be
coming after this November’s
election.
Imagine not just another Flor-
ida, but a dozen Floridas. Not just
one set of lawsuits but a vast array
of them. And instead of two re-
strained candidates staying out of
sight and leaving the fight to sur-
rogates, a sitting president of the
United States unleashing ALL
CAPS Twitter blasts from the Oval
Office while seeking ways to use
the power of his office to inter-
vene.
The possibility of an ugly No-
vember — and perhaps even De-
cember and January — has
emerged more starkly in recent
days as President Trump com-
plains that the election will be
rigged and Democrats accuse him
of trying to make that a self-fulfill-
ing prophesy.
With about 85 days until Nov. 3,
lawyers are already in court
mounting pre-emptive strikes and
preparing for the larger, scorched-
earth engagements likely to come.
Like the Trump campaign, Joseph
R.Biden Jr.’s campaign and its
network of Democratic support
groups are stocking up on law-
yers, and Democrats are gaming
out worst-case scenarios, includ-
ing how to respond if Mr. Trump
prematurely declares victory or
sends federal officers into the par-
ty’s strongholds as an intimida-
tion tactic.
The emerging battle is the latest
iteration of the long-running dis-
pute over voting rights, one
shaped by the view that higher
participation will improve the
Democratic Party’s chances. Re-
publicans, under cover of dubious
or unfounded claims about wide-
Continued on Page 22$600 Dries Up,
And Decisions
Are Wrenching
PEACHAM, Vt. — The sweet
smell of hay rose off the earth on a
recent evening, as Morgan Gold
strode across his farmyard in
heavy boots. He crossed the pad-
dock, scanning for new eggs, wa-
ter levels, infected peck wounds,
rips in the fence line.
But mainly — let’s be honest —
he was looking for content.
Though Mr. Gold sells poultry
and eggs from his duck farm in
Vermont’s northeast corner, most
of what he produces as a farmer is,
well, entertainment.
Mr. Gold, who is short and
stocky, with the good-natured
ease of a standup comedian, does
his chores while carrying a digital
camera in one hand and murmur-
ing into a microphone.
Then, twice a week, like clock-
work, he posts a short video on
YouTube about his exploits as a
neophyte farmer, often highlight-
ing failures or pratfalls. Keeping a
close eye on analytics, he has
boosted his YouTube audiences
high enough to provide a steady
advertising revenue of around
$2,500 to $4,000 a month, about
eight times what he earns fromselling farm products.
This part of New England is
rocky, hilly and isolated, and gen-
erations of small farmers have
cast about for new ways to scrape
out a living: the sleigh rides, the
alpacas, the therapy ponies, the
pick-your-own hemp. It is a new
thing, though, to make farm life
into reality TV.
Mr. Gold, 40, has learned the
hard way — he tried to take aA New Cash Cow for Farmers:
Turning the Chores Into Clicks
By ELLEN BARRYMorgan Gold streams videos
from his Vermont poultry farm.HILARY SWIFT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESContinued on Page 19BRUSSELS — Shirley Doyen
was exhausted. The Christalain
nursing home, which she ran with
her brother in an affluent neigh-
borhood in Brussels, was buckling
from Covid-19. Eight residents
had died in three weeks. Some
staff members had only gowns
and goggles from Halloween doc-
tor costumes for protection.
Nor was help coming. Ms. Doy-
en had begged hospitals to collect
her infected residents. They re-
fused. Sometimes she was told to
administer morphine and let
death come. Once she was told to
pray.
Then, in the early morning of
April 10, it all got worse.
First, a resident died at 1:
a.m. Three hours later, another
died. At 5:30 a.m., still another.
The night nurse had long since
given up calling ambulances.
Ms. Doyen arrived after dawn
and discovered Addolorata Bal-
ducci, 89, in distress from
Covid-19. Ms. Balducci’s son,
Franco Pacchioli, demanded that
paramedics be called and begged
them to take his mother to the hos-
pital. Instead, they gave her mor-
phine.“Your mother will die,” the
paramedics responded, Mr. Pac-
chioli recalled. “That’s it.”
The paramedics left. Eight
hours later, Ms. Balducci died.
Runaway coronavirus infec-
tions, medical gear shortages and
government inattention are woe-
fully familiar stories in nursing
homes around the globe. But Bel-gium’s response offers a grue-
some twist: Paramedics and hos-
pitals sometimes flatly denied
care to elderly people, even as
hospital beds sat unused.
Weeks earlier, the virus had
overwhelmed hospitals in Italy.
Determined to prevent that from
happening in Belgium, the au-As Covid Hit,
The World Let
Its Elderly Die
This article is by Matina Stevis-
Gridneff, Matt Apuzzoand Monika
Pronczuk.
Nursing homes in Belgium, like Val des Fleurs, suffered mass infections among residents and staff.MAURICIO LIMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESContinued on Page 10BEHIND THE CURVE
The Forgotten PopulationDemonstrators furious over the giant
blast on Tuesday battled security forces
near Lebanon’s Parliament. PAGE 15
Clashes at Protest in Beirut
Keep Car or Buy Food?
Consequences Spiral
By BEN CASSELMAN
and GILLIAN FRIED
When Latrish Oseko lost her job
last spring, government aid
helped prevent a crisis from be-
coming a catastrophe.
A $1,700 federal stimulus pay-
ment meant that when her 26-
year-old car broke down, she
could replace it. The $600 a week
in extra unemployment benefits
from the federal government al-
lowed her to pay rent and buy
food. When her day care provider
closed, she was able to get her 4-
year-old daughter a subscription
to ABCmouse, an online learning
app.
But the federal money ran out at
the end of July, and politicians in
Washington have been unable to
agree on how to replace it.
So Ms. Oseko, 39, is spending
much of her time sitting in the Del-
aware hotel room where she has
lived since her landlord kicked her
out at the end of July, applying for
jobs on her phone while watching
the debate play out on the local
news.
“I’m glued to it because I want
to know, is there going to be hope
for me?” she said. “They’re fight-
ing, and I have to watch them
fight, but they have a place to
sleep at night.”
On Saturday, with negotiations
in Congress stalled and on the
verge of collapse, President
Trump signed four directives
aimed at providing economic as-
sistance, including financial help
to the unemployed. But it was un-
clear if Mr. Trump had the author-
ity to act on his own on matters re-
quiring federal spending, or how
long it would take for money to
start flowing if he did.
Congress may yet agree on a
new emergency spending bill that
would include extra unemploy-
ment benefits, perhaps including
retroactive payments for the peri-
od when the program lapsed.
But for many of the 30 million
Americans relying on unemploy-
Continued on Page 6
EDICTS The president bypassed
Congress on pandemic aid with
legally dubious measures. PAGE 8
HARDBALL Speaker Nancy Pelosi
is betting she will win on a virus
relief bill. News Analysis. PAGE 6
Collin Morikawa, a 23-year-old playing
in only his second major as a pro, was
just two strokes behind the leader,
Dustin Johnson, after the third round of
the P.G.A. Championship. PAGE 30Unknown, and Near the Top
Late Edition
VOL. CLXIX... No. 58,780 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020
Today,partial sunshine, humid, high- Tonight,mainly clear, muggy,
low 73. Tomorrow,sunshine, some
clouds, warmer, humid, high 90.
Weather map is on Page A24.
$6.