The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

THE NEW YORK TIMES OP-EDTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020 Y A27

AMY CONEY BARRETT HASbeen following
recent precedent in her confirmation
hearing before the Senate, pretending
that she has never had an interesting
thought in her life.
Is it illegal to intimidate voters at the
polls? She didn’t want to weigh in. A presi-
dent postponing an election? Hmm. She’d
have to think about that.
What about climate change? “I have
read things about climate change,” she ac-
knowledged, warily emphasizing that she
is not a scientist. “I would not say I have
firm views on it.”
If she had been asked about astronomy,
she might have explained: “I have read
things about the Earth being round. I
would not say I have firm views on it.”
But for all the obfuscation, which nomi-
nees of Democratic presidents have en-
gaged in as well, there is no hiding the es-
sential truths that Barrett: A) is very
bright; and B) would solidify a conserva-
tive Supreme Court majority whose judi-
cial philosophy has been on the wrong
side of many of the great issues of my life-
time.
We sometimes distinguish between
“liberal judges” and “conservative
judges.” Perhaps the divide instead is be-
tween forward-thinking judges and back-
ward-thinking judges.
Partly because of paralysis by legisla-
tors, partly because of racist political sys-
tems, forward-thinking judges sometimes
had to step up over the last 70 years to tug
the United States ahead. Those judges
chipped away at Jim Crow and overturned
laws against interracial marriage, against
contraception, against racial and sexual
discrimination.
Just this week, Bernard Cohen, the law-
yer who won the interracial marriage case

in the Supreme Court in 1967, died — a re-
minder of how recent such progress is. In
that case, Richard and Mildred Loving, a
white man and Black woman who married
in Washington, D.C., had moved to Virgin-
ia, where the police barged into their home
at 2 a.m. and arrested them in bed for vio-
lating an anti-miscegenation law. For-
ward-thinking justices struck down such
laws — and that wasn’t about “activist
judges” but about decency, humanity and
the 14th Amendment.
It was as recent as 2003 that enlight-
ened Supreme Court judges struck down
state sodomy laws that could be used to
prosecute same-sex lovers. Three back-
ward-thinking justices, including Antonin
Scalia, Barrett’s mentor, would have al-
lowed Taliban-style prosecutions of gay
people for intimacy in the bedroom. (Bar-
rett refused in the hearing Wednesday to
say if the case was rightly decided.)
It is true, as some conservatives argue,
that this path toward social progress
would ideally have been blazed by legisla-
tors, not judges. But it is difficult for peo-
ple who are denied voting rights to protect
their voting rights, and judicial passivism
in these cases would have buttressed dis-
crimination, racism, sexism and bigotry.
That brings us to another historical
area where conservatives, Barrett includ-
ed, have also been on the wrong side of
history — access to health care.
Over the last hundred years, advanced
countries have, one by one, adopted uni-
versal health care systems, with one nota-
ble exception: the United States. That’s
one reason next month’s election is such a
milestone, for one political party in Amer-
ica is trying to join the rest of the civilized
world and provide universal health care,
and the other is doing its best to take away
what we have.
The G.O.P. is succeeding. Census data
show that even before the Covid-19 pan-
demic the number of uninsured Ameri-
cans had risen by 2.3 million under Trump
— and another 2.9 million have lost insur-
ance since the pandemic hit. Most trou-
bling of all, about one million children
have lost insurance under Trump over all,
according to a new Georgetown study.
I’m not trying to scare readers about
Barrett joining a conservative majority to
overturn the Affordable Care Act. My take
is that Democrats are exaggerating that
risk; the Republican argument in the case,
to be heard next month, is such a legal
stretch that it’s unlikely to succeed fully,
even if Barrett is on the court.
But it is possible, and that would be such
a cataclysm — perhaps 20 million Ameri-
cans losing insurance during a pandemic
— that it’s worth a shudder. It should also
remind us of the importance of renewing
the imperfect, on-again-off-again march of
civilization in America, away from bigotry
and toward empowerment of all citizens.
Barrett is not a horrible person; on the
contrary, she seems to be a smart lawyer
with an admirable personal story. Yet
she’s working with a gang of Republican
senators to steal a seat on the Supreme
Court. This grand larceny may well suc-
ceed. But for voters, this hearing should
underscore the larger battle over the di-
rection of the country.
Voters can’t weigh in on the Barrett
nomination, but they can correct this
country’s course.
Here’s the fundamental question: Will
voters reward the party that is working to
provide more health care, or the party that
has painstakingly robbed one million chil-
dren of insurance? Will voters help tug the
United States forward, or will they sup-
port the backward thinkers who have
been on the side of discrimination, racism,
bigotry and voter suppression?
At the polls, which side of history will
you stand on? 0

NICHOLAS KRISTOF

Choosing

The Right Side

Of History

In Barrett, Republicans

picked a nominee who

could take us backward.

LESS THAN THREE WEEKSuntil the election

and I know you’re obsessed about those

Senate races.

Seriously. You’ve gone as far as you can

go with Joe Biden and Donald Trump. You

now know more about them than about

many members of your family. You sure

see a hell of a lot more of them than you

see housebound friends and co-workers.

Controlling the Senate would be crucial

for a President Biden. And imagine about-

to-be minority leader Mitch McConnell

this holiday season, carving a turkey and

muttering, “Give thanks for what?”

Obviously, that’s impetus enough. Let’s

take a look.

For Democrats, things are pretty rosy.

Places that were seen as knee-jerk Repub-

lican until about five minutes ago are now

full of fascinating, desperate fights.

Take Georgia. Georgians get to vote in

two Senate races. The most riveting in-

volves Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed

to her seat by great Republican minds

who figured what the nation needed most

was another really rich person making

policy in Washington.

Loeffler is the kind of rich person who

lives in a mansion that has a name. In her

most famous campaign ad, she boasts that

she’s more conservative than Attila the

Hun. She’s a co-owner of a WNBA team,

the Atlanta Dream, whose players are en-

couraging fans to vote against her.

Loeffler’s fellow Georgians have so

much respect for her talents that 21 are

running against her. Chances are the top

two vote-getters will wind up in a runoff.

This G.O.P. chaos is really all about Don-

ald Trump, of course. Like everything

else. Even some normally conservative

states are awash in anti-Trump sentiment

that fuels antipathy toward his allies in the

Senate. The Donald is the captain of his

personal political Titanic, and the Republi-

can nominees for other offices are scram-

bling for their own little lifeboats.

Recently, Senator Martha McSally of

Arizona was asked in a debate whether

she was proud to be a Trump supporter.

“I’m proud that I’m fighting for Ari-

zonans on things like cutting your taxes,”

McSally responded. I believe we can write

that down as a no.

There are so many Senate dramas, you

can’t help feeling sorry for voters stuck

with races so unexciting it’s hard to re-

member they’re going on. In Maine you

can’t turn on a TV without being blasted

with an ad for Senator Susan Collins or her

opponent, Sara Gideon. They’re fighting

one of the most competitive contests in the

nation. In New Jersey, you’ll get far more

information about the search for a new

“Bachelorette” than Cory Booker’s re-

election campaign, which is not bothering

to run broadcast ads at all.

But at least Booker’s opponent, Rik

Mehta, is still in the race. (Mehta bills him-

self as “a biotech entrepreneur, innovator,

health care policy expert and a licensed

pharmacist and attorney,” which guaran-

tees he’ll at least win the one-sentence bi-

ography competition.) In Arkansas, Re-

publican Senator Tom Cotton’s Democrat-

ic competitor was supposed to be Joshua

Mahony, but about two hours after the fi-

nal filing deadline Mahony announced

that he needed to spend more time with

his family and disappeared.

In Nebraska, Republican Senator Ben

Sasse was supposed to be running against

Democrat Chris Janicek in what would

have been a tough one for Sasse to lose —

even if Janicek had not sent his staff a

group text naming one employee and ask-

ing if he should use campaign funds “get-

ting her laid.” State Democrats are now

urging voters to wipe Janicek out of their

minds and support a write-in candidate.

Sex scandals are sort of a required sub-

plot in national elections — if there aren’t a

few you worry people aren’t looking. Per-

haps you heard about the Democrat in

North Carolina, Cal Cunningham, who ap-

peared to be making a great run against

Senator Thom Tillis until reports came out

that Cunningham, whose campaign had

stressed his military background and

good character, had been having an affair

with the wife of an Army veteran.

After news of the scandal swept

through North Carolina, polls showed

Cunningham was, um — widening his

lead.

Remember this lesson, campaign-

watchers. In voters’ checklist of things

they require in a candidate, marital fideli-

ty generally comes in somewhere below

“wears nice shoes.” Why do you think that

is?

■Political footwear is always underesti-

mated.

■Adultery is more fun to talk about than

infrastructure.

■Remember how good the Clinton econ-

omy was?

Yeah, I’d go with Clinton.

Besides illicit sex, another theme that’s

been cropping up here and there is age. In

Oklahoma, Democrat Abby Broyles has

been running ads against Jim Inhofe, the

long-running Republican senator, point-

ing out that Inhofe, 85, has been in office

since 1967 and “misses so many votes. So

many meetings.”

Now those of you who are familiar with

Inhofe may remember him as the guy who

once brought a snowball to the Senate

floor to demonstrate that global warming

wasn’t a problem. And perhaps conclude

the more meetings he missed, the better.

But Broyles seems more focused on the

age issue — her campaign adviser made

headlines by referring to Inhofe as “too

damn old.” I think we can all agree that 85

is a tad past most people’s prime, but this

is really not the year for the party of

Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden to be going

down that road. 0

GAIL COLLINS

Votes, Sex

And Money

Senators, I’m

looking at you.

T

HURSDAY marks the end of His-

panic Heritage Month, which

celebrates the history and cul-

ture of the U.S. Latino and His-

panic communities. It’s a fitting com-

memoration of our deep roots in the

Americas, how much the United States

depends on us economically, and how

we’ve helped define American culture.

But it’s also a reminder that we’re still

seen as a marginal population instead of

core Americans who will shape the na-

tion’s future.

Political campaigns have often used

Hispanic Heritage Month to escalate

their Latino outreach. They’ve an-

nounced key appointments, dined at

“Latin” restaurants, sent Latino surro-

gates on speaking tours and delivered

speeches themselves with some Spanish

sprinkled in. This year has been no dif-

ferent.

Hispanic strategists in both parties

have long felt that these efforts were too

little, too late. Fernando Oaxaca, who

worked on Ronald Reagan’s 1980 cam-

paign, had spent months before the sum-

mer convention assembling “troops,

wagons, horses,” but complained when

the main campaign didn’t give him any

direction and Reagan’s Hispanic out-

reach efforts didn’t kick into high gear

until Hispanic Heritage Month. Reagan

won a Republican presidential candi-

date’s usual third of the Hispanic vote,

but the feeling lingered that he should

have prioritized Latinos from the begin-

ning.

Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden

have spent millions on English- and

Spanish-language advertising cam-

paigns in traditional battleground states

like Arizona, Florida and Nevada with

Latino populations large enough to

swing them. They’re also spending

smaller amounts in states like Michigan,

Minnesota and Wisconsin, reflecting

both the growth of Latino communities

there, and the narrow margins in the

presidential vote four years ago.

Latinos have lived in these states for a

long time; that they’re gaining attention

now is a sign of how our political influ-

ence has spread beyond the Southwest

and Florida. The 10 states with the

slimmest margins of victory in 2016 in-

cluded the usual Latino-heavy states,

but in that election, they also included

Maine, Minnesota and New Hampshire.

With the exception of Maine, the num-

ber of eligible Latino voters in these

states is greater than the 2016 margin of

victory. What’s more, the fastest growing

Latino communities are in North Dako-

ta, Alabama, Tennessee and other places

not typically seen as Latino strongholds.

A reality of the Electoral College sys-

tem is that not all states are equally im-

portant, and it’s one that has negative

consequences for Latinos because it

makes us seem as if we live only in the

states where our votes count. We’re very

visible in some places, less so in others.

As a result, we aren’t seen as part of

the national fabric. President Trump

made this clear when he asked one of his

supporters at a campaign rally in New

Mexico, “Who do you like more — the

country or the Hispanics?” as though

these were mutually exclusive.

Of course, campaigns have limited re-

sources, so they spend strategically.

What I have in mind, though, wouldn’t

cost a penny. Instead of talking to Ameri-

can voters as representatives of distinct

groups of dairy farmers, autoworkers or

suburban housewives — who, by the

way, are also Latinas and Latinos — can-

didates should work to stitch our com-

munities together, making all Americans

feel invested in the lives of others.

The idea goes contrary to Latino politi-

cal strategists, who say that candidates

should segment and micro-target Latino

voters — Cubans, Venezuelans and

Puerto Ricans in Florida, or Mexicans in

Arizona, for example — with advertise-

ments that feature familiar accents, cul-

tural icons and issues specific to individ-

ual national groups.

This approach demonstrates a cam-

paign’s implicit understanding of Latino

diversity, but it’s overly simplistic. Even

as we articulate our respective national

identities, we increasingly see ourselves

as members of a pan-ethnic Latino com-

munity, who are also representatives of

our particular national groups. These

two identities are not mutually exclu-

sive.

Vicki Ruiz, as president of the Organi-

zation of American Historians, called for

a rethinking how we talk to and about La-

tinos more than a decade ago, when she

argued that Latino history isthe history

of the United States. It may seem like a

pie-in-the-sky idea that candidates

would engage and sustain relationships

with Latinos everywhere, even in swing

states where they don’t represent a large

slice of the electorate. But this moment

seems ripe for such a fundamental re-

thinking.

It should be possible for a candidate to

acknowledge that a Mexican American

garment worker in Los Angeles may

have different concerns than a Mexican-

American business owner in Chicago,

while also addressing them as part of the

same national community.

Politicians reckon with shifting demo-

graphic realities by following new vot-

ers wherever they may be, but when it

comes to Latinos they also need to think

beyond elections, and beyond the stra-

tegic importance of Hispanic Heritage

Month itself. When they see us as more

than voters, we may give them our

votes. 0

Stop Othering Latinos

Geraldo L. Cadava

GERALDO L. CADAVAis the author of “The

Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an

American Political Identity, From Nixon

to Trump.”

We still aren’t

seen as part of

the national fabric.

CHRISTOPHER LEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

G

ERMANYis no longer playing

nice with Russia.

In the past few weeks, Ger-

many has helped to rescue Rus-

sia’s main opposition leader, Aleksei Na-

valny, and accused Moscow of poisoning

him; rolled out the red carpet for Svetlana

Tikhanovskaya, the Belarusian opposi-

tion leader who tried to topple one of Rus-

sia’s satellite regimes; and accused the

country of state-orchestrated murder on

German territory. And if that wasn’t

enough, it’s pushing for sanctions on Rus-

sian officials.

It all seems to add up to something close

to a confrontation — and a decisive move

away from Germany’s decades-old ap-

proach, which sought to gently coax Rus-

sia into a more productive relationship.

That longtime approach, known as

“Wandel durch Annäherung” (“change

through rapprochement”) and developed

in the 1960s to ease Cold War tensions,

was straightforward. If Germany helped

to improve the economy and civil society

in Russia, it would modernize and become

more democratic and cooperative. Close

economic ties would lessen the risk of

armed conflict and give Germany political

leverage.

The strategy held for decades.

But as President Vladimir Putin turned

to revisionist nationalism and tightened

his authoritarian grip on his country, the

policy began to look a lot less effective.

Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and its

cyberattack on Germany’s Parliament a

year later deeply damaged relations. Rus-

sia has since sown disinformation across

Europe, intervened in Syria and fueled the

conflict in Libya.

With each rogue act, the mantra of

“change through rapprochement”

sounded increasingly hollow: To many,

proponents look naïve or ideological (or

worse). And among Germany’s poli-

ticians, disillusionment and anger are

growing — not least for Chancellor Angela

Merkel, whose visit to Mr. Navalny’s hos-

pital bed was an uncharacteristically bold

demonstration of her feelings.

So Germany’s newly confrontational

style should not come as a complete sur-

prise. “Mr. Navalny’s poisoning has cer-

tainly been a catalyst,” Liana Fix, the pro-

gram director for international affairs at

the Körber-Stiftung Foundation, told me.

Far from marking a new departure in Ger-

many’s approach to Russia, Ms. Fix said,

the reaction to the poisoning of Mr. Na-

valny simply laid bare how corroded the

relationship has become.

But longstanding foreign policy tradi-

tions do not end just like that. Change

through rapprochement is still sacred in

some parts of the Social Democratic Party

and in many states in eastern Germany.

Many German businesses, not least those

who cater to Eastern European and Cen-

tral Asian markets, are also strongly in fa-

vor of maintaining good relations with

Russia — as are the more business-fo-

cused sections of the Christian Democrat-

ic Union.

In truth, Germany is split over how to

approach Russia. In the past weeks, more

hawkish voices took the lead. But the

country is not upending its relationship

with Russia — at least not yet.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the de-

bate over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

A nearly completed $11 billion project

stretching from the Russian coast near St.

Petersburg to Germany, the project is a

monument to the special relationship be-

tween the two countries. Yet internation-

ally, the project is roundly opposed.

For the United States and most Euro-

pean countries, it’s another egregious ef-

fort to expand Russian influence. For

Ukraine and Germany’s eastern Euro-

pean neighbors, it hands Russia danger-

ous means to exert control over the re-

gion’s energy supply.

In Germany itself, skepticism about the

project had been building for some time.

When Mr. Navalny was poisoned, it came

rushing to the surface. Heiko Maas, the

foreign minister, appeared to call the

project into question, saying he “hoped

that Russia doesn’t force us to change our

stance toward Nord Stream 2.” It was the

first time a cabinet member had spoken

out against it. Far from issuing a rebuke,

Chancellor Angela Merkel supported the

comment.

But that’s as far as it went. The govern-

ment looks to have backed down, and the

project is proceeding. Though Nord

Stream 2 could be stopped, the risks would

be substantial. First, there’d likely be a re-

taliatory, and costly, lawsuit. Then there’s

the inevitable political fallout. But per-

haps most important, stopping Nord

Stream 2 would be a clear, unequivocal

signal that Germany had turned against

Russia.

Instead, for now, Germany is seeking

the support of its European partners. On

Monday, the European Union’s foreign

ministers approved the proposal, put forth

by Germany and France, to impose sanc-

tions on Russian officials suspected of poi-

soning Mr. Navalny. Turning the conflict

into a European issue is a smart move. It is

Mr. Putin’s aim to split the European Un-

ion; this is a chance for Europe to respond

with one voice.

But Germany won’t be able to backped-

al all the way. The confrontation may have

progressed too far already: Mr. Putin is

unlikely to forget, or forgive, the actions of

the past weeks.

And as Russia confronts the coronavi-

rus at home and conflicts among its neigh-

bors, there’s no guessing what might

come next. Germany ought to be prepared

— and know how it will respond. 0

Is Germany Turning Against Russia?

ANNA SAUERBREY, a contributing opinion

writer, has been an editor and writer at

the German daily newspaper Der Tages-

spiegel since 2011.

Berlin’s patience seems

to be wearing thin.

Anna Sauerbrey

BERLIN