How Rock Climbers and Snowboarders Became a Political Force - The New York Times

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Protect Our Winters, a nonprofit group with an advocacy arm, is changing how climate lobbying is done. It is achieving surprising results.

Jeremy Jones, an extreme snowboarder, filmmaker and owner of his own clothing brand, never dreamed of becoming a lobbyist.

More comfortable in snowboarding bibs and puffy jackets than a suit and tie, the laid-back Jones has quietly become a force in Washington’s power corridors — and this year, his coalition achieved its biggest victory yet.

Protect Our Winters, a group Jones founded in 2007 to bring together winter athletes for advocacy on climate issues, has grown steadily in influence over the past decade. Made up of climbers, skiers and other outdoor athletes, P.O.W. played a small but crucial role in helping pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains $370 billion in climate and clean-energy programs.

The group’s origins, though, were pretty humble.

“Someone should be doing something about this,” Jones recalled thinking around 2005. He began seeing rain in the middle of winter “in places where it doesn’t rain,” he said, or signs of glacial retreat in the German Alps.

So Jones decided that “someone” was him. Before long, he was cold-calling climate scientists, who told him he needed to use his celebrity to call for federal legislation, which they said would be the only way to achieve meaningful reductions in emissions.

Jones has done so, largely, by building a coalition he calls “the outdoor state”: skiers and snowboarders, backpackers and cyclists — and soon, he hopes, the even larger community of anglers and hunters.

These advocates talk up the economic importance of recreation in ways that resonate with politicians who tend to care more about jobs than endangered species. As Jones put it, “We don’t go to Capitol Hill with pictures of polar bears.”

For Jones, the Inflation Reduction Act was a sweet victory. P.O.W. came up short during the cap-and-trade fiasco in 2010, when the Obama administration prioritized health care over climate.

That defeat set the climate movement back by at least a decade — until a conservative Democrat from a coal-producing state became an unlikely champion.

Many outside groups and individual Democratic senators tried to sway Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia one way or the other as he wavered over whether to support a revived version of Build Back Better, the $1.9 trillion spending bill he torpedoed last year.

Executives at Snowshoe Mountain, West Virginia’s largest ski area, grabbed Manchin’s attention when they informed him that outdoor recreation was the second-largest engine of the state’s economy. Patti Duncan, the resort’s president and chief operating officer, laid out her argument in favor of the legislation in an opinion essay for The Charleston Gazette-Mail.

After the law passed, the White House invited delegates of P.O.W. to a ceremony in September to celebrate — a recognition of the group’s growing clout on Capitol Hill.

One of those present was Dani Reyes-Acosta, a multisport athlete who calls herself an “uphill snowboarder,” because of both the physical terrain she snowboards on and the metaphorical terrain she navigates as a climate activist.

Reyes-Acosta said that sharing her concerns with the head of the National Park Service, whom she met in Washington, was “surreal.”

She recently moved to rural southwestern Colorado, where she is drawing on her background as a Latina from California’s Central Valley.

“My mother’s family was the first generation not to pick food,” she said — and so she focuses her advocacy work on how climate change threatens not just outdoor recreation up in the mountains, but also the agriculture downstream.

“Adventure feeds our soul,” she said, “but food feeds our bellies.”

A more risky environment

For Jones and his allies, their very survival can depend on a stable climate. He recently filmed an expedition for the HBO series “Edge of the Earth,” in which he and several other top winter athletes skied and snowboarded down a 10,000-foot glaciated mountain in Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska.

A freak ocean blizzard delayed their arrival on land and was followed by unseasonably warm temperatures that turned their base camp into a sweltering, soupy slush and nearly scuttled the project.

One of the athletes working with Jones is Tommy Caldwell, who happens to be one of the most recognizable rock climbers on the planet.

Caldwell has led a wild life. He’s been kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan and lost part of a finger to a table saw. Over 19 days in 2015, he became one of the first two people to scale El Capitan’s fabled 3,000-foot Dawn Wall; just one other climber has repeated the feat. Along the way, returning to the same spots year after year, he has noticed the subtle — and sometimes not-so-subtle — ways in which the shifting climate is changing the mountains.

Outdoor meccas like Chamonix, in the French Alps, are no longer reliably blanketed in white throughout the winter. The best climbing season in the Yosemite Valley has shifted to November from October because of the heat. And in Patagonia, where climbers and mountaineers test their mettle against legendary peaks like Fitz Roy — Caldwell named his son Fitz — the weather patterns have become unrecognizable.

As the ice that often holds the rocks together melts, Caldwell said, “chunks of the mountain can fall off and kill you.”

A tipping point?

Climate politics seem to be reaching an inflection point in the United States, after years of being a second- or third-tier issue for voters.

Young Americans regularly tell pollsters that climate change is one of their top concerns, leading President Biden to make extravagant promises during the 2020 campaign that he has struggled to meet.

In Alaska’s recent House special election, a centrist Democrat, Mary Peltola, defeated Sarah Palin, the Republican former vice-presidential nominee, in part by speaking to voters’ concerns about declining fishing stocks and warmer temperatures while supporting economic development.

Peltola’s all-of-the-above approach to discussing climate change is exactly what some Democrats have been urging for years. One of them is Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a craft-beer entrepreneur who won his seat in 2020 in part by linking his Republican opponent, Cory Gardner, to Donald Trump’s climate policies.

Last winter, Caldwell, who lives in Colorado, took Hickenlooper on a climbing trip in Clear Creek Canyon to highlight P.O.W.’s work.

Hickenlooper, who has been afraid of heights his “whole life,” found the experience “terrifying,” he said in an interview.

He likened reducing climate change to inching your way up a big granite wall, like the El Capitan face that made Caldwell famous beyond rock climbing circles.

“It seems daunting at first, but you take it one step at a time,” Hickenlooper said.

Max Whittaker for The New York Times

P.O.W.’s secret weapon is Alex Honnold, who became famous for the film “Free Solo,” which depicts his rope-free ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite. In 2019, P.O.W. sent a delegation to Washington, including Honnold, to capitalize on public interest in the movie.

That year, I went to a rooftop party in Washington where Caldwell, Honnold, Jones and other well-known athletes were throwing back bottles of Miller Genuine Draft and marveling at how they had just testified at a congressional hearing. As Honnold told me then, “I do live in a van most of the time, so it’s pretty wild.”

Honnold’s celebrity has made him especially effective in talking to hard-to-reach lawmakers, just as his long limbs and unique amygdala lead him to take risks that make other climbers blanch.

“Every Republican senator I’ve met loves Alex,” Caldwell said.

Love has not yet translated into votes. The closest thing P.O.W. might have to a Republican ally on Capitol Hill is Representative John Curtis of Utah, the leader of the Conservative Climate Caucus in the House.

Curtis represents a heavily Republican district just outside Salt Lake City that contains some of the country’s most popular ski areas, including Alta and Deer Valley.

He attended the United Nations climate summit last year in Glasgow, Scotland, and a former member of his staff attended P.O.W.’s retreat this summer outside Reno, Nev., which the group saw as a breakthrough moment. And on two occasions this spring and summer, P.O.W. arranged for Curtis to meet with a group of Olympians to bend his ear on climate and energy issues.

But zero Republicans voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, despite a noticeable shift in how many G.O.P. politicians now talk about renewable energy and other climate-related topics.

“It’s at a tipping point,” Hickenlooper cautioned, “but it has not yet tipped.”

What to read tonight

• Republicans are intensifying their focus on crime and public safety in the midterm campaigns, Lisa Lerer and Jonathan Weisman write, flooding airwaves with violent imagery in an attempt to shift the national political debate onto favorable terrain.

• In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano is being heavily outspent by his Democratic rival for governor, has had no television ads on the air since May and trails by double digits in reputable polls, Reid Epstein reports.

• President Biden’s plan to wipe out significant amounts of student loan debt for tens of millions of borrowers could cost about $400 billion, Katie Rogers reports.

• A group of top state judges made a rare plea to the Supreme Court, urging it to reject a legal theory pressed by Republicans that would give state legislatures extraordinary power, Adam Liptak writes.

Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — Blake

Read past editions of the newsletter here.

If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.

Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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Who can save us from Liz Truss and the political pamphleteers? - Financial Times

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What the country needs, I am now convinced, is a self-help group for writers of political booklets. A sort of Pamphleteers Anonymous, where serious political professionals can go to discuss the ideas they were convinced were brilliant early on in their career but from which they now need to tiptoe away. 

We should see this as a fifth emergency service, one of those fabric of society groups, somewhere that offers a supportive face and the solidarity of someone who has been there and who can put their arm around your shoulder and tell you it’s OK to walk away from your earlier ideas. “Don’t worry,” they will say. “I once believed a semicircular parliament would reduce the confrontational nature of British politics.”

You just know that Liz Truss, Kwasi Kwarteng and the three other authors of the radical Tory manifesto Britannia Unchained never had that reassuring arm and a quiet voice letting them know they don’t really have to carry out any of those ideas just because they once shilled them in a political tract.

It must be terrifying for the five right now. Admittedly, two of them are prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer so they probably have other things to worry about, but very few of us want to be held accountable for the things we said when we were trying to work our way up the career ladder. 

And it is so easy to fall into the trap. There are numerous well-funded political think-tanks preying on young MPs, grooming them with glasses of warm white wine at a launch party and promises of political recognition.

The pamphlet, for those who have yet to read it, was a 2012 free-market calling card from the quixotic quintet, which they used to declare themselves as the coming figures of the new right. The problem is that they still appear to believe in most of what they wrote, though with hindsight they might regret describing the British as being among “the worst idlers in the world”. It’s certainly not true of Conservative MPs, many of whom have several jobs.

Given their later success, one might argue that the booklet did its jobs for the freedom five, but it also offers a valuable lesson for politicians and politics. Young politicians write pamphlets to boost their profile. A pamphlet can also mark you out as a bit of a thinker. 

Of course, you don’t want to overdo this. Party leaders are suspicious of anyone who sees themselves as an intellectual, which, as anyone who ever entrusted a problem to Oliver Letwin will tell you, is with good reason. The good news is that no one is accusing the Britannia Unchained crowd of being too clever.

But the risk of being held to your idea is serious. In 2016, Rishi Sunak wrote a perfectly serviceable pamphlet on freeports for a centre-right think-tank, the kind of wheeze that gets you noticed and possibly speeds you towards your first ministerial job. Unfortunately, Sunak rose so fast that people had not forgotten about it by the time he became chancellor, and he was forced to implement the idea as one of his major Brexit dividends.

And speaking of Brexit, what was that but a column dashed off for the Telegraph on a quiet week, which suddenly a number of Conservative leaders were forced to implement?

Not that this is merely a Conservative disease. Ambitious young Labour party members will knock out a number for the Fabian Society calling for some foolish notion like nationalising Google, and suddenly they are being invited to speak at fringe meetings at party conference. 

There are some good things to say about pamphleteers. For one thing, they resisted the urge to make a book out of their idea. Britannia Unchained is technically a book but essentially one made up of pamphlet-length pieces. Having the nous to know your hastily improvised tract is best suited to a quick 25 pages is a sign of self-awareness not gifted to all.

So look, we need to cut these guys a break. We need to recognise the perils of pamphleteering and show some solidarity, to let them know that it’s OK, no one really remembers it. Just walk away quietly. For the good of all. 

Follow Robert on Twitter @robertshrimsley and email him at robert.shrimsley@ft.com

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UN envoy vows to break Bosnia's political deadlock as election looms - Financial Times

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Bosnia’s UN-appointed overseer has pledged to break a four-year political deadlock that has debilitated governance in the Balkan country, as he seeks to preserve its fragile stability and limit Russian influence.

Speaking ahead of Sunday’s general election, Christian Schmidt, a German diplomat who serves as high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said he had resisted changing the election rules before the vote in a way that would have angered the largest of the country’s three ethnics groups.

Instead he proposed post-election reforms to the country’s constitutional system, one of the most complex in the world, with changes aimed to unblock the paralysis and find a more representative political balance.

The constitution, devised as part of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that formally ended the three-and-a-half year war in Bosnia, is meant to prevent the larger ethnic groups from dominating the smaller ones. But it also leads to frequent obstruction and dysfunction in government as veto powers are used and abused.

“We will give the basic right of decision to the people,” Schmidt told the Financial Times. “What I focus on is not the direct elections as they are . . . but what comes after.

“In the past four years we’ve seen a blockade [of the functions of the Bosnian government]. Unblocking the structures, that’s my job, I’ll do that. I haven’t forgot this is a necessity.”

Bosnia is composed of two entities: the larger Federation made up of mostly Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, and a smaller Serb Republic. Orthodox Serbs make up about a third of the total population of the country.

Schmidt this year proposed lessening the electoral influence of the Bosniaks, who outnumber Croats about three to one in the Federation. But some Bosniaks view that as unfair, invoking the memory of the ethnic strife that led to the war in Bosnia in the 1990s.

Specifically Schmidt wanted to compel the Bosniaks to stop misusing the complexity of the election system by sending Bosniak candidates to fill seats that are part of the Croat quota. He also wants guarantees that Croats would not obstruct government as they have done in response.

The Bosniaks, led by Bakir Izetbegović’s Party of Democratic Action, rejected the proposal, while the main Croat party HDZ welcomed it and said it would boycott government without the changes. Schmidt could revive the proposals in an effort to rebalance Bosnian politics.

Voters will on Sunday elect five different institutions: the three-person presidency of the country, the state parliament in the capital Sarajevo, the lower houses of the two entity assemblies, the president of the Serb Republic, and regional assemblies within the Federation. Representatives so chosen will in turn elect several more institutions.

Beyond ethnic divides, political jockeying also complicates the situation. The seat poaching has helped the main Bosniak party bolster its standing in the Federation, while HDZ dominates the Croatian vote even as it has blocked the appointment of the Federation’s government, leading to caretaker administrations and a broad state dysfunction.

The political deadlock has come just as Bosnia’s integrity has been openly questioned by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, widely seen as a Russian proxy in the Balkans. Dodik’s idea of seceding from Bosnia to join neighbouring Serbia has undermined regional stability, say analysts.

“Amid the uncertainty created by Russia’s war in Ukraine [there is] fear that a disputed election could trigger a major crisis in Bosnia,” the International Crisis Group wrote this week. “Antagonism between Bosniaks and Croats could erode the country’s ability to survive a separatist challenge by Serbs.”

In the absence of Schmidt’s election rules, Croats could lose important controls in the Federation. Analysts fear this could result in them rejecting the election results, which may prompt Dodik to do the same, leading to major imbalances in the structure of the Bosnian state.

“This may well be one of those ‘to be or not to be’ moments for Bosnia,” said Srecko Latal, editor of Balkan Insight. “If Croats are excluded from Federation politics that would be the end of Dayton as we know it.”

Western governments fear that even the threat of secession destabilises the region, thus serving Russian interests. Dodik has twice travelled to Moscow to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in the past three months, and the US state department identified his government as a recipient of Russian influence payments.

But Majda Ruge, an expert on the region at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Russia’s ability to assert its goals in Bosnia should not be overblown given Moscow’s limited economic leverage. “This ability mostly rests on the fact that its goals overlap with those of its proxies in Bosnia,” she wrote last week.

“Russia has always acted as a spoiler in Bosnia at a low cost. And it seems unlikely to change its approach at a time when the Russian economy is under severe pressure.”

A complex state structure and the lack of reliable data made the outcome of Sunday’s vote difficult to predict, experts said. The status quo is being challenged by several parties, including an anti-corruption group called the Troika.

The political tensions have eclipsed other priorities for Bosnia such as cleansing rampant corruption, ending the country’s deep economic dysfunction and putting it on track to eventual integration into the EU.

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The Forward Party Wants to Disrupt Traditional Politics. But Can It Win Elections? - Texas Monthly

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Politics & Policy

The Forward Party Wants to Disrupt Traditional Politics. But Can It Win Elections?

Founded by Andrew Yang, Christine Todd Whitman, and David Jolly, the new party claims to encompass the left, right, and center. Its Houston launch, while well attended, prompted doubts about its viability.

By Michael Hardy

September 26, 2022 0

Andrew Yang in New York City in June 2021. Michael M. Santiago/Getty

Question: What do you call a political party that disdains both politics and partisanship, boasts of having no platform, and is led by politicians with little in common beyond their lack of recent political success?

a) A paradox.
b) A vanity project.
c) A money-making scheme.
d) The future of American politics.

For the thousand or so people who crowded into Houston’s Bayou City Event Center on Saturday to witness the national launch of the Forward party, the answer was decidedly d. Founded in July by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, former Republican governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman, and former Republican congressman David Jolly of Florida, Forward touts itself as “a new kind of party”—a home for the growing number of Americans who feel alienated from both the Republican and Democratic parties. 

“Millions of Americans right now are in despair,” Yang, a New York City entrepreneur, told the crowd on Saturday afternoon. “They know there’s a problem, and they’re not sure what to do. Our job today is to come together and start to build a solution. If we can provide a real alternative, Americans will embrace it.” This alternative, as Yang and his fellow party leaders made clear, wasn’t necessarily a different set of policies. Rather, it was a new spirit of political tolerance. Forward would be a party that “embraces left, right, and center,” Jolly explained. “It’s not formed around ideological thought.” 

Christine Todd Whitman gives closing remarks at the national launch of the Forward party in Houston on September 24. Photograph by Michael Hardy

The problem with American politics, as the Forward party sees it, is our increasing polarization. Its leaders believe both major parties have become more ideologically rigid and intolerant of dissent. The remedy is “common-sense solutions” that “move the country forward.” That was an attractive message to many of the attendees on Saturday. “I think our two-party system is broken,” said Elizabeth Winston-Jones, who works for a nonprofit environmental group in Houston. Winston-Jones has voted for both Republican and Democratic candidates. She now believes both parties have been corrupted by corporate money and ideological conformity. “It’s really time for a reset,” she told me. 

Public opinion polls suggest that Winston-Jones speaks for a growing number of Americans. In a 2021 Gallup poll, 62 percent of U.S. adults said the Republican and Democratic parties “do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed”—the highest number in the poll’s history. Just 33 percent of Americans said the two parties were doing an adequate job representing the public. “There is too much extremism on both sides,” said Sandy Chau, a retired venture capitalist who traveled from his home in San Francisco to attend the Forward party event. Chau has supported Yang since meeting him in 2018 at a political fundraiser. 

The Forward party claims to have no ideology. But anyone listening to the speeches on Saturday would have recognized the technocratic worldview of Silicon Valley, the Aspen Institute, and the World Economic Forum. The Democrats and Republicans were repeatedly dismissed as “legacy parties.” Yang called the two-party system “the biggest design flaw in the history of the world.” There was much talk of the Forward party’s “value proposition.” This was a launch party for what was being hailed by its creators as the killer app of politics. The two legacy parties, it was implied, would soon go the way of the rotary phone. 

Unfortunately, the Forward party’s best-known leader displayed a better grasp of tech jargon than of American history. “In another era when America was just as divided as this one, what happened?” Yang asked the crowd at one point. “The Civil War!” several people shouted. It wasn’t the answer Yang wanted. “There was a war, yes,” he acknowledged. “But also, millions of Americans rose up and created a new party, a new movement, that over a period of years served to unify the country.”

He appeared to be referring to the modern Republican party, formed in the 1850s and committed to a very clear (one might even call it ideological) platform calling for the abolition of slavery—a platform that, had the Forward party existed at the time, it would presumably have deemed divisive and extreme. Indeed, far from unifying the country, it was the election of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that ignited the Civil War. Such details were evidently of little interest to Yang, who quickly moved on to selectively quoting the Founding Fathers on the dangers of partisanship.

The Republican party aside, the traditional role played by third parties in American politics is that of spoiler. Were it not for Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, we might have had presidents Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. Were it not for Ross Perot, President George H.W. Bush might have won a second term. Bill King, who has twice run unsuccessfully for Houston mayor and now serves as the Forward party’s Texas cochair, assured me that the new party would not have the same effect. Because of its centrism, he said, it would draw votes away from both parties—not tipping the election either way, but merely offering voters an alternative. 

It may be a while before anyone can vote for a Forward party candidate. Like every new party, Forward must go through a separate process to get on the ballot in each state. It plans to field its first candidates by the end of 2023. In Texas it aims to compete in the 2024 election—but first it must collect approximately 90,000 signatures from supporters who have not participated in either the Democratic or Republican primary. According to its website, the initial focus will be on local races; “no one on the Forward team is currently planning to run for president” in 2024.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that no Forward party leader plans to run for president. Whitman hasn’t run a political race since winning a second term as New Jersey governor in 1997. Jolly is a one-term Republican congressman and failed U.S. Senate candidate. Yang did not win a single state in the 2020 Democratic primary, collecting less than half a percentage of all votes cast before he dropped out. The following year he ran for mayor of New York City, placing fourth—a particularly devastating loss, given that the city uses the ranked-choice voting system long touted by Yang as a solution to America’s democratic woes. 

The Forward party founders now seem to spend most of their time speaking at conferences or pontificating on cable news—which makes their evident antipathy to the news media especially odd. Asked by a moderator about the skepticism that has greeted the Forward party from some in the media, who have questioned its viability and lack of a platform, several speakers hinted darkly at a conspiracy to silence voices and protect America’s political duopoly. “When they go overboard on their criticism, they’re criticizing you,” Jolly—a paid contributor for NBC and MSNBC—told the audience. “They’re saying you’re not allowed to exercise your politics, you’re not allowed to exercise your franchise.” Yang, a paid CNN contributor, agreed. “You can tell how disingenuous the criticism is, because it really is put out by people who are getting paid by the status quo.” 

Despite the packed house in Houston, it remains unclear whether the Forward party has a constituency—a silent majority just waiting to be activated by a message of compromise and civility—or whether it’s a kind of Potemkin party that exists mainly on social media and the convention circuit. Is this the tea party for centrists, as its most fervent supporters seem to think, or simply a bid by B-list politicians to remain relevant? 

American politics is certainly in a bad place. The Forward party has diagnosed some real problems—excessive extremism, winner-take-all primaries, partisan gerrymandering, campaign finance, and much else. But in order to solve these problems, the party will have to do something that seems highly unlikely—win elections. Can the Forward party move beyond platitudes into the realm of real political reform? I guess you could class me among the skeptics. Then again, maybe I’m just getting paid by the status quo.

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Biden vs. his advisers: Political instincts clash with party lines - Axios

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It's a pattern throughout the Biden administration: The president says something in an interview or makes an unscripted remark in an address, and his staff rushes to correct the record.

Driving the news: This happened twice in last weekend's "60 Minutes" interview — the president declared the pandemic was over, and he vowed to defend Taiwan if China invades the island.

• The administration's public health officials — led by Anthony Fauci — rushed to recast his COVID comments.
• The White House said U.S. policy toward Taiwan hadn't changed, sticking to "strategic ambiguity" over whether it would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.

Why it matters: Biden's instincts are often the popular ones.

• Many Americans have returned to pre-pandemic routines. Sounding tough on China is a bipartisan cause these days.
• But with the midterms a month and a half out and Democratic control of Congress on the line, Biden will face a string of last-minute messaging tests that pit his instincts against party or administration lines.

The big picture: Biden's moderate political instincts are at the center of his appeal. He campaigned as a candidate who would return the country to normalcy and built a broad coalition to oust Donald Trump from office.

• As president, though, he pushed through a partisan $1.9 trillion emergency stimulus package and initially sided with progressives in backing trillions more in additional social spending as part of a Build Back Better agenda.
• That cost him support with swing voters, especially as inflation worsened throughout the year.
• His bump in polls coincided with a more pragmatic approach, winning bipartisan support for infrastructure spending and a modest gun control bill while leaning on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to deliver a climate change and prescription drug plan everyone in the party could agree on.

By the numbers: The Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index this month found nearly half of Americans have returned to their pre-COVID lives — the highest number than at any point since the pandemic. Nearly two-thirds said there's no risk or just a small risk in getting back to normal.

• An August 2021 poll commissioned by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found a 52% majority of Americans favoring using U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China invaded the island. It's the highest level recorded since the poll was first conducted in 1982.

Between the lines: Biden initially worried how forgiving student loan debt "would play with working-class people," a Washington Post tick-tock revealed. "[He] said that the federal government should not be bailing out Ivy League graduates."

• But "a relentless campaign" from first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and senior White House staffers changed Biden's mind, according to the Post.
• The executive order has divided the country along class and generational lines, according to a recent NYT/Siena poll. A 49% plurality support the move, while 46% oppose it. (Two-thirds of the youngest voters support the move, but only 37% of seniors back the plan.)

Biden also received staff pushback after declaring, "Putin cannot stay in power" during a March speech in Warsaw, Poland. A White House staffer quickly clarified: "He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change."

• But Biden's view on Putin was in line with the American public: A YouGov poll conducted shortly after Biden's speech found 63% of Americans agreed that "Putin can't remain in power," even as the president's rhetoric worried advisers that it could escalate the crisis in Ukraine.

The bottom line: There's a divide in our politics — including within the Democratic Party — between those who rely on expert opinion and those led by their instincts.

• Like many of his Republican rivals, Biden is a gut-instinct politician, but he is being contained by the technocratic impulses of his administration.

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I Don't Like Your Politics - Forbes

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Even if they love the product, 45% of Millennials will stop using a brand or company that does not align with their political beliefs. That’s according to an InSites Consulting consumer research study on how customers want brands to respond during turbulent times relating to politics, inflation, the pandemic and more.

More than ever, the U.S. is divided on politics, religion, human rights, environmental issues and many other topics that have people disagreeing and arguing, sometimes to a level of violence. In business, while some vocal customers may try to get a company’s or brand’s attention, most consumers will vote for approval or disapproval with their wallets.

Not all generations feel the same about politics and other issues that have become politicized. While 40% of Gen Z and 43% of Millennials take a strong stance on political matters, 46% of Gen X and 44% of Boomers feel it’s best to stay out of the debate.

But there is a difference between a political or social cause that is important to people and one that causes an angry response. As the old saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. The contested issues that tie to politics, human rights and religion seem to be motivating consumers to choose to do business—or not—with certain brands that have chosen to be open about their stance on these issues.

Sometimes, believing in something important can be attractive instead of controversial. Environmental issues have become politicized. While companies like Patagonia are known for their stance on sustainability, you don’t read or hear about protestors outside of their headquarters disagreeing with the use of recycled materials in their products. To that point, a good cause can help create sales and even customer loyalty. According to the 2022 Achieving Customer Amazement Study (sponsored by Amazon Web Services), 45% of consumers believe it’s important that a company supports a social cause that’s important to them. And the findings in the InSites Consulting report, especially as it applies to the younger generations (Gen Z and Millennials), have similarities.

Here are some other significant findings that help define the differences between younger and older generations of consumers:

· Gen Z and Millennials believe companies that respond to current events (for example, brands that pulled out of Russia or companies providing new employee benefits amid the overturn of Roe vs. Wade) are doing so because they authentically care about their employees and customers. On the other hand, Gen X and Boomers slightly favor the belief that companies are only doing so to avoid criticism or to follow the pack.

· Gen Z and Millennials want open and frequent communication during turbulent times. They want to be kept informed and appreciate consistent messaging. Gen X and Boomers prefer incentives and discounts to get their business.

· Fifty percent of Gen Z and 54% of Millennials want their values to align with a company’s purpose, whereas many Gen X (36%) and Boomers (40%) feel neutral toward this statement.

· In times of turbulence, Gen Z and Millennials agree companies should “support their employees above all else.” Gen X and Boomers feel slightly stronger that companies should “support their customers above all else.”

So, what do we do with this information?

You could write an entire book with the answers to these questions, but first and foremost, you must understand who your customers are. If you sell to Boomers, many of whom are retired or close to retirement, how you market and sell to them will be different than how you market and sell to the younger generations of customers. Those differences are important to note, especially

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When Texas students campaigned for a more diverse history course, they got a lesson in politics - The Texas Tribune

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At 13, Ayaan Moledina has come to expect the once-a-year mention of his religion when his social studies class focuses on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“It’s all about how these were Islamic terrorists, killing in the name of Allah, but they did not represent the values that I am taught in my mosque every day,” said Ayaan, a Pakistani American student in the Round Rock Independent School District.

Texas classrooms’ lack of any deeper discussion about Islam and the contributions of Asians has spurred the eighth grader to action. After all, Asians are the fastest-growing population in the state.

So over the summer, Ayaan began pushing for the State Board of Education, the state’s authority on what gets taught in public school classrooms, to be more inclusive — and comprehensive — when discussing Muslims and Islam.

Last month, Ayaan and other students like 18-year-old Zoya Haq, a Pakistani American who attends school in Dallas, believed Texas officials were listening. At an SBOE meeting on Aug. 1, these two Asian American teenagers vouched for new social studies proposals that included an Asian American ethnic studies course, the first of its kind in Texas, and had more mentions of Asian contributions to America such as Larry Itliong, a Filipino American labor organizer, who worked alongside César Chávez, the Mexican American labor leader and civil rights activist.

But their hopes were short-lived. On Sept. 2, the state board opted to delay a vote on any social studies course updates until 2025 after facing political pressure from conservative lawmakers and parents, who claimed that the proposed updates were influenced by critical race theory — the college-level discourse that examines the impact of systemic racism — and didn’t have enough “American exceptionalism” or Christianity in them.

“I feel helpless,” Ayaan said. “Besides going and testifying, what can I do?”

Haq said the board’s decision was “heartbreaking.” She said having students seeing themselves provides a sense of belonging in the classroom.

“There are so many Asian American students who are going through the system every year and this can really, like, shape their futures and shape their self-identity and self-esteem,” she said.

The board’s decision to delay the update came on Sept. 2, two months before the November election, in which all 15 seats of the State Board of Education are up for grabs. Several Republican challengers are campaigning on a platform against critical race theory, heightening worries that when the board takes up the social studies curriculum again, the process will be politicized. Overall, there are 33 candidates gunning for a seat on the board. There are six Republican incumbents seeking reelection. Two Republican members on the board, Jay Johnson and Sue Melton-Malone, lost their primaries to candidates promising to get critical race theory out of classrooms — even though it is not taught in Texas public schools.

The term “critical race theory” has been used by conservatives as a catch-all phrase to include anything about race taught or discussed in public secondary schools. Conservatives at local school boards spent an unprecedented amount of money and won elections this past spring based on their opposition to CRT.

Critical Race Theory FAQ

• What is critical race theory?

  Critical race theory is an academic discipline that began emerging in the 1970s. Theorists say that racism isn’t just an individual act or prejudice, but it’s inherent in our societal systems that perpetuate racial inequity broadly. Theorists reject the idea that race is a fixed category that has always meant the same thing. Instead, critical race theory traces the way that race has been differently constructed throughout history and upheld in our institutions. Racism must be addressed not just by punishing individuals, but by shifting structures and policies.

• How do Texas’ new laws discuss critical race theory?

  Lawmakers claim House Bill 3979, passed this spring, combats the theory. However, the phrase “critical race theory” never appears in the bill. Instead, the bill creates a network of restrictions on social studies teachers. It bans discussion of current events unless a teacher holds discussions from diverse perspectives, without prioritizing any one perspective. It also prohibits making political activism part of a class, and says teachers cannot teach that slavery is anything other than a “betrayal” of America’s founding values.

• What do Texas teachers think about the theory?

  Teachers and experts have put it plainly: Nobody in K-12 schools is teaching critical race theory. Experts have said that the phrase is being used as a catch-all for mentions of race and racism in the classroom, which are an essential part of teaching history truthfully. Texas teachers have also told the Tribune that they feel scared about possible litigation related to the law, especially its ban on making students feel guilt or distress about their race.

• What are lawmakers doing on critical race theory during the special session?

  Senate Bill 3 would remove most requirements to teach about people of color and women that are in the original law. It would also remove a requirement to teach that white supremacy is “morally wrong.” With the special session stalled as House Democrats remain out of state to block the passage of a GOP elections bill, the future of these measures is unclear.

• I want to tell you more about this topic. Where can I do that?

  If you are a Texas student or teacher, The Texas Tribune wants to hear your thoughts on learning and teaching about race. You can find the form here.

• More critical race theory info

One current member, Republican Matt Robinson, decided against running for reelection because he didn’t think he could beat an anti-CRT candidate who is now running for his seat.

“I could tell that I wasn’t gonna win reelection in the Republican primary,” Robinson said. “The State Board of Education moved quite a bit to the right in the last two or three years and it’s just responded to how the Republican Party in Texas is.”

The political fight

For the past year, the state board has been in the process of updating the social studies curriculum for the state’s 5.5 million students of all grades. Education and history experts come up with a new curriculum about every decade. The state education board has final say on what will change.

Board members had anticipated updating the social studies curriculum by the end of the year. But that was before a flood of emails and calls from conservatives asking the board members to delay the process.

For decades, conservative Christians have monitored and lobbied against more diverse or comprehensive classroom instruction both as advocates before the board and as elected members. Most recently, between 2006 and 2010, a Christian conservative bloc on the state board, led by Don McLeroy, a former member, successfully passed Christian ideals into the curriculum, such as questioning evolution and inserting the biblical figure Moses into history classes.

Carisa Lopez, senior political director at the Texas Freedom Network, which has fought for more inclusive classroom materials since the group’s inception in 1995, said the board missed an opportunity to show people that it wouldn’t give in to misinformation and partisan politics.

“Texas students are going to be the ones to pay the price,” Lopez said.

While some observers sense a shift further to the right on the state education board, Republican board members insist political pressure did not influence delaying the social studies decision. They say that they felt some of the content proposed was not age-appropriate and they wanted to keep the current course schedule of requiring Texas history in the fourth and seventh grades. The proposals before the board this summer would have eliminated the current schedule.

“We can now use the delay to hear from Texas educators, parents [and] experts,” Republican member Will Hickman said.

Current board member Pam Little, a Republican, said her vote was not swayed by political pressure. Instead, she thought the drafts were inappropriate in certain areas. Little pointed out that in fifth grade, children would have to learn about the Crusades, something she says isn’t age-appropriate and heavy material to get through.

The other issue for her was that there were no dedicated years for Texas history, something her constituents were concerned about, she said.

“I don’t want to say it was politically motivated,” Little said. “I would rather say it was parent-motivated and educator-motivated.”

But Robinson, the lame duck Republican board member, believes his GOP colleagues voted in favor of the delay to curry favor with the Republican Party and more conservative activists, who have shown they can mobilize voters.

“The eight people who voted to delay, it was for only one reason and that's because they were getting a tremendous, huge pushback from the far right,” he said.

Georgina Pérez, an outgoing Democrat on the board, said she doesn’t understand the endgame for the conservatives calling for the delay. Pérez doesn’t believe the move was politically fueled as Republicans still outnumber Democrats on the board, and they would have amended the drafts however they liked.

“At what point do people start saying the State Board of Education refuses to do its job?” she said.

The push for inclusion

A lot of the discussion about what K-12 students in Texas should be required to read is conducted by adults. But this year, students like Ayaan joined those conversations by attending hearings in Austin. Ayaan was cheered by the fact that two new elective courses on Asian American Studies and American Indian/Native Studies were major additions to this year’s social studies update.

Also on the table? Replacing the word “internment” with “incarceration” when discussing how Japanese Americans were forced from their homes and detained by the U.S. government after the Pearl Harbor attack during World War II. But this change, like the addition of the Asian American studies course, is delayed.

Interim Executive Director of Asian Texans for Justice Lily Trieu in her home in Austin on Sept. 14, 2022. “The effort to get Asian American history in classrooms is also a response to the rise in anti-Asian hate and violence all across the country,” Trieu said. Credit: Azul Sordo/The Texas Tribune

Lily Trieu, interim executive director of Asian Texans for Justice, a nonprofit fighting discrimination against Asian Americans, said the board’s decision to postpone the social studies update surprised her, especially after hearing from Asian American youth.

“We’re literally failing kids every day that we don’t update the curriculum,” she said.

Trieu said the way to combat stereotypes and hate crimes based on race or religion is to have an inclusive curriculum, especially after the rise in the physical and verbal attacks on Asians nationwide seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It's life and death for the broader community,” she said. “The effort to get Asian American history in classrooms is also a response to the rise in anti-Asian hate and violence all across the country.”

For now, the Asian American studies course is in limbo. One way it could make it into students’ hands is if it is made a part of the Texas Education Agency’s Innovative Courses program. That way, a school district can try it out and it could eventually be adopted statewide.

“This is the part that’s most heartbreaking,” Trieu said. “We’re talking about entire generations of kids who themselves came to Austin and said to their elected officials ‘We want this’ and no one listened.”

For Ayaan, the 13-year-old from Austin, the decision continues to baffle him.

“It’s so confusing that we are living in a time where learning about each other and empathy is something that can be considered controversial,” Ayaan said.

Disclosure: Texas Freedom Network has been a financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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The Texas Tribune Festival is here! Happening Sept. 22-24 in downtown Austin, this year’s TribFest features more than 30 virtual conversations with guests like Eric Adams, Pete Souza, Jason Kander and many others. Anyone can tune in to these broadcast events at the Tribune’s Festival news page. Explore the virtual program and catch up on the latest news from TribFest.

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Why Italy's Far-Right Virus Threatens Europe's Body Politic - Bloomberg

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Why Italy's Far-Right Virus Threatens Europe's Body Politic  Bloomberg

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TikTok tightens policies around political issues in run-up to US midterms - The Guardian

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TikTok tightens policies around political issues in run-up to US midterms  The Guardian

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TikTok Bans Political Fund-Raising Ahead of Midterms - The New York Times

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Less than two months before the midterm elections, TikTok is blocking politicians and political parties from fund-raising on its platform.

In a blog post on Wednesday, the social media platform said it would prohibit solicitations for money by political campaigns. The company said political accounts would immediately lose access to advertising features and monetization services, such as gift giving, tipping and e-commerce capabilities.

Over the next few weeks, TikTok will clamp down on politicians’ posting videos asking for donations, or political parties’ directing users to online donation pages, the company said.

Accounts run by government offices will be slightly less restricted. TikTok said such accounts would be allowed to advertise in limited circumstances, such as when running educational campaigns about Covid-19 booster shots. But the people operating those accounts must work with someone from the company to run that kind of campaign.

The new rules will help enforce a ban on political advertising that TikTok, known for its short videos and younger-skewing audience, first put in place in 2019.

The company, which has more than a billion monthly users globally, continues to describe itself as “first and foremost an entertainment platform,” but the platform is increasingly drawing political content. Researchers who track online falsehoods say TikTok is on its way to becoming a major hub of political misinformation, fueled by the same qualities that make consumer products and dance videos go viral on the platform.

In a campaign season already marked by conspiracy theories and aggressive rhetoric, TikTok has announced several steps to try to civilize and secure its platform. In August, the company debuted an “Elections Center,” a hub on the app with information about voting curated from authoritative sources and presented in more than 45 languages. TikTok said it planned to label posts related to the midterms with links directing users to the elections hub.

Starting on Wednesday, TikTok said it would test a requirement that political accounts in the United States be verified. TikTok also said it was trying to educate users about its sponsorship rules, which prohibit creators from being paid to produce political content.

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Dennis Politic | “It's a good achievement, I'm happy, my first hattrick” - Port Vale

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Our number 33 spoke to the press after his fabulous display in the 4-0 away win against Shrewsbury Town in the Papa Johns Trophy, in which he scored a brilliant hattrick.

The Romanian forward netted his first goals since his return to the club earlier this month after spending the first half of last season on loan at Vale.

Politic reflected on his performance and whilst appreciating the team’s performance also showed his happiness about his hattrick.

“Happy to score my first hattrick and I’m very happy with the team’s performance and the teams win, we’re through to the next round, that’s what’s most important.

“I appreciate all the travelling fans that came to watch the game tonight, I appreciate all the support that they have shown me, and like I said I’m really happy for the teams win.

“Of course, it’s a good achievement, I’m happy, my first hattrick.

“It did take a deflection [the first goal], I was just debating it with the lads in the changing room, with some saying it’s not my hattrick, but you’ve got to claim it, it’s my first one.

“So, I’m happy it got given to me.”

Darrell Clarke made 11 changes from the side that beat Salop at the weekend, and Politic was pleased with how the team controlled the game.

“Yeah, I thought [we controlled the game], especially in the first half, even second half actually I thought we played really well.

“We controlled the middle of the pitch, I think Brad Walker and Tom Conlon were getting on it really well, the spaces were opening up and yeah, I think we played really well tonight.”

The forward shined in his strike partnership alongside Tommy McDermott and he emphasised the importance to find space between the defenders.

“I think it’s really important [to find the spaces to score], that’s one of the things I try and work on in training and improve finding those positions.

“Obviously the finishing aspect of it as well, thank good that the ball lands to me in that position, sometimes it doesn’t land there, but thankfully it did tonight and it went in.”

Politic moved on deadline day on loan from Italian side Cremonese, and the striker has shown his love for the club after his time in Burslem last season.

“Of course, it does [feel like home], that’s why I came back, I feel loved here.

“I love all the staff, the players, they’ve been very good to me, [also] the fans of course and that’s one of the reasons I’m back, to try and get minutes at the team.

“I think that’s frustrating for every football player [not getting many minutes in Italy], not to play games, you’re just drained, and you’ve got nothing to look forward to, no minutes.

“So, like I said, I’m happy that this opportunity has come about to come back here on loan.”

Whilst the 22-year-old will steal the headlines, he was also keen to emphasise the importance of his fellow teammates in tonight’s win.

“Yeah of course [lots of hard work goes into it], but it’s not just me who scored the hattrick today, it’s all the other boys as well.

“Maybe I shined tonight because I scored a hattrick, but all the other boys put in the same hours and the same work as me and they deserve great credit as well.”

Finally, Politic spoke on how important tonight was for the team and the players that got minutes on the pitch.

The 11 players proved the strength in depth of the current squad, and tonight’s match was important for the players as they all fight for their positions in the starting 11.

“The way I see it as a footballer, every game I play I try to give my best in and win as a team, that’s the most important [thing].

“The Gaffer was saying to us before the game, we have to treat it like a proper league game, every game is important and I’m happy we won, and we are through to the next round.”

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