for voting restrictions debunks g.o.p. s case trump s ......2020/12/27  · frank bruni page 2...

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Carey Mulligan discusses her new film,“Promising Young Woman,” a darkcomedy that’s told in pastels. PAGE 7

ARTS & LEISURE

An Ever-Observant ActressRemembering the notables we lost, aswell as everyday people taken by Covid.

THE MAGAZINE

The Lives They Lived

The craft cocktail revolution has led to aresurgence in Tiki bars. We peel backthe pineapple leaves to examine thechoices, not all of them good, that creat-ed a marketing mainstay. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

More Than Just DrinksA “Happy New Feels-the-Same Year”isn’t too exciting a prospect. Here’s howto emotionally prepare yourself for theexcitement lag. PAGE 3

AT HOME

Manage Your ’21 Expectations

Frank Bruni PAGE 2SUNDAY REVIEW

With all its stress and uncertainty, 2020hasn’t exactly been a banner year forintimacy. That can change. PAGE 5

Reset Your Heart for Desire

So, the pandemic made you feel ____?But ____ kept you entertained? A fill-in-the-blanks article, by you. And more.

THE NEW YORK TIMES FOR KIDS

Your Very Strange YearOn social media this year, some musicfans became super-charged in theirtrolling. How did we get here? PAGE 8

Toxic Wars, Waged on the Web

The automatic I.R.A., administered bystate governments, will be more widelyavailable, making it easier for workersand employers to fill a gap. PAGE 8

Saving at Work for Retirement

LEESBURG, Va. — Jimmy Gal-ligan was in history class lastschool year when his phonebuzzed with a message. Once heclicked on it, he found a three-sec-ond video of a white classmatelooking into the camera and utter-ing an anti-Black racial slur.

The slur, he said, was regularlyhurled in classrooms and hall-ways throughout his years in theLoudoun County school district.He had brought the issue up toteachers and administrators but,much to his anger and frustration,his complaints had gone nowhere.

So he held on to the video, whichwas sent to him by a friend, andmade a decision that would rico-chet across Leesburg, Va., a townnamed for an ancestor of the Con-federate general Robert E. Leeand whose school system hadfought an order to desegregate formore than a decade after the Su-preme Court’s landmark ruling.

“I wanted to get her where shewould understand the severity ofthat word,” Mr. Galligan, 18, whose

mother is Black and father iswhite, said of the classmate whouttered the slur, Mimi Groves. Hetucked the video away, deciding topost it publicly when the time wasright.

Ms. Groves had originally sentthe video, in which she looked intothe camera and said, “I can drive,”followed by the slur, to a friend onSnapchat in 2016, when she was afreshman and had just gotten herlearner’s permit. It later circu-lated among some students atHeritage High School, which sheand Mr. Galligan attended, but didnot cause much of a stir.

Mr. Galligan had not seen thevideo before receiving it lastschool year, when he and Ms.Groves were seniors. By then, shewas a varsity cheer captain whodreamed of attending the Univer-sity of Tennessee, Knoxville,whose cheer team was the reign-ing national champion. When shemade the team in May, her par-ents celebrated with a cake andorange balloons, the university’s

official color.The next month, as protests

were sweeping the nation afterthe police killing of George Floyd,Ms. Groves, in a public Instagrampost, urged people to “protest, do-nate, sign a petition, rally, do

something” in support of theBlack Lives Matter movement.

“You have the audacity to postthis, after saying the N-word,” re-sponded someone whom Ms.Groves said she did not know.

Slur, Surfacing on Old Video,Alters Young Lives and a Town

By DAN LEVIN

Jimmy Galligan circulated a video of a classmate using a slur,prompting an examination of the racial culture in their school.

ALYSSA SCHUKAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 18

President Trump’s baseless anddesperate claims of a stolen elec-tion over the last seven weeks —the most aggressive promotion of“voter fraud” in American history— failed to get any traction incourts across seven states, orcome anywhere close to reversingthe loss he suffered to Joseph R.Biden Jr.

But the effort has led to at leastone unexpected and profoundlydifferent result: A thorough de-bunking of the sorts of voter fraudclaims that Republicans haveused to roll back voting rights forthe better part of the young cen-tury.

In making their case in realcourts and the court of publicopinion, Mr. Trump and his allieshave trotted out a series of tropesand canards similar to those Re-publicans have pushed to justifylaws that in many cases made vot-ing disproportionately harder forBlacks and Hispanics, who largelysupport Democrats.

Their allegations that thou-sands of people “double voted” byassuming other identities atpolling booths echoed those thathave previously been cited as areason to impose strict new voteridentification laws.

Their assertion that large num-bers of noncitizens cast illegalvotes for Mr. Biden matched

claims Republicans have made toargue for harsh new “proof of citi-zenship” requirements for voterregistration.

And their tales about largenumbers of cheaters casting bal-lots in the name of “dead voters”were akin to those several stateshave used to conduct aggressive“purges” of voting lists thatwrongfully slated tens of thou-sands of registrations for termina-tion.

After bringing some 60 law-suits, and even offering financialincentive for information aboutfraud, Mr. Trump and his allieshave failed to prove definitivelyany case of illegal voting on behalfof their opponent in court — not asingle case of an undocumentedimmigrant casting a ballot, a citi-zen double voting, nor any credi-ble evidence that legions of thevoting dead gave Mr. Biden a vic-tory that wasn’t his.

“It really should put a deathknell in this narrative that hasbeen peddled around claims ofvote fraud that just have neverbeen substantiated,” said KristenClarke, the president of the Na-tional Lawyers’ Committee forCivil Rights Under Law, a non-profit legal group, and a formerJustice Department attorneywhose work included votingcases. “They put themselves ontrial, and they failed.”

Yet there are no signs that those

Trump’s Failed CrusadeDebunks G.O.P.’s CaseFor Voting Restrictions

Over and Over, Courts Find No Fraud, but Efforts to Limit Rights Persist

This article is by Jim Rutenberg,Nick Corasaniti and Alan Feuer.

Stephanos Bibas, a federal appeals court judge, blocked the pres-ident’s effort to halt Pennsylvania’s certification in November.

Continued on Page 19

The stock market will not quit.Already notable for its mostly

unstoppable rise this year — de-spite a pandemic that has killedmore than 300,000 people, put mil-lions out of work and shutteredbusinesses around the country —the market is now tipping into out-right euphoria.

Big investors who have beenbullish for much of 2020 are find-ing new causes for confidence inthe Federal Reserve’s continuedmoves to keep markets stable andinterest rates low. And individualinvestors, who have piled into themarket this year, are tradingstocks at a pace not seen in over adecade, driving a significant partof the market’s upward trajectory.

“The market right now isclearly foaming at the mouth,”said Charlie McElligott, a marketanalyst with Nomura Securities inNew York.

The S&P 500 index is up nearly15 percent for the year. By somemeasures of stock valuation, themarket is nearing levels last seenin 2000, the year the dot-com bub-ble began to burst. Initial publicofferings, when companies issuenew shares to the public, are hav-ing their busiest year in two dec-ades — even if many of the newcompanies are unprofitable.

Few expect a replay of the dot-com bust that began in 2000. Thatcollapse eventually vaporizedabout 40 percent of the market’s

Market on EdgeOf ExuberanceAmid Pandemic

By MATT PHILLIPS

Continued on Page 19

Ever since the race to develop acoronavirus vaccine began lastspring, upbeat announcementswere stalked by ominous polls: Nomatter how encouraging thenews, growing numbers of peoplesaid they would refuse to get theshot.

The time frame was danger-ously accelerated, many peoplewarned. The vaccine was a scamfrom Big Pharma, others said. Apolitical ploy by the Trump admin-istration, many Democratscharged. The internet pulsed withapocalyptic predictions from long-time vaccine opponents, who de-cried the new shot as the epitomeof every concern they’d ever putforth.

But over the past few weeks, asthe vaccine went from a hypo-thetical to a reality, somethinghappened. Fresh surveys show at-titudes shifting and a clear major-ity of Americans now eager to bevaccinated.

In polls by Gallup, the KaiserFamily Foundation and the PewResearch Center, the portion ofpeople saying they are now likelyor certain to take the vaccine hasgrown from about 50 percent thissummer to more than 60 percent,and in one poll 73 percent — a fig-ure that approaches what somepublic health experts say wouldbe sufficient for herd immunity.

Resistance to the vaccine is cer-tainly not vanishing. Misinforma-

Early DoubtersOn InoculationRoll Up Sleeves

By JAN HOFFMAN

Continued on Page 6

We gather today to mourn the 150-year-old restaurant that served up platters offried chicken and creamed corn to Abilene,Kan. To bid farewell to the New Orleanscafe that was a destination for huge crabomelets and endless conversation. To raiseone last glass to the tavern in Cambridge,Mass., where the regulars arrived at 8 a.m.and the Austin diner where Janis Joplinnearly sang the neon lights off the walls.

They were local landmarks — wateringholes, shops and haunts that weathered re-

cessions and gentrification, world wars andthe Great Depression, only to succumb thisyear to the economic ravages of the corona-virus. This is their obituary.

Thousands of businesses have closedduring the pandemic, but the demise of somany beloved hangouts cuts especiallydeep. They were woven into the identity ofbig cities and small towns, their walls linedwith celebrity photos and Best Of awards.Some had been around a century. Others,like the Ma’am Sir Filipino restaurant inLos Angeles, needed just a few years to win

the hearts of their neighborhoods.Their closures have left blank spaces

across the country as owners liquidatetheir memorabilia and wistful customersleave social-media tributes recalling firstdates and marriage proposals. And thereare new worries: If these institutions couldnot survive, what can? And who will be leftstanding, to hold our memories and knit ourcommunities together, when this pandemicis over?

PAGES 8-9

VIA THREADGILL’S

RICHARD ALVAREZ/WORLD RED EYE

Threadgill’s, in Austin, Texas, top, served home-style fare and live music. The chef Cindy Hutson, above left, offered “cuisineof the sun” at Ortanique, in Coral Gables, Fla. Regulars at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Mass., arrived as early as 8 a.m.

ERIK JACOBS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A FAREWELL TO THE LANDMARKS WE LOSTBy JACK HEALY

Jobless benefits were to end after Sat-urday and the government could shutdown on Tuesday as President Trumpresisted signing the relief bill. PAGE 4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK 4-9

Crucial Aid Is Set to Lapse

Federal agents are investigating a blastthat led to telecom outages. PAGE 21

NATIONAL 16-21

Hunt for Clues in Nashville

Alan Cowell, a longtime New YorkTimes correspondent, recalls a Europeof currency controls and burdensomeborder regulations. PAGE 14

INTERNATIONAL 10-15

A Long View of Brexit

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,920 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2020

Today, mostly sunny, not as cold,high 40. Tonight, partly to mostlycloudy, mild, low 36. Tomorrow, be-coming cloudy, turning milder, high48. Weather map is on Page 20.

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