US Politics

On cross-examination, Donald Trump’s attorney Michael T. Madaio suggested that the ex-president was not responsible for backlash against Carroll – because supporters were likely to believe him, and his denials, anyway.Madaio asked whether people most likely receptive to Trump’s denials were most likely Trump supporters? Were Trump supporters more likely to believe him?“Wouldn’t you think that Trump supporters would have already thought Ms. Carroll a liar in her accusations?” he asked. “If they already had an opinion formed on this subject, and they already had an opinion of Ms Carroll, would President Trump have any affect on their opinion?”“Do you think that those same people would have been unlikely to believe Ms Carroll’s initial allegation?… You agree that people have confirmation bias, right?” he added.“I believe that confirmation bias can occur in many contexts, yes,” said Humphreys.Pressed on this, Humphreys said people are “more likely” receptive to information that easily “conforms to their views.”Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events at E J Carroll’s defamation trial against Donald Trump:
Trump’s lead attorney Alina Habba tried to cast doubt on the threats E J Carroll faced as a result of Trump’s public remarks about her. Citing derogatory tweets directed towards Carroll, Habba asked whether Carroll agrees that the tweets are “not necessarily tied” to Trump’s statements. Carroll said, “Some of the tweets are definitely tied to the president’s statement.”
Cross-examination also took a turn for the absurd when Habba pointed to a 2013 tweet in which Carroll referred to penile functions. “You left that on your Twitter account as we stand here today, correct” asked Habba, to which Carroll answered in the affirmative.
Habba also appeared to suggest that Carroll had not suffered as a result of Trump’s comments, pointing to TV appearances as an example. “So, your reputation in many ways is better today isn’t it Ms Carroll?” said Habba. “No, my status was lowered. I’m partaking in this trial to bring my old reputation and status back,” replied Carroll.
Ashlee Humphreys, a Northwestern University marketing professor, also took to the witness stand today. She said that to restore E J Carroll’s reputation by putting out corrective messaging in relation to Donald Trump’s 2019 statements, Humphreys estimated, it could cost from $7.2m to $12.1m.
On cross-examination, Trump’s attorney Michael T. Madaio suggested that the ex-president was not responsible for backlash against Carroll – because supporters were likely to believe him, and his denials, anyway. “Do you think that those same people would have been unlikely to believe Ms Carroll’s initial allegation?… You agree that people have confirmation bias, right?” he said. “I believe that confirmation bias can occur in many contexts, yes,” said Humphreys.– Maya Yang
Meanwhile, the defamation trial has concluded for the day.Judge Lewis Kaplan has not spoken about plans for Monday.Here’s an update on another Trump case, from the AP: The judge overseeing the former president’s 2020 election interference case rjected his lawyers bid to hold special counsel Jack Smith’s team in contempt, after prosecutors turned over thousands of pages of evidence and filing a motion after the judge put the case on hold.US district judge Tanya Chutkan said in her rulingthat her pausing the case did not “clearly and unambiguously” prohibit the prosecutor’s those actions, but she said no further substantive filings should be submitted until the hold is lifted.A trial in that case is currently scheduled for 4 March, but will likely be delayed because Trump has appealed a ruling that rejected claims that he was immune to prosectution.Following the Senate’s passage of a stopgap funding bill shortly before a shutdown deadline on Thursday, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer released the following statement in which he hailed the bill’s passage:
“It’s good news for every American, especially our veterans, parents and children, farmers and small businesses, all of whom would have felt the sting of a shutdown.”
With court currently on a break, here is another update in US politics: third-party centrists across the country have filed a formal complaint over an “alleged unlawful conspiracy” surrounding the 2024 presidential election.The Guardian’s David Smith reports:The centrist group No Labels has filed a formal complaint with the justice department, asking it to investigate an “alleged unlawful conspiracy” to shut down its effort to secure ballot access for the 2024 presidential election.No Labels has not yet decided whether it will run a third party against Joe Biden and the Republican nominee, widely expected to be Donald Trump, in November’s presidential election. Critics say the effort would have the unintended consequence of hurting Biden and helping Trump.Last week No Labels sent an eight-page letter to the justice department’s Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, and Nicole Argentieri, acting assistant attorney general for the criminal division, accusing its opponents of violating federal law including racketeering and a number of criminal civil rights provisions.For the full story, click here:On cross-examination, Donald Trump’s attorney Michael T. Madaio suggested that the ex-president was not responsible for backlash against Carroll – because supporters were likely to believe him, and his denials, anyway.Madaio asked whether people most likely receptive to Trump’s denials were most likely Trump supporters? Were Trump supporters more likely to believe him?“Wouldn’t you think that Trump supporters would have already thought Ms. Carroll a liar in her accusations?” he asked. “If they already had an opinion formed on this subject, and they already had an opinion of Ms Carroll, would President Trump have any affect on their opinion?”“Do you think that those same people would have been unlikely to believe Ms Carroll’s initial allegation?… You agree that people have confirmation bias, right?” he added.“I believe that confirmation bias can occur in many contexts, yes,” said Humphreys.Pressed on this, Humphreys said people are “more likely” receptive to information that easily “conforms to their views.”Court has resumed.Ashlee Humphreys is now under cross-examination.Joe Biden has released the following statement in response to a justice department report which found that the police response to the 2022 Uvalde school shooting in which 21 people were killed “was a failure”:
Today’s report makes clear several things: that there was a failure to establish a clear command and control structure, that law enforcement should have quickly deemed this incident an active shooter situation and responded accordingly, and that clearer and more detailed plans in the school district were required to prepare for the possibility that this could occur.
There were multiple points of failure that hold lessons for the future, and my team will work with the Justice Department and Department of Education to implement policy changes necessary to help communities respond more effectively in the future.
Congress must now pass commonsense gun safety laws to ensure that mass shootings like this one don’t happen in the first place. We need universal background checks, we need a national red flag law, and we must ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The families of Uvalde – and all American communities — deserve nothing less.
Jerry Nadler, a Democratic congressman from New York, is in contact with the FBI and Capitol police about a reported death threat from Roger Stone, a staunch far-right Donald Trump ally.The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:“It was a surprise to me. I just found out a few days ago … I saw it on Mediaite,” Nadler told reporters, naming the website which said it obtained audio of the threat and saying he had been in touch with authorities.The reported threat also mentioned Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who on Wednesday told CNN he also learned of the threat from the Mediaite report.Speaking before the 2020 presidential election to an associate who was then a serving New York police officer, Stone reportedly said: “It’s time to do it.“Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit any more.”For the full story, click here:Court is currently on break and will resume at around 1.50pm.We will bring you the latest updates once court is back in session.Ashlee Humphreys calculated that up to 24.7m of these impressions were associated with likely belief in Donald Trump’s statements.To restore Carroll’s reputation by putting out corrective messaging in relation to the 2019 statements, Humphreys estimated, it could cost from $7.2m to $12.1m.Attorney Shawn Crowley, who was questioning Humphreys, asked how a person’s reputation is impacted when the same negative claim is repeated – especially by a prominent source.Ashlee Humphreys said that she studied how many people Donald Trump’s June 2019 statements reached.She studied 47 online news articles that cited his 21 June and 22 June 2019 denials.Humphreys determined that these publications’ websites had 13.2m impressions – that is, unique visitors on a particular day – related to these articles.As for social media impressions, Humphreys said that her low estimate was just over 7 million and her high estimate was more than 25m. With television, Humphreys calculated that Trump’s statements reached 63.1m; print newspapers reached more than 2.83m.Humphreys estimated that the total number of times Trump’s statements were viewed ranged from some 85.8m to 104.1m.Ashlee Humphreys, a Northwestern University marketing professor, has taken the witness stand. Humphreys’ testimony could help put a dollar amount on the reputational harm Carroll endured because of Donald Trump’s comments. Humphreys provided testimony in Carroll’s first trial against Trump, but her presence in this trial could be quite perilous to him.She testified in two Georgia ex-election workers’ defamation trial against Trump’s crony, Rudy Giuliani.Those former election workers won $148m in the suit. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy protection following the conclusion of that case.Here are some court sketches coming through the newswires of E J Carroll’s defamation trial against Donald Trump:E J Carroll is now on redirect examination.Carroll’s lawyer is now asking her questions again.Cross-examination in E J Carroll’s defamation case against Donald Trump is now over. Here are the key developments from this morning:
Trump’s lead attorney Alina Habba tried to cast doubt on the threats Carroll faced as a result of Trump’s public remarks about her. Citing derogatory tweets directed towards Carroll, Habba asked whether Carroll agrees that the tweets are “not necessarily tied” to Trump’s statements. Carroll said, “Some of the tweets are definitely tied to the president’s statement.”
Cross-examination also took a turn for the absurd when Habba pointed to a 2013 tweet in which Carroll referred to penile functions. “You left that on your Twitter account as we stand here today, correct” asked Habba, to which Carroll answered in the affirmative.
Habba also appeared to suggest that Carroll had not suffered as a result of Trump’s comments, pointing to TV appearances as an example. “So, your reputation in many ways is better today isn’t it Ms Carroll?” said Habba. “No, my status was lowered. I’m partaking in this trial to bring my old reputation and status back,” replied Carroll.
Alina Habba concluded her cross-examination by suggesting that E J Carroll had not suffered because of Donald Trump’s comments – didn’t she have opportunities like having a Substack and TV appearances? Was she making more money? Was she better known?“So, your reputation in many ways is better today isn’t it Ms Carroll?” said Habba.“No, my status was lowered. I’m partaking in this trial to bring my old reputation and status back,” replied Carroll.“So, you sued Donald Trump to bring your old reputation back?” said Habba.“Yeah,” replied Carroll. More

The Senate voted on Thursday to extend current federal spending and keep the government open, sending a short-term measure to the House that would avoid a shutdown and push off a final budget package until early March.The House is scheduled to vote on the measure and send it to Joe Biden later in the day.The stopgap bill, passed by the Senate on a 77-18 vote, comes after a bipartisan spending deal between the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, this month and a subsequent agreement to extend current spending so the two chambers have enough time to pass individual spending bills.The temporary measure will run to 1 March for some federal agencies whose approved funds were set to run out on Friday and extend the remainder of government operations to 8 March.Johnson has been under pressure from his right flank to scrap the budget agreement with Schumer, and the bill to keep the government running will need Democratic support to pass the Republican-majority House. Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal as moderates in the party have urged him not to back out.It would be the third time Congress has extended current spending as House Republicans have bitterly disagreed over budget levels and some on the right have demanded steeper cuts. The former House speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his caucus in October after striking an agreement with Democrats to extend current spending the first time. Johnson has also come under criticism as he has wrestled with how to appease his members and avoid a government shutdown in an election year.“We just needed a little more time on the calendar to do it and now that’s where we are,” Johnson said on Tuesday about the decision to extend federal funding yet again. “We’re not going to get everything we want.”Most House Republicans have so far refrained from saying that Johnson’s job is in danger. But a revolt of even a handful of Republicans could endanger his position in the narrowly divided House.The Virginia representative Bob Good, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has been pushing Johnson to reconsider the deal with Schumer.“If your opponent in negotiation knows that you fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement more than they fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement, you will lose every time,” Good said this week.Other Republicans acknowledge Johnson is in a tough spot. “The speaker was dealt with the hand he was dealt,” said the Kentucky congressman Andy Barr. “We can only lose one vote on the majority side. I think it’s going to have to be bipartisan.”The short-term measure comes amid negotiations on a separate spending package that would provide wartime dollars to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen security at the US-Mexico border. Johnson is also under pressure from the right not to accept a deal that is any weaker than a House-passed border measure that has no Democratic support.Johnson, Schumer and other congressional leaders and committee heads visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss that spending legislation. Johnson used the meeting to push for stronger border security measures while Biden and Democrats detailed Ukraine’s security needs as it continues to fight Russia.Biden has requested a $110bn package for the wartime spending and border security. More

A Kentucky state lawmaker and 2018 winner of the television competition Survivor had to hastily scrap a proposed measure that – if approved – would have unintentionally legalized sex between first cousins.After correcting the gaffe within a day, Nick Wilson – a Republican representative in Kentucky’s house of representatives – expressed hope that the misstep would not doom a measure whose purpose is to combat familial abuse.Wilson told the Guardian on Thursday that the entire episode was “frustrating” and “embarrassing”.“Due to the subject matter of the legislation, it was obviously quite embarrassing,” Wilson said. “It was also frustrating that it blew up so quickly, just because I was on a TV show five years ago.“I didn’t get a chance to fix the mistake – not even one day. I feel like most legislators would get that opportunity.”Wilson introduced a bill on Tuesday which in effect proposed removing first cousins from a list of unlawful incestuous relationships.A fierce backlash met the move quickly after a New York public defender and fellow Survivor alum, Eliza Orlins, went on TikTok to condemn Wilson’s proposal.“Kentucky – like so many other places – is facing a lot of issues, and this is Nick’s top legislative priority,” Orlins said. “No matter what Nick’s weird priorities are, your voices matter, and when your voices are heard, it actually has an impact in local politics.”After wishing a great day to her TikTok audience, she addressed Wilson directly. “Nick Wilson, I hope you have the day that you deserve,” she said.Wilson subsequently reversed course and said it was an unintentional “mistake” to have omitted first cousins from a list of relationships that Kentucky law defined as incestuous if they involved sex.“During the drafting process [of the bill], there was an inadvertent change, which struck ‘first cousins’ from the list of relationships included under the incest statute, and I failed to add it back in,” Wilson said in a statement. “During today’s session, I will withdraw [the measure] and refile a bill with the ‘first cousin’ language intact.”Many US states, including Kentucky, outright prohibit marriages between first cousins, while 19 states and the District of Columbia allow such a union. Some states, like Arizona and Maine, allow marriages between first cousins with certain exceptions.The commonwealth of Kentucky defines incest as: “deviate sexual intercourse [or] sexual contact with a person whom he or she knows to be his or her parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, great-grandparent, great-grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, brother, sister, first cousin, ancestor, or descendant”.Wilson has since refiled the measure as house bill 289. And in addition to sexual intercourse, the measure adds “sexual contact” to the definition of incest.The reintroduced bill also adds incest to the violent offender statute.Wilson said his new bill made no other changes to current law.After making changes to the bill, Wilson said: “This is a bill to combat a problem of familial and cyclical abuse that transcends generations of Kentuckians. I understand that I made a mistake, but I sincerely hope my mistake doesn’t hurt the chances of the corrected version of the bill. It is a good bill, and I hope it will get a second chance.”Wilson also told the Guardian that he hoped the scrutiny he encountered leads to more awareness surrounding the issue of sexual abuse within family homes.“There have been many foster parents and survivors of sexual abuse reach out to me to thank me for pursuing this change in law,” Wilson said. “The amount of hopefulness I get from those calls and emails are much greater than any feelings of embarrassment or frustration that I’ve experienced in the past two days.”Wilson was previously a public defender and in 2022 ran unopposed for the state house representing its 82nd district. He competed in the reality TV show Survivor in 2018 and 2020 and was the competition’s champion in its 37th season. More

Donald Trump provoked outrage with an all-capitals 2am post to his Truth Social platform in which he claimed “full”, “total” and “complete and total presidential immunity” over acts committed in office.The comments prompted warnings that Trump intends to wield authoritarian powers should he return to the White House and come amid widespread fears that any Trump victory in the 2024 election would pose a dire threat to American democracy.After a crushing win in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, Trump is widely expected to easily grasp the Republican presidential nomination and is competitive with, or sometimes ahead of, Joe Biden in most polling.Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University historian who studies authoritarian leaders, said: “Trump is telling Americans very clearly that he will be jailing and killing Americans [if he returns to office next year].“Anyone who votes for him is complicit with these future crimes because of this transparency and these threats. Americans cannot say they did not know ahead of time.”Joe Walsh, a former rightwing Republican congressman turned Trump opponent, spoke to his party’s voters when he said: “A president with ‘full immunity’ is a king, is a dictator. He’s telling us what he wants. Is this what you want?”Trump wrote: “A president of the United States must have full immunity, without which it would be impossible for him [or] her to properly function. Any mistake, even if well intended, would be met by almost certain indictment by the opposing party at term end.“Even events that ‘cross the line’ must fall under total immunity, or it will be years of trauma trying to determine good from bad.”Joyce Vance, a former US attorney now a law professor at the University of Alabama, said: “One of the obvious problems with this (just one of them), is that no former president has ever been indicted. Just Trump.”Indicted four times, Trump faces 91 criminal charges, concerning election subversion (four federal and 13 state charges), retention of classified information (40, federal) and hush-money payments (34, state).He also faces attempts to remove him from the ballot for inciting an insurrection and civil suits concerning his businesses and a defamation claim arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Regardless, Trump leads Republican presidential polling by vast margins, having won in Iowa this week and standing poised to win in New Hampshire next Tuesday.His complaint on Thursday concerned arguments in his federal election subversion case, in which a DC appeals court is due to rule on the immunity claim.A hearing last week produced the spectacle of lawyers for Trump saying a president who ordered special forces units to kill political opponents could only be brought to account if impeached and convicted by Congress.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump incited the January 6 attack on Congress, an attempt to stop certification of his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides, and more than 1,200 arrests. Trump was impeached over the riot but acquitted when enough Republicans in the Senate stayed loyal.After the DC hearing last week, Trump warned of “bedlam” if his criminal cases block a White House return.In his Truth Social rant, Trump said: “You can’t stop police from doing the job of strong and effective crime prevention because you want to guard against the occasional ‘rogue cop’ or ‘bad apple’.”Police officers do not enjoy blanket immunity.Trump continued: “Sometimes you just have to live with the ‘great but slightly imperfect’. All presidents must have complete and total presidential immunity, or the authority and decisiveness of a president of the United States will be stripped and gone forever. Hopefully this [DC appeals case] will be an easy decision.”Trump ended with an apparent appeal to another court, to which the case is headed.“God bless the supreme court!” the former president said, of a body to which he appointed three justices, cementing a 6-3 rightwing majority. More

The centrist group No Labels has filed a formal complaint with the justice department, asking it to investigate an “alleged unlawful conspiracy” to shut down its effort to secure ballot access for the 2024 presidential election.No Labels has not yet decided whether it will run a third party against Joe Biden and the Republican nominee, widely expected to be Donald Trump, in November’s presidential election. Critics say the effort would have the unintended consequence of hurting Biden and helping Trump.Last week No Labels sent an eight-page letter to the justice department’s Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, and Nicole Argentieri, acting assistant attorney general for the criminal division, accusing its opponents of violating federal law including racketeering and a number of criminal civil rights provisions.“There is a group of activists and operatives and party officials who are participating in alleged illegal conspiracy to use intimidation, harassment and fear against representatives of No Labels, its donors and its potential candidates,” Dan Webb, a No Labels leader who has served as the US attorney in Chicago, told a press conference in Washington DC on Thursday.The letter cites examples including a recent Semafor report on an 80-minute call organised by Matt Bennett, co-founder of the thinktank Third Way. One attendee explained on the call how they would dissuade candidates from running on a No Labels unity ticket: “Through every channel we have, to their donors, their friends, the press, everyone – everyone – should send the message: if you have one fingernail clipping of a skeleton in your closet, we will find it.”In another case, Holly Page, a co-founder of No Labels, was allegedly approached by a representative of the Lincoln Project and told to walk away from the group. She was allegedly warned: “You have no idea of the forces aligned against you. You will never be able to work in Democratic politics again.”The letter also notes that Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, posted a tweet last year of a video in which he said No Labels and its leaders “need to be burned to the fucking ground politically”.At Thursday’s press conference, Pat McCrory, a national co-chair and former governor of North Carolina, responded: “Who do they think they are, Tony Soprano? I hope not.”Benjamin Chavis Jr, a No Labels national co-chair and a leader and veteran civil rights activist, said: “The alleged conspiracy to stop No Labels is a brazen voter suppression effort.“Based on the evidence that we have submitted to the United States Department of Justice, if individuals were working to frighten and harass an organisation seeking to register disenfranchised voters, the country would be outraged and those individuals would likely be prosecuted. That is what is happening today and needs to be exposed for what it is.”Joe Lieberman, a No Labels National founding chair and former senator, added: “It’s a matter of giving voice to millions of Americans who feel abandoned by the Democratic and Republican political establishments. They’re angry at the two major parties. Who can blame them?“And they’re profoundly disappointed that they’re going to be forced to choose once again between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. They want a third choice. There’s a lot of talk lately about democracy being on the ballot in 2024 and in many ways it is. But I think it’s really important to understand what we mean by the word democracy.”Demand for a third-party presidential candidate has reached record highs amid deep voter dissatisfaction with 81-year-old Biden and Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges across four cases. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in December showed six in 10 respondents were unhappy with the two-party system and wanted a third choice.Founded in 2009, No Labels is now on the ballot in 14 states and say it will decide in March whether to offer its ballot line to a unity presidential ticket. If it does, the Unity ticket presidential campaign will be responsible for securing ballot access in the final 18 states plus the District of Columbia.On Tuesday a federal judge blocked the Arizona secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, from recognizing candidates wanting to run for office under the No Labels banner aside from the party’s yet-to-be-chosen ticket for president and vice-president. Lieberman acknowledged that, should Nikki Haley drop out of the Republican primary race and express an interest in joining a No Labels ticket, she would “deserve serious consideration”.The Lincoln Project rejected No Labels’ legal complaint, saying in statement: “No Labels is a dark money group that is so consumed with its own quest for power and relevancy that it is willing to risk electing Trump, despite their own acknowledgment that he is a dangerous ideologue.“And like Trump, they want to weaponize the DoJ to get to attack their opponents for protected political speech. This is a desperate attempt to salvage their failing campaign and keep their fleeing supporters who have finally seen through their facade.” More

Two Palestinian college students who were shot in Vermont said they suspected they were the targets of a hate crime in their most extensive public remarks since the attack.Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali Ahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid were shot on 25 November while walking near the home of Awartani’s grandmother in Burlington, Vermont.In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Awartani and Abdalhamid – both 20 – said they believe their shooter took aim at them for being Palestinian.“I don’t think too much about if there’s gonna be hate crime charges,” Awartani said to NBC News about the triple shooting. “I just care that, like, justice is served. And to me, that is a part of it. But I know that it is a hate crime.”Awartani added that he wasn’t surprised that he faced violence as a Palestinian, especially having grown up in the occupied West Bank and witnessing Palestinians regularly brutalized by the Israeli army.“It’s odd because it happened in Burlington, Vermont. It’s not odd because it happened, full stop,” Awartani said, referring to the 25 November shooting.“In the West Bank growing up, it’s just something that’s normal. Like, so many unarmed young men getting shot by the Israeli army, and they’re just left to bleed out.“Therefore, when it happened to me, it was like, ‘Oh, this is where it happens. This is it.’”The three friends had come back from a trip to a local bowling alley, a fun activity meant to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC they were speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs – a traditional headdress that has come to symbolize solidarity with Palestine – when they said they spotted a man waiting on his porch with a loaded firearm.Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC that they believe the man may have seen the trio before and waited for them to return home.The man then walked down from his porch and began shooting at them, Awartani and Abdalhamid said to NBC.“Tahseen was screaming. He was shot first,” Abdalhamid said to NBC. “Hisham didn’t make a sound. As soon as Tahseen started screaming, I was running.”The shooting left Awartani paralyzed from the chest down. His family has set up a GoFundMe to handle the high costs associated with his care.Awartani and Abdalhamid told NBC that they don’t think about the shooting. Their attention has been with killings in Gaza and in the West Bank by Israeli strikes, with Awartani calling the attack “one drop in the ocean of what’s going on in Palestine”.More than 24,00 people have been killed and 60,000 injured in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Israel launched the airstrikes in response to the 7 October attack by Hamas that killed about 1,200.“What’s going on in Palestine, it’s still going on,” Awartani said. “And, like, that’s more on my mind right now, how there are still people – like, they’re starving to death. There are still people who are being maimed. There are still people who are – like, you know, don’t have access to clean water. There are still people who are, like, being shot at protests. So that, to me, is far more relevant than what happened to me.”Jason Eaton, 48, was later arrested in connection with the shooting and charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder. Police have not confirmed if they believe the shooting was premeditated or motivated by hate as an investigation into the attack continues.Awartani attends Brown University. Ahmed and Abadalhamid are students of Haverford and Trinity colleges, respectively.The attack on the three friends took place amid sharp increases in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiments since Hamas’s 7 October attack in Israel. Jewish groups have also reported a simultaneous increase in cases of antisemitism. More

Rightwing populists appear to be enjoying a surge across the western world. For those who don’t support these parties, their appeal can be baffling and unsettling. They appear to play on people’s fears and offer somewhat trivial answers to difficult issues.

But the mathematics of human inference and cognition can help us understand what makes this a winning formula.

Because politics largely boils down to communication, the mathematics of communication theory can help us understand why voters are drawn to parties that use simple, loud messaging in their campaigning – as well as how they get away with using highly questionable messaging. Traditionally, this is the theory that enables us to listen to radio broadcasts and make telephone calls. But American mathematician Norbert Wiener went so far as to argue that social phenomena can only be understood via the theory of communication.

Wiener tried to explain different aspects of society by evoking a concept in science known as the second law of thermodynamics. In essence, this law says that over time, order will turn into disorder, or, in the present context, reliable information will be overwhelmed by confusion, uncertainties and noise. In mathematics, the degree of disorder is often measured by a quantity called entropy, so the second law can be rephrased by saying that over time, and on average, entropy will increase.

One of Wiener’s arguments is that as technologies for communication advance, people will circulate more and more inessential “noisy” information (think Twitter, Instagram and so on), which will overshadow facts and important ideas. This is becoming more pronounced with AI-generated disinformation.

The effect of the second law is significant in predicting the future form of society over a period of decades. But another aspect of communication theory also comes into play in the more immediate term.

When we analyse information about a topic of interest, we will reach a conclusion that leaves us, on average, with the smallest uncertainty about that topic. In other words, our thought process attempts to minimise entropy. This means, for instance, when two people with opposing views on a topic are presented with an article on that subject, they will often take away different interpretations of the same article, with each confirming the validity of their own initial view. The reason is simple: interpreting the article as questioning one’s opinion will inevitably raise uncertainty.

In psychology, this effect is known as confirmation bias. It is often interpreted as an irrational or illogical trait of our behaviour, but we now understand the science behind it by borrowing concepts from communication theory. I call this a “tenacious Bayesian” behaviour because it follows from the Bayes theorem of probability theory, which tells us how we should update our perspectives of the world as we digest noisy or uncertain information.

A corollary of this is that if someone has a strong belief in one scenario which happens to represent a false reality, then even if factual information is in circulation, it will take a long time for that person to change their belief. This is because a conversion from one certainty to another typically (but not always) requires a path that traverses uncertainties we instinctively try to avoid.

Polarised society

When the tenacious Bayesian effect is combined with Wiener’s second law, we can understand how society becomes polarised. The second law says there will be a lot of diverging information and noise around us, creating confusion and uncertainty. We are drawn to information that offers greater certainty, even if it is flawed.

Farage and Trump have hit on a winning formula.
Alamy/AP

For a binary issue, the greatest uncertainty happens when the two alternatives seem equally likely – and are therefore difficult to choose between. But for an individual person who believes in one of the two alternatives, the path of least uncertainty is to hold steady on that belief. So in a world in which any information can easily be disseminated far and wide but in which people are also immovable, society can easily be polarised.

Where are the leftwing populists?

If a society is maximally polarised, then we should find populists surging on both the left and right of the political spectrum. And yet that is not the case at the moment. The right is more dominant. The reason for this is, in part, that the left is not well-positioned to offer certainty. Why? Historically, socialism has rarely been implemented in running a country – not even the Soviet Union or China managed to implement it.

At least for now, the left (or centrists, for that matter) also seem a lot more cautious about knowingly offering unrealistic answers to complex problems. In contrast, the right offers (often false) certainty with confidence. It is not difficult to see that in a noisy environment, the loudest are heard the most.

Read more:
Why have authoritarianism and libertarianism merged? A political psychologist on ‘the vulnerability of the modern self’

Today’s politics plays out against a backdrop of uncertainties that include wars in Ukraine and Gaza with little prospect of exit strategies in sight; the continued cost of living crisis; energy, food and water insecurity; migration; and so on. Above all, the impact of the climate crisis.

The answer to this uncertainty, according to rightwing populists, is to blame everything on outsiders. Remove migrants and all problems will be solved – and all uncertainties eradicated. True or false, the message is simple and clear.

In conveying this message, it is important to instil in the public an exaggerated fear of the impact of migration, so their message will give people a false sense of certainty. What if there are no outsiders? Then create one. Use the culture war to label the “experts” (judges, scholars, etc.) as the enemy of the people.

For populists to thrive, society needs to be divided so that people can feel certain about where they belong – and so that those on the opposing side of the argument can be ignored.

The problem, of course, is that there are rarely simple solutions to complex issues. Indeed, a political party campaigning for a tough migration policy but weak climate measures is arguably enabling mass migration on a scale unseen in modern history, because climate change will make many parts of the world uninhabitable.

Wiener was already arguing in 1950 that we will pay the price for our actions at a time when it is most inconvenient to do so. Whatever needs to be done to solve complex societal issues, those who wish to implement what they believe are the right measures need to be aware that they have to win an election to do that – and that voters respond to simple and positive messages that will reduce the uncertainties hanging over their thoughts. More

In the wake of an Iowa primary election chilled in a record blast of cold weather – which scientists say may, counterintuitively, have been worsened by global heating – Republican presidential candidates are embracing the fossil fuel industry tighter than ever, with little to say about the growing toll the climate crisis is taking upon Americans.The remaining contenders for the US presidential nomination – frontrunner Donald Trump, along with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis – all used the Iowa caucus to promise surging levels of oil and gas drilling if elected, along with the wholesale abolition of Joe Biden’s climate change policies.Trump, who comfortably won the Iowa poll, said “we are going to drill, baby, drill” once elected, in a Fox News town hall on the eve of the primary. “We have more liquid gold under our feet; energy, oil and gas than any other country in the world,” the multiply indicted former president said. “We have a lot of potential income.”Trump also called clean energy a “new scam business” and went on a lengthy digression on how energy is important in the making of donuts and hamburgers. The Trump campaign has accused Biden of trying to prevent Americans from buying non-electric cars – no such prohibition exists – and even for causing people’s dishes to be dirty by imposing new efficiency standards for dishwashers.Haley, meanwhile, has called the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate bill that provides tax credits for renewable energy production and electric car purchases, a “communist manifesto” and used the Iowa election to promise to “roll back all of Biden’s green subsidies because they’re misplaced”. DeSantis, who came second in Iowa, said that on his first day as president he would “take Biden’s Green New Deal, we tear it up and we throw it in the trash can. It is bad for this country.”Last year was, globally, the hottest ever recorded, and scientists have warned of mounting calamities as the world barrels through agreed temperature limits. Last year, the US suffered a record number of disasters costing at least $1bn in damages, with the climate crisis spurring fiercer wildfires, storms and extreme heat.Such concerns were largely unvoiced in frigid Iowa, however, apart from by young climate activists who disrupted rallies held by Trump, Haley and DeSantis. On Sunday, a 17-year-old activist from the Sunrise climate group interrupted a Trump speech to shout: “Mr Trump your campaign is funded by fossil fuel millionaires. Do you represent them, or ordinary people like me?”She was drowned out by boos from Trump supporters, and then scolded from the stage by the former president, who told the activist to “go home to mommy.” He then said the protester was “young and immature”.The continued championing of fossil fuels, and dismissal of young people’s worries about climate change, shows that the Republican candidates are “determined to drag us into a chaotic world just to make a bit more money”, said Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of Sunrise.“Not a single Republican is addressing root causes of the climate crisis. They’ve been bought out by oil and gas billionaires,” said Shiney-Ajay, who added that young climate activists were also dismayed at Biden, who has overseen a record glut of oil and gas drilling, despite Republican claims he has hindered US energy production.“The reality is that every presidential candidate, including Joe Biden, is falling so far short of the climate ambition we need, despite there being millions of lives at stake,” she said.Some Republicans have warned that the party must take climate change seriously if it is to remain viable electorally, with increasing numbers of Americans alarmed about the impacts of global heating. “If conservatives are scared to talk about the climate, then we’re not going to have a seat at the table when decisions are made,” said Buddy Carter, a Republican congressman from Georgia. “We are right on policy, so we need a seat at the table.”Still, polling has shown that the climate crisis remains of minor importance to Republican voters, compared to issues such as the economy and inflation, with just 13% of them saying it is a top priority in a Pew survey last year. None of the party’s leading presidential candidates have sought to significantly change this dynamic, to the frustration of some climate-conscious conservatives.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Republican candidates can’t lose sight of the big picture amid the primary season,” said Danielle Butcher Franz, the chief executive of the advocacy arm of the American Conservation Coalition, a conservative climate group.“Beyond the primary, the next Republican nominee must win over the hearts and minds of young Americans by speaking to the issue they care most about: climate change.”Butcher Franz said there must be “more productive rhetoric and real policy solutions from Republicans. The race for 2024 is an opportunity to do so that no candidate has fully seized.”Even if the candidates aren’t talking much about climate change, its effects are still being directly felt as the Republican primary field moves on to New Hampshire. Icily cold temperatures have gripped much of the US – the Iowa caucus was the coldest on record – due to a blast of Arctic-like weather that has triggered power blackouts, halted flights and caused schools to shut in parts of the country.The Arctic is heating up at four times the rate of the global average, and scientists think this is affecting the jet stream, a river of strong winds that steers weather across the northern hemisphere, and the polar vortex, another current of winds that usually keeps frigid Arctic air over the polar region. Both these systems risk becoming “wavier”, recent research has found, meaning Arctic-like conditions can meander far further south than normal.The current blast of cold weather is “certainly much more likely given how much the planet is warming” said Judah Cohen, a meteorologist at Verisk Atmospheric and Environmental who has studied the phenomenon. “There is scientific evidence that makes severe winter weather consistent or explainable in a warming world. One does not negate the other.”Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at Woods Hole Research Center, said that while it seems counterintuitive, the science was “becoming clear” that extreme cold spells will be a consequence of global heating.“The irony is pretty rich” that Iowa has experienced such conditions during a Republican presidential primary, Francis added. “Of course, the deniers won’t see it that way, and won’t listen to any science that says otherwise.” More