US Politics

By the time superintendent David Smith decided to close Joshua Tree national park on 7 January 2019, the list of problems was already long. Tire tracks wove through the wilderness mapping a path of destruction where rare plants had been crushed and trees toppled. Charred remains of illegal campfires dotted the desert, and historic cultural artifacts had been plundered. Trash piles were growing, vault toilets were overflowing and park security workers were being pushed to their limits.It was week three in what would become the longest shutdown of the US government, and the famed California park was feeling the consequences of operating without key staff, services and resources.To protect the park and its workers, it would have to close, Smith thought.But the Trump administration, which demanded national parks remain accessible throughout the shutdown, wasn’t willing to change course. In a controversial move, David Bernhardt, who had only recently been appointed acting secretary of the interior, called Smith and ordered him to keep the gates open.By the end of the 35-day shutdown, irreversible damage had been inflicted on Joshua Tree’s ecosystems, its wild, remote landscapes thrust into the political turmoil unfolding thousands of miles away.Bernhardt’s decision and its aftermath are chronicled in hundreds of pages of emails between park officials, which the Guardian obtained through a records request. The correspondence sheds light on the pressure national parks faced during the shutdown, as well as how political considerations influenced decisions about their maintenance and protection.Another possible government shutdown looms, raising fresh questions about whether the National Park Service (NPS), the federal agency that oversees the parks, will follow the precedent set by the previous administration.“The situation right now is deeply concerning on many levels, including the potential threat to resources and visitors,” said John Garder, the senior director of budget and appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association, a non-profit that advocates for park preservation. “It is difficult for the parks service to do their jobs when Congress doesn’t give them the resources they need.”‘Parks are struggling’There have long been tensions over the interpretation of the NPS mission, with an uneasy balance of conservation and recreation. As politicians switch priorities, priorities in the parks can switch with them, and at the end of 2018 the NPS found itself in the crosshairs.On 21 December that year, Mick Mulvaney, who headed the office of management and budget for the Trump administration, announced the shutdown in a memorandum to agency leaders across the country, advising them that all talking points should reflect that the “national parks will remain as accessible as possible”. Communications staff for NPS’s Pacific west regional office followed up with instructions: “Keep the message positive, avoid saying limited access.”Regional NPS leaders meanwhile told superintendents in close-of-day emails they were aware of the potential for damage to delicate ecosystems and park infrastructure if parks stayed open without the necessary resources, and possible danger to largely unsupervised visitors. The timing of the shutdown, which left employees furloughed or working without pay during the busy holiday season, only added to the challenges, Sarah Creachbaum, the acting deputy regional director, wrote in an email on 23 December.“If the shutdown does persist for more than a few days it will be increasingly important to keep an eye out for signs and symptoms of stress among your teams,” she said. “Uncertainty and stress are legitimate health and safety issues that can affect everyone.”There would be weeks to go.As the shutdown progressed, and the situation at some national parks turned increasingly dire, the NPS leaders told park superintendents they would support decisions to shut parks down, especially in situations where staff and visitors could not be kept safe.“We’ve heard from many parks across the region that they are struggling more and more with trash accumulation, human waste, traffic congestion, fatigued employees etc,” wrote Stephanie Burkhart, the associate regional director of the Pacific west region on 28 December. “As the shutdown continues, these challenges will get harder. So please continue to evaluate your capacity and resources, rotate staff to provide rest and implement area closures as needed.”Two days later, Smith, the Joshua Tree superintendent, reached out to Creachbaum, Burkhart and communications staff to say he had decided to close campgrounds and a day-use area at the park after the start of the new year. The holidays were peak visiting times for the California site. With just nine working staff members, a disaster seemed imminent, he warned. Already, he reported, two search-and-rescue operations had been needed the week before, both requiring helicopters because the park hadn’t been able to adequately respond.Staff had told him that visitors were resisting direction, telling law enforcement rangers they could do whatever they wanted during the shutdown. Staff members were increasingly concerned about their own safety, especially as incidents of intoxication and physical assaults in the park began to rise.The interior department intervenesStaff who worked at Joshua Tree national park at the time said the experience was among the most difficult in their careers. “What I witnessed at the park was chaos and destruction,” said one park employee who, like others quoted in this story, asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution for speaking out.From the start of the shutdown, the majority of the park staff had been opposed to keeping Joshua Tree open, they said, describing long days of work and feeling despondent as some visitors abused their unfettered access.Another employee said decision-makers seemed out of touch with the reality on the ground: “In the lower rungs nothing made sense to us – you are just executing these orders that make no sense for the park, no sense for the visitor, and no sense for the employees.”National parks are required to be ready for events like a shutdown with a contingency plan. But the controversial directions from the Trump administration forced the agency and the parks to make in-the-moment adjustments.Four days before Smith informed NPS leaders of his intention to fully close Joshua Tree, the Pacific west regional NPS team were maintaining in staff emails that they would support park closures for heath and hygiene reasons, to protect visitor safety or due to staff fatigue. “As we come to the end of our second week of the closure, and with no end in sight, it is clear that keeping all park areas accessible is not feasible,” Creachbaum wrote to superintendents on 3 January. “Now is the time to determine if the NPS contingency plan triggers for closures apply to your circumstances.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut on 5 January, Bernhardt intervened, issuing a memorandum to the deputy director of the NPS instructing him to modify the contingency plan so parks would rely on Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act funds to stay open. FLREA funds, which come from park fees, are designated by law to be used to improve the parks, including hacking away at a large maintenance backlog, estimated at roughly $12bn across all parks at the time.Bernhardt ordered that they be used for maintaining operations “until such funds have reached zero balance”.The Government Accountability Office would later deem Bernhardt’s move to be a violation of the law. In a scathing report issued in 2019, the GAO concluded that Bernhardt’s decree had undermined congressional power of the purse and sidestepped laws outlining shutdown procedures. The interior department maintains Bernhardt’s decision was legal, and in 2020 the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) laid out a legal argument supporting Bernhardt and his decision.“The decision to utilize FLREA funds in 2019 was entirely lawful,” Cole Rojewski, a lawyer speaking on behalf of Bernhardt, said, pointing to the OMB analysis. He added that if the action had been initiated from the beginning of the shutdown, the destruction of the park and dangers posed to both staff and visitors could have been avoided “while also allowing for continued public access and ensuring dedicated employees were paid throughout the duration of the shutdown”.Raúl Grijalva, a congressman from Arizona, disagreed. As chair of the committee on natural resources in 2019, he wrote to Bernhardt admonishing him for the decision to use FLREA funds and questioned whether he had complied with the law outlining their use. Casting the former secretary’s act as a way to help “obfuscate the real costs of the shutdown”, Grijalva said the Department of the Interior’s actions “sidestepped Congress and used these park funds for political purposes”.A call from the Trump administrationBy 6 January, superintendents across the system were rushing to carve out new plans to bring back furloughed staff using FLREA funds. Smith, meanwhile, still tried to quickly close Joshua Tree. On 7 January he requested a temporary closure from regional park leaders, highlighting the “considerable damage to park resources”. Creachbaum, the deputy regional director, responded: “I am so sorry about the damage to your park. It’s heartbreaking. We support the closure.” It would be her last email serving in the leadership role, and she stepped down soon after. A press release was drafted from Joshua Tree national park announcing a plan to close.But the very next day, Smith wrote to Creachbaum’s successor, Katariina Tuovinen, alerting her that he’d been contacted by the director of the NPS, who had advised him Bernhardt would call him later that day. “The Secretary will be calling to order that the park stays open and that we use FLREA funds to do it,” Smith wrote in an email on 8 January.Communications officials at the national office scrambled to reframe the eyebrow-raising shift, issuing a new press release that cast the decision more favorably. “National Park Service officials have been able to avert a temporary closure of Joshua Tree National Park,” the release read, highlighting how revenue generated by recreation fees would be used to support the reopened campgrounds and entrance stations.At the time, the NPS didn’t return calls and emails from the Guardian requesting comment on how this decision had been made. (The emails show they did connect with some reporters, asking the Los Angeles Times to make revisions to their reporting.)A cautionary tale – or a precedent?Amid a growing likelihood the US government is headed for another shutdown on 1 October, it’s unclear how the NPS is planning to respond.In August, agencies across the federal government were expected to submit contingency plans. But the NPS has yet to confirm whether a new plan has been drafted and whether national parks will again be expected to remain accessible during the funding stalemate.Repeated requests for information and comment went unanswered from both the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service.The park service operating budget is also under threat from budget cuts. As record numbers of visitors continue to flood in, the depletion of funds for maintenance and improvement could lead to more disastrous results, Garder argued. The maintenance backlog has only ballooned in recent years, growing from $11.6bn during the last shutdown to more than $22bn in 2022.Jonathan Jarvis, a retired NPS director who served under the Obama administration and oversaw a 2013 shutdown, agrees. “When I was director, there was no question – you shut ’em down,” he said.Jarvis, who spent four decades in the park service, said he hopes for a future where public lands aren’t put at risk by shifts in political whim, and advocates for the agency to be removed from the Department of the Interior.Ultimately, he said, the future of US national parks will be linked to funding. “The good news is that in the US the parks are highly supported by the American people,” he said. “But they expect them to be taken care of.” More

“Every time I hear you I feel a little bit dumber,” Nikki Haley said at the second Republican presidential primary debate last night. She was talking to Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessman currently polling at an average of about 6% among likely Republican voters. But she could have been talking about any one of the seven candidates: Haley, Ramaswamy, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former vice-president Mike Pence and the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum. The debate was rancorous, chaotic and punctured by statements so hateful, outlandish and extreme that they made an impression even by the current Republican party’s very low standards.Worst of all, the whole thing was pointless: Donald Trump, who is leading in the polls by more than 40 points, was not there. The candidates, wannabes, also-rans and cynical self-promoters, spent much of the evening attacking each other. But for the most part, they did not attack him.Donald Trump’s absence was, like in the first Republican debate, the most significant presence on the stage. As indictments, debts and civil judgements against the former president accumulate, and as his bluster and vulgarity lose their novelty and capacity to shock, there has been some suggestion that perhaps Trump will disqualify himself from running for president. Can a candidate make a credible bid for the presidency while also being charged with dozens of felonies? Can Trump persuade voters – of whom a majority have never voted for him, and who turned on him in large numbers just four years ago? These are legitimate questions, but they are questions for a general election: they are not relevant in the primary. Neither charges, nor convictions, nor legal judgments, nor mounting attorney’s fees will cause Trump to withdraw or lose significant support. His followers are immune to facts, and he is immune to shame. Barring his death, he will be the Republican nominee. His shadow loomed over the candidates onstage at the Reagan library like former Air Force One, which hung from the mezzanine above their line of gleaming podiums. One was tempted to imagine, more than once, what would happen if it fell.The purpose of the Republican presidential primary debates, if they can be said to have one, is to begin to define the party’s post-Trump identity. But this is premature: Donald Trump is very much still the party’s gravitational center, the sun that all other Republican politicians orbit around. And so why, exactly, were any of the candidates there? Why are these people running? DeSantis, for his part, seems to have once entertained sincere delusions that he might become president, but surely those have long since waned. Chris Christie’s campaign is something of a suicide mission, an expenditure of money and effort in the hope of damaging Trump; it is not working. Nikki Haley spends much of her time on the debate stages trying to steer her party away from what she views as its unelectable fringes, primarily the charismatic incoherence of Ramaswamy’s breed of “America First” right-populism. Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, appears to be seeking to reignite the Christian conservative sect of the party, but that lane is already crowded by the stiff and uncomfortable presence of Mike Pence, who is in the delicate position of trying to claim credit for all of Donald Trump’s accomplishments while also condemning the man who tried to get an angry mob to hang him. Doug Burgum, for his part, spent much of his time on stage complaining that everyone was ignoring him.To their great credit, the Fox and Univision moderators did attempt to press the candidates on policy, challenges that the seven contenders on stage largely ignored. Towards the start of the debate, in response to a question about the autoworkers’ strike, several of the candidates attempted to push the claim that Republicans are becoming the party of the working class, by which they mean white men in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. All dodged a question about the affordability of childcare. Nikki Haley tried to attack Ron DeSantis for being insufficiently friendly to energy interests; Tim Scott attacked Nikki Haley for the curtains that hung in her official residence while she was ambassador to the United Nations.That exchange commanded more total airtime than abortion, the issue that has driven the greatest trends in voting over the past year, but in the candidates’ brief foray into the topic, Ron DeSantis did take one of the evening’s few shots at Trump, whose anti-abortion stance he says is not extreme enough. Tim Scott, the only Black person onstage, made a point of asserting that slavery had no redeeming qualities – evidently a point that has to be made, for a Republican audience. And yet, he said, Black people survived slavery (in point of fact, many of them didn’t); worse, he suggested, was Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program.Ramaswamy, in two of the evening’s moral nadirs, both called for the elimination of birthright citizenship and referred to “transgenderism” as “a mental disorder”. Chris Christie attacked Joe Biden for “sleeping with” a member of the teacher’s union – an evident reference to the first lady, Jill Biden, who is a community college professor. By way of a response, Mike Pence, who has been known to refer to his wife as “mother”, commented that he has been sleeping with a teacher, his own wife, for 38 years. Like the debate itself, Pence’s comment left an image in my mind that I will never be able to expunge (and now, neither will you).If you think things cannot possibly sink lower, know that another Republican presidential debate is scheduled for November, in Miami. The presidential election is still more than a year away, but it is certain to feel much, much longer.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

It’s hard to pick the low point of a debate that dissolved frequently into incoherent crosstalk and included former vice-president Mike Pence, a Christian conservative who has famously said he would never dine alone with a woman other than his wife, attempting to make a joke about his sex life. (“My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I gotta admit I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years,” he said.)In a debate conducted not far from Ronald Reagan’s grave, seven GOP presidential candidates shouted and sniped at each other for two hours without producing a single standout moment.Whether echoing Donald Trump’s rhetoric, or attempting to criticize him – Chris Christie dubbed him “Donald Duck” for choosing not to participate – none of the presidential hopefuls succeeded in upending the expectations of the race. Once again, Trump won the GOP debate without even having to show up.On substantive issues, the Republican candidates endorsed virulent transphobia, with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy arguing that “transgenderism” is “a mental health disorder”. He said he wanted to end birthright citizenship, so that children born in the US to undocumented parents would not be given citizenship.Florida governor Ron DeSantis suggested he would address the fentanyl overdose crisis by using the US military against drug dealers in Mexico, and treat them like “foreign terrorist organizations”. He also did not believe Republican losses in the 2022 midterm elections should be blamed on the party’s embrace of extreme anti-abortion policies.Pence said his plan for preventing future mass shootings was not new gun control laws, but instituting “a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting”. (Research shows that many mass shooters are suicidal.)But some of the brutal Trumpian rhetoric seemed to have lost its punch. “Yes, we’ll build the wall,” DeSantis said, sounding almost bored.On Fox News after the debate, former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway argued that “nobody made the case” that they had something different from Trump to offer voters. “They want to build a wall, they want to secure the border, they sound a lot like him,” she said.Trump’s rivals also tried, and largely failed, to produce memorable attack lines against each other.South Carolina senator Tim Scott tried to criticize former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for a set of $50,000 curtains at her residence as UN ambassador. “Do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains,” Haley responded.Haley, in turn, savaged 38-year-old entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for doing business in China and for joining the social media app TikTok, which Ramaswamy defended as a logical thing to do to help the party attract younger voters, even as he said that people under 16 should not be “using addictive social media”.“TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have,” Haley said. “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”“We can’t trust you,” she said. “We can’t trust you.”The reviews were mixed. New York Times political correspondent Maggie Haberman wrote early in the debate, “This is unwatchable.” But Fox News’ Laura Ingraham argued after the debate that Haley and Ramaswamy were the most promising candidates in two flavors – Ramaswamy as the populist, Haley as the more traditional conservative supported by GOP donors.Ramaswamy seemed at one point to flaunt his youth and inexperience, acknowledging that as the “new guy”, he expected that voters would see him as “a young man who’s in a bit of a hurry, maybe a little ambitious, bit of a know-it-all”.“I’m here to tell you, no, I don’t know it all. I will listen. I will have the best people, the best and brightest in this country, whatever age they are, advising me,” he promised.Scott earned applause from the audience and praise from Sean Hannity for saying that, while he had experienced discrimination as a Black man, “America is not a racist country.”At the end of the debate, moderator Dana Perino of Fox News asked the candidates: “Which one of you onstage tonight should be voted off the island?” Almost everyone refused to reply. When Christie did, he attacked the one person who wasn’t on that particular island.Donald Trump. More

It was a night in which even “the great communicator” himself may have struggled to be heard.

At the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on Sept. 27, 2023, seven Republican candidates looking to become the leading challenger to the absent GOP frontrunner Donald Trump interrupted, cross-talked and bickered – often to the exasperation of the debate moderators.

And yet, between the heated exchanges, important economic and business issues were discussed – from national debt and government shutdowns to labor disputes and even school choice. One thing the candidates agreed on: They aren’t fans of Bidenomics.

Listening in for The Conversation were economists Ryan Herzog of Gonzaga University and University of Tennessee’s Celeste K. Carruthers. Here are their main takeaways from the debate.

Inflation talk assigns blame, falls flat on solutions

Ryan Herzog, Gonzaga University

The most recent Fox News survey showed that 91% of Americans are worried about inflation and 80% about rising housing costs. I tuned into the second GOP debate hoping to hear how the candidates would solve these problems. I was left disappointed.

Not a single candidate mentioned rising housing costs, and few even acknowledged inflation. Given how much the issue has dominated the news, I assumed the candidates would mention it more than the eight times they did in the prior debate. I was wrong.

First, let’s check some inflation facts. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley claimed that the average household is spending US$7,000 more per year on groceries and gas due to inflation. I believe she also meant to include housing costs. The latest data show the annual inflation for food at home – as opposed to restaurant meals – is rising less than 3% per year. While that’s up 24% since the start of the pandemic, it’s far below what you’d need for an increase of nearly $600 per month.

Next, former Vice President Mike Pence said that recent wage gains have not kept up with inflation. But according to the most recent data, average wage growth has actually outpaced inflation. Indeed, workers in lower-wage industries that are seeing labor shortages, such as the leisure and hospitality sector, have seen very substantial pay increases.

Nearly every candidate blamed inflation on excessive federal spending. Under Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the total level of U.S. government debt increased by nearly $8 trillion and $4.5 trillion, respectively. As expected, most candidates proposed cutting government spending and taxes to help struggling families. But it’s unclear if those policies, taken together, would be effective at lowering inflation.

The candidates also agreed on the need to promote U.S. energy independence – through drilling, fracking and coal – to promote low and stable inflation. But while reducing energy costs would support lower inflation, there was zero discussion of how new technologies like artificial intelligence could be used to fight inflation – for example, by improving productivity. In the end, most candidates resorted to old arguments and avoided debate on 21st-century solutions.

School choice is common refrain, but evidence on impact is mixed

Celeste K. Carruthers, University of Tennessee

Before a commercial break midway through the debate, moderators teased viewers to return for questions on education in the U.S. It’s understandable that voters would want to hear what candidates have to say on the issue. Younger students have a long way to go to recover from COVID-era learning losses, and many families are dissatisfied with public education to the point that they are leaving public schools for home school and private school options. The education portion of the debate ended up being a short exchange, however, with more focus on immigration, inflation, border security, foreign policy and the opioid epidemic.

One common theme across candidates was at least a brief mention of school choice. School choice describes a variety of different policies that give the parents of pre-K-12 students more options for where they send their kids to school. These options can include charter schools, magnet schools, public schools outside of a student’s school zone or in another district, or even private schools.

Gov. Haley voiced a commonly held view among school choice supporters that providing students with more schooling options improves education by encouraging competition. Gov. DeSantis referenced “universal school choice” in his home state of Florida, which recently passed legislation that allows any student to apply for several thousand dollars in state funds that can be used toward private school tuition.

Researchers have found that earlier phases of private school vouchers in Florida led to improvements in public school student test scores, absenteeism and suspensions, which supports the idea that competition from private schools can benefit students who opt not to use vouchers and stay in public schools.

Private school vouchers are, however, a contentious topic. Opponents of vouchers and school choice policies more generally argue that they put traditional public schools at a financial disadvantage. Critics have also noted that some of the early voucher advocates viewed them as a way to avoid racial integration.

Additionally, school choice can theoretically lead to sorting, where higher-achieving or higher-income students group together, and this can be detrimental to lower-achieving students who are left behind. There is evidence of sorting like this, particularly in large-scale voucher systems outside the U.S.

Florida’s newly expanded model of school choice is one of the most comprehensive in the country. Several other states have also recently revised their school choice policies, generally extending eligibility for vouchers and education savings accounts beyond needy populations. In time, we can expect the evidence on school choice to grow substantially and perhaps occupy more attention in future debates. More

The Trump tale takes a new twist and it’s a real turn up for the books | Fiona Katauskas | Opinion | The Guardian More

Seven Republican presidential candidates participated in a Wednesday night debate in California, offering up an array of dubious data and claims to prop up their talking points.Here are six fact-checks from the night.The claim: Candidates said crime was overrunning US citiesWhile Republicans discussed fears of crime overrunning cities, it’s worth noting that the best data we have so far suggests that, after an increase in killings during the early pandemic, the number of murders across the country fell substantially last year. Crime analyst Jeff Asher has also noted that murders appear to be falling even more this year.The 2023 drop in murders began early in the year, when Asher’s analysis of early data suggested that the “United States may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded”.The claim: Mike Pence suggested the threat of the death penalty would deter people from committing mass shootingsThe former vice-president volunteered his plan for preventing mass shootings in the United States: “a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting.” He said he was disgusted that the teenager who committed the Parkland school shooting did not get a death sentence.According to the Violence Project, a research firm, “Seventy-two percent of mass shooters were suicidal either before or at the time of the shooting.”Data from the FBI on mass shootings in 2021 and 2022 also showed that a third to nearly a half of perpetrators either died by suicide or were killed by police or other citizens during the attack.The claims: Vivek Ramaswamy said children who are transgender have ‘a mental health disorder’ , while Mike Pence implied that children could transition without parents’ consentRamaswamy said: “Transgenderism, especially in kids is a mental health disorder.”But major medical organizations, like the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, say being transgender is not a mental disorder. Gender dysphoria is recognized as a medical condition that doctors agree should be remedied by offering gender-affirming treatment.Pence, meanwhile, misleadingly claimed: “The Linn-Mar community schools in Iowa had a policy where you could, you had to have a permission slip from your parents to get a Tylenol but you could get a gender transition plan without notifying your parents.”Linn-Mar’s policy directed educators to use students’ chosen names, without consulting with parents. That’s a far reach from a “gender transition plan”.Claim: Pence boasted that under his and Donald Trump’s administration, illegal immigration dropped drasticallyskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%,” Pence said.In fact, the number of border patrol apprehensions was higher during the Trump administration than during the last four years of Barack Obama’s administration. There was a change in how US Customs and Border Protection reports migrant encounters during the pandemic, complicating some of this data – pre-pandemic, the agency reported enforcement actions taken under immigration law, but after, it also began reporting actions taken under the Title 42 public health policy that authorized officers to immediately send most migrants at the border back to Mexico.Analysis by PolitiFact found that Pence’s 90% reduction figure could be approximated by comparing enforcement data from May 2019, the month that saw the highest number of apprehensions, with data from April 2020 – just as governments around the world moved to drastically restrict travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “That’s a severely cherry-picked period,” the fact-checking group writes.Claim: Ron DeSantis denied that the Florida school curriculum suggests that enslaved people drew benefits from slaveryThe Florida governor was asked about the curriculum in Florida that said enslaved people “develop skills which in some instances, could be apply for their personal benefit”.Historians and educators decried the new teaching standard, which came after the state enacted the “Stop Woke Act” signed by DeSantis, prohibiting instruction that could cause students to feel discomfort or guilt due to their race, sex or national origin.DeSantis decried the criticism as “a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris”, mispronouncing the vice-president’s name. In an impassioned speech reacting to the standard, Harris said: “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.” More

Bhaskar Sunkara: ‘We’re far away from a pro-worker Republican party’A new Republican party was supposed to be in the making. Donald Trump as president catered to corporate interests and the super-rich, but as candidate he wrote a playbook to winning over workers in greater numbers.At tonight’s debate, it’s clear his would-be successors haven’t read it. While Trump has been traveling around Michigan signaling his support for working people (though tellingly at non-union factories), in California the rest of the field struck a far different note when discussing workers that will be key in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania.Senator Tim Scott openly attacked the United Auto Workers’ demands and said that instead of showing up on their picket lines, President Biden should be protecting our southern border. Insurgent candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had a similar response: “If I was giving advice to those workers, I would say go picket in front of the White House in Washington DC,” advocating energy deregulation as an alternative solution to America’s woes.In between his anti-Trump posturing, Chris Christie joined in. “This public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers’ unions in this country,” the former New Jersey governor said. “And when you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers’ union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away from the teachers’ unions.”The reference to Jill Biden has all the crassness of a Trump line, but none of the political acumen. It’s no wonder no one on the stage is likely to square up against President Biden in November.
Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, the founding editor of Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme Inequalities
Lloyd Green: ‘Cringe-worthy comes to mind’Donald Trump won Wednesday night’s debate. From 2,295 miles away, he dominated the seven Republicans who appeared at the Reagan library. His legal woes escaped real attention, albeit his latest posturing over abortion less so. He narrowly leads Joe Biden and leaves the Republican pack in the dust. The race’s dynamics remain unchanged.On stage, Ron DeSantis got the airtime he craved but polls third in New Hampshire. Nikki Haley auditioned to be Trump’s running mate but earned his campaign’s ire as she was onstage. Mike Pence is officially irrelevant and a bad joke-teller.“Thank you for speaking while I’m interrupting.” Vivek Ramaswamy’s quote of the night was an instant classic. Tim Scott let us know that African Americans had a tougher time enduring the Great Society than slavery. Cringe-worthy comes to mind.At the same time, the evening definitely highlighted Biden’s vulnerabilities. For starters, bedlam reigns at the Mexican border.Upcoming legislative contests in Virginia offer a reality check. Republican victory would scream “danger” for the president and his party. A Trump-backed shutdown, however, might provide them with a lifeline. The Old Dominion is filled with government contractors and small businesses.Early in his term, Biden mistakenly took a premature victory lap. “I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his,” he said. He also compared himself to FDR. Uh, that guy won four terms, assisted by convincing congressional majorities. Also, Hunter Biden isn’t Obama’s child.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice
Osita Nwavenu: ‘Nothing but an act of God can dislodge Trump’s lead’Do debates matter? This is itself the subject of some debate among those who follow presidential elections closely. Commonsensically, big breakout moments for candidates that are replayed in the days after the big event can boost the profiles of candidates who manage to pull them off. And there did seem to be some movement in favor of at least Nikki Haley after the first debate of this cycle. But the race before the candidates in the Republican field hasn’t fundamentally changed – Donald Trump, the last president of the United States and a now-heroic figure in the Republican party – retains and will continue to retain a commanding lead over his rivals that seemingly nothing short of an act of God, and maybe not even that, can dislodge.Trump gained the most of any candidate in the field after the first debate. The huffing and puffing from the other contenders felt a bit different this time around, though. Tim Scott took center stage for much of the night – delivering not only his stock lines about how his own experiences disprove the existence of structural racism in American society, but hits against the records of his rivals, including Nikki Haley, who engaged him in an extended exchange about whether the state department paid for her curtains. Riveting stuff, but the substance really mattered less than the demonstration, to anyone watching, that he’s still in the fight.Trump’s absence, by comparison, was a theme many candidates hit upon, though frankly there were moments during the night when some of the candidates on the stage themselves seemed like nonentities. It took a strikingly long time for Fox’s moderators to send questions Ron DeSantis’s way – he acquitted himself well when they arrived, but not well enough that he’s likely to see the bump in his standing he needed coming out of tonight.The night’s real surprise, really, was Fox’s editorial line – there were questions early on about income inequality and the party’s standing with Latino voters, for instance. It felt throughout like a debate aimed at pulling the primary towards the center from two different directions – the business conservatism that Trump upended with his victory in 2016 and the populist conservatism that hopes to succeed him. There are substantive ideological tensions aplenty to be wrestled with on the right at the moment and the powers that be in the heart of the conservative press are evidently interested in teasing them out. They did their best and so did the candidates. But it’s still Trump’s party and still Trump’s race to lose.
Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist
Jill Filipovic: ‘These egomaniacs don’t care about women’If there’s one takeaway from the second Republican debate on Wednesday night, it’s that this party of blustering egomaniacs simply does not care about women.There was only a single woman on stage – perhaps not a surprise from a party that struggles to put women in office and struggles to capture women’s votes. Startlingly few questions were about the issues that animate the lives of so many American families, and women’s lives especially: childcare, healthcare, abortion.While Republican lawmakers criminalize abortion in conservative states, and while even red state voters vote for abortion rights when given the chance, the Republican hopefuls were wishy-washy on the issue – not wanting to be accountable for their party’s own extremism, but also refusing to align themselves with America’s pro-choice majority. Chris Christie turned a question about abortion rights into talking about defunding Planned Parenthood and wanting to fund drug treatment. Ron DeSantis simply refused to accept that pro-choice voters cost Republicans some midterm wins. There was only a single question about childcare, and it went largely unanswered. Chris Christie, though, did find time to refer to the first lady, Jill Biden, as someone who the president is “sleeping with”.The candidates had more to say about invading Mexico than invading women’s uteruses – although most of them seemed to favor both.Even Donald Trump, he of “grab ’em by the” – you know – seems to understand the bind Republicans have put themselves in with their legislative misogyny. Trump isn’t an abortion moderate – he’s the reason Roe v Wade was overturned, and he has voiced support for jailing women who have abortions – but the truth is that he doesn’t really care; he’s willing to do whatever he thinks will put him in power and keep him there. He is a keen observer of his own party, and his flip-flopping on abortion seems to signal that he sees the Republican’s anti-abortion extremism as a liability.But he wasn’t on stage tonight. Those who were seem committed to doubling down on their attacks on women’s rights – or ignoring women altogether.
Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness More

From 8h agoChris Christie turned a question about crime fighting into an attack on Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination who has snubbed this debate.“And I want to look at a camera right now to tell you, Donald, I know you’re watching. You can’t help yourself. I know you’re watching, OK,” the former New Jersey governor said.“And you’re not here tonight. Not because of polls, and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is gonna call you Donald Trump any more. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”For two hours, the seven Republican candidates gathered in California duked it out over everything from energy to immigration, all in the absence of Donald Trump, the far-and-away frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination. We’ll see if anything that was said on the debate stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this evening changed the contours of the race, but one thing is now clear: none of these candidates will share the debate stage with Trump. He’s opted to skip the third debate set for Miami in November, and his campaign is calling for the Republican Party to cancel it altogether.Here are some highlights from tonight’s event:The reviews of the second Republican presidential debate are rolling in from political analysts and they are … not great.Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics:Fernand R. Amandi of public opinion research firm Bendixen & Amandi:GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who thought Nikki Haley and Tim Scott’s argument about curtains was a low point:But did think Chris Christie handled questions about abortion in a way other Republicans could learn from:Republican rivals hoping to face Donald Trump on the debate stage won’t get their chance. CBS News reports that the former president will skip the third and final debate of the primary process, set for November in Miami:In fact, the Trump campaign is out with a statement calling on the Republican National Committee to cancel the third debate entirely. Here’s the campaign’s senior advisor Chris LaCivita:
Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest being dominated by President Trump. President Trump has a 40- or 50-point lead in the primary election and a 10-point lead over Joe Biden in the general election, and it’s clear that President Trump alone can defeat Biden.
The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House.
Mike Pence claimed that during his and Donald Trump’s administration, they “reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%.”That’s not really true.The number of Border Patrol apprehensions was higher during the Trump administration than during the last four years of Barack Obama’s administration. There was a change in how US Customs and Border Protection reports migrant encounters during the pandemic, complicating some of this data – pre-pandemic, the agency reported enforcement actions taken under immigration law, but after, it also began reporting actions taken under the Title 42 public health policy that authorized officers to immediately send most migrants at the border back to Mexico.Analysis by Politifact found that Pence’s 90% reduction figure could be approximated by comparing enforcement data from May 2019, the month that saw the highest number of apprehensions, with data from April 2020 – right as governments around the world moved to severe restrict travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic.“That’s a severely cherry-picked period,” the fact-checking group writes.It’s worth noting that the moderators’ attempts to spur even more conflict between the candidates was not particularly well received.None of them were willing to name another to be voted off the stage, or the island, as it were:The candidates are now leaving the stage after the moderators wrapped up the second Republican presidential debate with a question that, fittingly, invoked Donald Trump.In the debate’s final moments, the candidates were asked by the moderators to write down which other candidate they would – in the style of pioneering reality TV program Survivor – vote off the stage. Chris Christie chose Trump, the frontrunner for the nomination who did not attend.“This guy has not only divided our party, he divided families all over this country. He’s divided friends all over this country,” Christie said. “I’ve spoken to people and I know everyone else has, who have sat at Thanksgiving dinner or at a birthday party and can’t have a conversation anymore if they disagree with Donald Trump. He needs to be off the island and taken out of this process.Vivek Ramaswamy disagreed. “I think Trump was an excellent president. But the America first agenda does not belong to one man. It does not belong to Donald Trump. It doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to you, the people of this country. And the question is who’s going to unite this country and take the America first agenda to the next level?” he said.“We did not just hunger for a single man, we hungered for the unapologetic pursuit of excellence and yes, I will respect Donald Trump and his legacy because it’s the right thing to do.”And with that, the debate was over.Call it the Squabble in South Carolina.While the debate may be taking place in Simi Valley, California, the two candidates hailing from the Palmetto state – Senator Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor – just got into it over gas taxes, curtains and several other things.“As the UN ambassador, you literally put $50,000 on curtains in a $15m subsidized location,” Scott said, while Haley defiantly interjected, “bring it, man.”“You got bad information,” Haley, who served as UN ambassador under Donald Trump, replied. “On the curtains, do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains.”“Did you send them back?” the senator asked.“It’s the state department!” Haley shot back at Scott. “Did you send them back? You’re the one that works in Congress … You are scrapping right now!”“We do not intend to go ahead like this,” the moderator, Stuart Varney, said, before sending us all, mercifully, to a commercial break.Ron DeSantis was asked about curriculum in Florida that said, enslaved people “develop skills which in some instances, could be apply for their personal benefit”.DeSantis called this “a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris”, mispronouncing the vice-president’s name. In fact, the quoted bit is taken straight from Florida’s African American history standards.In an impassioned speech reacting to the standard, Harris said: “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.”Ron DeSantis just won himself some applause with a well-timed interjection to tout his accomplishments as Florida governor.Amid bickering over government spending between Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, DeSantis piped up.“I’m the only one up here who’s gotten in the big fights and has delivered big victories for the people of Florida. And that’s what it’s all about,” DeSantis said to cheers.“You can always talk but when when it gets hot in there, when they’re shooting arrows at you, are you going to stand up for parents rights, keep the state free? Are you going to be able to do all those things? And in the state of Florida because of our success, the Democratic party lies in ruins. We have won the big fights. We have turned our state into a Republican state.”Doug Burgum really wants to answer these questions, but the moderators aren’t having it.They asked Nikki Haley elaborate on her energy policies – but not Burgum. “As the only leader of an energy state, can I answer?” interjected Burgum, whose state has a sizable oil industry. But the answer the North Dakota governor got was no.He tried again after Ron DeSantis was asked the same question, but was rebuffed. “We can’t talk over each other. We must respect each other,” moderator Stuart Varney insisted.As candidates address trans rights on stage, here’s a bit of context.Vivek Ramaswamy said: “Transgenderism, especially in kids is a mental health disorder.”This is false. Major medical organizations, like the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association (APA), say being transgender is not a mental disorder. Gender dysphoria is recognized as a medical condition that doctors agree should be remedied by offering gender-affirming treatment.From Mike Pence: “The Linn-Marr community schools in Iowa had a policy where you could you had to have a permission slip from your parents to get a Tylenol but you could get a gender transition plan without notifying your parents.”This is misleading. Linn-Marr’s policy directed educators to use students’ chosen names, without consulting with parents. That’s a far reach from a “gender transition plan”. Children under 17 seeking gender affirming care such as hormone replacement therapy or gender affirming surgery.Vivek Ramaswamy was the most pilloried candidate at the previous debate, and will likely win that dubious distinction after this debate.He recently joined TikTok, the controversial social media app many GOP candidates want to ban over allegations that it’s tied to the Chinese Communist party. Asked why he was on the app, Ramamswamy cited its popularity with young people, and said: “The answer is, I have a radical idea for the Republican party. We need to win elections, and part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are.”Nikki Haley did not like that response. “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she said, before going on to outline a number of privacy and national security concerns about the app.Mike Pence wants to “repeal the Green New Deal”. Too bad it’s never passed Congress or been signed into law…“Joe Biden’s Green New Deal agenda is good for Beijing and bad for Detroit. We ought to repeal the Green New Deal,” the former vice president said. “We ought to repeal the Green New Deal.”The Green New Deal is a climate legislation proposal that was never passed. Joe Biden did sign into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes key climate provisions is different.Although the IRA includes major investments in clean energy technologies – some of which have relied on critical minerals controlled by China. But the landmark climate investment is also considered a key step in reducing reliance on China for these minerals by increasing domestic supply. And while ramping up domestic extraction has raised new environmental concerns, Pence’s assertion is notably misleading.The IRA’s tax credits for electric vehicles, for example, come with the caveat that the materials used to manufacture the veible come from the US or countries with which the US has free trade agreements. The law also incentivizes domestic manufacturing.Doug Burgum did it again.The moderators didn’t call on him for a contentious question about social media app TikTok, so he just started talking, keeping the moderators from moving on to Ron DeSantis.“We will have to cut your mic and I don’t want to do that,” warned moderator Dana Perino. Burgum piped down.Raise your hand if you expected Mike Pence to discuss his sex life at this debate.Us neither. But discuss it he did. Chris Christie laid the groundwork while responding to a question about how he would close educational gaps with minorities, which he turned into an attack on teachers unions.“This public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers unions in this country,” Christie said. “And when you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away from the teachers unions.” That line was a reference to Jill Biden, who has taught at community colleges and is a union member.It got weird when the moderators, a few minutes later, called on Mike Pence. “By way of full disclosure, Chris, you’ve mentioned the president’s situation,” Pence said. “My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I gotta admit I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years.” OK Mike. More