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      ‘We are staying in this race’: behind the unraveling of Mark Robinson’s campaign in North Carolina

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      Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s tub-thumping Republican candidate for governor, had been trying to extricate himself from problems caused by his own words long before CNN dumped a truckload of dirt on him Thursday afternoon.Robinson has treated outrage over his ever-increasing litany of racist, sexist, homophobic and antisemitic offense as a badge of honor during the course of the campaign and his term as the state’s lieutenant governor. But CNN’s report tilled his pornographic internet history, unearthing comments that still managed the power to shock.CNN’s report connects Robinson’s name, email address and biographical details to the “minisoldr” persona, where Robinson described himself as a “Black NAZI!”, praised Hitler, described Martin Luther King Jr in racially offensive terms, expressed sexual interest in transgender pornography and described peeping on girls in a public shower when he was 14.“Slavery is not bad,” Robinson reportedly wrote. “Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few.”CNN refrained from exposing the entirety of its findings because some of it was too disturbing to address in public, the news organization said.Shortly before the report came out, Robinson claimed he would remain in the race. If Robinson did not drop out before midnight, he couldn’t drop out; the deadline in North Carolina would have passed.Knowing how the left has sought the removal of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas for receiving questionable largesse from billionaires, it was characteristic of Robinson to liken his situation to Thomas’s “hi-tech lynching” 33 years ago over allegations of sexual misconduct with Anita Hill. “We’re not going to let them do that. We are staying in this race. We’re in it to win it,” Robinson said.But the bombastic candidate had already been facing a crushing defeat after a mix of resurfaced remarks and poor polling led the national Republican party, and Donald Trump, to back off from their support.Robinson’s apparent interest in transgender pornography stands in sharp contrast to his public opposition for trans rights. Calls for his resignation began in 2021 after comments surfaced in which he described education that discussed trans issues as “child abuse”, LGBTQ+ content as “filth” and suggested that trans people should be arrested for using the wrong bathroom.Robinson’s opponent, the North Carolina attorney general, Josh Stein, has needed to do little more than saturate the airwaves and social media with campaign ads drawing on Robinson’s own rhetoric, while speaking in broad positive terms about the state and his platform and reaffirming his support for reproductive rights.“As your next governor, I will veto any further restrictions on reproductive freedom,” Stein said at a rally in Greensboro for Kamala Harris.Abortion policy is at the center of Robinson’s appeal to the right and perhaps at the center of the electoral disaster unfolding for Republicans in North Carolina as well. Robinson’s pro-life politics have not just been strident but defiant and accusatory.In one recently unearthed video from a church sermon in 2022, he attacks women’s empowerment and birth control. “Why don’t you use some of that building up of your mind and building up of empowerment to move down here, to this region down here,” he said, waving his hand around his crotch. “Get this under control.”Notably, Robinson has admitted to paying for an abortion for his then girlfriend, now wife, in the 80s, something he said he regrets. It is the stridency of his anti-abortion rhetoric that has kept North Carolina’s religious right in his corner.Lorra Parker lives in McDowell county, where Republicans have a three-to-one advantage. She went to hear Robinson speak last week. Though she has a broad set of conservative political interests, abortion policy was critical to her identity as a voter, she said. Even as Trump appeared to vacillate on this issue in the debate, he doesn’t need to be the perfect candidate, just the better candidate.She applies the same logic to Robinson. Now, she’s reserving judgment while the reporting sorts itself out, she said.“Honestly, I’d need to hear it from a source other than CNN,” she said. “I think if he’s not guilty of this, then he should fight to prove that he’s not guilty of this. He’s got time to do that. But he’s been lieutenant governor for four years and they just found this out now? That’s a little suspicious to me.”Robinson’s public appearances and social media posts are a treasure trove of opposition research for Democrats painting their opponents as extremists.“The choice couldn’t be clearer,” reads one ad. “Donald Trump and Mark Robinson, their vision is one of division, violence and hate. Mark Robinson just fights job-killing culture wars … Just a few weeks ago, from of all places a church pulpit, he said ‘some folks need killing.’”On defense from all angles, Robinson went to ground shortly after winning the Republican primary earlier this year, refusing interviews with all but the most stridently conservative publications and broadcasters and largely avoiding public appearances.But a strategy of riding Trump’s coattails and counting on the state’s generally conservative lean had been collapsing as waves of negative press – about his campaign finances, the maladministration of his wife’s government-funded non-profit, and always his incendiary rhetoric – flooded the field.Robinson has not led in a poll since June; even before CNN’s revelations, the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the race in July threatened to turn a close race into a rout. The latest poll from Emerson College shows him losing to Stein by eight points.So, Robinson resurfaced a few weeks ago. He had made tentative steps in small venues far from the scrutiny of big-market news reporters to test messaging that retained as much heat as possible without burning people: cayenne rhetoric, not Carolina Reaper.On 11 September, the day after the Harris-Trump debate, Robinson stepped into the back room of Countryside Barbecue in cherry red Marion, North Carolina, looking for friendly territory and as much of a rhetorical rebrand as he might muster under fire.His stump speech touched on gas prices and teacher salaries and state taxes – policy issues instead of the culture war molotov cocktails about abortion and guns and gay people which launched his career and won him the nomination.But time and again, his attention turned to how the press and his Democratic opponent, had been lighting him up.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’ve got a guy named Josh Stein who wants to talk about any and everything except the truth,” Robinson said. “He’s got something about me from Facebook eight or nine years ago, where he cut it off just to play about three seconds of it. He didn’t play the whole thing, something about ‘keep your skirt down.’”Robinson was referring to the wall-to-wall ads playing across the state replaying a Facebook video from 2009 in which he says abortion “is about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down”.“He cut off the part where he said ‘or keep your pants up’,” Robinson said to the conservative crowd last week, for whom that was convincing. Then he suggested that ad and others were deceptive. He called his opponent a liar. He dared the press to report it. He also demanded a debate, which Stein has been refusing.Shades of the Robinson bluster lay under the fresh paint of respectability.He spent almost as much time haranguing the president and vice-president in the mountain towns of western North Carolina as he did his actual opponent.“The same one that was right there riding shotgun with [Biden] while he was doing it was on TV last night talking about how she was going to fix it all,” Robinson said of Harris. “She tore it up, but she can’t fix it. What policy has she ever championed since she’s been in any office that will fix the problems that we’re facing right now?”Robinson has been walking back his previous, strident calls for a total abortion ban in North Carolina. Earlier this year, he argued for a six-week “heartbeat” law limiting abortion. Earlier this week, he argued for the public to “move on” from the abortion issue.In a room packed with church-going Republicans in Marion, he said: “Everybody may have a different opinion on that.“My opinion is this: no matter where that law sits, as the governor of this state, I’m going to fight to save every single solitary life in the womb. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 12 weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, 20 weeks – we’re going to fight for life in this state.In a reference to Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, Ohio senator and author of Hillbilly Elegy, some of Robinson’s road team wore shirts printed with the words “Felon / Hillbilly”.The shirts reflect the tone of Robinson’s race. He has tied himself for good or ill to Trump’s tenor and politics. But even Trump’s team has had enough.According to the conservative Carolina Journal, the Trump campaign has been pressuring Robinson to withdraw, out of fear that North Carolina’s election-deciding swing voters will not just abandon the lieutenant governor but the entire Republican ballot.Citing anonymous campaign sources, the Carolina Journal reported that the Stein campaign leaked the material to CNN, and that the Trump campaign told Robinson that he was no longer welcome at rallies for Trump or Vance. Trump has not mentioned Robinson in the last week. Vance held his first solo rally in North Carolina on Wednesday. Robinson did not appear. His office announced that Robinson had contracted Covid-19.Trump campaign officials denied that they had been pressuring Robinson to quit the race in comments to NBC.The Stein campaign released a terse statement shortly after the CNN piece aired.“North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor,” the campaign said. “Josh remains focused on winning this campaign so that together we can build a safer, stronger North Carolina for everyone.”The Harris campaign, however, has gleefully circulated videos with Trump praising Robinson. Trump referred to Robinson as “Martin Luther King Jr on steroids.”Robinson, in comments under his “minisoldr” persona, said: “I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!” More

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      If US Senators are openly Islamophobic, what hope is there? | Representative Ilhan Omar

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      On Tuesday, Senator John Kennedy told the only Muslim American witness during a committee hearing to “hide [her] head in a bag”.The intended purpose of Tuesday’s historic Senate judiciary committee hearing was to bring attention to the rise in hate against Muslim, Jewish, and Palestinian Americans. The rise of antisemitism has sparked many hearings in Congress. In contrast, this was the first hearing since 7 October that addressed hate targeting Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian Americans. Fighting bigotry requires us to condemn it wherever we see it. For far too long, hate speech made against Arab, Muslim and Palestinian Americans goes ignored.The increase in threats, hate speech and violence across the country demands serious attention. Instead, Kennedy used his time to verbally attack the witness, Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry, for her identity. It was telling that Kennedy along with his Republican colleagues could not avoid actively engaging in anti-Muslim hate speech during a hearing about the rise in hate crimes.In the face of vile accusations, Maya Berry answered Kennedy’s remarks with grace, sensitivity and poise. She used her time to educate the sitting senators on the committee about the uptick in hate that too many communities face daily. As unfair remarks were hurled at her, the American people witnessed the very purpose of the hearing in plain view for all: the normalization of hate speech is alive and well.During Kennedy’s questioning, he repeatedly tried to make his line of questioning about foreign policy in the Middle East, instead of making it about the rise of hate crimes impacting Americans. Kennedy did not get the answers he wanted so he resulted in telling the witness to hide her head in a bag. To be clear, Kennedy’s bigoted comments were unacceptable for anyone, let alone a sitting member of the US Senate. Not only should his comments be unequivocally condemned by every single sitting member of Congress, but his remarks raise serious concerns about the normalization of Islamophobic hate speech in our country.Regrettably, we know that espousing anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bigotry resonates well within the base of the current Republican party. During the committee hearing, senators Cruz, Hawley, Graham and Kennedy were competing for the top bigot award. Islamophobia sells to their base and that is why they remain hellbent on ginning up hate speech at the expense of communities across this country they deem as “other”, including their own constituents. The reality is, Kennedy will face no consequences for his actions because of his power, position, privilege and incompetence. But for millions of Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian Americans across this country, it is imperative that we call out this speech in order to bring needed change and for the safety of those communities.As Maya Berry clearly stated in her testimony, the hateful stereotypes of Arab, Muslim, Palestinian Americans normalized in our media and by our elected officials contribute to the widespread hate felt by millions of Americans. We cannot afford to let Kennedy’s comments slide because this is not a one-off or an isolated comment, it is reflective of a harmful trend.We have seen the tangible consequences of this play out in communities across the country. In November, three college students of Palestinian descent were gunned down in Vermont, leaving one of them paralyzed. Last December, Wadee Alfayoumi, a six-year-old Palestinian American child was brutally murdered in Chicago and his mother hospitalized. Another horrific hate crime happened when a Pakistani American woman was stabbed multiple times in Texas.In Minnesota, we have seen an uptick in anti-Muslim attacks throughout my own district, including residents being shot and physically assaulted, many of the incidents going unreported. During the protests across college campuses, many of the Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian students were unjustly censored, suspended and arrested. Even Donald Trump and JD Vance’s false claims about Haitians in Ohio have resulted in bomb threats across Springfield.Hate-filled rhetoric has dangerous implications. As someone who has been the subject of frequent death threats and offensive Islamophobic speech, I know the harm of hate speech first hand. From former president Donald Trump telling me to go back where I came from, to the outrageous words by sitting congresswoman Lauren Boebert when she suggested I was a suicide bomber, to mainstream media including CNN and Fox News peddling Islamophobic tropes in their coverage – this harmful language not only endangers my life, but the lives of all Muslims and people who share these identities with me. This speech is corroding our democracy, the fabric of our communities, and the future of our country. In the US, we should be better than this.As Berry rightfully pointed out: “Hate against any one group is inseparable from hate against all and hate prevention should be done collectively – in coalition and partnership with all communities affected by hate.” Hate in all its forms should have no place here in the US.Kennedy’s comments were just the tip of the iceberg. It is incumbent upon all of us to call out hate speech whenever we see it because fighting bigotry of any kind means fighting bigotry of every kind.

      Ilhan Omar is an American politician serving as the US representative for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district More

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      Trump and Vance’s Springfield smear is a microcosm of their entire campaign | Sidney Blumenthal

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      After Donald Trump’s disastrous debate with Kamala Harris on 10 September he decided to center his campaign on a single incendiary issue: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”When Trump was corrected during the debate by the ABC moderator David Muir, who pointed out that his statement about the Haitian community in the Ohio town was erroneous, he insisted it was factual. “Well,” he said, “I’ve seen people on television, people on television say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food.’” But there were no such “people on television”. There were no dogs taken for food. Trump called Muir a “foolish fool”, and said, “He’s a guy with good hair, but not as good as it was five years ago.”Trump showed up at the debate with a new hairstyle and tint – less Liberace and brassy blond, cut a bit shorter and softer, and shaped without the stiff angular pompadour – to lend him a more youthful appearance. His hair is always a preoccupation that has in the past had priority over policy. On a visit to France, in 2018, he refused to attend a memorial service at the Aisne-Marne American cemetery of first world war soldiers near Paris in a light rain whose humidity might loosen the firm hold of his hairspray, and gave as an excuse that the fallen were “suckers” and “losers”.At the debate, he was anxiously competing with someone on the stage other than Kamala Harris. He was fixated on the hair of the younger male journalist. His narcissism exhausts him. It gives him no rest. “It was three against one,” Trump said. “I was surprised at David Muir. I thought he was a high-quality person, but he is just a sleaze like the rest of them.”But Trump quickly gave up on Muir’s hair to focus on the more significant issue of “eating the pets”. Trump’s obsession was not an absurd, spasmodic or random act. It was not an off-ramp along the winding road of his incoherent digressions. Trump homed in on the lie as a strategic necessity. Trump understood that its outrageousness would make it unforgettable and repeatable. The falsehood served to personify the fears he routinely seeks to arouse of an alien invasion. The dogs and cats substitute for his usual horror story about a young woman murdered by an immigrant in the country illegally. He moved the blood libel to lovable pets.After the debate left him staggering into the spin room to proclaim, “It’s the best debate I ever had,” before confusedly retreating, Trump’s imperative has been to hold on to his base. He can afford no erosion. Losing even a point might be a falling rock that starts a landslide.Trump desperately needed to distract the national discussion away from abortion. His pre-debate charade of gyrating positions failed to beguile women voters. His charm offensive was offensive without the charm. The gender gap widened to an even greater chasm.The day before the debate, he held a commanding lead on the economy, 10 points over Harris, 55% to 45%, in a Pew poll. But afterwards, the FT-Michigan Ross polls showed Harris with an advantage on trust in her handling of the economy by 44% to 42%, and 48% to 42% among those who watched the debate.Trump knows in his bones that his supporters will believe anything he says. If he ever feels they will abandon him, he cannot shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue. He does not require any evidence, not even spectral, to trigger their need to demonstrate unswerving faith. Once he speaks, declaring miracles, he is certain his supporters will fall to their knees. And, mirabile dictu, a majority, 52%, say it’s true that “Haitian immigrants are abducting and eating pet dogs and cats,” according to a post-debate YouGov poll. Only 5% are willing to confess the heresy that it is “definitely false”, while 25% are agnostically “unsure”.Trump’s lie about “eating pet dogs and cats” is his best-polling lie. It polled nine points better among his supporters than his lie that “in some states it is legal to kill a baby after birth”. It polled 24 points better than his lie that “public schools are providing students with sex-change operations” and 44 points better than his lie that “noise from wind turbines has been shown to cause cancer.” The raw numbers dictated the emphasis of his fiction.The illogic of his demagogy gives Trump no pause. He has railed that immigrants are stealing “Black jobs”. He says the Haitians of Springfield are illegal. But they are in fact legal and of course black. They are the black people usurping the “Black jobs”.Trump knew before he uttered his lie in the debate about “eating pets” that it was untrue. The morning of the debate, according to the Wall Street Journal, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, had a staffer call the office of the Springfield city manager. “He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” that official, Bryan Heck, told the Journal. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”Rather than debunk the rumor he had been informed was untrue, Vance spread the falsehood immediately. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” he tweeted, pinning the blame for the presence of the Haitian community, which had settled in the town a decade earlier, on Harris, who was incidentally not the “border czar”. Within a half-hour of Vance’s post, the Springfield News-Sun reported that police stated that there were no incidents of pets being stolen or eaten and that the story was “not something that’s on our radar right now”.Trump repeated the lie in the debate and kept repeating it. His incitement was followed by 33 bomb threats that shut down schools, hospitals and municipal buildings in Springfield. The town’s CultureFest was cancelled. Classes at Clark State College and Wittenberg University were suspended because of bomb threats. (Wittenberg was founded in 1845 at Springfield by devout German-American abolitionists. The last time classes were suspended there was for the send-off of a volunteer military company of students to fight for the Union in the civil war. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the school held a day of prayer and fasting in celebration.)“Do you denounce the bomb threats in Springfield?” a reporter asked Trump on 14 September.“I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats,” Trump lied. “I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened.” He pledged: “We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio. Large deportations. We’re gonna get these people out.” He said they would be the first to be rounded up. He would use “local law enforcement” and the national guard, despite the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits such deployments against civilians. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he claimed. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country.” “And you know,” he had previously told a cheering crowd, “it’s going to be a bloody story.”The next day, at a rally in Arizona, Trump conflated his lie about “eating pets” with his lurid stories about migrant murders. “It was so beautiful. Springfield, Ohio. I was there. I campaigned there a while ago. Springfield, it was so beautiful. Now it’s just … What a place. Can you imagine? You have this small little community. All of a sudden you have 20,000 illegals in your community. Nobody knows where they come from. I’m angry about young American girls being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens.”Trump’s narrative of Springfield perfectly crystalized his nightmarish vision of the United States as “a failing nation”, “going to hell” and the “misery, crime, poverty, disease and destruction to communities all across our land”. It was a tale of a deindustrialized town in Middle America suddenly inundated by a horde of illegal aliens from “shithole countries”, “vermin” bringing crime and disease, “not humans” murdering girls and killing pets. Long before Trump heard about Springfield, in 2017, he said, “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out” – they “all have Aids.”Except that his story of Springfield as a parable of American decline is a myth. The town’s population had fallen from 80,000 to 60,000 when the local chamber of commerce and city officials in 2014 formulated an economic development plan to bring in Haitian immigrants as crucial to revitalization. By 2020, Springfield had attracted new industries and more than 8,000 new jobs. Existing manufacturers also expanded. The New York Times, in a report, quoted Horton Hobbs, vice-president of economic development for the Greater Springfield Partnership, “It was incredible to witness the transformation of our community.”Public services, however, became strained as a result of the growth in the previously declining town. City planners had neglected to factor in their need for support from the state and federal government. So, the city manager requested federal help to deal with a housing shortage in a letter on 8 July of this year, which he copied to JD Vance. Rather than offering any help for a solution, Vance used the letter the following day in a Senate banking committee hearing with the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, to cite Springfield as an example of the problems caused by “high illegal immigration levels under the Biden administration”. He was campaigning for himself to a party of one. Vance was then under consideration as Trump’s running mate and his selection would be announced a week later.Vance defended his invention of the story about “eating pets” on 15 September by insisting it was a dutiful form of constituent service. He explained it came from “firsthand accounts from my constituents”. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal reported, it started with a false rumor from a Trump supporter, a woman who later discovered her missing cat, Miss Sassy Pants, was all along in the basement.“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes,” Vance said. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” His artless admission of his compulsion to lie – “to create stories” – showed he had not yet reached the standard of shamelessness set by Trump. It’s hard being a self-taught spaniel trying overnight to learn the tricks of the master. Run, Spot, run.On 17 September, the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, went on the PBS News Hour to tell Trump and Vance that their false claim about Springfield Haitians “needs to stop”. He said that the Haitians were legal immigrants, “great workers” and “a boost to the economy”. “So those comments are – about eating dogs and things – they’re very hurtful.”The Trump campaign tried to deflect reproach by compounding its fictions into an amalgam of villains, projecting that it was the media that was manipulated by foreign forces to blame for distortion, that Trump and Vance had no responsibility for the atmosphere of violence, and that criticism of Trump was the cause of a deranged drifter stalking him with a semi-automatic rifle in what was presumed to be an assassination attempt.The same day that DeWine pleaded for Trump to “stop”, the Trump campaign issued a statement threading together its paranoid appeals: “The Democrat media complex spent an entire week claiming, with no evidence, that by elevating the very real, legitimate concerns of Springfield residents, President Trump and Senator Vance were somehow inciting bomb threats. That has been proven to be a complete hoax, of course – and the record must be immediately corrected. Instead of doing the bidding of foreign nations, perhaps the Fake News should take a long, hard look inside their own homes and ask how a deranged psycho – echoing their rhetoric – was inspired to try and kill the Republican nominee for president.”That day, meanwhile, Vance attempted to disentangle his statement that he needed “to create stories”. “When I said – and the media always does this, they’re very dishonest – when I say that I created a story, I’m talking about the media story, by focusing the press’s intention on what’s going on in Springfield.” He was just doing his due diligence, he explained again, after his constituents told him “they’d seen something in Springfield” – the case of the missing Miss Sassy Pants. He had done nothing wrong. “Well,” he said, “I think the media has a responsibility to factcheck the residents of Springfield, not lie about them.” The next day Vance piped up, “I’m still going to call people illegal aliens.” He meant his defiance to show to Trump he would squarely stand on the lie. Is our running mate learning?So far, Trump’s pet tactic is the representative issue of his campaign. The bizarre story of “eating pets” went from a stray unfounded rumor to Vance’s social media “cat meme” to Trump’s barking debating point to denunciation of the “Fake News” and the Democrats as supposed accomplices of a misfit assassin. All of these seemingly disconnected incidents are linked together by an inner logic. Its salience comes from being more than a drive-by lie. The story illuminates Trump’s all-encompassing worldview. He traces the fall of the country to an ultimate source, an alien invasion that must be extirpated to prevent “corruption of the blood”. The Haitian immigrants in Springfield eating the dogs and eating the cats are now his proof.Trump fills in the picture by projecting his designated enemies and scapegoats as the real aggressors, histrionically conflates himself with the wounded country as victims, stabbed in the back by nefarious conspiracies of secret powers at the top allied with predators at the bottom, defends himself from prosecution for his crimes by attacking the system of justice, and asserts that honor and blood can be preserved only by vindicating him as the path to salvation and restoration. “I am the one who is going to save the country,” he said about Democrats who identify him as a threat to democracy, “and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out … It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat.”

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Curriculum restrictions in US public schools hurt teachers and students alike | Stacey Abrams and Randi Weingarten

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      Students across the country are settling into the new school year, connecting with friends and developing new knowledge and skills. Teachers are also hard at work, but in many places, their lesson plans will be far more complicated than they were last year.An alarming number of states have passed laws forcing educators to navigate terrifying legal and professional minefields – laws that restrict forthright lessons about history and current events, policies that make it illegal to discuss identity in our schools, and bans on books written by or about people from diverse backgrounds. More than 30 states have passed or introduced more than 100 anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) bills, and 20 states have passed bills banning the discussion of race and gender in the classroom. In these polarizing times, many teachers are racked with anxiety about whether teaching in ways they know to be appropriate could subject them to discipline, harassment or even termination.Access to strong, supported public schools is one of the key pathways to the American dream. By attempting to shape public education to reflect their worldview and punishing educators for teaching a diverse and inclusive curriculum, reactionary legislators are looking to impose their specific ideologies over educational institutions that serve a broad public.And they disregard the value of free speech that anchors our democracy. The first amendment is often viewed as an individual right, namely the ability to say and think what you want without government interference. But our nation’s founders understood that the primacy of the amendment stems from the collective nature of the right: it is our ability as a people to speak and think freely that ensures we remain a free people.No group of people better illustrates how the first amendment functions to protect us all as a society than public school teachers. Our teachers bear the tremendous responsibility of shaping our future leaders. They are charged with educating our children about the importance of our nation’s complex history, engaging in civil discourse with people with whom they disagree and thinking clearly and independently about the world they inhabit.To do so is a monumental job, and teachers necessarily surrender some of their first amendment rights when they agree to take on these responsibilities. They must defer to the state curriculum. Their job is to educate, not indoctrinate. But teachers do not surrender all of their first amendment rights upon entering the profession. They could not serve our children otherwise.Guidance to teachers must be clear and unambiguous, especially if their jobs are on the line. Bans on the teaching of our nation’s complex history – and its complicated present – degrade the ability of teachers to do their jobs. These vague bans are unconstitutional, unnavigable and undermining to our core narrative as Americans. The government should support teachers to carry out their vital role, not create a chilling effect on speech and force people to guess at what is permissible to teach.Bans on entire subject areas are so broad that they impede the ability of teachers to perform their most essential duty. Educators must be permitted to teach the required curriculum – including all the subjects our children need to compete in a global economy and to acquire the skills and knowledge they will need to succeed in life.Cynical, narrow-minded schemes to censor and skew what is taught and learned in our nation’s classrooms hurt our efforts to help all children get the best education possible. In a pluralistic society such as the United States, that includes helping students to bridge differences with people with different beliefs and backgrounds. There is no better place to do that than in our public schools.

      Stacey Abrams is the founder of American Pride Rises and former minority leader of the Georgia house of representatives

      Randi Weingarten is president of the 1.8 million-member AFT, which represents people who work in education, healthcare and public services More

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      Oprah hosts star-studded sit-down with Kamala Harris: ‘Hope is making a comeback’

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      Kamala Harris sat down with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday for a “virtual rally” that included a wide-ranging sit-down interview, during which Harris attacked her opponent’s stance on reproductive rights and pledged to sign a border security bill thwarted by Senate Republicans, but largely kept her guard up with the legendary television interviewer.The event, helmed by one of the all-time masters of the television talkshow, was filled with celebrity cameos and heart-wrenching personal stories. It was live-streamed from Michigan, a key battleground state.“There’s a real feeling of optimism and hope making a comeback … for this new day that is no longer on the horizon but is here. We’re living it,” Oprah told the audience of 400 in-person attendees and the more than 200,000 others who tuned in virtually.The star-studded list of remote attendees included Tracee Ellis Ross, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Chris Rock and Ben Stiller, who tuned in from their living rooms to express their enthusiasm for the Harris-Walz ticket.“​I wanna bring my daughters to White House to meet this Black woman president,” Rock said. “I think she will make a great president and I’m ready to turn the page. All the hate and negativity, it’s gotta stop.”“Hello, President Harris,” Meryl Streep greeted her, then covered her mouth. “Oop!”“Forty-seven days,” Harris responded, laughing.Oprah faced a challenge in sitting down across from Harris, who has been known among journalists since the beginning of her career as a rigidly controlled, repetitive interviewee.Harris did not open up much, even when Oprah asked her about her sudden transformation after Biden endorsed her to take over the presidential campaign.View image in fullscreenBut Oprah did provoke one moment of unexpected candor, when she noted her surprise at learning that Harris has long been a gun owner.“If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot,” Harris said. She laughed, sounding surprised at herself. “Sorry. Probably shouldn’t have said that. But my staff will deal with that later.”“I’m not trying to take everyone’s guns away,” Harris added.During the nearly 90-minute conversation, Harris spoke directly with members of the audience, who raised their concerns about immigration, the cost of living and the crackdown on reproductive rights.Oprah said Americans were grieving with Haitians and people mistaken for Haitians, who were now living in fear because the Trump campaign had spread lurid, false claims about them. But she added that many Americans on the left, the right and in the middle did have genuine concerns about immigration into the US.In response to an audience member’s question about what she would do to promote border security, Harris blamed Donald Trump for killing legislation that would have provided more funding for law enforcement at the border.“The bill would have allowed us to have more resources to prosecute transnational criminal organizations,” Harris said. “Donald Trump called up his folks and said, ‘Don’t put that bill on the floor for a vote.’ He preferred to run on a problem instead of addressing the problem. And he put his personal political security before border security.”Also in attendance were the mother and sisters of Amber Nicole Thurman, a woman who died after failing to receive prompt medical care in 2022 when she experienced complications from taking abortion pills, just weeks after Georgia’s abortion ban went into effect. A recent report deemed her the first “preventable” death to be confirmed as a result of Georgia’s ban.Her family blamed Donald Trump and his supreme court picks for her death. “They just let her die because of some stupid abortion ban. They treated her like she was just another number,” Thurman’s older sister said of the medical professionals she had turned to for help.“You’re looking at a mother who is broken,” Thurman’s mother said, through tears. “It’s the worst pain that a parent could ever feel. I want you all to know that Amber was not a statistic. She was loved by a strong family and we would have done whatever to get our baby the help that she needed. Women around the world need to know that this was preventable.”View image in fullscreenHarris gave her condolences to the family and reiterated that Trump chose his three supreme court justices with the intention of getting abortion bans to spread across states. “They did as he intended,” Harris said.Thursday evening’s Unite for America live-streamed rally brought together 400 groups that have held virtual rallies for the Harris-Walz ticket.The first virtual rally was organized by Win with Black Women, the group that, within hours of Joe Biden dropping out of the race, brought 44,000 Black women on to a Zoom call to strategize and raise money for the Harris campaign.“We knew that we needed to get to work,” Jotaka Eaddy, founder of Win with Black Women, said during the event. “It was a moment in our country to show what Black women have always done.”Despite big bumps following the Democratic national convention and the 10 September presidential debate, the race between Harris and Donald Trump remains tight, with both candidates polling at 47%, according to the most recent poll from the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College. 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      Trump bemoans lack of support from Jewish voters and blames ‘Democrat curse’

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      Donald Trump has complained bitterly to Jewish donors that a majority of Jews vote against him in US presidential elections, suggesting that the Democratic party has a “curse on you”.The Republican presidential candidate made the remarks during a speech on Thursday at the Israeli-American Council national summit in Washington, where he used hyperbolic language to warn that victory for his opponent Kamala Harris would result in Israel being wiped off the map.Airing grievances at the end of a disjointed speech, with US and Israel flags behind him, Trump claimed that his support among Jewish voters went from 25% in 2016 to 29% in 2020. “And based on what I did and based on my love – the same love that you have – I should be at 100,” he carped.Trump asserted that he had been “the best president by far” for Israel but a new poll shows him still below 40% among Jewish voters. “That means you’ve got 60% voted for somebody that hates Israel. And I say it – it’s going to happen – it’s only because of the Democrat hold or curse on you. You can’t let this happen. Forty percent is not acceptable, because we have an election to win.”Trump has been criticised for associating with extremists who promote antisemitic rhetoric, such as the far-right activist Nick Fuentes and the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. When the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke endorsed Trump in 2016, Trump responded that he knew “nothing about David Duke, I know nothing about white supremacists”.But during his four years in office, Trump approved a series of policy changes long sought by many advocates of Israel, such as moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, officially recognising the Golan Heights as being under Israel’s sovereignty, and terminating Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.At Thursday’s donor event, entitled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America”, Trump told the mostly supportive audience: “My promise to Jewish Americans is this: with your vote I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House. But in all fairness, I already am.”He criticised Harris over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, and for what he branded antisemitic protests on college campuses and elsewhere. “Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you or to protect your children.”But the former president returned again and again to what is evidently a political sore point: his persistent struggle among Jewish voters. He repeated a talking point that Jewish people who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined”.He went on: “I will put it to you very simply and gently. I really haven’t been treated right. But you haven’t been treated right because you’re putting yourself in great danger and the United States hasn’t been treated right.”He claimed that Israel “will cease to exist” within two or three years if he does not win the election. “I have to tell you the truth and maybe you’ll be energised because there’s no way that I should be getting 40% of the vote. I’m the one that’s protecting you. These are the people who are going destroy you and you have 60% of Jewish people essentially voting for that.”Trump claimed that a recent poll in Israel was 99% favourable towards him, though it was unclear what poll he was citing. He went on to boast: “Everybody loves me. I could run for prime minister but I’d have to learn your language. That’s a tough language to learn … I’m the most popular person in Israel. But here it doesn’t translate. It is a strange thing.”Concluding his remarks, the former president reiterated: “I believe that Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth if I don’t win.” He described, without evidence, Harris as “anti-Israel” and “anti-Jewish”, even though the vice-president is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff.Trump was introduced by the megadonor Miriam Adelson, a co-owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team and the widow of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Critics have likened the Adelsons’ ability to pull public policy on Israel away from public opinion to the National Rifle Association’s influence on gun laws.Miriam Adelson praised Trump’s “beautiful Jewish daughter” Ivanka and urged the gathering to support him. “All of us Jews must vote for him,” she said. “It is our sacred duty in gratitude for everything he has done and trust in everything he will yet do.”Earlier on Thursday, leaders of the Uncommitted Democratic protest vote movement said the group would not endorse Harris for president, but also urged supporters to vote against Trump. The group, which opposes the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US weapons transfers to Israel. More

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      Kamala Harris holds star-studded event with Oprah in battleground state of Michigan – as it happened

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      Among those at the event are Cat ladies for Kamala, train lovers for Harris-Walz, Republicans for Harris, Swifties for Kamala.Actors Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep are joining via video chat, as are Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Jennifer Lopez, Tracee Ellis-Ross and Brian Cranston.This blog is closing now, thanks for following along. See all our coverage of the 2024 US electionsOprah concluded by quoting Maya Angelou, saying, “if you know better you have to do better”.That event has now ended.Harris is asked by Meryl Streep what preparations are being made for the possibility that she wins, but Trump does not accept the result.Harris says many Americans who voted for Trump have decided 6 January was a bridge too far.She says “the lawyers are working” and that is important to speak to friends and neighbours about misinformation, and to respect poll workers, and to not be afraid to vote.She doesn’t really answer the question.People who have experienced gun violence are speaking now, again speaking through tears. A woman whose daughter was involved in a school shooting recounts the feeling of not knowing if her daughter, who survived, was alright.Harris says what is needed is common sense, and assault weapons bans, and notes that she owns a gun.If somebody breaks into her house, she says, they’re getting shot. She probably should not have said that, she adds, saying her staff will deal with it later.Tracee Ellis-Ross points out that women who don’t have children still contribute a lot to society. She is saying this because of JD Vance’s childless cat lady comments.Julia Roberts is speaking now via video link.She says she wants to be able to travel and have people think it is a good thing she is American, not a bad one.Harris responds to comments from Thurman’s mother and sister, saying, “First of all, I’m so sorry.”Thurman’s family only recently learned how she died, Harris says.Amber’s mom shared with me over and over that the word preventable keeps coming to her, says Harris.Harris points out that Trump chose three members of the supreme court, which then overturned Roe v Wade. She says he did it intentionally.In 2016 Trump said he wanted abortion legality to be decided by individual states, while Clinton vowed to defend abortion rights.He has boasted that he “was able to kill Roe v Wade”.More from Donegan on that story:
      Thurman could have been cured with a D&C, or dilation and curettage, a procedure in which the cervix is dilated to create an opening through which instruments can be inserted to empty out the contents of a uterus. The procedure is a popular form of abortion, but it is also a routine part of miscarriage and other gynecological care. If the tissue was promptly removed, she probably would have been fine: a D&C requires no special equipment and takes only about 15 minutes.
      But Georgia’s abortion ban outlawed the D&C procedure, making it a felony to perform except in cases of managing a “spontaneous” or “naturally occurring” miscarriage. Because Thurman had taken abortion pills, her miscarriage was illegal to treat. She suffered in a hospital bed for 20 hours, developing sepsis and beginning to experience organ failure. By the time the Georgia doctors were finally willing to treat her, it was too late.
      A woman named Shanette is speaking now through tears about her daughter, Amber Thurman.“You are looking at a mother who is broken,” she says.Thurman, a Black 28-year-old mother to a young son died in Georgia after doctors at a hospital there refused to perform a simple procedure that could have saved her life – because the law did not allow them.Here is the Guardian’s Moira Donegan on the subject:Hadley Duvall, 22, is speaking now. She has told the story of being raped and impregnated, at 12, by her stepfather, as she helps Harris campaign for reproductive rights.When Roe v Wade was overturned, she says, she found that while her abuse was over, her story was not.She thanks Harris for “standing up” for women, and “really showing us that life is not about the hard things you go through”.“You don’t bow down,’ she says.Here is Duvall speaking in August:Harris is asked by a young person about the economy, and the difficulty of going from being a student to an independent adult.She compares her and Trump’s plans.She has been stronger than at other times on the economy here, waffling less and talking about her policies more.Harris references Trump’s response at the debate between the candidates, where he said he had a “concept of a plan” for healthcare. She will give small businesses a $50,000 grant, she says. She says the current small business grant of $5,000 is for a “concept of a business”.Harris is asked about her plan to tackle the cost of living. The economy is one of the areas where Harris has often been weak in her responses.She talks about policies she has announced. She says she will take on price-gouging to bring down the price of groceries.She says she will bring down the cost of buying a home with a tax credit. She will support small business owners.She takes a swipe at Trump’s family wealth and bankruptcy plans. She says she will extend the child tax credit.She repeats her idea of an “opportunity economy”.She says she will sign the bill into law if elected.Harris is asked by a voter what her specific steps would be on strengthening the border.“This is not a theoretical issue for me, this is something I have actually worked on,” she says. “I take very seriously the importance of having a secure border.”She says she has prosecuted cross-border criminal gangs.She talks about the border security bill that Trump blocked.“It would have allowed us to stem the flow of fentanyl,” she says. It would have allowed more agents.Trump prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem, Harris says.Oprah brings up Springfield, and the repeated false claims made by Trump and his running mate JD Vance, about immigrants in the town.“It seems to us that something happened to you the moment President Joe Biden stepped aside and withdrew his candidacy, that a veil or something dropped, and you just stepped into your power,” Oprah says to Harris.Oprah stands up and does an impression of Harris walking confidently.“We each have those moments in our lives where it’s time to step up,” Harris says.She felt a sense of responsibility, and with that comes a sense of purpose, she says.“There really is so much at stake”.Harris walks into the event, hugging Whitmer and Oprah, and taking a seat in an armchair opposite Oprah.She says when we’ve dealt with so much that is exhausting with this movement trying to divide Americans, it is important to remember what unites Americans. More