US Politics

McCarthy suffers eighth defeat in bid for House speaker as stalemate drags onThe impasse over choosing a House speaker continued as McCarthy fell short of votes held up by his detractors The stalemate over choosing a House speaker continued on Thursday, after the Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed to win the gavel for an eighth time.McCarthy won 201 votes on the eighth ballot, leaving him 17 votes short of the 218 needed for a victory. The results mirrored previous rounds of voting, reflecting the entrenched opposition that McCarthy is facing within the House Republican conference.House Republicans aim to rein in ethics body preparing to investigate their partyRead moreThe Thursday votes included a couple of surprises. Far-right congressman Matt Gaetz, a Republican of Florida, twice cast a ballot for Donald Trump. As the US constitution does not specify that the House speaker must be a member of the chamber, lawmakers are not required to support one of their colleagues. Trump received no other votes.Another two of McCarthy’s detractors, congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado and congressman Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, threw their support behind congressman Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. Hern, the chair of the Republican study committee, said that the possibility of becoming speaker was “something I’ll have to think and pray about before deciding if it’s a job I’ll run for”.Before Thursday’s proceedings, the House deadlocked over the speakership three times on Wednesday, following the three inconclusive votes held a day earlier. Rather than voting a fourth time that day, members moved to adjourn for a few hours on Wednesday evening, giving McCarthy’s team more time to negotiate with his Republican detractors.The evening, too, failed to produce a solution, so the chamber reconvened only to adjourn again until the following afternoon. This is the first time in a century that the House has not chosen a speaker on the first ballot.In a glimmer of hope for McCarthy’s prospects, most of the holdout Republicans supported his move to adjourn until Thursday at noon. The final vote on the measure was 216-214, as Democrats and a few Republicans tried and failed to keep the chamber in session.Freshman congressman John James, a Republican of Michigan, celebrated the successful motion to adjourn as a “small victory” when he renominated McCarthy on Thursday. But the House Democratic caucus chair, Pete Aguilar, mocked James’s boast as a telling sign of Republican dysfunction.“There is no victory in adjourning without doing the business of the people,” Aguilar said as he renominated the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries.The third day of voting came amid reports that McCarthy has made significant concessions to his roughly 20 detractors within the Republican conference. According to CNN, McCarthy has agreed to a chamber rule change allowing just one House member to call for a vote to remove the sitting speaker. McCarthy has also reportedly agreed to allow additional members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus to serve on the influential rules committees, and he has promised votes on some of the detractors’ top legislative priorities.In another major win for far-right House members, the McCarthy-aligned Pac Congressional Leadership Fund has reached an agreement with the organization Club for Growth to not invest in open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts. The two groups have previously clashed in primaries where the Club for Growth promoted candidates who were farther to the right than those endorsed by the CLF. The agreement could give hard-right candidates a better chance at a primary victory, clearing the way for them to join the House after winning relatively easy general elections.“This agreement on Super [Pacs] fulfills a major concern we have pressed for,” said David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth. “Assuming these principles are met, Club for Growth will support Kevin McCarthy for speaker.”But the concessions do not yet appear to have swayed McCarthy’s critics within the conference. Congressman Scott Perry, chair of the House Freedom Caucus and a leader of the anti-McCarthy coalition, expressed frustration that details of the concessions had leaked to the press. He voted against McCarthy for the seventh time on Thursday.“A deal is NOT done. When confidences are betrayed and leaks are directed, it’s even more difficult to trust,” Perry said on Thursday afternoon. “I will not yield to the status quo.”A deal is NOT done. When confidences are betrayed and leaks are directed, it’s even more difficult to trust. Totally unsat. I will not yield to the status quo.— RepScottPerry (@RepScottPerry) January 5, 2023
McCarthy can only afford to lose the support of four Republicans and still become speaker, assuming all 434 current members of the House cast ballots. If some of McCarthy’s detractors instead choose to vote “present”, the threshold for victory could be lower than 218.McCarthy’s allies complained that the impasse is already affecting their constituents, as all House business has come to a halt until a speaker is selected.“My office was informed by an agency today that they cannot communicate with my staff regarding active casework because we are not yet sworn in,” said congressman Don Bacon, a Republican of Nebraska. “The handful holding up the speaker election is not helping Americans but directly hurting them.”In the face of Republican division, Democrats have remained united in backing their newly chosen leader. On each of the first six ballots, Jeffries won the support of all 212 members of the Democratic caucus, making him the top vote-getter in the speakership election so far.Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Jeffries implored Republicans to reach a consensus for the sake of the nation.“It’s my hope that today, the House Republicans will stop the bickering, stop the backbiting and stop the backstabbing of each other so we can have the back of the American people,” Jeffries said. “We as Democrats are ready, willing and able to partner with them to find common ground whenever and wherever possible – not as Democrats, not as Republicans, as Americans. It’s time for Congress to get to work.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

January 6 officer Michael Fanone warns ‘democracy is still in danger’The former policeman – who sustained injuries during the US Capitol attack – says January 6 was a ‘wake-up call’ Nearly two years after American democracy was nearly derailed by the January 6 insurrection, a survivor of the attack gathered with Democratic lawmakers outside the US Capitol to warn that the Republican party’s paralysis of Congress is a sign that political violence is as much a threat as ever.‘Devoid of shame’: January 6 cop Michael Fanone on Trump’s Republican partyRead more“The events of that day felt like a wake-up call for me – and many others – that political violence is real. The worst part is that our elected leaders allow this to happen. And yet, this week people who encouraged and even attended the insurrection are now taking their places as leaders in the new House majority,” said Michael Fanone, a former Washington DC police officer who sustained grievous injuries while battling supporters of Donald Trump.As the second anniversary of the unprecedented attack neared, the Capitol was again engulfed in chaos, thanks to a revolt by rightwing lawmakers who have promoted Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen. Their target this time was Kevin McCarthy, the party’s leader in the House of Representatives, who was hoping to be elected as speaker when the chamber’s new Republican majority took their seats last Tuesday.But the GOP’s margin of control is thin enough that the objectors have managed to stop him from winning the post, leading to multiple rounds of voting for the first time since 1923. The deadlock has rendered Congress’s lower chamber dysfunctional, with lawmakers unable to even be formally sworn in.Democrats have meanwhile steadfastly supported their leader in the chamber, Hakeem Jeffries, and shown no interest in helping Republicans resolve their differences, instead pointing to the spectacle as evidence the GOP is in the grips of its most radical members.“I see … forces of extremism on the far right, that are ready to tear down our government at whatever cost,” said Chris Deluzio, a newly elected House representative. “And we’ve seen the consequences of that even in the last couple of days, in the chaos around electing a speaker of the House, blocking us from doing the basic work of the people’s business in the House of Representatives.”The legislative standoff may well be ongoing on Friday when Joe Biden will mark January 6 with a White House ceremony for 12 police officers and election workers who fought off the mob and resisted pressure from Republican officials to stop counting the votes after the 2020 election.The group includes Rusty Bowers, former Republican speaker of Arizona’s lower house who Trump personally pressured to disrupt Biden’s election victory in the state, and Brian Sicknick, a Capitol police officer who died during the insurrection, as well as Fanone.Even if they manage to settle their spat in the House, the day will be an awkward one for Republicans. GOP candidates for offices nationwide in the November midterms promoted Trump’s baseless fraud claim, though many of its loudest proclaimers lost their races. It was an outcome cheered by democracy advocates, but it wasn’t enough to put Fanone’s fears to rest.Kevin McCarthy bid for House speaker enters third day after series of defeatsRead more“Many of the … pro-democracy candidates won by only a fraction of a percentage. So what that tells me is that, you know, democracy is still in danger,” Fanone said following Thursday’s event at the Capitol, which was organized by the anti-Trump organization Courage for America and Common Defense, a veterans group.He has become an outspoken critic of the Republicans since the insurrection, including McCarthy, who he once described as a “weasel”.“It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Fanone said of the Californian’s latest troubles. “That being said, it’s still the legislative body of our government. And as an American, watching this level of dysfunction, is embarrassing.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsWashington DCDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow’s retirement sets up fierce 2024 Senate contestThe vacancy will make Michigan’s Senate seat one of the most competitive in the nation, as Republicans vie for more control Michigan senator Debbie Stabenow, a member of the Democratic leadership, announced on Thursday that she would not seek re-election in 2024, setting the stage for a fierce contest to claim an open seat in a critical midwestern battleground state.How Michigan Democrats took control for the first time in decadesRead moreStabenow, 72, is the first Senate Democrat to announce her retirement ahead of 2024, when the party will try to defend its razor-thin majority by fending off challenges to incumbents in several states that former president Donald Trump won.But Democrats delivered a strong performance in Michigan last year and expressed confidence that the seat would remain in the party’s control.“Inspired by a new generation of leaders, I have decided to pass the torch in the US Senate,” Stabenow said in a statement on Thursday. “I am announcing today that I will not seek re-election and will leave the US Senate at the end of my term on 3 January 2025.“Under the cloud of unprecedented threats to our democracy and our basic freedoms, a record-breaking number of people voted last year in Michigan. Young people showed up like never before. This was a very hopeful sign for our future,” she said.Stabenow’s decision not to seek a fifth term after serving two decades in the chamber immediately turned the race for Michigan’s open Senate seat into one of the most competitive in the nation. Republicans welcomed the development as a sign that Democrats’ hopes of maintaining their one-seat majority were already fading.“We are going to aggressively target this seat in 2024,” said Mike Berg, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans. “This could be the first of many Senate Democrats who decide to retire rather than lose.”Senate Democrats face a punishing electoral map next year. They are defending nearly a quarter of the seats in the Senate, many of them in competitive states as well as in red states like Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. By contrast, no Senate Republican faces re-election in a state Joe Biden won.But their prospects have improved in Michigan since Trump won the state in 2016. Biden won the state in 2020. And two years later, fury over efforts to ban abortion in Michigan in the wake of the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade propelled Democrats to victory up and down the ballot in the state.In a statement, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer praised Stabenow as the embodiment of the “true Michigan spirit” and thanked her for her years of service in Congress and her leadership within the caucus. “With Debbie’s help, and the strong Michigan Democratic party she helped build, Debbie and I are confident Democrats will retain the seat,” he said.Speculation began to swirl about who Democrats might nominate to replace Stabenow. Attention immediately turned to Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin who clinched a decisive victory in November in one of the most competitive House races that cycle. Other possible contenders included congresswoman Haley Stevens, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who recently moved to Michigan to be closer to his husband’s family.In a statement, Buttigieg called Stabenow a “force in the Senate” but said he was “not seeking any other job”.Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who resoundingly won re-election in November, praised Stabenow as a “champion for Michigan” while indicating that she was not interested in running for the seat. “As governor of this great state for the next four years, I look forward to working with [Stabenow] through the end of her term and beyond in however she serves our state next,” Whitmer said in a statement, emphasizing her plans to serve a full four-year term.Other Michigan officials whose names have been raised include Lt governor Garlin Gilchrist, secretary of state Jocelyn Benson, attorney general Dana Nessel as well as state senator Mallory McMorrow, who drew interest after a forceful rejoinder to Republican accusations that Democrats want to “groom” children went viral.Stabenow first joined Congress in 1996 after serving in the Michigan state legislature. In 2000, she became the first woman to represent Michigan in the US Senate. Stabenow climbed through the ranks, becoming a member of Democratic leadership and chair of the agriculture committee. In 2018, she turned back a well-funded and closely-watched challenge from Republican John James, who is seen as a rising star on the right.House Republicans aim to rein in ethics body preparing to investigate their partyRead moreJames was elected to the House in November and is considered a potential contender for the Republican Senate nomination. Other possible Republican candidates are former congressman Peter Meijer, a relative moderate who lost his seat last year as well as Tudor Dixon, a Trump loyalist who was defeated by Whitmer in the race for governor.In her statement, Stabenow reflected on the progress Michigan women had made in politics since she first ran for office in 1974, at the age of 24.“This began years of breaking barriers, blazing trails and being the ‘first’ woman to reach historic milestones as an elected official,” she said, adding: “But I have always believed it’s not enough to be the ‘first’ unless there is a ‘second’ and a ‘third’…”TopicsUS politicsMichiganDemocratsUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

House Democrats should unite with moderate Republicans to elect a speakerRobert ReichIn exchange for backing a relatively moderate Republican such as Fred Upton or David Joyce as speaker, Democrats should demand they get equal seats on committees On Thursday, Republicans began their third day supposedly in control of the House of Representatives but without a speaker – which means the House cannot function.Over the past two days the Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California lost six votes for the top job, because the extreme Maga right wing won’t support him.To get their support, extremists in the House are demanding that any member be able to call a vote at any time to oust him, which would put McCarthy on a very short leash controlled by the Maga right (with Trump indirectly controlling them).In effect, Trump and his loyalists would call many of the shots – on committee assignments, investigations (Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, the FBI), and key issues like raising the debt ceiling (they’ll demand that McCarthy refuse – imperiling the credit of the United States and catapulting the nation into an economic crisis).Does this mean the rest of us have to sit back and allow a tiny minority of extreme rightwing Maga House Republicans controlled by Donald Trump to hijack congressional Republicans, who in turn will hijack the entire House, and thereby hijack much of Congress?No. There’s an alternative, and House Democrats and the few remaining “moderate” Republicans should take it: come together to make someone like Michigan’s moderate Republican Fred Upton or Ohio’s David Joyce the speaker of the House.There’s no rule that says the party in control of the House must decide on the speaker by themselves. All anyone needs to be speaker is 218 votes (or a majority of all members present), regardless of party.House Democrats and moderate Republicans could come up with the 218 votes to put Upton or Joyce over the top.Upton would be a good speaker but Joyce would probably be more acceptable to most current Republican representatives, even though the extremist Maga Republicans won’t have anything to do with him.Joyce is the new chairman of the Republican Conference Group, a group you’ve probably never heard of (years ago it was called the “Tuesday Group”) because it flies under the radar. It’s a collection of the remaining 40 or so Republican moderates.I say “moderate” only in comparison to the rest of the Republican House. The Conference Group at least wants the government to function.Joyce is hardly a progressive. During Trump’s presidency, he voted in line with Trump’s stated position 91.8% of the time. And he voted against impeaching Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection.But Joyce is not a Maga Republican. He refused to sign the Texas amicus brief that tried to overturn the results of the presidential election. He was also one of the few Republican House members who did not object to the counting of electoral college votes on January 6, 2021.Since Biden became president, Joyce has voted in line with Biden’s positions over 30% of the time.He was one of 35 Republicans who joined all Democrats in approving legislation to establish the January 6 commission to investigate the storming of the US Capitol. He and 46 other Republicans voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying the right to same-sex marriage in federal law.Overall, Joyce’s politics are similar to the Democratic senator Joe Manchin’s. “Everybody’s a Joe Manchin,” Joyce said a few weeks ago.Joyce wants to keep swing-district Republicans out of the harm’s way coming from the Freedom Caucus and other Maga conservatives.He saw what happened to Ohio Republican candidates viewed as too close to Trump’s Maga wing: the state’s House delegation shrank from an eight-member edge for Republicans to just five because voters rejected several Maga candidates. “There’s some exotics that like chaos, they thrive in chaos because that’s how they get the media,” Joyce told the Washington Post.Given that the likeliest alternative will be a Speaker Kevin McCarthy beholden to the extreme Magas, either Upton or Joyce should be elected speaker – and could be if only five House Republicans and all House Democrats support him.What should Democrats ask for in return? A power-sharing agreement similar to the one agreed to in the last Senate, in which each party got the same number of seats on all committees.The deal will enable the government to function and will simultaneously repudiate the Maga extremists. It’s a good deal for America.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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‘Groundhog Day, again’: after sixth vote, still no Republican House speakerKevin McCarthy had hoped to grasp the speaker’s gavel, but a deadlock by ultraconservatives placed it beyond his reach02:34“Well, it’s Groundhog Day – again,” said Congresswoman Kat Cammack of Florida, nominating the Republican leader Kevin McCarthy for speaker of the House on the sixth ballot.House of Representatives: why is it taking so long to elect a speaker?Read moreBut as he had five times before, McCarthy suffered yet another humiliating defeat at the hands of 20 hard-right Republican holdouts determined to block his rise.McCarthy vowed to forge ahead. But it was clear Republicans were growing weary of the once-in-a-century spectacle that has already tainted the opening days of their new House majority. Despite three rousing speeches endorsing his candidacy on Wednesday, his prospects seemed dimmer than ever.Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, a Republican from Indiana, changed her vote to “present” after supporting McCarthy on the first three rounds of ballots. She implored her party to “stop wasting everyone’s time” with endless rounds of balloting that were not changing any minds.“Let cooler, more rational heads prevail,” pleaded Congressman Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio and a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, in a speech urging support for McCarthy.Moments later, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, another member of the Freedom Caucus and a conservative rabble-rouser from Colorado, called on her “favorite president” – Donald Trump – to level with McCarthy. Trump, she said, should tell the Republican leader: “Sir, you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw.”But McCarthy remained hopeful that a third day of balloting would yield a different result. Deadlocked, Republicans voted to adjourn and return on Thursday for another round.The brinkmanship underscored just how difficult it will be for any Republican to govern the chamber, where divisions have been building for years. Rebellious hardliners thwarted McCarthy’s hopes of becoming speaker once before, in 2015, when he bowed out of the race. And they chased out two of the would-be speaker’s Republican predecessors, John Boehner and Paul Ryan. But after years of coddling his party’s furthest-right flank, and wholeheartedly embracing Trump, McCarthy had hoped he had at last earned their support. Some did rally to his side, the conservative firebrand Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene​ of Georgia​ among them. But too many did not.His opponents don’t trust him – they doubt his ideological leanings and his political strength. To win their support, McCarthy has already conceded to several of their demands for rule changes that would weaken the speaker’s influence and give rank-and-file members more leverage over the legislative process.​Yet after going head-to-head for six rounds, it is unclear what McCarthy has left to offer them except his withdrawal.During a roll call on Wednesday, McCarthy, usually quick with a smile, grimaced. A fifth defection had sealed his fate before the clerk reached the last names beginning with D. At one point, his head fell into his hands. His allies worked the room, holding animated conversations with detractors. But the “Never Kevin” crew refused to budge.“These fucking people,” Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, lamented to a reporter earlier in the day. “Now they’re just being clowns.”Until a speaker is elected, the House remains completely paralyzed: members cannot be sworn in, committees cannot be formed, bills cannot be passed. Many congressmen and congressmen-elect brought their family members to Washington for the swearing-in ceremony.But instead of posing for a photo with the new speaker, hand pressed to a Bible, wide-eyed spouses and well-dressed children can be spotted instead passing the time in the basement cafeteria, waiting for something to happen. One Democratic lawmaker shared a photo of himself changing his son’s diaper on the floor of the Democratic cloakroom.“We’re representatives-elect waiting to take an oath,” Congressman Pete Aguilar, the third-ranking House Democrat, said on Wednesday. “This is a crisis of the Congress and it’s a crisis at the hands of the Republican’s dysfunction.”McCarthy remained optimistic that he could find his way to 218 votes – or execute a strategy that would allow him to claim the gavel with fewer votes than traditionally needed.The California Republican moved his belongings into the ornate speaker’s office over the weekend, even as it was clear he had not yet secured the votes to stave off a floor fight. Congressman Matt Gaetz, a McCarthy foe, accused the would-be speaker of illegally occupying the suite, which still has no nameplate above the door.Speaking later in the day, Cammack accused Democrats of enjoying the chaos, saying it was evident by “the popcorn and blankets and alcohol that is coming over there”. Democrats in the chamber responded angrily to the accusation that they were drinking during the speakership election, shouting, “Take her words down!” and asking the clerk to correct the record.“If only!” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, shot back on Twitter. “If Dems took a shot every time McCarthy lost a Republican, we’d all be unconscious by now.”In an unexpected moment of unity, the chamber stood and applauded when Congressman Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, noted that for the first time in congressional history two Black Americans – Congressman Byron Donalds, a Republican from Florida, and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader – were nominated for the high office.Jeffries, who on Tuesday became the first Black lawmaker to lead either major party, won the most rounds on each of the six ballots, with all Democrats backing his candidacy. But he fell short of the 218 votes needed to claim the gavel.Nevertheless when the House clerk read the vote total for the final time on Wednesday – Jeffries, 212; McCarthy, 201; Donalds, 20; and one “present” – Democrats burst into chants of “Hakeem”.For the sixth time in two days, the clerk declared: “A speaker has not been elected.”The chamber recessed for several hours as McCarthy and his allies tried to chart a path out of this turmoil. One of the chief defectors called the meetings “productive”.When they returned to the floor later that evening McCarthy, encouraged by the direction of the talks, said there would be no more votes that evening.That led to perhaps the most surprising action of the day: not the speaker’s ballots, but a vote to adjourn. Having yet to adopt new rules, the House erupted in a rowdy clamor of yeas and nays. The clerk strained across the dais, attempting to make out whether the Democrats’ nays or the Republicans’ yeas were louder. A recorded vote was called and the measure to adjourn for the evening passed ever so narrowly.Amid a chaotic scene of applause, shouts and objections, the members streamed out of the Capitol building, leaving the House without a speaker for another night.TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Two years after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building, the conspiracy theories about a malign group controlling the country have not gone away. This continues to corrode US democracy, fuelling stark polarisation that is deepening distrust and political violence.

Many in the mob on January 6 2021 believed that there was a “deep state” in control of their country, which had taken over powerful positions and were making decisions.

Some used this term to describe the people and institutions who they claimed had stopped their “rightful” president, Donald Trump, being re-elected and thwarted what they considered to be their righteous path, something Trump himself claims to believe. Other people have since argued that the attack was a hoax created by similar deep state actors.

Some of the elements of what is described as the deep state definitely exist, such as agencies acting covertly, and sometimes without direct oversight from accountable politicians. Running well placed and therefore vulnerable informants could be an example where direct political oversight is inappropriate.

Some people remain convinced these activities represent a take-over by unelected officials and reason enough to take up arms, while others see them as a function of a modern state.

For those who travelled to Washington DC on January 6 and proceeded to break in to the building and put the lives of elected representatives at risk, an alleged deep state had orchestrated the “theft” of the presidential election.

But belief in a deep state working against Trump isn’t confined to a fringe minority. A poll conducted by NPR/Ipsos after the 2020 election found 39% of Americans believe the deep state worked to undermine Trump. Some also believe the deep state has used or even started or faked the pandemic to curtail their rights.

Some on the left of US politics also have their own version of a deep state, driven by military and economic leadership, which generates wars and crises to perpetuate their interests. This force – they say – has persecuted and even assassinated those who stand in their way.

Much of what some describe as the deep state has legitimate government function. The intelligence services, law enforcement and the media are all underpinned by laws, regulations, courts or other forms of oversight.

But the now-popular concept of a deep state gets dangerously close to conspiracy theory precisely because it is founded on kernels of truth. There are intelligence agencies operating covertly. The media is a values-and-opinions-led industry run by billionaire owners. Business and lobby groups do influence politics to shape laws and regulations in their favour. That all of these things are true does not mean there is a deep state in the way those using the term mean.

Why did this take hold?

A key problem in US politics is that all sides are fatigued by polarisation and do not trust their political opponents. They assume their opponents have co-opted a section of government, and media and use this influence to brief aggressively against them.

The former academic and now filmmaker Adam Curtis is among those who argue that many powerful people deliberately sow confusion to undermine trust in political institutions (“hypernormalisation)”, and that this can destabilise the public’s understanding of what is real and what is fiction.

In the US (and increasingly in other countries too) people on all sides have come to believe that money, and particularly foreign money, is skewing politics away from the interests of the people. These beliefs have a radicalising effect on some people.

There are similar emerging narratives and movements in the UK, Germany and other parts of Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. In the UK, those who advocated for the campaign to leave the EU still refer to a mythical pro-European deep state preventing the benefits of Brexit being realised.

The QAnon movement, originally based on a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump was fighting paedophilic, Satan-worshipping elites trying to control politics, has grown to include conspiracy theories about COVID and even 5G telephone masts. The QAnon phenomenon’s extension to Germany is poorly understood but has driven the advance of far-right groups.

QAnon activists believe in a wide range of conspiracies about the so-called deep state.
Zuma/Alamy

While the US has always been curiously susceptible to conspiracy theories, (think the Kennedy assassination or the moon landings), the more recent conspiracies and QAnon activism has been enabled by the ubiquity of the internet. Real world threats – such as those of those of January 6 in the US and the so called Reichsbürger coup plot in Germany in December 2022 – have been encouraged by narratives that begin on the dark web (part of the internet used for completely anonymous communication).

Read more:
What is the Reichsbürger movement accused of trying to overthrow the German government?

Another contributor is the distribution of self-published ebooks through mainstream platforms like Amazon and Scribd. Before the internet era finding such a large audience would have been expensive and logistically difficult for purveyors of these conspiracy theories.

One of the great ironies of those evoking the idea of the deep state is that they have themselves have behaved like a deep or parallel state. They have acted in secret, with their own command-and-control structures, message management and military-style coordination of their actions.

What can be done to mitigate the harm of uninformed beliefs, and conspiracies? This movement has parallels with the debates around the deradicalisation of jihadists in the 2000s. As was found then the more involvement there is from government officials and agencies, the greater the push-back and reinforcement of the radicalising narratives.

The conclusion from the experiences around jihadist radicalisation is that prevention is more effective than cure. But the work on prevention and disruption needs to be well funded and is politically and socially difficult.

The continued prevalence of narratives around the deep state mean that the January 2021 attack are unlikely to be the last attempted. A prosecution of Trump for incitement of the January 6 mob action might satisfy the needs of those who were victims of the attack but may also stoke the conspiracy theories that just aren’t going away. More

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed for the sixth time in two days to capture the speaker’s gavel. After the House adjourned for a few hours, McCarthy and his allies went into negotiations with the Republican holdouts without a clear path forward to end the standoff, then pushed back a seventh vote on the House leadership until Thursday

House adjourns as speakership evades McCarthy even after sixth vote More

Arizona county blames human error for discrepancies in attorney general raceThe county found hundreds of additional votes during a mandatory statewide recount The third-largest county in Arizona is blaming human error and poorly-trained staff for the hundreds of additional votes it found during a state-mandated recount, which narrowed the already close race for state attorney general.Democrat Kris Mayes wins Arizona race for attorney general after recountRead moreIn a meeting Wednesday morning, Pinal county officials laid out various human errors and training lapses that led to a discrepancy of more than 500 votes between the canvassed results and the recounted totals. The initial count was off by 0.3% from the recounted results, the county said.The errors included not tabulating ballots that should’ve been counted because of problems with poll workers checking in voters on Election Day and not double-checking ballots flagged by machines for further review.“We made mistakes. There’s no two ways about it,” county attorney Kent Volkmer told the county’s board of supervisors on Wednesday. “Fortunately, it did not result in anybody’s election being changed.”Volkmer said he is now confident that the recounted totals are correct.“It took us a second try,” he said. “And a third try, quite frankly, with the day-of ballots. We have very thoroughly examined why this happened. And we’re taking every step we can to ensure that it does not happen again.”Until last year, statewide recounts in Arizona were rare, but a new state law that went into effect in September 2022 increased the margin for automatic recounts, sending two statewide races to them.It’s not unusual for recounted vote totals to differ from initial counts by a few votes, barely affecting the total and hardly ever changing the winner. But Pinal’s different totals is an outlier.The changes most dramatically affected the attorney general race between Democrat Kris Mayes and Republican Abe Hamadeh. Mayes won the election, but her lead narrowed to just 280 votes after the recount, down from 511.Hamadeh is now seeking a new trial to contest his loss. The large difference between the vote totals in Pinal county has led some Republicans to call for further counting in other counties, where discrepancies were nowhere near as big as Pinal’s.The meeting of the county’s board of supervisors followed a public report that detailed the counting problems for day-of ballots, which include:
Some provisional ballots were not counted correctly.
Some polling electronic poll pads would not scan voters’ driver’s licenses, so some voters cast ballots without being formally checked in.
Paper jams in tabulation may not have been interpreted correctly, leading to miscounts.
Ballots with unclear marks weren’t adjudicated and counted in some cases.
A tabulation team in one case didn’t sort through ballots that were flagged for not being processed by the machine, leading to a stack of ballots that weren’t counted.
The county attributed the issues to “human error” largely caused by training lapses, not machine problems or any outside interference.The problems during the general election come after different woes plagued the primary election in Pinal county. In the primary, some precincts ran out of ballots, causing long waits for voters, some of whom did not end up voting.After the primary, the county fired its new elections director, David Frisk, and replaced him with the county recorder, Virginia Ross. The amount of staff and election spending increased under Ross, though long-standing issues with turnover, funding and a lack of institutional knowledge couldn’t be fully cured in the short time between the August primary and November general election.Another new elections director, Geraldine Roll, is now in place, as Ross was only tapped to run last year’s election. Roll is the county’s fifth elections director since 2020. Ross received a $25,000 (£20,730) bonus for completing the general election successfully.Roll told the supervisors she found “absolutely no evidence” of anything nefarious with the vote count, but that she believed the canvass of results was done “prematurely”.Republicans lead charge to ban noncitizens from voting in local electionsRead more“I think we had enough to have raised a few questions and we should have taken more steps before we canvassed, and we certainly had time,” Roll said. Ross was in charge of the department at the time of the canvass in November.Roll, now tasked with leading the department after yet another problem election, said she will be compiling an internal procedures manual to ensure that all employees and poll workers know how to complete their tasks accurately and thoroughly. The manual, Volkmer said, will help address the gaps in institutional knowledge in the department.While the vote count was off, board of supervisors chairman Jeff Serdy noted, “every vote got counted”.TopicsArizonaThe fight for democracyUS politicsnewsReuse this content More