US Politics

In January 2017, Donald Trump’s advisor Kellyanne Conway was quizzed on White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s false claims about the number of attendees at the president’s inauguration. When pressed on why Spicer would “utter a provable falsehood”, Conway said that Spicer was offering “alternative facts”.

Her wording was widely characterised as “Orwellian”. Everywhere from Slate to the New York Times to USA Today, journalists were linking the new administration to George Orwell’s dystopian fiction. Less than a week after Conway’s claim, the sales of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four had gone up an estimated 9,500%.

In a serious case of “I know you are but what am I?”, Republicans have gotten in on the act, accusing the left of being the fulfilment of Orwell’s dark prophesy. In April this year, for instance, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted: “Historically, was there ever a despotic regime that didn’t have the equivalent of a Ministry of Truth?”

Almost everyone in every quarter sees Orwellian undertones in the manoeuvrings of their opponents. Like Elvis, Orwell has been spotted everywhere.

But we should be suspicious, not simply because the designation is thrown around so freely and is plastic enough to fit almost all political phenomena indifferently, but because one of the legacies of Nineteen Eighty-Four itself is to leave us with a more finely tuned sense of what such propaganda looks like. Orwellian strategies are harder to propagate because of, well, the overwhelming success of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The Orwellian paradox

Some historical nuance is required. Orwell was responding to mid-twentieth century political regimes – Stalinist Russia, in particular. He was ringing the alarm bells on a new phenomenon: state control had moved beyond speech to thought and perception. Winston Smith, the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty-Four, reflects:

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

There is a paradox here.

Propaganda is a mode of communication – pervasive, insistent, controlled. Orwell shows it flooding the airwaves, invading every workspace and living room through the screens on which the image of Big Brother is ever-present. Yet the goal of this kind of propaganda is to move beyond the phase of control through language to a regime of thought control where such communication has become redundant.

The world of Big Brother is austere in every way – colourless, devoid of all entertainments and sensory pleasures – so language itself is subject to the principle of reduction and elimination. The Party officials in charge of Newspeak are in the business of “cutting language down to the bone”. They are destroying scores of words every day so that “thoughtcrime” will ultimately become impossible, because there will be no means of articulating it, even inside the confines of your own mind.

Thought is already being suppressed in the novel through an embargo on logic and evidence, which starts with a simple reversal of anything that might be regarded as an established truth. This means, conversely, that the regime of Big Brother is threatened by any and every expression of reality-based knowledge. And so:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Big Brother’s propaganda is thus a self-eliminating program, working constantly and assiduously to make itself redundant. Eventually, there will be no words to protest with, or even to think with; there will be no perceptions to express and no realities to intrude upon the counterfactual world the Party is creating.

The counter-Orwellian paradox

The principles of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), which began to take hold in Soviet culture from the end of the “real” year 1984, served to dismantle the regime that prevailed in the USSR for much of the 20th century. Alternatives became possible again; enquiry and conjecture were licensed; inventiveness was set free.

And here is the counter-Orwellian paradox. Under the new policy of openness, propaganda could thrive again. For what is propaganda if not a system of alternatives, as Kellyanne Conway so astutely grasped?

The principle here is not to force one alternative on a population. By rendering any alternative as a priori plausible, this form of propaganda casts doubt on “official” accounts. All they can offer is a version of truth, one that will necessarily reflect their own agendas.

In February this year, Dmitri Kiselev, a fast-talking Russian version of Fox News commentator Sean Hannity and a prime-time host with the Kremlin’s official media outlet Rossiya Segonya, stated this outright:

Objectivity is a myth that is proposed and imposed on us.

Similarly, in 2017, Fox News’ version of Dmitri Kiselev, Sean Hannity, went on CBS and told Ted Koppel:

I don’t pretend that I’m fair and balanced and objective. You do.

When the program went to air, Hannity blasted CBS and called it “fake news”.

Russian theorist Alexander Dugin, author of The Fourth Political Theory.
Mehdi Bolourian/Wikimedia Commons

If we want to understand what is going on here, Orwell is not our guide. We would do better to turn to the writings of Russian political theorist Alexander Dugin.

Dugin is an ideologue who aligns himself with Vladimir Putin’s visionary sense of Russian destiny. While he dismisses the suggestion that he is “Putin’s brain”, he is the most influential analyst of the cultural environment Putin has sought to create.

In his book The Fourth Political Theory, Dugin makes the case for a new political direction, one that moves away from the modernist regimes of Marxism and fascism, whose extremes of ideological conformity he calls “uninteresting” and “worthless”. The literalism of such regimes of control, he says, makes them “entirely useless”.

Without making direct reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four, Dugin’s critique at times echoes the debates at the core of Orwell’s novel. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party official O’Brien makes an extended doctrinal statement. He foresees a world with no need for art, literature or science, a world where curiosity and all forms of “enjoyment of the process of life” are eliminated. Such a world would never endure, protests Winston Smith:

It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide.

Dugin would no doubt take Winston’s side in this exchange. He proposes a cultural model that is much more flexible, cunning and resourceful than anything O’Brien and his masters might envisage.

The Fourth Political Theory draws its “dark inspiration” from postmodernism, an ethos Dugin despises, but uses as a Trojan horse to penetrate the defences of the world of liberalism (Dugin’s anathema). All the pleasures and enjoyments banished from the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four come surging back.

“I do not really understand why certain people, when confronted with the concept of the Fourth Political Theory,” Dugin writes,

do not immediately rush to open a bottle of champagne, and do not start dancing and rejoicing, celebrating the discovery of new possibilities. After all, this is a kind of a philosophical New Year – an exciting leap into the unknown.

In this brave new world – which is not Aldous Huxley’s any more than it is Orwell’s – “nothing is true and everything is possible”.

The journalist Peter Pomerantsev, a more congenial guide for those who find Dugin’s new ideology hard to stomach, uses this phrase as the title of his book on the propaganda culture surrounding Russian television, where “Everything is PR” is a declared principle.

The “postmodern” influence here is, more specifically, the influence of French theorist Jean Baudrillard, who proposed that the “real” was no longer accessible in a world where layers of image replication – “simulacra” – had evolved into an autonomous pseudo-reality. This is the world in which a television celebrity becomes president and the presidency becomes a celebrity media game.

In such a world, propaganda thrives and manipulation is rife. With no shared or objective reality, the individual subject of liberalism can gain no traction. According to Dugin,

If we lose our identity, we will also lose alterity, the capacity for “otherness”, and the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and consequently to assume the existence of any alternative viewpoint.

The image here is not one of a strong difference being asserted, but of a fragile and slender one under threat; and the threat is real. As alterity is lost, the obsession with creating antagonists increases, as if it were a mode of survival.

Jean Baudrillard lecturing at European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, June 2004.
Wikimedia commons

Mirroring

One of the key insights of the French-American cultural theorist René Girard is that adversaries are often involved in an intense and escalating mirroring. They increasingly come to reflect each others’ logics, strategies, and rationales. That this state of affairs can invariably only be seen outside the viewpoint of antagonists (who see between themselves all sorts of radical differences) is of little import.

In the parallel cases of the US and Russia, we should look beyond the trivialities and psychopathologies of two men who have had toilets made out of gold for them, who brag about their wealth but evade questions about it, who view women as ornaments, who obsess over the smallest criticisms, and whose “strong man” bluster is always in the service of some nostalgia about a mythical era.

Putin and Trump have lavished each other with praise: Putin has described Trump as a “brilliant, talented person”; Trump has called Putin “a strong leader […] a powerful leader”. But the sincerest flattery, as we know, appears as imitation.

As Russian television has embraced the world of images, with all its extravagance and glamour and duplicity, it has become more like Fox News, and vice versa. When Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine, the news on Russian state media was editorially committed to official Kremlin positions. One of its methods was to echo Fox News. In February, a prime-time overview of the news of the week – presented by Kiselev – featured an opening monologue from Tucker Carlson’s Fox program.

The situation in America since Trump was voted out of office has, if anything, become more dire. As evidence unfolds of his involvement in the January 6 coup attempt and his appropriation of top secret documents as his private property, the legal case against him is fraught with obstacles created by the propaganda enterprise he continues to lead.

What should be clear cases of right and wrong under the US Constitution, and of guilt under law, have become a contest over truth in a hall of mirrors. Every accusation prompts an equal and equivalent counter-accusation. The confusion thickens with the strategy of the pre-emptive strike: whatever Trump has done wrong, he has already accused his opponents of doing just that.

With the prospects of a MAGA dominated election looming, no one can predict the consequences, but it is clear that American democracy is fighting for its life in a political environment that may be damaged beyond hope of recovery.

We need to entertain the idea that Orwell’s success in recognising the propaganda of his day might have incurred a cost – namely, that we are now too confident that we know what propaganda is. Good propaganda is precisely that because it is hard to pick; it rarely wears a neon sign around its neck. Enforced subscription to the Party’s messages has been replaced by voluntary consumption of the Kool Aid. The French philosopher Simone Weil once said that “truth is a need of the soul”. But we are often now satisfied with a more Trumpian, Twitterian logic: “A lot of people agree with me […] a lot of people are saying”.

It is not that nothing of the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four remains, or that the novel does not serve as a reminder of what a certain kind of political control can look like. There are, no doubt, statements by Trump and Putin that are, in some sense, “Orwellian”. Regimes with Orwellian characteristics still exist – like Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, for example, which is known for its compulsory slogans (“Assad or we Burn the Country”) and for torturing those who subvert them.

But large parts of the world now have fewer uses for the kinds of ideological strong-arming depicted in Orwell’s novel. And this is one of the reasons propaganda is harder to track. If our capacity to detect propaganda only surfaces in relation to what we oppose, we are all the more likely to respond in kind. In a post-Orwellian world, we are producers as well as consumers of the inflated rhetoric, sensational imagery and crazed dramaturgies promoted by those who are all too conscious of what they are doing.

As the philosopher Bernard Williams contended 20 years ago, we live in an uncomfortable era. On the one hand, we have a heightened sensitivity about being fooled; on the other hand, we are living with a general scepticism of whether anything at all might answer to “the truth”. We are deeply committed to something we don’t even know whether we believe.

How this tension will – or might – be sorted out is not something that will be resolved by philosophers or social theorists. It will be taken up and lived out in that increasingly murky domain that we still call, with less confidence than ever, “politics”. More

Republicans aim to pass national ‘don’t say gay’ law Measure introduced in Congress would prohibit federal money from being used to teach children under 10 about LGBTQ issues Congressional Republicans introduced a measure Tuesday that would prohibit federal money from being used to teach children under 10 about LGBTQ issues.The bill would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach children about “sexually-oriented material” as well as “any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects”. The effects of such a law, if enacted, would be far-reaching since a range of institutions – schools, libraries, among them – receive public money.Universities, public schools, hospitals, medical clinics, etc. could all be defunded if they host any event discussing LGBTQ people and children could be present. The way they define “sexually oriented material” simply includes anything about LGBTQ people.— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) October 18, 2022
The bill also gives parents the ability to sue in federal court if their child is exposed to the barred material that is funded “in whole or in part” by federal funds.I can’t overstate how radical the private right of action portion is. The bill is so broadly defined that a pediatric hospital could be sued for having a pride flag or a medical pamphlet about gender dysphoria. It deputizes anti-LGBTQ bigots to engage in bounty lawsuits.— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) October 18, 2022
The bill was introduced by Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and 32 other GOP members of Congress.“The Democrat party and their cultural allies are on a misguided crusade to immerse young children in sexual imagery and radical gender ideology,” he said in a statement. “This commonsense bill is straightforward. No federal tax dollars should go to any federal, state, or local government agencies, or private organizations that intentionally expose children under 10 years of age to sexually explicit material.”The bill is unlikely to become law while Democrats control the US senate and White House, but it underscores how Republicans have zeroed in on anti-LGBTQ issues as a way of rallying their base.Earlier this year Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a law that barred schools from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity until third grade, “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards”.More than a dozen states introduced so-called “don’t say gay” bills this year.Republicans have also targeted drag shows as part of this anti-LGBTQ effort. Idaho lawmakers will reportedly consider a measure to ban drag shows in public.TopicsRepublicansLGBTQ+ rightsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Here’s a quick summary of what happened today:
Joe Biden announced the release of 15m barrels of petroleum from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move he says will keep gas prices down. Biden pushed back on criticism that the timing of the announcement, which confirmed plans to release barrels from the reserve, was politically motivated by the looming midterms.
John Fetterman, a key Democratic candidate in the US senate race in Pennsylvania, released a detailed doctor’s report that said he is fit to work and fully serve in office following a stroke in May. This was the first official medical report from Fetterman since June.
At a speech at a conservative think tank, Mike Pence criticized the Republican party for straying from its values and said the party should be cautious of developing an isolationist mindset, particularly regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A district court judge said that emails from Donald Trump’s attorney, John Eastman – a key architect in his plan to overthrow the 2020 election – should be released to the House special committee investigating the insurrection. The judge said emails from Eastman prove Trump signed legal documents that contained information on election fraud that he knew was false.
We’ll be closing the blog for today, but we will be back tomorrow with more live politics updates. A US district court judge said that Donald Trump signed legal documents that contained evidence of election fraud that he knew was false, Politico is reporting. Based on emails from Trump attorney John Eastman, “President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” wrote district court judge David Carter in an opinion. The opinion said that Eastman’s emails need to be turned over to the House select committee investigating the insurrection. Eastman refused to turn over their emails, citing attorney-client privilege. Carter wrote that while most of the emails may remain private, “the Court finds that these four documents are sufficiently related to and in furtherance of the obstruction crime”.A majority of Americans believe Donald Trump should testify over his involvement in the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol, according to a Monmouth University poll released today. Six out of 10 Americans polled said that Trump should have to testify before the House committee investigating the attack. Unsurprisingly, Democrats and Republicans were split on whether Trump should have to testify, with 89% of Democrats saying he should and 67% of Republicans saying he shouldn’t. Most independents, 61%, said that he should have to testify, and only 34% said he should not have to appear at all. The American people: “We feel bad for the country, but this would be tremendous content.”60% of Americans want Trump to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, according to a new Monmouth poll; 77% say it should be public if he does. https://t.co/RBXB6IMo40 pic.twitter.com/WATj0owRcO— Kevin Robillard 🇺🇸 (@Robillard) October 19, 2022
It is unclear whether Trump will testify before the House committee, which concluded its public hearings which it says proves Trump’s involvement in the attack by voting to subpoena Trump. A formal subpoena will likely be issued this week. Trump’s public response so far has been a rambling letter addressed to representative Bennie Thompson, who chairs the special committee. Sources close to Trump said last week that he is considering testifying in front of the committee. The committee said they do not expect to make criminal referrals to the department of justice, though they have laid out their findings to help federal investigators.A group of four members of Joe Biden’s Covid advisory board just published an op-ed in the New York Times saying that there needs to be more work to address the pandemic.“We are deeply dismayed by what has been left undone,” the group, which includes Ezekial Emanuel, David Michaels, Rick Bright and Michael Osterholm, wrote. “There were many opportunities that would have permanently improved American health and the public health system. They have not yet been pursued.”“There is no question other health crises lie ahead. We need to assess the opportunities squandered or missed in the Covid pandemic and seize them now.”The group wrote that rapid, low-cost at-home-testing could be used to detect multiple infections at once. But there is no comprehensive reporting system for individuals to submit their at-home test results to public health agencies, “rendering a broad swath of infections across the country invisible to officials trying to slow their spread.”The writers note that much of the blame for inaction can be put on the lack of funding from Congress, but “not all [are] attributable to financial limitations”.They write that one big missed opportunity was one to enhance indoor air quality, particularly in schools. They recommend improving national indoor air quality standards, with focuses on schools, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, jails and prisons and other high-risk settings.Better data collection, more paid sick leave, stronger vaccine outreach and better domestic production of medical supplies were also needed during the pandemic, they wrote.“The list could go on and on, including the poor response to long Covid.”In a speech at conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Mike Pence criticized the direction of the Republican party saying, “I think we need to chart a course that doesn’t veer off too far in either direction.” “Our movement cannot forsake the foundational commitment that we have to security, to limited government, to liberty and to life,” Pence said. “But nor can we allow our movement to be led astray by the siren song of unprincipled populism that’s unmoored from our oldest traditions and most cherished values.” Pence seemed to criticize the “America First” mindset, particularly in the midst of Russia invasion of Ukraine. “As Russia continues its unconscionable war of aggression to Ukraine, I believe that conservatives must make ti clear that Putin must stop and Putin will pay,” he said. “There can be no room in the conservative movement for apologists to Putin. There is only room in this movement for champions of freedom.” Pence at Heritage Foundation making an impassioned plea to continue to help Ukraine. There are those in the movement that “would have us disengage with the wider world,” he says. “But appeasement has never worked.”— Caitlin Huey-Burns (@CHueyBurns) October 19, 2022
Opposition to isolationist ideals has not stopped Pence from endorsing candidates who have ultimately voiced opposition to involvement in the conflict, including Blake Masters, who is running for an Arizona US senate seat and called the war a “European problem”.Mehmet Oz, who is running as the Republican candidate in a key senate race, responded to today’s announcement from his opponent, John Fetterman, that a doctor clear Fetterman to work after a stroke in May. “That’s good news that John Fetterman’s doctor gave him a clean bill of health… Now that he is apparently healthy, he can debate for 90 minutes, start taking live questions from voters and reporters, and do a second debate now too,” a campaign spokesperson said. Oz senior comms adviser Rachel Tripp responds: “That’s good news that John Fetterman’s doctor gave him a clean bill of health…now that he apparently is healthy, he can debate for 90 minutes, start taking live questions from voters and reporters, and do a second debate now too.”— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 19, 2022
Oz and other Republicans have been using Fetterman’s stroke as an attack against him, saying that he is unfit to be in office. Fetterman’s campaign, on the other hand, has carefully been talking about his stroke as a way to gain empathy from voters. At a rally in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, Fetterman asked the audience if they or a loved one had ever dealt with a serious health issue, and nearly every hand went up. Until the doctor’s report that was released, the last official medical update from Fetterman’s campaign on his health was released in June. At his press conference moments ago announcing the release of petroleum from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Joe Biden was asked to comment on criticism that he was making the announcement for political reasons ahead of the midterms.“I’ve been doing this for how many months now? It’s not politically motivated at all. Its motivation is to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on. And that is making sure there’s enough oil being pumped by the companies so that we have the ability to produce enough gas that we need here at home,” Biden said. “The problem is these guys were asleep. I don’t know where they’ve been.’”Joe Biden spoke on the release of 15m barrels of petroleum from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move to seemingly signal to voters ahead of the midterms the White House’s efforts to tamper gas prices. Biden announced earlier this year that the energy department will be released 180m barrels from the strategic reserve this year. The 15m barrels announced today will complete the 180m barrels promised by the White House. The administration says the release will add 500,000 barrels per day of supply to the market in December. In a speech, Biden pointed to the war in Ukraine as the main reason for increasing gas prices and said that he “acted decisively” over the summer, and gas prices in turn have dropped $1.50 per gallon since their peak over the summer. “That’s progress, but they’re not falling fast enough,” Biden said. Gas prices are felt in almost every family in this country. It squeezes family budgets when the price of gas goes up, and other expenses get cut. That’s why I’ve been doing everything in my power to reduce gas prices.” “With my announcement today, we’re going to continue to stabilize markets and decrease the price at a time when the actions of other countries have caused such volatility.” Biden said that he has instructed his team to look into further releases from the reserve in the months ahead if needed. He also defended his administration against “myths” that he has slowed gas production.“Quite the opposite. We’re producing 12m barrels of oil per day. And by the end of the year, we will be producing 1m barrels a day – more than the day in which I took office.” Biden also said that the administration will repurchase crude oil from the strategic reserve once prices fall to $67 to $72 a barrel, incentivizing production for the future, and called on oil and gas companies to pass lower energy costs to consumers.Donald Trump in 2021 asked a group of people whether a Jewish documentary filmmaker was “a good Jewish character”, according to a video of the former president that was released as part of footage that was subpoenaed by the House special committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, the New York Times reports. The interaction was recorded by documentary filmmaker Alex Holder at an event at Trump’s New Jersey golf club in May 2021. Trump, speaking to several people, was responding to a woman’s comment about “Jews who didn’t vote for you”. Trump reportedly started talking about how he signed an executive order in 2019 that recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, yet he still polled low with Jewish voters in the US. “In Israel, I’m at like 94 percent, but I got 27, 28 percent [in the US],” Trump said at the time. “In Israel, I’m the most popular. With Orthodox, I’m the most popular.” Trump points to Holder, who is Jewish, “is this a good Jewish character right here?” At the end of the clip, before it cuts off, Trump asks, “You Persian? Very smart. Be careful, they’re very good salesmen.” News of the clip comes on the heels of a post Trump made on his social media platform Truth Social in which he lamented the lack of Jewish support for him despite his pro-Israel policies. “No president has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of Jewish faith, especially those living gin the US,” he wrote. “US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – before it is too late!”The Guardian’s voting rights reporter Sam Levine writes: Georgia has seen an “astounding” increase in turnout through the first two days of in person early voting, the state’s top election official said on Wednesday.Early voting began on Monday in the state, where there are closely watched gubernatorial and senate races. 268,050 people voted in person during the first two days. At the same point in the 2020 presidential election, 266,403 had voted in person. That differential is notable because presidential elections usually have higher turnout than midterms. At the same point in the 2018 midterms, 147,289 people had voted in person.Georgia has been at the center of high-stakes battles over voting access and this is the first general a new law with sweeping new voting restrictions is in effect. The law shortens the window in which voters can request a mail-in ballot and places new identification requirements on both the mail-in ballot application and ballot itself. Stacey Abrams, the gubernatorial candidate for governor, as well as voting rights groups are encouraging voters to cast their ballots as early as possible to avoid any issues.Republicans in the past have pointed to surging turnout to push back on accusations of voter suppression. But voting advocates say that is misleading and does not take into account the increased obstacles voters face in getting to the polls, even if they are able to navigate them successfully.John Fetterman’s primary care physician said the Democratic senate candidate for Pennsylvania has no restrictions “and can work full duty in public office” following a stroke in May. Fetterman’s campaign released a detailed medical report today based on an examination that took place on Friday. His doctor, Clifford Chen, said that Fetterman’s strength was normal and has no coordination deficits. He also noted that he “spoke intelligently without cognitive deficits”.Fetterman continues to show symptoms of auditory processing disorder (trouble understanding certain spoken words) but “his communication is significantly improved compared to his first visit, assisted by speech therapy, which he has attended on a regular basis since the stroke.” Currently the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, Fetterman is in a heated election for an open Senate seat against celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who is running as a Trump-endorsed Republican. Fetterman’s campaign celebrated the doctor’s report on Wednesday. “Bad news for Dr. Oz, who has been rooting hard against my recovery: I’m doing great + remain fully ready to serve,” Fetterman tweeted. Bad news for Dr. Oz, who has been rooting hard against my recovery: I’m doing great + remain fully ready to serveSo grateful to all of you who’ve stood with me. I’ll be fighting for each and every one of you in D.C. ❤️ https://t.co/RMUCsGpOpG— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) October 19, 2022
Polls have shown Fetterman with a slight lead over Oz, though Oz has been narrowing the gap over the last week as the GOP has been hitting voters hard with messaging about Democrats and the economy.The Texas state government is sending DNA and fingerprint identification kits to parents with kids in kindergarten through eight grade in case of an emergency. The law that established the kit distribution was passed in 2021 and was meant to “help locate and return a missing or trafficked child”, though the timing of the kits’ distribution has reminded parents of the Uvalde shooting, where 19 children and two adults were killed. In the aftermath of the shooting, parents were asked for DNA samples of their children to help medical examiners identify the victims. AR-15s, the type of gun that was used in the shooting, is a powerful weapon that can leave victims unrecognizable. Brett Cross, the father of a student who was killed in Uvalde, tweeted of the kits: “Yeah! Awesome! Let’s identify kids after they’ve been murdered instead of fixing issues that could ultimately prevent them from being murdered. It’s like wiping your ass before you take a shit.” Yeah! Awesome! Let’s identify kids after they’ve been murdered instead of fixing issues that could ultimately prevent them from being murdered. It’s like wiping your ass before you take a shit. https://t.co/1V3i1lIfTc— Brett Cross (@BCross052422) October 18, 2022
Kits have started to be distributed this week. Parents are not obligated to send in DNA samples, though schools are obligated to inform parents about the kits.House speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview published today that Democrats need “to message [inflation] better in the next three weeks ahead” but ultimately expressed optimism over the election.“Inflation’s an issue, but it’s global,” she said. “What’s [Republicans’] plan? They ain’t go nothing.”.@PunchbowlNews AM: Our wide-ranging interview with @SpeakerPelosi. Here’s Pelosi on inflation: “We’ll have to message on it better.”Much more here: https://t.co/lhCIUjCrLg pic.twitter.com/AcbALvTV4K— Punchbowl News (@PunchbowlNews) October 19, 2022
Pelosi also said that the key for Democrats will be turnout. “We know the public is with us. But it’s about turnout. So I’m excited. We’ve outraised them, except for their big, dark money, which is endless.”When asked whether she’s worried about House minority leader Kevin McCarthy becoming speaker after the elections, Pelosi said: “We’re going to win this election so I don’t even entertain that notion. But it should be of concern to the Republicans.”Polls are showing a more uncertain future for Democrats, who have been slammed by Republicans over the economy and inflation over the last few weeks. A recent CBS News/YouGov survey found Democrats were two points behind Republicans on the congressional ballot.Democrats are using these next three weeks to try to electrify their base, sending out some of their prominent members to stump for candidates and encourage voters to head to the polls. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is heading west to speak to young voters at the University of California Irvine this Sunday. Irvine is in US representative Katie Porter’s swing district. .@AOC is heading to UC Irvine this Sunday to rally young voters: pic.twitter.com/nVXJMgx3Xc— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) October 18, 2022
Meanwhile senator Bernie Sanders is heading to eight states for at least 19 events over the next two weeks, including California, Nevada, Texas and Florida. “It’s about energizing our base and increasing voter turnout up and down the ballot,” Sanders told the New York Times. “I am a little bit concerned [about] energy level for young people, working-class people… And I want to see what I can do about that.” Last week, Barack Obama’s team announced that the former president will be heading to Milkwaukee to rally for Mandela Barnes, who is looking to unseat Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in a seat that Democrats see as vulnerable.Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate in a heated Georgia senate race against Democrat Raphael Warnock, is planning to hand out fake law enforcement badges that say “I’m with Herschel” as part of his campaign. During a debate with Warnock last week, Walker held up an honorary deputy sheriff’s badge after Warnock attacked him on his claims of being a law enforcement officer. Walker has never been a trained officer, though he has received the endorsement of law enforcement groups. In the debate, the moderator told Walker that props are not allowed on the debate stage.“Let’s talk about the truth,” Walker said while holding his honorary badge. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D): “One thing I have not done — I have never pretended to be a police officer, and I’ve never threatened a shootout with the police.”In response, Herschel Walker (R) pulled out a prop badge: “I am work with many police officers.” pic.twitter.com/Wyh6oYD9zB— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) October 14, 2022
Now, Walker’s campaign told NBC News that it has ordered 1,000 imitation badges as part of his campaign. “Herschel Walker has been a friend to law enforcement and has a record of honoring police, said Gail Gitcho, Walker’s campaign strategist. “If Senator Warnock wants to highlight this, then bring it on.”Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in the Trump White House who is at the forefront of the Republican march toward hard-right populism, is throwing his weight behind a movement to radically rewrite the US constitution.Bannon has devoted recent episodes of his online show the War Room to a well-funded operation which has stealthily gained ground over the past two years. Backed by billionaire donors and corporate interests, it aims to persuade state legislatures to call a constitutional convention in the hope of baking far-right conservative values into the supreme law of the land.The goal is, in essence, to turn the country into a permanent conservative nation irrespective of the will of the American people. The convention would promote policies that would limit the size and scope of the federal government, set ceilings on or even abolish taxes, free corporations from regulations, and impose restrictions on government action in areas such as abortion, guns and immigration.“This is another line of attack strategically,” Bannon told his viewers last month. “You now have a political movement that understands we need to go after the administrative state.”By “administrative state”, Bannon was referring to the involvement of the federal government and Congress in central aspects of modern American life. That includes combating the climate crisis, setting educational standards and fighting health inequities.Mark Meckler, a founder of the Tea Party who now leads one of the largest groups advocating for the tactic, the Convention of States Action (Cosa), spelled out some of the prime objectives on Bannon’s show. “We need to say constitutionally, ‘No, the federal government cannot be involved in education, or healthcare, or energy, or the environment’,” he said.Meckler went on to divulge the anti-democratic nature of the state convention movement when he said a main aim was to prevent progressive policies being advanced through presidential elections. “The problem is, any time the administration swings back to Democrat – or radical progressive, or Marxist which is what they are – we are going to lose the gains. So you do the structural fix.”The “structural fix” involves Republican state legislatures pushing conservative amendments to America’s foundational document. By cementing the policies into the US constitution, they would become largely immune to electoral challenge.Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitutionRead moreFlorida senator Marco Rubio had an intense debate last night with his opponent, Val Demings, currently a US representative. Demings, who is trying to be Florida’s first Black senator, pushed Rubio on issues ranging from abortion to gun control. Rubio, who is running for a third term, would not confirm whether he would support a federal ban on abortion that has no exceptions for rape on incest but sai, “every bill I have ever sponsored on abortion and every bill I’ve ever voted for has exceptions.” Demings responded by saying, “What we know is that the senator supports no exceptions. He can make his mouth say anything today. He is good at that, by the way. What day is it and what is Marco Rubio saying?” On gun control, Demings asked Rubio, “How long will you watch people being gunned down in first grade, fourth grade, school, college, church, synagogue, grocery store, movie theater, a mall and a nightclub and do nothing,” she asked. Demings is in an uphill battle trying to unseat Rubio in a state that has gone further to the right in recent years. Earlier this month, a poll showed Demings six points behind Rubio.Good morning, and welcome to the politics live blog. Joe Biden is set to announce the release of 15m barrels of gas from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve later today as the administration attempts to tamp down gas prices.The national average for gas prices stands at $3.85 a gallon today, according to AAA, slightly higher than the $3.34 a gallon that was seen this time last year. But it’s still lower than this summer, when gas peaked at over $5 a gallon.The move is Biden’s attempt to mitigate growing concerns over the economy as the midterms approach. Democratic candidates in heated races across the country have been facing attacks from their Republican candidates over inflation, which stood at 8.2% in September. Biden will make the announcement around 1 pm today.Here’s what else we’re watching:
Donald Trump is heading to DC court today for a deposition in the lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexual assault. Carroll is suing Trump for defamation.
A Politico/Morning consult poll shows that Republicans may have an edge over Democrats in the midterms due to the economy: 81% say the economy will play a major role in their vote, and 80% said the same about inflation.
Stay tuned for more live updates. More

Biden implores US oil companies to pass on record profits to consumersPresident announces release of 15m barrels of oil from strategic reserve as he fights to keep gas prices in check before midterms Joe Biden has called on oil companies to pass on their massive profits to consumers as he announced the release of 15m barrels of oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve.Biden is fighting to keep gas prices in check ahead of November’s midterms. He blamed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for the global spike in oil prices and said his administration was doing all it could to keep prices in check.“Gas prices have fallen every day in the last week,” said Biden. “That’s progress, but they’re not falling fast enough. Gas prices are felt in almost every family in this country. That’s why I’ve been doing everything in my power to reduce gas prices.”He called on US oil companies to help. In the second quarter of 2022, the six largest US oil companies reported profits of $70bn, said Biden.“So far, American oil companies are using that windfall to buy back their own stock, passing that money on to shareholders, not consumers,” he said. “My message to all companies is this: you’re sitting on record profits. And we’re giving you more certainty. You can act now to increase oil production. You should not be using your profits to buy back stock or for dividends – not while the war is raging.”The announcement of the latest oil release speeds up the sale of the last of the 180m barrels that Biden announced in March would be sold. The announcement comes after the oil-producing Opec+ nations said they would cut oil production, driving up prices, in a move that angered White House officials.Established in 1975 to help mitigate shocks in US oil supply, the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) is thought to be the largest emergency supply in the world. Stored in underground tanks in Louisiana and Texas, the SPR has capacity for 714m barrels of oil and is currently at its lowest level since 1984.The reserve now contains roughly 400m barrels of oil and Biden said more oil could be released if the situation does not improve. The administration has called the situation a “bridge” until domestic production can be increased and said the US will restock the strategic reserve when oil prices are at or lower than $67 to $72 a barrel.Biden faces political headwinds because of gas prices. AAA reports that gas is averaging $3.87 a gallon, down slightly over the past week, but up from a month ago. The recent increase in prices stalled the momentum that the president and his fellow Democrats had been seeing in the polls ahead of the November elections.An analysis Monday by ClearView Energy Partners, an independent energy research firm in Washington, suggested that two states that could decide control of the evenly split Senate, Nevada and Pennsylvania, are sensitive to energy prices. The analysis noted that gas prices over the past month rose above the national average in 18 states, which are home to 29 potentially “at risk” House seats.The hard math for Biden is that oil production has yet to return to its pre-pandemic level of roughly 13m barrels a day. It’s about a million barrels a day shy of that level. The 15m-barrel release would not cover even one full day’s use of oil in the US, according to the Energy Information Administration.The oil industry would like the administration to open up more federal lands for drilling, approve pipeline construction and reverse its recent changes to raise corporate taxes. The administration counters that the oil industry is sitting on thousands of unused federal leases and says new permits would take years to produce oil with no impact on current gas prices.Environmental groups, meanwhile, have asked Biden to keep a campaign promise to block new drilling on federal lands.Because fossil fuels lead to carbon emissions, Biden has sought to move away from them entirely with a commitment to zero emissions by 2050. When discussing that commitment nearly a year ago after the G20 leading rich and developing nations met in Rome, the president said he still wanted to also lower gas prices because at “$3.35 a gallon, it has a profound impact on working-class families just to get back and forth to work”.The Associated Press contributed to this storyTopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationOilOpecCommoditiesUS midterm elections 2022US politicsnewsReuse this content More

Trump admitted letters to Kim Jong-un were secret, audio revealsEx-president’s 2019 interview with Bob Woodward appears to undermine his defense in Mar-a-Lago records investigation Donald Trump acknowledged in 2019 that letters he wrote to Kim Jong-un and later took with him upon leaving the White House were secret, according to recordings of an interview he gave to journalist Bob Woodward that call into question the credibility of one of Trump’s main defenses in the investigation into his unauthorized retention of government files.In December of that year, Trump shared with Woodward the letters that Kim had written to him, saying, “Nobody else has them, but I want you to treat them with respect … and don’t say I gave them to you, OK?” according to recordings obtained by CNN and the Washington Post on Tuesday.Trump’s bid to cling to power ‘beyond even Nixon’s imagination’, Watergate duo sayRead moreWhen, in a phone call the following month, Woodward asked to see what Trump had written to the North Korean leader, the president replied: “Oh, those are so top secret.”The comments contradict Trump’s claim that he took no government secrets with him upon leaving the White House in January 2021. In reality, the National Archives, which is tasked with preserving the records of former presidents, spent much of 2021 trying to get the Kim letters back from Trump, only succeeding earlier this year.The statements, included in The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews With President Trump set for release on Tuesday, also raise questions about the credibility of his defense to allegations that he illegally kept government secrets at his south Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.The FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August and carted away reams of documents, sparking a court battle after the former president claimed some of the papers were protected by executive or attorney-client privilege.The letters to Kim, written by Trump as part of his administration’s attempt to defuse nuclear tensions with North Korea, show his apparent admiration for the leader of one of the world’s most repressive regimes. The two men exchanged birthday greetings and “best wishes” for friends and family, according to English translations of the letters that the Post reported are included in a written transcript of the audiobooks.During his visits to the White House, Trump asked Woodward about the documents, and if he had made “a Photostat of them or something”. Woodward replied that he had dictated them into his recorder.In an interview with the Washington Post, Woodward, an associate editor at the paper who is best known for his work uncovering the Watergate scandal, said Trump allowed him to handle the documents in a West Wing office as an aide watched. The documents contained no obvious classification markings, Woodward said.In the audiobook, Woodward described “the casual, dangerous way that Trump treats the most classified programs and information, as we’ve seen now in 2022 in Mar-a-Lago, where he had 184 classified documents, including 25 marked ‘top secret’”.He was talking specifically about Trump’s comment that he “built a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about.”Referring to Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping, Trump remarked to the journalist: “We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”TopicsDonald TrumpBob WoodwardUS politicsNorth KoreaKim Jong-unnewsReuse this content More

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee is seeking reelection in Utah – a typically uneventful undertaking for an incumbent Republican in a state that hasn’t had a Democratic senator since 1977. But he faces a unique challenger: Evan McMullin.

The former CIA operative, investment banker and Republican policy adviser left the GOP in 2016 because of Donald Trump. McMullin then ran for president as an independent, styling himself as a principled conservative, and won 21% of Utahans’ votes.

Lee himself voted for McMullin in 2016, saying Trump was “wildly unpopular” in Utah because of “religiously intolerant” statements about Muslims. Some 62% of the state’s residents belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has its own history of suffering persecution. Yet Lee embraced Trump after his election, and now McMullin is trying to upend him.

Both men are devoted members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often known as the Mormon church or the LDS church. As a scholar of U.S. elections and author of two books on LDS politics, I see their November face-off as part of a larger fight over what it means to be a “character conservative.” This battle has been raging around the country, not only in Utah; but LDS voters have become an especially interesting example since Trump’s rise.

Utah’s Evan McMullin speaks during an interview on July 23, 2022, in Provo, Utah.
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

Road to acceptance

Over two centuries, Latter-day Saints have transformed themselves from among the most persecuted religious groups in U.S. history to a global religion of almost 17 million members, by their own count, with an estimated US$100 billion in resources.

Politics has always been woven into this history. Early Latter-day Saints were forced gradually westward from state to state because of neighbors’ distrust, mob justice and government oppression – most notably, an extermination order was issued by the state of Missouri in 1838. The church ultimately fled the U.S. after founder Joseph Smith was killed and settled around Salt Lake, which was a Mexican territory when church members first arrived.

Utah was granted statehood in 1896, and the Senate provided a building block for increased LDS immersion into American culture – though it didn’t look that way at first. In the early 1900s, the church was so widely reviled that Sen.-elect Reed Smoot was blocked from taking his seat over accusations that his role in the church made him inherently hostile to the government.

Sen. Reed Smoot, photographed between 1913 and 1917.
Heritage Art/Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Yet Smoot was exonerated, and his three-decade tenure significantly enhanced the church’s acceptance in national politics. The soft-spoken senator became a leading voice of conservative morality and embodiment of Mormonism in wider American culture, replacing Brigham Young, the bearded patriarch with multiple wives.

LDS ascendance throughout the 20th century culminated in Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential nomination and wider cultural attention dubbed “the Mormon moment.” Some LDS beliefs and practices – such as the teaching that Smith discovered scripture on golden plates buried in upstate New York – have long generated curiosity, if not derision, from other Americans. Many Latter-day Saints and observers felt Romney’s nomination suggested greater acceptance of the religion.

In particular, LDS conservatives have become political allies with white evangelicals when it comes to social issues such as opposing gay marriage. In popular culture, Latter-day Saints are often seen as the embodiment of 1950s conservative Americana. LDS cultural norms such as patriotism, abstinence from tobacco and alcohol and prioritizing child rearing, family life and devotion to service have forged a conception of character widely embraced by conservatives.

This all helped position Latter-day Saints as a small but influential group within the Christian right.

And then Trump decided to run for president.

An inconvenient candidate

Trump galvanized parts of the Republican Party. Yet conservatives were divided over the candidate’s character – especially his unorthodox attacks on primary rivals and former GOP presidential candidates, the “Access Hollywood” video in which he bragged about groping women, and numerous allegations of sexual assault.

Latter-day Saints are the most Republican religious group in the country, making them a particularly interesting case study of character conservatism. Trump’s overlap with the LDS community “starts and stops” with his GOP affiliation, as Brigham Young University political scientist Quin Monson told the Los Angeles Times in 2016.

Romney thoroughly criticized Trump and encouraged Republicans to vote for any other primary candidate. Grounded in his LDS faith, which prioritizes family on Earth and for eternity, Romney urged Utahans: “Think of Donald Trump’s personal qualities. The bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics. … Imagine your children and your grandchildren acting the way he does.”

Deseret News, the church-owned newspaper in Salt Lake, opposed Trump for not upholding “the ideals and values of this community.” Just 16% of Latter-day Saints thought he was a moral person.

When McMullin ran in 2016, Trump still won Utah, but with 45% – the lowest for a Republican nominee there since 1992. Nationwide, just over 50% of Latter-day Saints voted for Trump in 2016, almost 30 percentage points lower than white evangelicals. The second time around, he won over 60% of the LDS vote, but most church members who are people of color or are under 40 did not vote for him.

GOP soul-searching

Jan. 6, 2021, was a pivotal moment for the Trump presidency and character conservatives. Half of Republicans believed Trump bore at least some responsibility for what happened. Voters’ disapproval was compounded by further activities, such as Trump’s trying to overturn the 2020 election and taking highly classified documents. Still, GOP candidates face strategic pressure to pledge allegiance to Trump: The Republican National Committee, for example, has directed millions of dollars to his legal defense.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, standing center, with an award-winning hog at the Weber County Fair on Aug. 13, 2022.
AP Photo/Sam Metz

Character conservatives are reckoning with two different impulses. Trump is not a role model, but he has demonstrated willingness to fight for some religious-conservative values, such as reconfiguring the Supreme Court to enable the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Some character conservatives support Trump, believing the ends justify means. Others reject Trump’s behavior as immoral and unacceptable for democracy – and the majority are probably somewhere in the middle.

The Utah Senate contest will provide some clarity to these countervailing trends. Lee has previously compared Trump with Captain Moroni, a hero from LDS scripture. McMullin, meanwhile, contends that Lee’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results were “brazen treachery.”

Independent polling has Lee and McMullin in a virtual tie. Incumbency advantage is powerful, but Utah’s Democratic Party has uncharacteristically decided to support McMullin rather than field its own candidate.

The character divide between Trump-supporting candidates and McMullin questions the extent to which LDS values and the carefully crafted public identity of the church can be disentangled from the modern Republican Party. Lee remains the favorite, but the fact that this is a competitive race speaks to how ongoing concerns continue to trouble the former president’s party, even in deeply red Utah. More

Are Democrats messing up their midterm messaging? Our panel respondsCas Mudde, Ilyse Hogue, David Sirota, LaTosha Brown and Liza FeatherstoneDemocrats have come under fire from critics like Bernie Sanders, who say the party isn’t focusing enough on the economy. Is that right? Cas Mudde: Democrats are right not to focus on the economyIt is true that the economy and inflation are seen as the top problems by most Americans, but that does not necessarily mean that Democrats should run their midterm campaigns on economic issues. The country has been dealing with continued inflation, the possibility of a recession, and the prospect of an even worse energy crisis for months now.The vast majority of Americans say they personally feel the pain of inflation and believe that the US economy is getting worse, not better. Running on the economy will make these feelings even more salient, while centering President Biden, whose approval ratings are near their lowest level during his presidency, and the Republican party, which is still more trusted on the economy than the Democratic party.So how about running on the economic accomplishments of the Biden administration, like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)?Turns out, while the individual policies of the bill are popular, only about one-third of Americans have heard of the IRA. That’s why, in this particular economic and political context, running primarily on abortion and the extremity and incompetence of Republican candidates like Doug Mastriano and Herschel Walker makes more sense.Clear majorities of Americans, including independents, oppose the overturning of Roe v Wade, while there has been a “surge” in voter registration of women, including in battleground states like Arizona and Georgia. Although they mainly offset earlier increases in registration of Republicans, it is crucial for Democrats to get these newly mobilized voters to the voting booths in November. Will it be enough? I doubt it. But I am pretty certain it gives Democrats a better chance than a mainly socioeconomic campaign.
Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia
David Sirota: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’Eight years ago amid the wreckage of the financial crisis, Democrats lost a key US Senate race in Colorado when their candidate focused almost exclusively on abortion rights and did not have a compelling economic message. The episode served as a cautionary tale warning Democrats that they may lose winnable elections if they are not willing to break with their big donors and offer a populist economic message. Without that kind of message, they may lose even if they’re right about conservatives’ social-issue extremism.And yet, that 2014 cautionary tale now seems like a preview of Democrats’ 2022 election strategy. Polls show voters’ top two issues in the election are the economy and inflation – and yet Democrats have decided to spend much of their advertising resources on abortion-related messages, not inflation-related messages.There is still time for a turnaround – and there is plenty for Democrats to say. They could be blaming Republicans for blocking the extension of the expanded child tax credit. They could pledge more direct economic help if they win the midterms. They could hammer Republicans for protecting their oil donors from price-gouging legislation.In short, Democrats could be vilifying the entire plague of greedflation, whereby corporate oligopolies are using their market power to hike prices.Doing that would require Democratic leaders to do the one thing they always seem most reluctant to do: offend their big donors.But if they don’t do that – if they don’t remember their own “it’s the economy, stupid” mantra – then the national election could turn out like the Colorado election of 2014, and everything they purport to stand for could be lost: reproductive rights, democracy, everything.
David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor-at-large at Jacobin, and the founder of the Lever
LaTosha Brown: ‘The abortion message needs to be layered with other messages’For Democrats to win, it’s all about three things: money, message and mobilization. And when it comes to the message, the message needs to be more layered.Democrats should lead with a trifecta of messages focused on the economy, voting rights and racial justice.They need to speak about the economy from a worker’s perspective. They need to humanize the issue and focus on the struggles of ordinary people, like wage stagnation and rising costs. They need to ditch the jargon. They need to lay the blame for the mess we’re in on Republicans and their corporate tax cuts, which only benefit the ultra-wealthy.We also need to hear more on white nationalism, white supremacy and the continuing attack on voting rights. Democrats are side-stepping one of the biggest threats to our democracy, which voters, especially voters of color, want to hear about.If Republicans are using racial fear as weapon, we need to lean into racial justice as a tool. There is an organizing opportunity in racial justice. That’s what will activate young people and voters of color, who are the fastest-growing electorate in the country.We have to stop repeating this mantra that Republicans are good on message. It’s easier to have an elite message than an inclusive message. Republicans are just focused on the consolidation of white power and control by any means. The Democrats have a much more diverse and nuanced base, so the message needs to be layered.Finally, Democrats should stay on the abortion message. Democrats didn’t have a fighting chance to win in the midterms, and that only changed thanks to Roe v Wade being overturned. It’s a message that’s important, but it needs to be layered with other messages in order to have most impact.
LaTosha Brown is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter
Ilyse Hogue: ‘Democrats need to go on the offensive’Democrats have solid policy wins under their belts and even better ones in the pipeline if they can expand their margins in the Senate and hold the House. So why aren’t they polling better?Simply put, because the national information landscape is a nightmare. Die-hard Republicans have a monolithic information system in Fox News. This machine puts Democratic candidates at a disadvantage out of the gate, which is too often compounded by an instinct to let the right trip themselves up instead of forcing the questions in the eyes of the voters. Only one party wants to cut social security, keep drug prices high, and criminalize pregnancy. Don’t make the voters guess. Lean into it.Obama admits Democrats can be a ‘buzzkill’ and urges better messagingRead morePolls are like snapshots of moods on any given day, but in aggregate, the polls show that women are motivated right now and being pulled in many directions. They are deeply affected by the fall of Roe and understand the Republican position on criminalizing abortion as a cascading crisis of autonomy, economic viability and health care access – all issues on which the Republican party has abandoned the mainstream. Women – especially women of color – who bear the brunt of these compounding crises, are highly energized to vote, as is evidenced by voter registration numbers around the country. The trick for Dems in the closing weeks of this consequential election is a one-two punch: go on offense and lift up the messengers that already have social currency in your electoral coalition. Invest in your community leaders, your PTA chairs, your TikTok influencers, your clergy, your warehouse workers.There’s so much to tout: life-changing money to replace lead pipes in the infrastructure bill? Check! Get that to parents in unserved parts of Michigan. Incentives to bring clean-energy, high wage manufacturing jobs in the Inflation Reduction Act? Check! Get that to economically distressed families in the south-east. One more Senate seat and Biden promises to suspend the filibuster and codify Roe? Check! Get that to, well, women everywhere.
Ilye Hogue is the president of Purpose. She was formerly the president of Naral
Liza Featherstone: ‘Abortion alone can’t deliver the midterms’When the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, a yard sign appeared around the corner from my home: “This is what happens when you don’t vote.”By the next day, someone had fixed it, using a Sharpie to cross out the word “don’t”.The quiet dispute in a reliably blue neighborhood seemed to underscore the perils of assuming that attacks on abortion rights will scare voters into voting Democratic.Granted, most Americans disagree with the supreme court’s decision, and many are more motivated to vote this year as a result. But abortion alone can’t deliver the midterms to the Democrats.Some wonder, with my Sharpie-wielding neighbor, how voting for Democrats has helped protect abortion rights lately. Besides, inflation is an even higher priority for more than eight out of 10 voters, and only 30% approve of Biden’s leadership on that issue.Democratic leaders have sometimes seemed dismissive of inflation. The White House has repeatedly shrugged it off, and this summer, the Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman mocked a campaign video featuring his opponent in a grocery store discussing high food prices.Worse, national Democratic leaders have been partying with wealthy donors, from the billionaire James Murdoch in Manhattan to real estate moguls in Los Angeles. No wonder they seem out of touch with people visiting food pantries or struggling to make rent.If the Democrats can’t deliver a better economic message, many Americans may conclude that like the repeal of Roe v Wade, inflation is what happens when you vote.
Liza Featherstone is a columnist for Jacobin and the New Republic. She is the author of Divining Desire: Focus Groups and the Culture of Consultation (OR Books), among other titles
TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsDemocratscommentReuse this content More

Inside Steve Bannon’s ‘disturbing’ quest to radically rewrite the US constitution By taking over state legislatures, Republicans hope to pass conservative amendments that cannot be electorally challengedSteve Bannon, the former chief strategist in the Trump White House who is at the forefront of the Republican march toward hard-right populism, is throwing his weight behind a movement to radically rewrite the US constitution.Bannon has devoted recent episodes of his online show the War Room to a well-funded operation which has stealthily gained ground over the past two years. Backed by billionaire donors and corporate interests, it aims to persuade state legislatures to call a constitutional convention in the hope of baking far-right conservative values into the supreme law of the land.The goal is, in essence, to turn the country into a permanent conservative nation irrespective of the will of the American people. The convention would promote policies that would limit the size and scope of the federal government, set ceilings on or even abolish taxes, free corporations from regulations, and impose restrictions on government action in areas such as abortion, guns and immigration.“This is another line of attack strategically,” Bannon told his viewers last month. “You now have a political movement that understands we need to go after the administrative state.”By “administrative state”, Bannon was referring to the involvement of the federal government and Congress in central aspects of modern American life. That includes combating the climate crisis, setting educational standards and fighting health inequities.Mark Meckler, a founder of the Tea Party who now leads one of the largest groups advocating for the tactic, the Convention of States Action (Cosa), spelled out some of the prime objectives on Bannon’s show. “We need to say constitutionally, ‘No, the federal government cannot be involved in education, or healthcare, or energy, or the environment’,” he said.Meckler went on to divulge the anti-democratic nature of the state convention movement when he said a main aim was to prevent progressive policies being advanced through presidential elections. “The problem is, any time the administration swings back to Democrat – or radical progressive, or Marxist which is what they are – we are going to lose the gains. So you do the structural fix.”The “structural fix” involves Republican state legislatures pushing conservative amendments to America’s foundational document. By cementing the policies into the US constitution, they would become largely immune to electoral challenge.Were a convention achieved, it would mark the zenith of conservative state power in American politics. Over the past 12 years, since the eruption of the Tea Party, Republicans have extended their grip to more than half of the states in the country, imposing an increasingly far-right agenda on the heartlands.Now the plan is to take that dominance nationwide.Article V of the constitution lays out two distinct ways in which America’s core document, ratified in 1788, can be revised. In practice, all 27 amendments that have been added over the past 244 years have come through the first route – a Congress-led process whereby two-thirds of both the US House and Senate have to approve changes followed by ratification by three-quarters of the states. Meckler, working alongside other powerful interest groups and wealthy rightwing megadonors, is gunning for Article V’s second route – one that has never been tried before. It gives state legislatures the power to call a constitutional convention of their own, should two-thirds of all 50 states agree.A bar chart of party control of state legislatures since 1978.The state-based model for rewriting the US constitution is perhaps the most audacious attempt yet by hard-right Republicans to secure what amounts to conservative minority rule in which a minority of lawmakers representing less-populated rural states dictate terms to the majority of Americans. Russ Feingold, a former Democratic US senator from Wisconsin, told the Guardian that “they want to rewrite the constitution in a fundamental way that is not just conservative, it is minoritarian. It will prevent the will of ‘we the people’ being heard.”Feingold has co-authored with Peter Prindiville of the Stanford constitutional law center The Constitution in Jeopardy, a new book that sounds the alarm on the states-based convention movement. “Our goal is not to scare people, but to alert them that there is a movement on the far right that is quietly getting itself to a point where it will be almost impossible to stop a convention being called,” he said.His urgency is underlined by how active the movement has become. A convention resolution framed by Cosa has passed so far this year in four states – Wisconsin, Nebraska, West Virginia and South Carolina.The group has also been busy around November’s midterm elections, using its muscle and some $600,000 (£528,252) of its reserves to support candidates amenable to the idea. “We have built the largest grassroots activist army in American history,” Meckler told Bannon, probably hyperbolically.Bannon’s other guest on the War Room, Rick Santorum, a former Republican US senator from Pennsylvania who advises Cosa, told Bannon: “This is something that can happen very quickly. We are a lot further along than people think.”They are also much better funded than people might think. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which monitors the constitutional convention movement, estimates that it pulled in $25m (£22m) in 2020, the last year for which figures are known. The funds were split between Cosa and other influential groups on the right. They include the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a network of state politicians and corporate lobbyists which has taken up the cry for a constitutional amendment to force balanced budget restrictions on Washington.Much of the income is dark money, with the origins hidden. CMD has managed to identify some key donors – among them the Mercer Family Foundation set up by reclusive hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, and a couple of groups run by Leonard Leo, the mastermind behind the rightwing land grab in the federal courts.More than $1m (£880,265) has also been donated in the form of Bitcoin.The attraction to these groups and donors of pursuing a states route to rewriting the US constitution is easily explained. Over the past 12 years, since the eruption of the Tea Party in 2010, Republican activists have deployed extreme partisan gerrymandering to pull off an extraordinary takeover of state legislatures.Bannon is not finished: his ‘precinct strategy’ could alter US elections for yearsRead moreIn 2010, Republicans controlled both chambers of just 14 state legislatures. Today, that number stands at 31. “Republicans are near the high watermark in terms of their political control in the states, and that’s why the pro-Trump rightwing of the party is increasingly embracing the constitutional convention strategy,” said Arn Pearson, CMD’s executive director.Should a convention be achieved, the plan would be to give states one vote each. There is no legal or historical basis for such an arrangement but its appeal is self-evident.One vote per state would give small rural conservative states like Wyoming (population 580,000) equal leverage to large urbanized progressive states like California (39.5 million). Collectively, small states would be in the majority and control would tip to the Republicans.Last December Santorum spelled out this minoritarian vision at a private ALEC meeting. In an audio recording obtained by CMD, Santorum said: “We have the opportunity, as a result, to have a supermajority, even though we may not even be in an absolute majority when it comes to the people who agree with us.”Pearson decried such thinking as “a profoundly anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic strategy that gives small rural states most control”.With the counting system skewed towards the conservative heartlands, the list of amendments that might be pursued is disconcertingly large. Though Meckler and his allies largely avoid talking about culture war issues, it is quite conceivable that a nationwide ban on abortion and a rescinding of gay marriage would be on the table.More openly, advocates have talked about imposing balanced budget requirements on the US government that would dramatically shrink federal resources. Some have even proposed making income tax unconstitutional.One of the more popular ideas circulating within rightwing constitutional convention circles, initially floated by the talk show host Mark Levin, is that states should grant themselves the ability to override federal statutes and supreme court rulings. It is hard to see how the federal rule of law could be sustained under such an arrangement with its unmistakable civil war undertones.Under Article V, 34 states would have to call for a constitutional convention to reach the two-thirds requirement. Cosa has so far succeeded in getting 19 states to sign up, with a further six in active consideration.ALEC, which sets a narrower remit for a convention focused on its balanced budget amendment, has gone further with 28 states on board.Either way, there is a shortfall. To address it, constitutional convention leaders have invented increasingly exotic mathematical formulas for attaining the magic number, 34. “We used to call it fuzzy math, now we call it wacky math,” Pearson said.Advocates filed a lawsuit in Texas in February that tried to get the courts to force a constitutional convention on grounds that they had reached 34 states already – they cobbled together unrelated state convention calls, including some dating back to the 1800s. In July two bills were also introduced to the US House requiring Congress to call a convention immediately.David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the willingness to adopt outlandish logic should sound further alarm bells. It raised the stakes even higher for the November elections.“The midterms are crucial,” Super said. “Changes at state-level matter, but will not get them to 34 states. If they can take control of Congress, they could bridge the gap.”Paradoxically, what happens to Congress in the midterms could have the biggest impact on the future prospects of a states-based constitutional convention. Should the Republicans take back control of the US House and Senate they would be in a position to advance radical Republicans’ demands.“We’ve already seen a willingness to play fast and loose with the math on all sorts of things in Congress,” Super said. “I would not be surprised if they were to make a serious attempt to adopt one of these bizarre accounting theories should they take control of both chambers in November.”That could mean a rapid dash for a convention before most Americans would have woken up to the danger.“If the Republicans prevail in Congress, they could try to call a convention right away,” Feingold said. “People should know that when they go to vote in November – this could fundamentally undermine their rights in a way that is both disturbing and permanent.”TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsUS constitution and civil libertiesRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More