US Politics

After the election results in California, the left must organize and fightBen DavisProgressive movements that have built power in cities across the country are facing a well-financed backlash from entrenched interests they vowed to fix There are a few clear lessons from the recent primary elections in California. The first is that California is still a one-party state. The second is that once partisanship is removed in the eyes of voters, conservative forces have a lot of room to operate. Despite their failure at a federal level, conservative forces are on the move in California using a playbook that will be repeated across the country.In California’s top statewide races, Democrats easily finished with a large majority of votes across the board, with Republicans struggling to even approach 40% of the statewide vote. As recently as a decade ago, Republicans in California could threaten Democrats when they had an advantage in the national climate. Today, there’s effectively no threat of Republicans being involved in state-level governing. Republicans may pick up a few seats in California if there ends up being a massive Republican wave this fall, but they are still a defeated force at the federal and state level in all but a few pockets of California.The election did see some huge results which will have implications across the country, in particular on the municipal level. California represents the vanguard of a phenomenon of urban reaction. Progressive movements centered on racial justice, criminal justice reform, tenants’ rights and more have spent the last decade building power locally in cities across the country; these movements are now running into a serious and well-financed backlash from the entrenched interests they vowed to fix.This is most apparent in the successful recall of the progressive San Francisco district attorney, Chesa Boudin, but can also be seen in the first-place primary finish of the real estate developer and recent Republican Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayoral race, and the first-place primary finish of Los Angeles’s rogue sheriff, Alex Villanueva. This comes on the heels of Republican Ann Davison winning the Seattle city attorney election and as a number of other Republican-aligned candidates make headway in Democratic primaries and non-partisan municipal elections in a number of historically progressive cities. This election cycle is the first test case of how entrenched powers in cities react to threats.The recall of Boudin is instructive. The San Francisco power establishment had its sights on him from the day he won, and used a number of tactics to stymie and ultimately defeat him.The first prong is one we will see more and more as progressives try to enact their democratic mandates in municipal governments: a police work slowdown. Police in the United States have operated with impunity for decades, effectively isolated from democratic accountability to the communities they serve. In California in particular, police and sheriff departments have allegedly engaged in large-scale criminality, operating in many locales as gangs that terrorize the population or as occupying forces. When police see the threat of being held accountable to the public, they impose costs that protect their positions.This is an age-old tactic of conservative sections of the state when they feel threatened by elected progressive governments. After Boudin was elected, police in San Francisco stopped fully doing their jobs, a tactic used by the Baltimore police department after the death of Freddie Gray and the New York police department to punish Mayor Bill de Blasio. San Francisco now boasts a woeful clearance rate. Police efforts to sabotage Boudin went so far that the prosecutor had to rent a U-Haul to carry out a major arrest because the police refused to participate.The message to residents was clear: remove Boudin and stop efforts to exercise accountability or people won’t be safe.The second prong of the attack on Boudin came directly from capital. San Francisco is increasingly run by extremely wealthy tech oligarchs who can outspend any opposition by huge margins. Actually dealing with crime involves spending more on social programs and redistributing wealth downwards, anathema to the ultra-wealthy. Progressive prosecutors threaten a shift from prosecuting petty crime to enforcing regulations on businesses and the wealthy. The oligarchs can finance massive political campaigns, but they can also threaten capital flight and capital strikes, another age-old tactic to resist progressive government and democratic oversight.In the US and California in particular, a new wealthy class has been moving from suburbs to cities and displacing the urban working-class population. In San Francisco, billionaires and the ascendant class of wealthy tech workers moved into a city with all that urban life entails – noise, homelessness, people of many economic and racial backgrounds in close proximity, etc – and have responded by trying to turn the city into the suburbs. As the housing crisis worsens and cities become more wealthy and more unequal, we will see a sort of reverse of the white flight of the 1950s and 60s and the suburban tax revolts of the late 1970s, as the new urban ruling classes seek to instate a homogeneous society in place of the bustling, messy, diverse, cultured places they inherited.The final prong of the recall effort was a massive campaign by the media, which has ramped up around the country. Boudin’s tenure was marked by breathless coverage of crime and increasing media alarmism about the city becoming a war zone. Hundreds of articles have been written in San Francisco and elsewhere attributing rising crime to progressive prosecutors and criminal justice reform.This hysteria is largely evidence-free: crime has been rising nationwide at about the same rate, with no correlation whatsoever to progressive prosecutors or city governments. In fact, cities with Republican mayors and prosecutors are far more dangerous. Republican-governed Jacksonville, for example, is about the same size as San Francisco and has three times the murder rate. The media, however, has focused almost exclusively on progressive-run jurisdictions. In San Francisco, people were whipped into a frenzy, despite the fact that the city is vastly safer than it was for most of the previous 50 years.Boudin’s recall is the tip of the spear of reaction, rather than just one example of backlash against progressive governance. San Francisco is a unique city that, despite its left-leaning reputation, gave unique opportunities for conservative forces to move so aggressively. For one, Boudin only won in the first place with 36% of the vote, hardly a clear mandate. Indeed, the 40% who voted to retain him demonstrates that, if anything, he gained support over his tenure.In contrast, the handy re-election victories of progressive prosecutors Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Kim Foxx in Chicago further demonstrate Boudin’s unique vulnerability. Krasner and Foxx both lost white voters, winning re-election on the back of large margins from the Latino and especially Black voters who together make up a majority of both their districts. In San Francisco, however, Black people and Latinos together make up just 20% of the population, with Black residents alone just 5% of residents.San Francisco is also vastly wealthier than most other American cities, leaving a much smaller base of people affected by policies that primarily harm poor and marginalized people. The election map shows that support for the recall was strongest in the wealthiest areas. In Philadelphia, someone seeing a homeless encampment on their way to work is likely to be a working-class person; in San Francisco, there’s a decent chance this person is a millionaire or even billionaire who will make their distaste everyone’s problem.There is much to learn in these results for progressives, but no clear path forward. How can institutions be made to actually respond to democratic leadership? How can the ultra-wealthy be counteracted? Can the left build an alternative media structure? There are no obvious answers, and, absent a plan, the forces of municipal conservative backlash will continue unabated.Unless activists, workers and tenants regroup, reflect and commit to organization and politics on a mass level, the results in California will be the first in a series that serve to further militarize cities, stratify them by class, and brutalize the most vulnerable. These results are a canary in the coalmine for anyone who wants thriving, diverse, equitable cities that are good places to live and work.
Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America
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How was the first January 6 hearing? Our panel weighs inFrancine Prose, Lloyd Green, Simon Balto and Geoffrey KabaserviceOn Thursday, the first of long-anticipated public hearings on January 6 were aired. What did we learn from them? Francine Prose: ‘We narrowly escaped a far worse disaster’There’s a very particular, very specific chill we feel when our worst suspicions have been confirmed, when our darkest fears and imaginings turn out to be mere shadows of reality. I – and many others, I assume – felt that chill while watching the first installment of the report on the hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection. All the horror of that day came flooding back, augmented by the evidence of Donald Trump’s responsibility for those catastrophic events; the fact that he suggested that Mike Pence “deserved” the homicidal rage of the crowd; that he resisted every plea to call off his supporters; that Jared Kushner dismissed legitimate concerns about his father-in-law’s behavior as “whining”; that the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers planned and prepared for the rioting, believing that Donald Trump had summoned them to Washington to fight for him. What disturbed me most was a sense of how narrowly we escaped a disaster far worse than the one that occurred – not only the possibility of greater harm to our lawmakers and the Capitol police, but to our Constitutional protections. We were that close to a coup, that close to the overturning of our democracy. The evidence presented in this initial hearing was so clear, so convincing, I cannot imagine anyone not being persuaded unless they have totally lost touch with reason and reality, in which case I truly cannot imagine the future of this country: what will happen to us next.
Francine Prose is the author, most recently, of The Vixen. She was also the president of PEN America
Lloyd Green: ‘The US careens through a cold Civil War’The select committee’s prime time hearing informed but likely failed to persuade. Video and testimony reinforced what we already knew: that Donald Trump sought to violently overturn and avenge his election loss.The insurrection stands as a gaping rupture of America’s constitutional order. “Our democracy remains in danger”, said Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman.Trump’s minions overran the Capitol, the Proud Boys the tip of the spear. “Stand back and stand by” became a deadly mantra.A conservative elite that included John Eastman, former clerk to supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, helped lay the legal infrastructure. Ginni Thomas, the judge’s wife, threw fuel on the fire. In the preceding months, Trump and his supporters branded the then-upcoming election as “rigged”. Nothing short of re-election would be deemed acceptable. On 11 January 2021, Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, pointed a finger at the 45th president. “He bears responsibility for his words and actions”, McCarthy intoned. “No if, ands or buts.”Now, 17 months later, Republican congressional leadership lies prostrate and complicit. McCarthy burns for the Speaker’s gavel. Gladiator remains the movie for our times.Earlier on Thursday, Ryan Kelley, a Republican candidate for Michigan governor, appeared in federal court for his role in the breach of the Capitol. Hours later, we heard Ivanka Trump admit that her father lost. Meanwhile, her reedy-voiced husband derided Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, as “whining”.The US careens through a cold civil war, its feet on the gas pedal, both hands clutching the accelerator.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
Simon Balto: ‘What happened at the Capitol was no anomaly’There’s much to be said about Thursday’s January 6 committee hearings, and there will be more to be said following the hearings’ full sequence. But speaking as a historian, let me for now say this: Americans need to understand that what the terrorists at the Capitol did that day wasn’t the anomaly people think it was within the long history of the United States. The almost entirely white mob storming the halls of Congress operated squarely within a tradition of white mob terrorism that has deeply shaped specific parts of the country, and the whole of the nation itself. The clearest analogue to me is Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898, where a mob of white racists violently overthrew the duly-elected, interracial government of that city, citing the need to be free from “Negro domination” – by which they meant political power that was equitably distributed between Black and white residents. They murdered at least dozens – likely hundreds – of people in pursuit of power. They deployed murderous violence to illegitimately usurp political control of that city and destroy democracy there, prioritizing white rule over interracial democracy when faced with the prospect of having to legitimately compete for power. Americans talk about coup d’états as the province of so-called “third-world” nations, but it happened here. And it happened in spectacularly successful fashion. Those terrorists destroyed Wilmington’s “Fusion” Black and white government, replacing it with a white, racist, autocratic, Jim Crow government.There are endless relevant historical comparisons to draw from here, but that one speaks to me the most. Many of the January 6 terrorists are nakedly white nationalists. They were inspired and driven by a white nationalist former president who’d failed as a reelection candidate in large part because he, too, is a racist, and thus couldn’t coerce people of color in an increasingly non-white America to vote for him. And so, when they couldn’t win legitimately, they collectively sought to overthrow the government and destroy democracy. Albeit on a different scale, there is precedent for their approach succeeding, as it did in Wilmington. We must ensure that these terrorists don’t win.
Simon Balto is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Geoffrey Kabaservice: ‘If we don’t take action, American democracy may be nearing its end of its run’History may be determined largely by the tectonic grinding of vast impersonal forces, but individual actions can still make a difference. Last summer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled Republican members from the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, hoping thereby to cast the whole investigation as a partisan witch hunt. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed two Trump-critical Republicans to the committee, thereby ensuring that it would mount a serious bipartisan inquiry into the former president’s attempted coup. And the most memorable moments of the committee’s first public hearing came when one of those Republicans, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, issued a searing indictment of both Trump and his enablers.Cheney forthrightly declared that “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.” She reminded her fellow Republican members of Congress that they swore to defend the US Constitution, not an individual or a political party. And she warned “my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible” that “there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”Will her statement – or the committee’s subsequent hearings – change many voters’ minds or shame any Republican legislators into honor? Unlikely given the extent to which Americans have retreated into tribal partisan identities. The revelation that many of Trump’s closest associates (and even some of his family) acknowledged the falsehood of his stolen-election claim isn’t terribly surprising given the bottomless hypocrisy that was the reigning ethos of his administration.But video of the desecration of the Capitol presented in these hearings is as shocking and nausea-inducing as ever, while Cheney’s statement reminds us anew that Trump’s ultimate goal on January 6 was the overthrow of America’s constitutional order. If that’s not enough to move at least some Republicans to condemn Trump’s coup attempt, and take action to prevent a recurrence, then American democracy may be nearing the end of its run.
Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, DC as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican party
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Feel the benefit: union workers receive far better pay and rights, Congress findsStudy shows unionized workers earn 10.2% more than non-union peers, amid wave of organizing at some of largest US employers Workers represented by labor unions earn 10.2% higher wages than their non-union peers, have better benefits and collectively raise wages industry-wide, according to a report released by the House and Senate committees on Friday and first shared with the Guardian.Joe Biden has pledged to be the most pro-union president in generations, and the report outlining the economic benefits of union membership was released as his administration pushes for legislative and executive-action efforts to support workers’ rights to organize.According to the report, by the joint economic committee of Congress and the House education and labor committee, unionized workers are also 18.3% more likely to receive employer-sponsored health insurance, and employers pay 77.4% more per hour worked toward the cost of health insurance for unionized workers compared with non-unionized workers.Labor unions have also contributed to narrowing racial and gender pay disparities; unionization correlates to pay premiums of 17.3% for Black workers, 23.1% for Latino workers and 14.7% for Asian workers, compared with 10.1% for white workers. Overall, female union workers receive 4.7% higher hourly wages than their non-union peers and in female dominated service industries, union workers are paid 52.1% more than non-union workers.“Unions are the foundation of America’s middle class,” said congressman Don Beyer, chair of the Joint Economic Committee. “For too long, the wealthy have captured an increasing share of the economic pie. As this report makes clear, unions help address economic inequality and ensure workers actually see the benefits when the economy grows.”The Biden administration’s drive to increase union membership comes amid a wave of organizing among workers at some of America’s largest employers, including Amazon and Starbucks.But despite the recent uptick in organizing, union membership has declined markedly in recent decades, from 34.8% of all US wage and salary workers in 1954 to 10.3% in 2021. According to several studies the decline has contributed significantly to increasing wage inequality and stagnation.Corporate practices and legal changes have also eroded workers’ bargaining power, particularly from the 1970s, as employers increasingly attempted to break union organizing efforts and were issued only weak penalties for violating labor laws.The report cites the recent resurgence of the US labor movement, and strong public support for labor unions, as a call to action to improve wages and working conditions and support worker organizing.“As chair of the education and labor committee, I am committed to addressing the decades of anti-worker attacks that have eroded workers’ collective bargaining rights,” said education and labor committee chair congressman Bobby Scott.“With the release of this report, I once again call on the Senate to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would take historic steps to strengthen workers’ right to organize, rebuild our middle class, and improve the lives of workers and their families.”TopicsUS unionsBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

The first primetime hearing from the House select committee investigating the 6 January riot presented gut-wrenching footage of the insurrection, and a range of testimony to build a case that the attack on the Capitol was a planned coup fomented by Donald Trump 

Ivanka Trump says she does not believe father’s claim 2020 election was stolen
January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’
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January 6 hearing: five key takeaways from the first primetime Capitol attack inquiryThe House select committee presented their findings that the US Capitol attack was the ‘culmination of an attempted coup’ The first primetime hearing from the House select committee investigating January 6 presented gut-wrenching footage of the insurrection, and a range of testimony to build a case that the attack on the Capitol was a planned coup fomented by Donald Trump.After a year and half investigation, the committee sought to emphasize the horror of the attack and hold the former president and his allies accountable.Here are some key takeaways from the night: Attack on January 6 was the ‘culmination of an attempted coup’Presenting an overview of the hearing and the ones to come, House select committee chair Bennie Thompson and vice-chair Liz Cheney presented their findings that the violent mob that descended on the Capitol was no spontaneous occurrence.January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’Read moreVideo testimony from Donald Trump’s attorney general, his daughter, and other allies make the case that the former president was working to undermine the 2020 election results and foment backlash. “Any legal jargon you hear about ‘seditious conspiracy’, ‘obstruction of an official proceeding’, ‘conspiracy to defraud the United States’ boils down to this,” Thompson said. “January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup. A brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6, to overthrow the government. Violence was no accident. It represented Trump’s last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.” Trump’s own team contested election liesAs Trump carried on his lies that victory was stolen from him, his own administration and allies agreed the election was legitimate.Former attorney general William Barr testified that he expressed Trump’s claims of a stolen election were “bullshit”. A Trump campaign lawyer told Mark Meadows in November “there’s no there there” to support Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. Even Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, said she was convinced by Barr that the election was legitimate.A gut-wrenching review of a violent dayGraphic footage and harrowing testimony came from Capitol officer Caroline Edwards, who on the first line of defense against the attacking mob, reiterated the terror of the insurrection.Edwards compared the scene to a war zone, saying she was slipping on others’ blood as she fought off insurrectionists. “It was carnage. It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw,” she said. The officer sustained burns from a chemical spray deployed against her, and a concussion after a bike rack was heaved on top of her. Officers and lawmakers watching the hearings teared up as they relived the violence of that day.Work of undermining election continued as violence ensuedAs the attack was being carried out, and the mob was threatening Vice-president Mike Pence’s life, Trump and his team continued to work to undermine the election. Vivid retelling brings horror of January 6 back to scene of the crimeRead moreAfter Pence refused to block the election certification, Trump and his supporters turned against him. Trump instigated the riot through a series of tweets.As the mob cried “Hang Mike Pence!” the committee presented evidence that Trump suggested that might not be a bad idea. “Mike Pence deserves it,” the president then said. As violence ensued, “the Trump legal team in the Willard Hotel war room”, continued attempts to subvert the election results, Cheney said.Committee presents case that attack was premeditatedFootage and testimony from film-maker Nick Quested, one of two witnesses at the hearing, suggested the Proud Boys had planned to attackOn the morning of January 6, Quested testified that he was confused to see “a couple of hundred” Proud Boys walking away from Trump’s speech and toward the Capitol. The committee implied that this might have allowed them to scope out the defenses and weak spots at the Capitol.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpIvanka TrumpWilliam BarrMark MeadowsnewsReuse this content More

As America watched Capitol attack testimony, Fox News gave an alternate realityTucker Carlson leads January 6 counter-programming, petulantly refusing to show the hearing: ‘We’re not playing along’ The millions of people who tuned into America’s main television channels on Thursday heard how the January 6 insurrection was “the culmination of an attempted coup”, a “siege” where violent Trump supporters mercilessly attacked police, causing politicians and staffers to run for their lives.On the Fox News channel, however, there was a different take on the historic congressional hearings exploring the attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.The deadly riot was, according to the channel’s primetime host Tucker Carlson, “an outbreak of mob violence, a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards, that took place more than a year and a half ago”.January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’Read moreThis was the alternate reality that Carlson, Fox News’ most-watched host, presented as he opened his hour-long show. He followed it up with a boast: the rightwing network would not be covering one of the most consequential political hearings in recent American history.“The whole thing is insulting,” Carlson said of the primetime House subcommittee hearing on the insurrection, which revealed devastating new details on how Donald Trump appeared to support the assassination of his vice-president and how Trump’s supporters created a “war zone” outside the Capitol.“In fact, it’s deranged. And we’re not playing along. This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live.“They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.”What followed instead was an hour of obfuscation, misdirection and what-about-ism, as Carlson, aided by a selection of guests that included one man who was fired from the Trump administration after he spoke at a conference attended by white nationalists.Carlson’s first guest was Jason Whitlock, host of Fearless. Whitlock immediately parroted what was to become the line of the night.“There was no insurrection,” Whitlock said. “There was a riot, a small one, that got a little bit out of hand.”The scenes broadcast on other TV channels made this claim laughable. Non-Fox News viewers were watching previously unseen footage which showed police officers being kicked and beaten, and people carrying Trump 2020 flags breaking into the Capitol building.Fox News viewers weren’t seeing those.“If something noteworthy happens we will bring it to you immediately,” Carlson had said during his opening monologue.It turned out that Carlson has an unusual definition of noteworthy, given that as the committee was detailing how Trump, on hearing that his supporters were chanting that Mike Pence should be hung, said: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it,” Carlson was merrily chatting with Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic representative who was railing against Congress passing a $40bn aid bill for Ukraine.Gabbard – who has kept a relatively low profile since she gave a spirited defense of Vladimir Putin days before the Russian leader ordered the invasion of Ukraine – seemed happy to join Carlson in downplaying what was taking place, insisting that Congress should be focussing on other matters.Carlson happily took up that theme. Several times he opined on why Congress was holding this two-hour hearing when gas prices have gone up, there are drug deaths, and, most memorably: “this country has never in its history been closer to a nuclear war”.Through the first half of Carlson’s show, two tactics emerged: downplay the insurrection, and complain that the House wanted to investigate it. As he entered the home stretch, Carlson came up with a new, conspiracy-minded, trope.“The point is not to get to the truth,” he said of the hearing. “It’s to hide the truth.”According to the Fox News host, the purpose of the commission is to provide a pretext “for the Democratic party to declare war against millions of American citizens who oppose their agenda”.To support his point, such as it was, Carlson – finally – showed some of the hearing.“Liz Cheney is helping them,” he said. “Here she is just moments ago screeching about disinformation.”Fox News cut to a clip of Cheney speaking in an extremely measured tone about how Trump attempted to overturn the result of the 2020 election through a misinformation campaign – a campaign that Cheney said “provoked the violence on January 6”.“She is off on another planet,” Carlson said. “Why is Liz Cheney abetting the destruction of America’s civil liberties, and our sacred norms?”Fox News typically has more than 3m viewers in the 8pm hour, but announced earlier this week that it would not air the hearing, instead relegating coverage to the Fox Business channel, which averages fewer than 100,000 viewers.The channel stuck true to its boycott promise. Occasionally while Carlson talked a video stream of the committee would appear in a little soundless box, floating off to the right of the host’s head, but that was largely it.While the hearing rolled on, Carlson rattled through his guests. A man running as a Republican for Congress said people at the Capitol had legitimate grievances over election fraud, before conceding that things became “a little bit dicey”. Another guest made vague claims about the entire insurrection being cooked up by the FBI.Carlson’s final interviewee was Darren Beattie, a rightwing activist who was fired as a Trump speechwriter after it emerged he had attended a conference in 2016 alongside a prominent white nationalist.Beattie’s take – nodded along to by Carlson – was that “the feds” were responsible for the riot on January 6.“It’s a clear hoax, we know it happened.”Carlson might well have nodded. Last year he hosted a documentary, Patriot Purge, about the January 6 attack which floated the conspiracy theory that violence that day was instigated by leftwing activists. Carlson has also suggested FBI operatives organized the attack on the Capitol.As Carlson praised Beattie’s reporting, courage and general standing as a person, it brought to mind something Carlson had said earlier, after he had spent several minutes criticizing the hearing with Charlie Hurt, a writer for the right-wing Washington Times newspaper.“You and I entered journalism about the same time, about 30 years ago,” Carlson told Hurt.“It seemed honorable then. It seems really shameful now.”TopicsFox NewsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS television industrynewsReuse this content More

Dr Mehmet Öz is the Republican nominee for the Pennsylvania Senate race, which will take place in November. Up against him is another interesting character in John Fetterman. Both see themselves as political outsiders, but who will win this important swing state in the midterms? Jonathan Freedland puts this to politics reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer Julia Terruso

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Find a link to Jonathan Freedland’s new book, The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World, here Send your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

Vivid retelling brings horror of January 6 back to scene of the crime Liz Cheney was the star prosecutor in a primetime indictment of Donald Trump’s attempt to illegally cling to power but will the audience stay for episode two?It was too much to take. Too much for a second time.As the cavernous room filled with ugly cries and chants, police radio pleas for help, images of a human herd driven by a crazed impulse to beat police, smash windows and storm the US Capitol, survivors of that day held hands and wept.January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’Read moreSeveral members of the House of Representatives, who were trapped on a balcony in the chamber as the attack unfolded on 6 January 2021, sat together at Thursday’s opening public hearing held by the select committee investigating the insurrection.When a carefully crafted video of that day’s carnage was played, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal watched haunted and spellbound and wiped a tear from her eye. When her colleague Cori Bush broke down, a tissue was passed along the line so she could wipe her eyes.The pain of reliving it all was written on the faces of the group, who have provided emotional support to each other ever since. And the effect was magnified because of the stagecraft: the footage was shown on a giant cinema-style screen above the committee members’ head and the volume was turned up to a deliberately discomforting level.Committee member Jamie Raskin had promised that the revelations would “blow the roof off the House”; this did at least ring in the ears and take root inside the head. Later Jayapal tweeted a single word: “Horrifying.”In the hope of similarly cutting through to the American public, the hearing began at 8pm and was broadcast live on every major network except Fox News. Prime time is a language that Donald Trump, a former reality TV star, understands but this turned out to most closely resemble a courtroom drama. Think Law & Order comes to Washington.There was an unlikely star prosecutor, Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who clinically and methodically laid out a damning case against Trump and those who still support the ex-president. There was gasp-inducing evidence pulled out of the hat, including video testimony from Trump’s daughter Ivanka.There was a jury of millions watching at home: the court of public opinion. But missing, of course, was the accused himself. There was no case for the defence, no Trump in the dock sweating under the bright lights from two big chandeliers. His champions on Fox News and elsewhere will denounce it as a show trial. His critics will urge the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to bring a genuine criminal indictment.The drama inside the drama here was Cheney versus Trump and a battle of wills over the direction of the Republican party. Poignantly the daughter of George W Bush’s vice-president, Dick Cheney, knows that the very act of prosecuting Trump might be an act of political self-immolation. The former president has backed a challenger to her in a Republican primary in Wyoming in August and rallied against her there two weeks ago.“I keep waiting for Liz Cheney to flinch,” wrote Frank Bruni, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. “But no. She’s all in and she’s all steel. It could well be the political death of her. Or it could give her a kind of immortality more meaningful than any office.”Cheney again refused to flinch on Thursday, arguing that Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of power. He encouraged and endorsed the insurrection, refused to call off the mob and became angry with anyone who wanted to stop it, she alleged.“And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence’, the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it.”At that there was a murmur of disbelief from the members of Congress sitting at the back of the Cannon Caucus Room. Sitting beside chairman Bennie Thompson and other committee members on the dais, with five flags behind them, Cheney went on: “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”She introduced video clips that included William Barr, who was attorney general at the time of the election, testifying that he told Trump “in no uncertain terms” that he did not see evidence of voter fraud.Another clip showed Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka, in an unexciting grey room, responding to Barr’s assertion: “I respect Attorney General Barr so I accepted what he was saying.”That will not have played well at Mar-a-Lago, the Trump redoubt in Florida. Betrayed by his own blood and kin! Now he must know how King Lear felt. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”Almost as bad, Cheney also served up a clip of a speech by the once-devoted Pence, whom Trump pressured relentlessly to subvert democracy. The former vice-president stated baldly: “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”The congresswoman added “What President Trump demanded that Mike Pence do wasn’t just wrong, it was illegal and it was unconstitutional.”Cheney and fellow Republican Adam Kinzinger, who is not seeking re-election, have already been censured by the party for sitting on the committee and can expect more demonisation in the coming days. But she had a memorable rejoinder: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”Eventually the case rested until the next hearing on Monday. The committee had delivered a mostly effective warning to America not to let Trump anywhere near the White House again.But will America tune in for episode two? Civil rights activist and legal analyst Maya Wiley warned on Twitter: “We are getting an opening similar to a jury trial. You lay out what the jury will learn during the trial. In this case over several hearings. A jury is a captive audience. TV audience is not.”TopicsUS Capitol attackThe US politics sketchUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More