US Politics

The Pennsylvania primaries of May 17, 2022, proved a good night for Donald Trump, a better one for “Trumpism” and a problem for moderates hoping for a candidate primed to capture the center in the upcoming midterms.

Trump’s officially endorsed Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, is currently in a tight race with main GOP rival David McCormick – with the balloting set for a recount.

Both ran their primary campaign as Trumpist candidates and vied for the former president’s nod. Meanwhile, third place in the GOP race went to Kathy Barnette, a Fox News commentator who touts herself as more MAGA than Trump.

The fact that all three leading GOP candidates had the DNA of Trumpism in them suggests a couple of things. First, it indicates that echoing the policies, rhetorical style and personality of the former president can be an effective tool for Republican candidates seeking to appeal to the party base. And this is especially important in a closed-primary state such as Pennsylvania, in which only party members have a say in who gets to run for Senate.

And second, it raises a question about the tried-and-tested plan of candidates’ appealing to the party base in the primary before pivoting closer to the center in the general election: Will that post-primary transformation be possible for Republicans in Pennsylvania – and elsewhere – in 2022?

All local politics is national

The Pennsylvania primary proved that the adage that “all politics is local” has to some degree been inverted: Local and state elections are now run on national issues and are influenced by national figures.

But whereas a Trump endorsement in the recent Ohio primary resulted in an immediate surge for his anointed candidate, J.D. Vance, Pennsylvania didn’t quite play out the same way.

Oz’s chance of winning was certainly not harmed by getting Trump’s stamp of approval. But he didn’t seem to take many votes off McCormick or Barnette in the process. In fact, some see Barnette faring better than expected because Trump supporters decided to vote for her as “the more Trump” candidate, over Oz as the “official” Trump candidate.

Meanwhile, Trump’s endorsement actually meant very little for Doug Mastriano, who won the state’s GOP primary for governor. Mastriano – an avidly Trumpian candidate who repeats the former president’s election conspiracy theories – was already pulling ahead by the time Trump made a late nod of approval in his favor.

The point is, whether these Republican candidates are seen as being faithful to Trump’s signature MAGA cause is what matters when it comes to winning in these primaries.

But here’s the rub for Republicans. That may work well enough in firing up the base during primary season, but it complicates the pivot to running against Democrats – and appealing to more moderate voters – in the midterm election. A candidate like Mastriano will have to defend positions like a total ban on abortion, reversal of support for mail-in voting and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Pennsylvania is seen as a toss-up state when it comes to the Senate vote. In such circumstances, appealing to the center becomes more important – party faithful tend to be locked in; swing voters are up for grabs.

Any GOP candidate who hitches his or her wagon to Trumpian policies and rhetoric may find it harder to appeal to centrists – and may actually alienate some moderate Republicans.

Circling back to the center

A similar dynamic played out in Pennsylvania in the Democratic primary race for Senate, but with success found by positioning policies to the left of the center. One of the more progressive candidates, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, prevailed against the moderate Rep. Conor Lamb.

But even so, Fetterman has, I believe, more room to maneuver come the general election. Fetterman has experience running for – and winning – a statewide office before. Moreover, he has carefully cultivated an “everyman” image, which could play well against either Oz or hedge fund CEO McCormick. Even so, he will have to defend more progressive positions that could also turn off moderate Republicans.

Success in the Pennsylvania primaries came to those candidates able to position themselves away from the center and more in line with the party’s ideological extreme. But it is the Republican candidate, in vying against others for Trump’s blessing as well as his base, who might find it more difficult to circle back to the center during the midterms. More

US withdrawal triggered catastrophic defeat of Afghan forces, damning watchdog report findsReport by special inspector general blames Trump and Biden administrations, as well as the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani Afghan armed forces collapsed last year because they had been made dependent on US support that was abruptly withdrawn in the face of a Taliban offensive, according to a scathing assessment by a US government watchdog.A report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) on the catastrophic defeat that led to the fall of Kabul on 15 August, blamed the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden as well as the Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani.“Sigar found that the single most important factor in the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces’ (ANDSF) collapse in August 2021 was the decision by two US presidents to withdraw US military and contractors from Afghanistan, while Afghan forces remained unable to sustain themselves,” said the congressionally mandated report, which was released on Wednesday.Afghanistan stunned by scale and speed of security forces’ collapseRead moreThe Sigar account focused on the impact of two critical events that it said doomed the Afghan forces: the February 2020 Doha agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban, and then Biden’s April 2021 decision to pull out all US troops by September, without leaving a residual force.“Due to the ANDSF’s dependency on US military forces, these events destroyed ANDSF morale,” the inspector general said. “The ANDSF had long relied on the US military’s presence to protect against large-scale ANDSF losses, and Afghan troops saw the United States as a means of holding their government accountable for paying their salaries. The US-Taliban agreement made it clear that this was no longer the case, resulting in a sense of abandonment within the ANDSF and the Afghan population.”The ANDSF were dependent on US troops and contractors because that was how the forces were developed, the report argued, noting “the United States designed the ANDSF as a mirror image of US forces”.“The United States created a combined arms military structure that required a high degree of professional military sophistication and leadership,” it said. “The United States also created a non-commissioned officer corps which had no foundation in Afghanistan military history.”It would have taken decades to build a modern, cohesive and self-reliant force, the Sigar document argued. The Afghan air force, the main military advantage the government had over the Taliban, had not been projected to be self-sufficient until 2030 at the earliest.Within weeks of Biden’s withdrawal announcement, the contractors who maintained planes and helicopters left. As a result, there were not enough functioning aircraft to get weapons and supplies to Afghan forces around the country, leaving them without ammunition, food and water in the face of renewed Taliban attacks.The US had begun cutting off air support to the Afghan army after the Doha agreement was signed. Exacerbating its impact on morale was the fact that the deal had secret annexes, widely believed to stipulate the Taliban’s counter-terrorism commitments and restrictions on fighting for both the US and Taliban. They remain secret, apparently, even from an official enquiry.“Sigar was not able to obtain copies of these annexes, despite official requests made to the US Department of Defence and the US Department of State,” the report observes.The secrecy led to unintended consequences, the report said.“Taliban propaganda weaponised that vacuum against local commanders and elders by claiming the Taliban had a secret deal with the United States for certain districts or provinces to be surrendered to them,” it said.The Sigar report also blames the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, who changed ANDSF commanders during the Taliban offensive, appointing aged loyalists from the communist era, while marginalising well-trained ANDSF officers aligned with the US.It quotes one unnamed former Afghan government official as saying that after the Doha agreement, “President Ghani began to suspect that the United States wanted to remove him from power.”According to the former official and a former Afghan government Ghani was afraid of a military coup. He became a “paranoid president … afraid of his own countrymen” and particularly of US-trained Afghan officers.Ghani fled Afghanistan on the day Kabul fell.TopicsAfghanistanAshraf GhaniUS foreign policyTrump administrationBiden administrationSouth and central AsiaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Republican ‘big lie’ supporters triumph in sign of Trump’s enduring powerHard-right candidates who challenged 2020 result win string of primary victories on a good night too for progressive Democrats Republican candidates who questioned, denied and challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election won a string of consequential primaries in Pennsylvania and North Carolina this week, a testament to the enduring power of Donald Trump’s voter fraud myth, which continues to animate the hard-right movement he started.In a campaign season dominated by angst over the economy and frustration with leadership in Washington, several hard-right candidates successfully channeled conservative grassroots momentum, and are now in striking distance of positions that will have enormous influence over voting and elections administration in battleground states across the country.US primary elections: Dr Oz tied with McCormick in test of Trump’s influence on Republicans – liveRead moreDemocrats, meanwhile, who face a grim electoral outlook dampened by Joe Biden’s dismal approval ratings, chose to elevate candidates who more closely reflected the party’s base, with progressives on the verge of growing their ranks in Congress.Though not yet complete, the results from Tuesday’s highly anticipated election night delivered a composite portrait of a Republican party still in Trump’s thrall, even in races where his chosen candidate came up short.In Pennsylvania, Republicans nominated Doug Mastriano, a hard-right election denier who was a key figure in the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his state. He attended and helped organize Trump’s “Save America” rally in Washington on January 6 that preceded the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, and has been subpoenaed by the House panel investigating the assault.Mastriano’s victory sets up a high-stakes showdown with Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general. Should Mastriano prevail in November, he would be in charge of one of the most contested states in the country – one in which the governor appoints the secretary of state, who in turn oversees the election.During his campaign, Mastriano embraced elements of Christian nationalism, staking out controversial positions on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights and public health mandates. In one debate, he suggested he would oppose any exceptions to an abortion ban, including in cases involving rape or incest. Shapiro has cast himself as a defender of abortion rights, an issue that is expected to play a key role in governor’s races this fall should the supreme court strike down Roe v Wade, as is anticipated.In his victory speech Tuesday night, Mastriano lashed out at media outlets and commentators who referred to him as “extreme”.“They like to call people who stand on the constitution far-right and extreme,” he said. “Forcing your kids to mask up, that’s extreme. Forcing healthcare workers to lose their job for not getting a jab. It’s extreme when you shut down businesses in our state.”In the marquee Senate race, the Trump-backed celebrity physician, Mehmet Oz, was neck-and-neck with the former hedge fund chief executive David McCormick, with nearly all of the vote tallied. The conservative commentator Kathy Barnette had fallen far behind and was out of contention for the nomination.During the campaign, the candidates competed to claim the Maga mantle. Both Oz, who touted Trump’s endorsement, and McCormick, who is married to the former Trump administration official Dina Powell, struggled to animate the former president’s loyal base, and spent millions of dollars of their personal war chests attacking each other in one of the most expensive intra-party brawls of the cycle.That apparently left an opening for Barnette, who enjoyed a last-minute surge in the polls. Despite her Maga bona fides and endorsements from Trump’s allies, the former president warned voters that she was unelectable.In response to doubts about the strength of her candidacy, Barnette said: “Maga does not belong to President Trump.”In North Carolina, the scandal-plagued first-term congressman Madison Cawthorn lost his re-election bid despite Trump urging supporters to give the 26-year-old Maga firebrand a “second chance”. He was beaten by Chuck Edwards, a state senator who offered a record that was every bit as conservative but without the celebrity. It was a sharp fall for Cawthorn, once viewed as a rising star in the Maga universe, and a rare win for the Republican party’s old guard, which aligned against him.Trump’s choice for Senate, the North Carolina congressman Tedd Budd, also triumphed. Trump’s early endorsement of the little-known House Republican reshaped the race, elevating a candidate who objected to the certification of 2020 election results in two states. He beat out the state’s former governor, Pat McCrory, who refused to say the 2020 election was stolen.Budd now faces the former state supreme court chief justice Cheri Beasley for the seat being vacated by the retiring Republican senator Richard Burr. If elected, Beasley would be the southern state’s first Black senator if elected.Trump’s choice in Idaho also came up short, failing to unseat the state’s Republican governor, Brad Little. Janice McGeachin, the state’s far-right lieutenant governor, who twice attempted a power grab while Little was out of state, had made Trump’s false claims of a stolen election a central plank of her candidacy.While much of the focus was on Trump’s influence over his party, Tuesday’s results tested Biden’s appeal among the party’s base. In Oregon, a progressive challenger, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, appeared on track to unseat the congressman Kurt Schrader, a seven-term incumbent with a reputation for breaking with his party. Schrader was the first candidate Biden endorsed this cycle, and his loss would be a major victory for the progressive movement.In Pennsylvania, Congressman Conor Lamb, an avowed centrist from the Biden wing of the party who won difficult races in Trump country, lost handily to the state’s lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, an iconoclastic progressive with blue-collar appeal.Meanwhile, Pennsylvania state representative Summer Lee, running for an open House seat, appeared to have overcome a wave of money from outside groups aiming to counter the progressive movement. If she wins the primary in the solidly Democratic district, Lee would be on track to become the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania in Congress.“Our victory shows that we can overcome the billionaire class that wants to divide and conquer us all with fear and lies-for-profit, if only we come together across our differences for a positive vision of multiracial democracy,” Lee wrote on Twitter after declaring victory on Tuesday night. “We can have nice things, if we fight.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

White House resumes Covid briefings after six-week hiatus as cases riseNew head of Covid response calls on Congress for additional funding to pay for vaccines and treatments The White House resumed its coronavirus briefings on Wednesday after a six-week hiatus as Covid-19 cases rose across the nation, with the new head of Covid response calling on Congress for additional funding to pay for vaccines and treatments.“I want to make sure we have enough resources so that we can buy enough vaccines for every American. I think that is absolutely critical. We do not have the resources to do that right now,” said Ashish Jha, the White House’s new coronavirus response coordinator, who replaced Jeff Zients in March. “So without additional funding from Congress, we will not be able to buy enough vaccines for every American who wants one.”The last White House coronavirus briefing was held on 5 April. Since then, various mask mandates have been lifted across the country, including those on planes, trains and in automobiles.Jha explained that the administration has not stopped fighting the virus, however, noting that it has increased its rapid test kits allocated to each household from four to eight kits. “We know there are multigenerational households, we know that there are households with more than four people and we want to make sure that we make as many tests as we can possibly make available,” he said.Jha also revealed that the administration has seen a dramatic increase in the use of the Covid-19 pill Paxlovid, with demand increasing fourfold in just the previous month.“Our latest estimates are that about 20,000 prescriptions of Paxlovid are being given out every day. I think that is actually a really important reason why, despite the very substantial increase in infections, we have not seen a commensurate increase in deaths,” Jha said.Jha also renewed his pleas for Congress to authorize additional funding so the government could purchase more vaccines and Covid-19 treatments.“If we don’t get more resources from Congress, what we will find in the fall and winter is … a period of time where Americans can look around and see their friends in other countries in Europe and Canada with access to these treatments that Americans would not have.”The resumed briefing comes as the US marks a grim milestone, now that more than 1 million people have been officially counted dead since the pandemic began in March 2020, and the real number likely to be much higher.The US has one of the highest mortality rates in the world: 303 dead from Covid-19 out of every 100,000 residents, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.The huge toll has set the US apart from other wealthy nations, in a crisis exacerbated by the country’s deep-rooted inequality, broken healthcare system and fraught politics.“In terms of understanding why we had such a bad experience from the pandemic, we have to think about the systemic issues that already were in place when the pandemic arrived,” Steven Woolf, a social epidemiologist and population health researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the Guardian. “And, on top of that, mishandling of the pandemic by the government and by the public, frankly.”According to data from the New York Times, for the first time since 20 February, the daily average of Covid-19 cases in the country surpassed 100,000, marking a 61% rise from two weeks ago.Although deaths have been declining, hospitalizations have been on the rise: up by 25% in the past two weeks.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Rochelle Walensky, reaffirmed the importance of booster shots at the briefing.“Our vaccine effectiveness cohort studies have shown Covid-19 vaccines generally remain effective in preventing severe disease, including protecting against Omicron. However, we also know that protection from Covid-19 vaccines wanes, or becomes less protective over time, especially in the Omicron era,” she said.“This is one of the reasons vaccine boosters are so important.”TopicsBiden administrationCoronavirusInfectious diseasesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

The Republican primaries are a tug-of-war between rightwing and even-righter-wingLloyd GreenTrump’s claim that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ is now entrenched as Republican Gospel, and the candidates he endorsed have – mostly – done well in the primaries Donald Trump’s sway over the Republican party continues. On Tuesday, Republicans again paid heed to the ex-president’s endorsements even as they declined to march in lockstep. Flecks of daylight emerged across the primary battlegrounds. Still, Trump has little to worry about. His fantastical claim that the 2020 election was stolen is firmly entrenched as Republican Gospel.Trump still won’t shut up. He’s doing Democrats running for office a huge favor | Robert ReichRead moreIn North Carolina, Representative Ted Budd received Trump’s seal of approval, and won the Republican nod for US senator with nearly 60% of the vote. Budd was a Trump loyalist when it counted most.In January 2021, the congressman sided with the majority of his House Republican colleagues. He voted to deprive Joe Biden of his win. Before Budd received Trump’s endorsement, he had been trailing – just like JD Vance in Ohio.Over in Pennsylvania, Trump is the reason that Mehmet Oz is still standing. Right now, “Dr Oz” holds a 0.2% lead over David McCormick, a hedge fund titan who Trump savaged as a China-loving globalist. Fewer than 2,700 votes separate the pair. Kathy Barnette, a conservative commentator with a murky résumé and described by Trump as unelectable, has third place, all to herself.The race has not yet been called. A recount is almost certain. If Oz loses, he can blame Barnette, who exposed him as a latecomer to the Maga-verse. Once upon a time, the doctor was a Harvard-educated, pro-choice physician who served in Turkey’s army. America First, not so much.To be sure, Oz is an acquired taste who suffered from a popularity deficit heading into the primary. Among Republicans, his favorability stood underwater, 37%–48%.Significantly, Oz led among those who cast their ballots on primary day itself, as opposed to early voters. At the beginning of the evening, McCormick actually held a double-digit lead thanks to mail-in ballots, an advantage which evaporated as the night wore on.Beyond that, Oz showed particular strength in Trump’s Pennsylvania strongholds. To illustrate, he ran well in Luzerne county, a so-called “pivot county”. Nestled in the north-east part of the state, Luzerne went for Barack Obama by five points in 2012.Four years later, Luzerne delivered a nearly 20% margin to Trump, and with it the Keystone state. On Tuesday, Oz captured 41% of Luzerne’s Republican primary vote, and ran ahead of McCormick there by better than 10 points.The falcon heard the call of the falconer. Elsewhere, not so much. Oz failed to win the counties in and around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.Out west, in Idaho, Brad Little, the incumbent Republican governor, beat back a challenge from Janice McGeachin, Idaho’s Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor, and a favorite of the far right.On the issues, McGeachin managed to surpass Little’s hostility toward mask mandates. She also advocated increased in-state production of weapons and ammunition, and delivered a video address to the America First Political Action Conference.Some perspective is in order. Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, organized the conference. McGeachin wore it as a badge of pride.Significantly, Idaho’s outcome stands as a harbinger for the upcoming Georgia governor’s race. Brian Kemp, the incumbent, faces a challenge from David Perdue, a former US senator who is Trump’s designated attack dog.Trump loathes Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. In 2020, the pair refused to “find” Trump votes after his defeat. Right now, Kemp is favored over Perdue, who lies about the outcome of November election and his own recent defeat. Meanwhile, a grand jury is examining Trump’s post-election conduct.And then there is Madison Cawthorn, North Carolina’s over-the-top congressman. He went down to defeat after videos of his alleged nude antics hit the internet. Republicans were unamused. By contrast, Cawthorn’s earlier visit to Hitler’s vacation home did not move the needle.In the hours and days ahead, expect Oz and McCormick to garner continued media attention. But come November, another contest in Pennsylvania will also grab its share of the spotlight – the race for governor.Douglas Mastriano is now the Republican gubernatorial candidate. Unlike Oz and McCormick, Mastriano truly believes the Maga message. It is a tenet of faith. As a candidate, he championed Christian nationalism, espoused election denialism and flipped the bird at efforts to curb Covid’s spread.A Pennsylvania state senator and a retired colonel, Mastriano has pledged to appoint a Maga secretary of state to oversee Pennsylvania’s election machinery. He also vowed that his secretary of state would “reset” the voter rolls.Fittingly, Mastriano attended the 6 January rally. He and his wife watched as a rioter stormed a police barricade. They did not enter the building, but the House select committee has subpoenaed him. The fact that Mastriano recently attended a Qanon rally did not deter the Republican Governors Association from eventually backing him.Mastriano makes some Pennsylvania Republicans nervous. They predict his presence may cost the Republican party control of the governor’s mansion and the Senate.Then again, inflation still rages, the possibility of a recession looms, the stock market wobbles. Populist rage propelled Trump to the White House. History can repeat itself. If empowered, Mastriano will do all that he can to make it happen.
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
TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpPennsylvaniaOhioIdahoGeorgiacommentReuse this content More

How 4chan’s toxic culture helped radicalize Buffalo shooting suspectPayton Gendron’s 180-page manifesto borrowed straight from the site’s politics boards, echoing antisemite and racist myths Just weeks after 4chan motivated a quadruple shooting in Washington DC, the racist and conspiracy-oriented online message board probably inspired the killings of 10 at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo over the weekend.A 180-page manifesto, allegedly released by the accused along with a video of the attack, is rife with pseudo-scientific racism, antisemitic conspiracy theories and a call for others to mimic his violence. The screed is mostly plagiarized from other extremists and from the far-right 4chan.The 18-year-old white man charged with carrying out the massacre – before turning himself over to police at the scene – wrote that “extreme boredom” drove him to 4chan in March 2020.‘Cheering section’ for violence: the attacks that show 4chan is still a threatRead morePayton Gendron first fell into logging on the message board daily when coronavirus-related lockdowns kept many in New York state indoors, according to the timeline in the manifesto. His family told the New York Post that isolation and paranoia inflicted by the pandemic made him snap – possibly a preview of Gendron’s legal defense.Gendron faces first-degree murder charges, which the justice department says they may prosecute as hate crimes. Most of those slain were Black, including Aaron Salter, a security guard who tried to stop the shooting; local activist Katherine Massey; and substitute teacher Pearl Young.The manifesto contains hundreds of racist and antisemitic memes borrowed straight from 4chan’s politics boards and spells out the philosophy behind the attacks: the racist myth that Democrats favor open immigration policies and high birthrates for Black people to “replace” Republican voters and seize control of America.Buffalo shooting: what we know about the victims so farRead moreThat so-called rreat replacement myth, sometimes more bluntly termed “white genocide theory,” has found particularly fertile ground in places like 4chan.“We have seen (the great replacement myth) playing a greater role in mobilizing individuals to violence because it has a somewhat unique ability to foster a sense of emergency,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, assistant professor in the school of religion at Queen’s University and author of an upcoming book on the radicalizing power of conspiracy theories.The manifesto details the baseless racism that underpins the philosophy, including the idea that Jewish people secretly control the world, and that the genetic differences between the races make them incompatible. One particular image, sourced from 4chan, claims to show “the truth about race” – compiling a handful of debunked, misunderstood, or cherrypicked studies to assert the claim that certain races are inferior to whites. The manifesto even seeks to back up its claims with the long-abandoned pseudoscience of phrenology, which studies the sizes and shapes of craniums.While these claims have no basis in modern biology or sociology, they are established doctrine on 4chan, where even conversations on a board devoted to cooking frequently veer into racist slurs and junk race science. The popularity of these ideas on 4chan has bubbled up into the mainstream.The great replacement myth has been endorsed, in various forms, by vlogger Nick Fuentes and neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front and by more establishment figures like Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Senate hopeful JD Vance.In Discord chat logs believed to be written by Gendron, he writes, “I only really turned racist when 4chan started giving me facts.” Early in 2022 he explained that only 4chan – including the board dedicated to Nazi ideology – gave him the real news he sought. “White genocide is real when you look at data, but is not talked about on popular media outlets,” he wrote. He confessed to browsing 4chan daily and that he “barely interacts with regular people”.4chan is also notorious for praising and deifying other mass shooters and white supremacist terrorists. Gendron’s alleged manifesto has ample evidence of their influence on him. Civil rights lawyer Crump: investigate Buffalo shooting as domestic terrorismRead moreThe document borrows heavily from another manifesto written in 2019 by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Tarrant was also a frequent user of 4chan and its sister board, 8chan, according to a government report. Tarrant’s own manifesto, which was uploaded to 8chan before the attack, in turn plagiarized significantly from Anders Brevik, who murdered 77 in Norway in 2011 in an anti-immigrant spree.Brevik himself copy-and-pasted most of his manifesto directly from other anti-Islam sources, illustrating “the broader ideas behind the great replacement conspiracy theory have been around for some time within various far-right movements”, Amarasingam said.Besides Buffalo, both 4chan and 8chan have become politically significant forces in the US. Both boards helped form and foster QAnon, the far-right myth that Donald Trump is combating a cult of elite leftist pedophiles. The boards played a central role in constructing the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump, which inspired the deadly Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.Then, last month, 23-year-old Raymond Spencer recorded himself shooting and wounding four people at random. He uploaded the footage to 4chan and continued posting right up until he committed suicide, as police closed in on him. A racist meme, popular on 4chan, was posted on the wall of the apartment Spencer used as a sniper’s nest.Gendron and Spencer’s cases vividly show how 4chan’s toxic culture can radicalize young men, according to Amarasingam.“You can hear it all over the Buffalo shooter’s manifesto – a deep sense of urgency that there is an imminent collapse of white people and white culture,” the professor said. “Combine all this with the furious nihilism, racism, and angst of 4chan and it all becomes deeply worrying.”TopicsUS newsBuffalo shootingUS politicsReuse this content More

Pennsylvania and North Carolina primaries test Trump’s hold on Republican partyVoters nominated Maga-bona fide Doug Mastriano as the GOP candidate in Pennsylvania’s governor race, but were divided in North Carolina Pennsylvania Republicans on Tuesday nominated Donald Trump’s choice for governor, an election denier who was outside the Capitol on 6 January, but were divided over his candidate for Senate in a consequential round of primary contests that also saw the ousting of Madison Cawthorn, the scandal-plagued first-term congressman, in North Carolina. Voters in five states went to the polls on Tuesday to pick the candidates at the center of some of this year’s most contentious battles for control of Congress, statehouses and governor’s offices. From Oregon to North Carolina, Idaho to Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the array of nominating contests tested both Trump’s grip on the Republican party and Joe Biden’s leadership of the Democratic party.In Pennsylvania – a perennial swing state and one of the fiercest electoral battlegrounds – Doug Mastriano, a far-right state senator who was a key figure in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state, will face Democrat Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general, in a highly anticipated contest for governor.Madison Cawthorn, pro-Trump firebrand who faced political stumbles, concedes in House raceRead moreThe Associated Press declared Mastriano, a retired Army colonel, the winner in a crowded field of Republican candidates. Shapiro ran unopposed. Despite his Maga bona fides, Trump only endorsed Mastriano in the final days of the campaign after he had consistently led in the polls. But his candidacy has worried party leaders concerned that he is too extreme to appeal to swing voters in the state.In North Carolina, Cawthorn failed to win re-election amid multiple scandals, losing his seat to Chuck Edwards, a three-term state senator and business owner. It was a stunning fall for the 26-year-old congressman, once seen as a rising star in the Republican party.But his rabble-rousing antics angered many of his colleagues, some of whom turned sharply against him in the race after he claimed without evidence that Washington figures he “looked up to” had invited him to orgies and used cocaine. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy rebuked Cawthorn publicly over the remark.John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, handily won the state’s Democratic primary for Senate that was complicated when a stroke took Fetterman off the campaign trail in the final weekend before the election. His victory sets the stage for one of the fiercest Senate races of the cycle – and one of the best opportunities for Democrats to pick up a seat in a year when the political headwinds are blowing against them.Fetterman, a plain-spoken Harvard graduate known for wearing gym shorts and championing marijuana legalization, beat congressman Conor Lamb, a moderate who aligned himself closely with Biden and state representative Malcolm Kenyatta, a leftwing state legislator. Fetterman is expected to make a full recovery from his stroke, but was not able to attend his election night party because he was still in the hospital.In a statement, Joe Biden said electing Fetterman, a liberal Democrat, would be a “big step forward for Pennsylvania’s working people”. Calling him a “strong nominee” who could unite Democrats and win a general election, the president lashed out at his prospective Republican opponent, warning that whoever emerged as the nominee was guaranteed to be “too dangerous, too craven, and too extreme” for the US Senate.As of late Tuesday, Fetterman’s opponent was not yet known. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician known as Dr Oz, was trailing Dave McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, but the race remained too close to call. Conservative commentator Kathy Barnette, who enjoyed an 11th hour surge as Oz and McCormick lobbed brutal attacks on one another, finished in a distant third.“Unfortunately we’re not going to have a resolution tonight,” McCormick said during a speech at his election night party on Tuesday, citing “tens of thousands” of outstanding ballots left to count. On the Republican side, Oz struggled to unite the conservative base behind him. Hounded as a “Hollywood liberal,” Oz embraced Trump’s false claim of voter fraud and was rewarded with the former president’s seal of approval. But when they appeared together a rally, boos could be heard whenever Trump mentioned Oz.Conservatives in the state also appeared tepid about McCormick, the husband of former Trump administration official Dina Powell. During the campaign, he and Oz unloaded their personal war chests, leveling such a ferocious campaign against one another that exasperated voters said they began looking at Barnette.Several states over, in North Carolina, the Trump-backed congressman Ted Budd bested ex-governor Pat McCrory and a dozen other candidates to clinch the Republican nomination for Senate. Budd had struggled to gain traction early in the race until a surprise endorsement from the former president elevated his candidacy. He also received a major boost from the Club for Growth, an influential anti-tax group that poured money into the race on his behalf.Budd will face Democrat Cheri Beasley, a former chief justice for the North Carolina state supreme court, who easily won her party’s 10-way primary to replace retiring Republican senator Richard Burr. Beasley faces an uphill climb in the state, where Republicans have dominated the Senate race. If victorious, the trailblazing former public defender would make history as the southern state’s first Black senator.In a setback for progressives, state senator Valerie Foushee defeated Nida Allam, the first Muslim woman ever elected to public office in North Carolina, in the hotly contested primary to replace retiring the congressman David Price in North Carolina’s 4th congressional District, a safe Democratic seat.Foushee was one of the many candidates who benefited from the support of a Super Pac affiliated with American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby group,which poured money into primary races with the goal of countering the rise of progressive Democrats sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.The group also targeted Summer Lee in the final weeks of her bid to capture the party’s nomination in the solidly Democratic Pennsylvania district.But as of late Tuesday evening, Lee, a progressive representative, appears to have overcome the flood of money spent against her to defeat Steve Irwin in the race to replace congressman Mike Doyle, who is retiring at the end of next year. Lee’s victory would be a major win for the progressive movement in the safely Democratic seat. If elected, she would be the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress.In deeply conservative Idaho, the sitting governor, Brad Little, defeated his far-right lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, a Trump-endorsed candidate who twice attempted a power grab to ban coronavirus mask and vaccine mandates when Little was out of state on business. Little overturned the orders when he returned.Republican Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz calls far-right rival’s comments on Islam ‘reprehensible’Read moreAnd in Oregon, congressman Kurt Schrader, a moderate Democrat known for breaking with his party, was hoping to fend off a strong progressive challenge in a race seen as a test of the president’s appeal among the party’s base.And in an expensive fight for Oregon’s newly created sixth congressional district, Democratic state representative Andrea Salinas was leading a sprawling primary that included a political novice backed by a cryptocurrency billionaire. If elected, Salinas will be the state’s first Latina in Congress.The seven-term incumbent was a top target for progressives after joining Republicans in opposition to Biden’s $1.9tn pandemic relief package, among other policy positions. Nevertheless, Schrader was the first candidate Biden endorsed this cycle.In Kentucky, the state’s highest ranking Democrat, Morgan McGarvey, won the party primary for an open congressional seat to replace the retiring congressman John Yarmuth, who endorsed him. He beat state representative Attica Scott, who drew national attention when she sued Louisville police officers after being arrested during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, a disappointment for movement activists hoping to translate the grassroots energy into political gains.Charles Booker, a Black former state lawmaker who emerged as a powerful voice against racial justice in the aftermath of the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in 2020, won the Democratic Senate primary in the state. The progressive faces long odds in his bid to unseat Republican senator Rand Paul in November.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsDemocratsPennsylvaniaNorth CarolinaIdahoOregonnewsReuse this content More

Madison Cawthorn, pro-Trump firebrand who faced political stumbles, concedes in House raceThe 26-year-old congressman who failed to beat back a challenge from Chuck Edwards had lost Republican support Madison Cawthorn, the first-term congressman and pro-Donald Trump firebrand, has lost his seat in the US House after failing to beat back a challenge from state legislator Chuck Edwards in the North Carolina Republican primary.Luke Ball, a spokesperson for Cawthorn’s campaign, told the Associated Press late Tuesday that Cawthorn had conceded the race.Republican Madison Cawthorn cited for carrying gun in his bag at airportRead moreThe race came to be seen as a test of whether voters would grant Cawthorn another term despite his personal and political stumbles. Several Republican leaders have turned away from the 26-year-old congressman, with some citing a series of errors, such as calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a “thug” after Russia invaded his country. Cawthorn also infuriated fellow Republicans in Congress when he alleged on a podcast that he had been invited to an orgy in Washington.Cawthorn has banked on his successful fundraising, social media presence and vocal support for the former president to help him win the 11th congressional district nomination again.Edwards, an owner of McDonald’s franchises, received endorsements from Senator Thom Tillis and the state’s top GOP legislative leaders. A Super ac allied with Tillis ran ads against Cawthorn, one of which called him a “reckless embarrassment” and “dishonest disaster”.Edwards now advances to the November election against Democrat Jasmine Beach-Ferrara.Cawthorn’s term in the the House was marked by controversy from the outset. Within days of taking office in early 2021, Cawthorn spoke at the “Save America” rally, questioning Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, that preceded the Capitol insurrection. Cawthorn soon became a leading spokesperson for Trump’s “America First” policies and conservatives in the culture wars. Trump has endorsed him.Besides the remark about being invited to an orgy, Cawthron said he had seen leaders in the movement to end drug addiction use cocaine. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy reprimanded him publicly for the remarks.Cawthorn has been stopped by police on driving citations three times since October and caught with guns at airport checkpoints twice since last year, including last month. And videos released in the campaign’s final weeks showed Cawthorn in sexually suggestive poses.Cawthorn acknowledged speeding and gun citations as failings, but said the videos were part of a “drip campaign” by his political enemies, of which he has included some Republicans, to flood the district with negative stories.Cawthorn was seen as a rising star by many conservatives when in 2020 he won a primary runoff for the seat being vacated by Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair after being partially paralyzed from a car accident as a teenager, turned 25 – the constitutionally mandated minimum age to serve in the House – during the 2020 campaign.In an election-eve post on his social media site Truth Social, Trump asked primary voters to back him again: “Recently, he made some foolish mistakes, which I don’t believe he’ll make again … let’s give Madison a second chance!”His biggest political mistake may have occurred last fall, when he decided to run for a different US House seat that could have led to an easier reelection bid, only to return to the 11th district when redistricting litigation shifted the lines again. Edwards and others accuse Cawthorn of trying to walk away from his constituents for political convenience. TopicsNorth CarolinaHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More