US Politics

The Guardian view of US foreign policy: the case for democratic dominanceEditorialChina will be the ghost at the gathering of America’s allies next month Joe Biden’s foreign policy doctrine views the future relationship between democracies and authoritarian regimes as a competitive one, accompanied by a battle of narratives. Nondemocratic regimes have become brazen in their repression and many democratic governments have regressed by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law. The US, under Donald Trump, was not immune to such trends. One European thinktank warned last week that there remains a risk that the US could slip into authoritarianism.The Biden administration has announced the first of two virtual “summits for democracy” next month to bring together government, civil society and business leaders from more than 100 nations. This might seem a bit rich, given America’s history of befriending dictators and overthrowing elected leaders it did not like. Invitations have gone out to a group so broad it includes liberal democracies, weak democracies and states with authoritarian characteristics. Mr Biden deserves a cheer for seeking a renewal of democracy, asking attendees to reflect on their record of upholding human rights and fighting corruption.The world faces a return to great-power politics, where global rules take a backseat to historical spheres of influence. Russia’s menacing of Ukraine is a case in point. No one would choose this situation, but democracies have to face it. As the EU has noted, the high seas, space and the internet are increasingly contested domains. Mr Biden is a realist. He is prepared to cooperate with countries from Poland to the Philippines, where democracy has been going backward, to deter Moscow and Beijing. The world is also not black and white. India, a troubled democracy, watered down this month’s final Cop26 communique, backed by autocratic China.Beijing is the ghost at the US democracy-fest, a fact underlined by Mr Biden’s invite to Taiwan. Sino-US relations can be competitive, but not so fevered that neither can work together. Vaccine nationalism was a warning about how soft power could be weaponised. It’d be wrong to rationalise US actions by demonising its rivals. China’s alternative economic and political system does not make conflict inevitable, though Beijing’s sabre rattling and US defence spending makes it harder to dodge. This month’s videocall between US and Chinese presidents suggested their nations were lorries speeding along the highway of international relations and in need of a crash barrier.New rules of the road are essential in trade where Mr Biden has continued Mr Trump’s tariff hikes on Chinese exports. The US has seen a backlash to the economic upheaval induced by trade openness that should have been dealt with by redistributive policies. In their absence, the result was runaway US inequality and a richer, unequal China. Mr Biden argues he is making the economy work for ordinary Americans, and so helping recover their belief in democracy. Yet, without reform of global trade rules the benefits of higher US wages will flow largely to nations like China that suppress household income. In response, Mr Biden seeks coalitions with democratic allies to replace the current model of liberalisation. The Chinese historian Qin Hui contends that on the left globalisation is as popular in China as it is unpopular in the west. Prof Qin suggests that Chinese concern over growing inequality should be allayed by political reform so workers can strengthen their bargaining position. This seems a remote possibility. China has grown wealthy without becoming more democratic. Prof Qin’s views may resonate in Washington, but they strike the wrong note in Beijing, which has previously banned his work, and prefers instead slogans signalling a crackdown on high incomes. Mr Biden sees, both at home and abroad, democratic values under attack. The US president has identified the challenge. The hard part is to meet it.TopicsJoe BidenOpinionUS politicsUS foreign policyChinaeditorialsReuse this content More

Fauci: US could face ‘fifth wave’ of Covid as Omicron variant nears
Collins and Fauci emphasise need for vaccines and boosters
Warning that variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility
Coronavirus: live coverage
Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said on Sunday the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections amid rising cases and stagnating vaccination rates. He also warned that the newly discovered Omicron variant shows signs of heightened transmissibility.Biden and Harris briefed as US braces for arrival of Omicron Covid variantRead moreAs Fauci toured the US political talkshows, countries around the world including the US scrambled to guard against Omicron, which has stoked fears of vaccine resistance.A White House official told reporters Joe Biden would meet members of his Covid-19 response team, including Fauci, regarding the Omicron variant.Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, Fauci discussed why Omicron has raised such alarm.“Right now we have the window into the mutations that are in this new variant,” he said, “and they are troublesome in the fact that there are about 32 or more variants in that very important spike protein of the virus, which is the business end of the virus.“In other words, the profile of the mutations strongly suggest that it’s going to have an advantage in transmissibility and that it might evade immune protection that you would get, for example, from the monoclonal antibody or from the convalescent serum after a person’s been infected and possibly even against some of the vaccine-induced antibodies.“So it’s not necessarily that that’s going to happen, but it’s a strong indication that we really need to be prepared for that.”Fauci also pointed to how Covid case numbers shifted dramatically in South Africa, where Omicron was discovered, over a short period.“You were having a low level of infection, and then all of a sudden, there was this big spike … and when the South Africans looked at it, they said, ‘Oh my goodness. This is a different virus than we’ve been dealing with.’“So it clearly is giving indication that it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. That’s the thing that’s causing us now to be concerned, but also to put the pressure on ourselves now to do something about our presentation for this.”The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said no Omicron cases have been discovered in the US.Fauci told NBC: “As we all know, when you have a virus that has already gone to multiple countries, inevitably, it will be here.”On CBS, Fauci said any fifth wave of cases “will really be dependent upon what we do in the next few weeks to a couple of months”.“We have now about 62 million people in the country who are eligible to be vaccinated,” he added, “who have not yet gotten vaccinated.“Superimpose upon that the fact that, unquestionably, the people who got vaccinated six, seven, eight, nine, 10 months ago, we’re starting to see an understandable diminution in the level of immunity. It’s called waning immunity, and it was seen more emphatically in other countries before we saw it here.”Fauci said an increase in immunization rates and booster shots might prevent another surge – but the US had to act fast.“So if we now do what I’m talking about in an intense way, we may be able to blunt that,” Fauci said. “If we don’t do it successfully, it is certainly conceivable and maybe likely that we will see another bit of a surge. How bad it gets is dependent upon us and how we mitigate.”Politically charged resistance to vaccine mandates and other public health measures would seem to make a rapid increase in US vaccination rates unlikely.While more than 70% of US adults are fully vaccinated, the most recent CDC data indicated that cases had increased 16% over the prior week’s seven-day average. By Sunday there had been 48,202,506 cases in the US with 776, 537 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.Another senior US government scientist, the National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, discussed the Omicron variant on Sunday.“I think the main thing that has us focused on this,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, “and it’s caused a lot of us to be sort of 24/7 on Zoom calls in the last four days, is that it has so many mutations”.Collins also said there were “good reasons to think it will probably be OK but we need to know the real answers to that and that’s going to take two or three weeks”.On Friday, Biden said the US would follow much of the rest of the world and impose restrictions on travel from South Africa and seven other countries. The restrictions, which Biden called “as a precautionary measure until we have more information”, will go into effect on Monday.Collins told CNN: “I know, America, you’re really tired of hearing these things, but the virus is not tired of us and it’s shape-shifting itself. If you imagine we’re on a racetrack here … it’s trying to catch up with us, and we have to use every kind of tool in our toolbox to keep that from getting into a situation that makes this worse.“We can do this but we have to do it all together.”Boris Johnson ‘ignored’ my plan to tackle deadly Covid variants – senior officialRead moreOn CBS, Fauci was also asked about Republican attacks on his reputation, over federal research prior to the coronavirus pandemic and about his role in the response under the Trump administration.“Anybody who’s looking at this carefully realizes that there’s a distinct anti-science flavor to this,” he said. “They’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me.”Asked if he thought attacks were meant to scapegoat him and deflect attention from Donald Trump’s failures, Fauci said: “You have to be asleep not to figure that one out.”“I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying,” he said.TopicsCoronavirusAnthony FauciBiden administrationUS politicsInfectious diseasesVaccines and immunisationUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

Michael Cohen: prosecutors could ‘indict Trump tomorrow’ if they wantedNew York investigation of Trump Organization is one of a number of sources of legal jeopardy for the former president Prosecutors in New York could “indict Donald Trump tomorrow if they really wanted and be successful”, the ex-president’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen said on Sunday, discussing investigations of Trump’s business affairs.Can the Republican party escape Trump? Politics Weekly Extra – podcastRead moreAsked if he was “confident you did help Donald Trump commit crimes”, Cohen told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I can assure you that Donald Trump is guilty of his own crimes. Was I involved in much of the inflation and deflation of his assets? The answer to that is yes.”Cohen also repeated his contention that Trump will not run for the White House in 2024, because his huge fundraising success while hinting at such a run is too profitable a “grift” to give up.The Manhattan investigation of the Trump Organization, including whether Trump cheated on property valuations for tax purposes, is one of a number of sources of legal jeopardy for the former president.Trump denies all wrongdoing. Because the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, leaves office at the end of the year, some think indictments may be imminent. Cohen, who has cooperated, said: “I really try not to talk about it because it’s their investigation, nor do I want to tip off Trump or the Trump Organization’s people about what is actually happening.“So I would rather just not answer that specific question, other than to say that you can bet your bottom dollar that Allen Weisselberg is not … the key to this. They are going after Donald. They’re going after Don Jr, Eric, Ivanka, a whole slew of individuals, family as well.”Cohen also said he was “not their only witness, and most importantly, what I gave to them are thousands and thousands of documents”.“I’m not asking anybody to believe me,” he said. “No different than when I testified before the House oversight committee. Every statement that I make, I’ve backed up with documentary evidence. I truly believe that they can indict Donald Trump tomorrow if they really wanted, and be successful.”Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was indicted on tax charges, a move most thought meant to induce him to turn on Trump. Cohen did so, after being convicted on charges including lying to Congress and facilitating a pay-off to the porn star Stormy Daniels. He recently completed a three-year sentence, much of it served at home thanks to Covid.“They didn’t really do to Allen Weisselberg what they did to me,” Cohen said. “The threat against me was that they were going to file an 85-page indictment that was going to include my wife. They were going to say she was a co-conspirator to the hush money payment, which is absolutely nonsensical.“And, look, I’m married now 27 years. I’m with the same woman for 29 years. There was no chance in the world that I was going to put her at risk with these animals. The way they came down on me is nothing like what they’re doing to Weisselberg.“They should be squeezing right now [Allen’s son] Barry Weisselberg, who works for the Trump Organization, and they should be squeezing [another son] Jack Weisselberg, who is [with] one of only two organizations that made loans to the Trump Organization that we still know.Stormy Daniels to Michael Cohen: Fox News movie brought back memory of sex with TrumpRead more“You know, when you talked about whether or not Donald Trump inflated or deflated his assets, every single word that I had said about that is 100% accurate.”Cohen suffered a setback earlier this month, when a judge in New York ruled the Trump Organization was not liable for legal fees he said it owed. He told NBC he wanted to ensure that others “become responsible for their dirty deeds. I should not be responsible for Donald Trump’s dirty deeds.“Donald Trump is the one who was involved with the campaign finance violation [the payment to Daniels], as was Allen Weisselberg, as was Don Trump Jr, Ivanka, Eric, you know, and several other individuals. They need to be held accountable.“And I, like everybody else, am waiting for both Cyrus Vance Jr’s district attorney case [and New York attorney general] Tish James’s civil case, to move forward, and start moving forward a little quicker.”Cohen was asked if he believed the Trump Organization was “a criminal enterprise”.“Let’s just say that they committed crimes,” he said.TopicsMichael CohenDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansUS crimeUS taxationNew YorknewsReuse this content More

Capitol attack: Schiff says Mark Meadows contempt decision imminent
House panel investigating Trump supporters’ deadly riot
Former White House chief of staff has not co-operated
Interview: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is likely to decide this week whether to charge Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s final White House chief of staff, with criminal contempt of Congress, a key panel member said.Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spatRead more“I think we will probably make a decision this week on our course of conduct with that particular witness and maybe others,” Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and chair of the House intelligence committee, told CNN’s State of the Union.Schiff also said he was concerned about the Department of Justice, for a perceived lack of interest in investigating Trump’s own actions, including asking officials in Georgia to “find” votes which would overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.The 6 January committee is investigating the attack on the Capitol by supporters who Trump told to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat.Trump was impeached with support from 10 House Republicans but acquitted when only seven senators defected. The select committee contains only two Republicans, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, who broke with Trump over 6 January.“We tried to hold the former president accountable through impeachment,” Schiff said. “That’s the remedy that we have in Congress. We are now trying to expose the full facts of the former president’s misconduct as well as those around him.”Asked about Meadows – who is due to publish a memoir, The Chief’s Chief, on 7 December – Schiff said: “I can’t go into you know, communications that we’re having or haven’t had with particular witnesses.“But we are moving with alacrity with anyone who obstructs the committee, and that was really the case with Mr Bannon, it would be the case with Mr Meadows and Mr Clark or any others.”Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist, pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal contempt, the first pursued by Congress and the DoJ since 1982. Facing a fine and jail time, on Thursday Bannon filed a request that all documents in his case be made public.Like Bannon and Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice official, has refused to co-operate with the House committee. Lawyers for Trump and his allies have claimed executive privilege, the doctrine which deals with the confidentiality of communications between a president and his aides. Many experts say executive privilege does not apply to former presidents. The Biden White House has waived it.“It varies witness to witness,” Schiff said, “but we discuss as a committee and with our legal counsel what’s the appropriate step to make sure the American people get the information. We intend to hold public hearings again soon to bring the public along with us and show what we’re learning in real time. But we’re going to make these decisions very soon.”Schiff said he could not “go into the evidence that we have gathered” about Trump’s role in the events of 6 January, around which five people died and on which the vice-president, Mike Pence, was hidden from a mob which chanted for his hanging.“I think among the most important questions that we’re investigating,” Schiff said, “is the complete role of the former president.“That is, what did he know in advance about propensity for violence that day? Was this essentially the back-up plan for the failed [election] litigation around the country? Was this something that was anticipated? How was it funded, whether the funders know about what was likely to happen that day? And what was the president’s response as the attack was going on, as his own vice-president was being threatened?‘A xenophobic autocrat’: Adam Schiff on Trump’s threat to democracyRead more“I think among the most, the broadest category of unknowns are those surrounding the former president. And we are determined to get answers.”Schiff was also asked about suggestions, including from Amit Mehta, a judge overseeing cases against Capitol rioters, nearly 700 of whom have been charged, that Trump might seem to be being let off the hook by the Department of Justice.Schiff said: “I am concerned that there does not appear to be an investigation, unless it’s being done very quietly by the justice department of … the former president on the phone with the Georgia secretary of state, asking him to find, really demanding he find 11,780 votes that don’t exist, the precise number he would need to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in that state.“I think if you or I were on that call and reported we’d be under investigation [or] indictment by now for a criminal effort to defraud the people in Georgia and the people in the country.“So that specifically I’m concerned about.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spat
Anonymous moderate predicts rocky road to speakership
Omar: Boebert’s ‘Jihad Squad’ bigotry is ‘no laughing matter’
Interview: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence
The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said on Saturday he had “reached out” to Democrats over Islamophobic comments made by one of his party, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, about the Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar.While Americans mark Thanksgiving, Republicans panned over Harris attackRead moreBoebert apologised for the remarks, in which she likened one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress to a suicide bomber, on Friday, saying she wanted to meet Omar in person. Omar responded by condemning the remarks and calling for action from party leaders.In a statement to CNN, McCarthy said: “I spoke with Leader [Steny] Hoyer today to help facilitate that meeting so that Congress can get back to talking to each other and working on the challenges facing the American people.”McCarthy did not condemn Boebert’s remarks. He also faced criticism from within his own ranks, after another pro-Trump extremist, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, tweeted that she had “a good call” with McCarthy and liked “what he has planned ahead”.Greene had criticised McCarthy, seeking to cast doubt on his ambitions to be speaker should as seems likely Republicans take back the House next year.A Republican who spoke anonymously to CNN and was described as a moderate said McCarthy was “taking the middle of the conference for granted. McCarthy could have a bigger math problem [in the election for speaker] with the moderates”.The anonymous moderate said his wing of the party – more of a rump, perhaps, given Donald Trump’s dominance – was upset about McCarthy’s embrace of extremists.One such extremist, Paul Gosar of Arizona, was this month censured for tweeting a video which depicted him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – like Omar a leading progressive and woman of colour in Congress – and threatening Joe Biden.Gosar lost committee assignments. McCarthy said he would get them back under a Republican speakership and held out the same prospect to Greene, who was stripped of her committees in February for racist, antisemitic and generally incendiary behaviour.McCarthy has faced calls from the right to punish Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as the 10 who voted to impeach Trump over the deadly Capitol riot.Two who voted to impeach, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, will retire next year. Primary challengers await the rest including Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a stringent conservative nonetheless split from the Trumpists over the Capitol attack.On Saturday, Kinzinger criticised the minority leader’s call with Greene, writing: “Here is real strength, when Kevin McCarthy has to call a freshman begging for permission to stay in power. What has Kevin promised? The people deserve to know.”He also said it had “been a while” since most “normal members … last talked to Kevin”.Congresswoman Jackie Speier: ‘Republicans are about doing what’s going to give them power’Read moreThe anonymous moderate who spoke to CNN said the party was on a “collision course” with itself, as their side “isn’t going to take this much longer”.On Sunday, Asa Hutchinson, the governor of Arkansas who is seen by some as a possible presidential nominee from the more moderate side of the party, told CNN’s State of the Union McCarthy should have condemned Boebert.“Even in our own caucus, our own members, if they go the wrong direction, I mean, it has to be called out,” Hutchinson said. “It has to be dealt with particularly whenever it is breaching the civility, whenever it is crossing the line in terms of violence or increasing divides in our country.”Earlier this week, Jackie Speier, a senior Democrat from California, told the Guardian McCarthy had “a number of radical extremists in his caucus that are very effective communicators to the right fringe, and he can’t really rein them in because reining them in means they will attack him.“So they have become the face of the House Republicans. You might as well put a brass ring in Kevin McCarthy’s nose because they’re pulling him around.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

Republicans are quietly rigging election maps to ensure permanent ruleDavid PepperThe past decade in Ohio shows how bad it can get – and how quickly. Despite the state’s voters often swinging Democratic, 75% of its congressional delegates are Republican The long-term health of American democracy is in peril, to a degree far worse than people imagine. But not where most people are looking.This is what gerrymandering looks like | The fight to voteRead moreWhile many eyes go to Washington DC or Mar-a-Lago, the attack on democracy is actually most concentrated and coordinated in state capitals. Whether it’s gerrymandering or voter suppression or attacks on offices that provide needed checks and balances – the states have become widely undemocratic. As I outline in my book Laboratories of Autocracy, the consequences of this anti-democratic movement are only getting worse.The past decade in Ohio, where I served in recent years as chair of the state Democratic party, shows how bad it can get – and how quickly.When Fox News called Ohio for Barack Obama in 2012, it meant he’d be president for another term. Ohio’s Democratic senator Sherrod Brown also won handily that night. But how did these victories in America’s bellwether state translate at the congressional level?Not at all.Even though it was Democratic in 2012, a state that only four years ago had sent 10 Democrats to the US House of Representatives and eight Republicans, now sent 12 Republicans to the House and only four Democrats. 2014 was a big year for Republicans. They won decisively for statewide offices. The congressional delegation? 12-4. 2016? Another Republican year: 12-4. But in 2018, Sherrod Brown won again, this time by almost seven points. And many of his voters also voted for a Democrat running for the House. In all, 47% of Ohioans cast a vote for the Democratic candidate for the House, while 52% voted for the Republican.What was the outcome of that 52-47 split for Ohio’s congressional delegation? 12-4 again – 75% Republican.2020? 12-4 again.So for an entire decade, whether Ohio voters tilted to Democratic or to Republican or a toss-up, when it came to Congress, nothing changed. The makeup was the exact same 12-4 split no matter how the voters voted. In the world’s oldest democracy, the voters basically didn’t matter.Why is that?Because in Ohio in 2011, in a secret hotel room they called “the bunker”, a small group of partisan insiders designed House district maps to guarantee the outcome of all 90 US House elections that were to follow in the coming decade. And they proved to be so good at their work, they got all 90 elections right.It’s a success rate in rigging election outcomes – amid the appearance of a democratic process – that Vladimir Putin would admire. Sadly, Ohio isn’t alone. Numerous other American states experienced the same decade of guaranteed outcomes for both their US House delegations and their state-level legislatures.In some cases, even when a majority of voters voted for one party to be in charge, the rigged districts meant that the losing party remained in charge. In Michigan, in 2018, voters chose Democrats over Republicans for their statehouse by 52%-47%. Nevertheless, this led to a Republican majority in that statehouse of 58-52. In Wisconsin, losing the popular vote for the statehouse across the state by a 54-45 gave Republicans a 63-36 supermajority in that statehouse. Now that would truly impress a foreign autocrat – a system locking a minority into power despite a clear mandate by the voters that they wanted the opposite.The prime culprits behind all this election rigging are the statehouses themselves – mostly anonymous elected officials who few voters know but who wield far more power than most Americans appreciate. And that includes the power to draw the district lines of both federal and state representatives (ie their own districts), as well as establishing most of the other rules of how elections are run, including how presidential electors are divvied up.But it all gets worse. Fast-forward to now. Outraged by a decade of rigged elections, citizens in Ohio and other states took action to change the process of how lines are drawn. Some opted for independent districting commissions. In Ohio, more than 70% of the voters amended the Ohio constitution (twice!) to add clear guidelines to curb the type of extreme partisan districting that led to a decade without democracy.And how have those in charge responded? Knowing that fair districts and robust democracy threaten their grip on power, the legislative leaders are simply ignoring the new rules. Defying them. In fact, the first map they have proposed here in Ohio would guarantee an astonishing 13-2 map, knowing full well that Ohio’s partisan breakdown would best be reflected by an 8-7 map. Despite the new rules, key urban counties are now being split three ways rather than two to achieve that outrageous result.So not only are these unknown politicians willing to rig elections, they are willing to defy their own state constitution – and the voted will of more than 70% of their own population – to get it done.As bad as this example is, it’s only one of the many fronts in a nationwide attack on democracy. Locked into power in these statehouses are a generation of politicians who themselves largely got there absent any true democracy – because they also benefited from rigged maps – who are now doing all they can to maintain that power. And one thing they know for sure: the greatest threat to their hold on power is robust democracy.Since they write the rules, they have the ability to hold that risk at bay, through gerrymandering, voter suppression, cracking down on protests, attacking independent courts and officials that get in the way, and other measures – and they are taking all these actions and more across the country right now.The truth is, if another country were taking all these steps, we’d call it out for what it is – an attack on democracy itself. A descent toward autocracy. But because it’s happening in our own state capitols, we too often treat it with less urgency. That needs to end.It’s time to go on offense for democracy, at the state level, every year. Beginning now.
David Pepper is the author of Laboratories of Autocracy and former chair of the Ohio Democratic party
TopicsUS politicsOpinionDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

Interview‘The goal was to silence people’: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violenceJoan E Greve in Washington Paul Gosar was censured for a video depicting a colleague’s murder but physical assaults were a feature of the pre-civil war eraAs the House debated whether the Republican congressman Paul Gosar should be censured for depicting the murder of his colleague, one Democratic leader took a moment to reflect on the chamber’s long history of violence.Speaking on the House floor last week, the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, argued that Gosar had grossly violated the chamber’s rules of conduct by sharing an altered anime video showing him killing Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.“When those rules were written, they did not anticipate that a member would threaten violence directly against another member,” Hoyer said. “Not because it’s never happened – a congressman from South Carolina nearly beat to death a senator from Massachusetts, Senator Sumner, because he wanted to abolish slavery.”The 1856 caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks is probably the most infamous example of violence between members of Congress, but it is far from the only one. In her book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, the Yale history professor Joanne Freeman details the many threats and attacks between lawmakers during the antebellum era.The Guardian spoke to Dr Freeman about the history of congressional violence and what it can tell us about the current state of US politics and the significance of Gosar’s censure. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Besides the caning of Sumner, what were some of the other examples of congressional violence in the pre-civil war era?The research that I did revealed there were at least 70 violent incidents in the House and in the Senate. Some of them were canings. Some of them were fist fights. Some of them were actual brawls with groups of congressmen. In the well of the House where we saw [Gosar’s] censure take place, that was actually a location for several fights in those decades before the civil war.And there was a lot of deployment of threats and intimidation. Most of these were offered by southerners and usually were deployed against people who had anything to say against slavery. Obviously the goal of that was to silence people or intimidate people so they wouldn’t even stand up to say anything that was not going to be to the liking of southerners.What effect did those threats have on public debate over slavery in Congress?There’s a diary entry from a very prominent, very aggressive anti-slavery advocate, named Joshua Giddings from Ohio. And when he first gets to Congress, he reports something like, “Our northern friends are afraid.” They’re afraid to stand up against the southerners. So there’s clearly evidence that people were afraid to stand up.And not only does it shape the direction of debate, the people who do that kind of threatening very often are wildly supported by the folks back home. I suppose that’s what we’re going to see now; the person who does that kind of bullying and that kind of threatening gets a good degree of support for it.Although Gosar was censured and stripped of his committee assignments, he was also somewhat rewarded for his behavior. Donald Trump immediately offered Gosar his endorsement, and the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, suggested that he might get “better committee assignments” when Republicans regain control of the House. Is there a history of lawmakers being rewarded for violence?Unfortunately, yes. Most notoriously, look at Preston Brooks, who caned Charles Sumner, and Laurence Keitt, who held people off from intervening in the caning. There was discussion of expelling Brooks. He does not get expelled, but he resigns in protest when the debate is attacking him for what he did. He resigns in protest and is immediately re-elected. And Laurence Keitt, who actually is censured, is immediately re-elected. So sometimes these violent acts are done partly for the base, for constituents, for “the cause”. And sometimes that is indeed rewarded.So historically, have censures been effective in changing lawmakers’ behavior? Or do they sometimes encourage more of that same behavior?On the one hand, you could say people are proving that they’re willing to stand up for something, and for some populations, that gets applause. But the thing is, if people are really being offensive in some way or another, and they’re not called on it … that’s basically an endorsement. And it’s also a sign that the rules of Congress almost don’t exist. They’re just not in play.For reasons of just upholding that there are lines that can be crossed, I think it’s important for that to happen. The message of that kind of censuring is that this person did this thing and is accountable for that. And if you don’t hold people accountable for their actions, that too is a passive stab at democracy.How did the violence in Congress before the civil war both reflect and intensify the divisions in the country itself?The violence in Congress reflects and affects the violence and politics throughout the nation at large in a few ways. By the time you get into the 1850s and you have the telegraph, which is spreading that kind of information very quickly around the nation more broadly than ever before, Americans can see that happening. So that sets a tone for politics all by itself.Some of it is playing to an audience. Depending on how it’s acted out and the language that’s used and the posturing that’s taken by the members of Congress, it’s deliberately intended to rile up Americans, which it does. That kind of violence can encourage violence, intensify political rhetoric [and] seemingly justify extremism and violence. It has an impact on the public.If the public gets riled up, they’re going to demand more things from their representatives – more violence, more extremism.Given everything you know about the congressional violence that happened leading up the civil war, what do you think the censure of Gosar says about the direction of our country now?It certainly reflects the tone and tenor of our politics right now, and that almost goes without saying. It gestures towards what’s coming next because he’s going to be rewarded for it in some ways, and because of that, there will be others that follow in that model.It also shows a certain lack of respect for the institution of Congress. The censure doesn’t matter clearly to this person. It’s a moment that shows how far party is above government and above institutions of government and above institutional stability. That’s not a very comforting thing to consider either.We’re in very unpredictable times. We never know from one moment to the next what direction things are going to lean towards. It’s tempting to see an incident like [the Gosar censure] and assume from it we’re doomed. We’re in a moment of extreme contingency, and indeed things might become much worse.But during that kind of moment of extreme contingency where anything can happen, those are also moments where it’s possible to make positive change. It’s possible in a moment of instability to really push for some kind of a change that isn’t necessarily in the direction of force and violence, but is rather in a direction of inclusion and rights. I think we as Americans need to be thinking about that right about now.TopicsUS politicsUS CongressRepublicansDemocratsinterviewsReuse this content More

How Manchin and Sinema’s status as Senate holdouts is proving lucrativeThe Democratic senators have received a flood of money from conservative donors, leading some to raise concerns of corruption Two Democratic senators threatening to derail Joe Biden’s agenda have been condemned by anti-corruption watchdogs for accepting a flood of money from Republican and corporate donors.Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema present the last hurdle to the US president’s social spending and climate package after it was passed by Democrats in the House of Representatives earlier this month.Having already pressured colleagues to cut the cost of the Build Back Better plan in half, the conservative duo continue to raise concerns about its $1.75tn price tag and sprawling ambition.Manchin and Sinema’s status as holdouts in a Senate evenly divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans has guaranteed outsized influence and attention. It also appears to be lucrative.Republicans continue to stymie Democrats on voting rights. Will anything change?Read moreIn September, Sinema received a cheque from Stanley Hubbard, a billionaire Republican donor who is considering a similar contribution to Manchin because of their work to reduce the bill’s price tag, the New York Times reported this week. “Those are two good people – Manchin and Sinema – and I think we need more of those in the Democratic party,” Hubbard was quoted as saying.The newspaper also revealed Manchin, of West Virginia, and Sinema, of Arizona, travelled to an $18m mansion in Dallas for a summer fundraiser attended by Republican and big business donors who have praised their efforts to pare down the Build Back Better bill.Manchin, for example, opposed popular provisions such as paid family leave and a clean electricity programme that would boost wind and solar power while phasing out coal and gas, while Sinema rejected an increase of personal and corporate income tax rates. Their stances have not gone unnoticed by Wall Street and wealthy conservatives.The $3.3m raised by Manchin’s campaign in the first nine months of this year was more than 14 times his haul at the equivalent stage last year, the New York Times added, while the $2.6m taken in by Sinema’s campaign was two and a half times what she netted over the same period in 2020.Such sums, which include contributions from political action committees and donors linked to the finance and pharmaceutical industries, have raised ethical concerns over whether Democrats Manchin and Sinema are being unduly influenced.Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, a non-partisan watchdog that targets government corruption, said: “What else but industry money could explain the manufactured excuses for resisting Build Back Better considering it remains extremely popular, is fully paid for, and would cut costs and taxes for most everyday people in Arizona and West Virginia?“Corporate interests and billionaires have done very well even during the pandemic and don’t need more special treatment. Senators Sinema and Manchin have a chance they may not get again to help so many regular families and seniors get ahead for a change, so why squander it over complaints from a handful of rich interests that exploit tax loopholes and ship jobs overseas?”Accountable.US said its own tracking of corporate activity found that Manchin had taken more than $1.5m and Sinema nearly $1m from corporate interests opposed to the Build Back Better plan as of September. It added that Sinema abandoned prior support for lowering prescription drug prices after a deluge of money from the pharmaceutical industry in the third quarter.Such patterns have angered grassroots activists who say Sinema’s positions are out of sync with the stated needs and views of her own constituents in Arizona.Stephany Spaulding, a spokesperson for Just Democracy, a coalition of more than 40 civil rights and social justice groups, said in response to the New York Times article: “Senator Sinema’s approval ratings among her base have plummeted in recent months and this donor report shows why. She’s busy chasing out-of-state corporate dollars instead of fighting for her constituents’ needs.“Crucial policies like infrastructure, Build Back Better, Medicaid expansion and voting rights are all incredibly popular, but once again she’s demonstrated how frail her commitment to Black and brown Arizonans is.”The House approved the Build Back Better legislation 220-213 as every Democrat but one backed it, overcoming unanimous Republican opposition. After a brief Thanksgiving hiatus it heads to the Senate, where changes are certain as moderates and progressives wrangle over its cost and scope.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, told reporters on Sunday: “The House did a very strong bill. Everyone knows that Manchin and Sinema have their concerns, but we’re going to try to negotiate with them and get a very strong, bold bill out of the Senate which will then go back to the House and pass.”Manchin is facing pressure to support a provision that would grant four weeks of paid family and medical leave, bringing America into alignment with most western industrial democracies. Sinema’s priorities and red lines have been harder to discern, a source of frustration in its own right.Some observers were unsurprised that the senators are attracting cash from the right. Jordan Libowitz, communications director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), said: “It’s not unusual for megadonors to occasionally cross party lines with their donations. For some, this is hedging their bets, for others, rewarding a politician who came through on an issue they care about.“Ultimately, money follows power. Manchin and Sinema look to be the deciding votes on major legislation, so it really isn’t surprising that people from the other side of the aisle will be trying to win influence with them.”But others described it as an indictment of the influence of money in politics. Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “It’s an outrage. Candidates are in such a hunger for amassing large campaign war chests that they’re going to provide privileged access to the very interests are supposed to be regulating.”He added: “The appearance of what’s going on here – lavish public fundraising events – is a dagger through the trust and legitimacy of American democracy. It just captures the worst fears that Americans have that politicians are up for sale. And I think that public perception is toxic.”Manchin and Sinema’s offices did not respond to requests for comment.TopicsUS SenateUS politicsJoe ManchinnewsReuse this content More