US Politics

Kyle Rittenhouse isn’t crying for those he hurt. His tears, tellingly, are for himselfMoira DoneganWhen conservative men like Rittenhouse and Brett Kavanaugh express their feelings, it is an act of thwarted entitlement – or a threat His voice choked up and his face went red. The young man squinted and panted, his mouth pulled up plaintively towards his nose, his answers to the questions coming out in gasping little bursts. Kyle Rittenhouse, on the stand testifying at his trial for killing two people and wounding a third last summer at a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was not crying for the men he killed, Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. He was crying for himself, describing what he said was his mortal fear that night in August 2020, when he opened fire on the protesters using an AR-15. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Rittenhouse gasped, describing how he had confronted and ultimately killed the two men while he was guarding the lot of a car dealership. “I defended myself.”Rittenhouse was 17 at the time of the shooting; he is 18 now. The young man’s emotional testimony had a practical purpose: it was a performance meant to make him seem helpless and childlike, and to convince the jury in his homicide trial that there was a reasonable possibility that he was in fear for his life when he shot the three men. But to many, the emotion of Rittenhouse’s testimony seemed to stem not from his memories of the incident, but from the indignant entitlement of a white man thwarted in the enforcement of his own privilege.Many compared Rittenhouse’s tears during his testimony to those of Brett Kavanaugh, who shouted, red-faced and spitting, during his confirmation hearings, when he was asked questions about his alleged assault of Christine Blasey Ford, back when he was Rittenhouse’s age. Both of the displays prompted questions about their sincerity and opportunism. Was Rittenhouse really crying? Was Kavanaugh just putting on a show for Donald Trump to watch on TV? But they both also pointed to a peculiar phenomenon that remains little understood: the rightwing use of public displays of white male emotionalism as a political tool.In one sense, the two men’s conduct under oath was quite strange. Both of them appear to be self-conscious avatars of white conservative masculinity, and their ideology would seem to preclude male emotionalism, as traditional gender norms have historically justified male dominance precisely because of men’s supposed stoicism and self-control. As Vox’s Jamil Smith put it: “We’re generally unfamiliar with seeing boys and men exhibit their emotion in such a public way. Vulnerability and common conceptions of manhood, especially among conservatives, have not traditionally been bedfellows.”And yet conservative white men’s emotions are increasingly coming to the forefront of political life, and they seem to animate much of the Trumpist right. In practice, such men express their emotions all the time. They express them at Trump rallies, when they jeer at the mention of perceived enemies and cheer for lines of chauvinism and anger. They express their feelings when they picket abortion clinics, screaming at women walking inside and threatening the staff. They express their feelings when they fly Confederate and “Blue Lives Matter” flags; they express their feelings when they vote, and when they pick petulant fights with the service workers who ask them to wear their masks inside stores and restaurants. The common thread in these rightwing expressions of masculine emotion is that when conservative men express their feelings, they don’t do so as a gesture of humility or need. Instead, they wield their feelings as a threat.Kyle Rittenhouse judge in spotlight after angry reprimand of prosecutionRead moreArguably, both Rittenhouse and Kavanaugh were expressing their emotions when they committed their famous acts of alleged violence. It’s impossible to know what was in his mind, but Rittenhouse’s actions leading up to that night in Kenosha indicate that what brought him there was anger, or maybe a desire for glory. Rittenhouse says that he came to Kenosha to protect local businesses from demonstrators; he had appointed himself a vigilante, out avenging the interests of property and police against the protests. It’s hard not to suspect that he daydreamed about himself as a lone wolf who doesn’t play by the rules, like an action movie hero who wears a bandana as a headband and a cutoff denim vest. The rifle that Rittenhouse used to kill Rosenbaum and Huber was illegal for him to possess. Asked why he didn’t use a handgun, he told the court that he had chosen the semiautomatic rifle because “it looked cool”.For Kavanaugh, the project of decoding his emotions the night he allegedly assaulted Christine Blasey Ford is also speculative, but Ford’s testimony, along with documents made public during the hearings, paints a portrait of Kavanaugh as a young man with a vivid, if not especially varied, emotional life. His calendar from what was probably the month of the party shows him working out and calling his football friends by nicknames; he goes to their houses for “’skis” (“brewskis”: beers). In Ford’s account, he sounded satisfied with himself. “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” she said. “The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” Kavanaugh was a boy, like Rittenhouse, with an inflated sense of his own importance. The emotion he seemed to have expressed most clearly in those years was a consuming and profoundly unearned sense of his own superiority.The fact of the matter is that for Rittenhouse, the question of emotion will be central to his case. The question of his legal guilt or innocence hangs on whether he felt endangered at the time of the shootings – a subjective experience that, conveniently, only Rittenhouse himself can speak to. Meanwhile, Kavanaugh now sits in a position of superlative power. Maybe the problem is not that these white men don’t express their feelings enough. Maybe the problem is that their feelings have too much power.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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‘I am an American’: how a city official stood firm against an anti-Asian attack After a xenophobic rant was directed at Irvine’s vice-mayor, originally from South Korea, her response drew attentionTammy Kim, the vice-mayor of Irvine, California, won her seat with more votes than any candidate in the city’s history. But that hasn’t stopped the racist attacks.Kim, originally from South Korea, is one of three Asian American members of the southern California city’s council, which gained an Asian majority with Kim’s election. During a recent public discussion about a proposed veterans cemetery, she faced a xenophobic rant from a man who asked how she felt about the “36,574 Americans who died trying to save your country for freedom” during the Korean war.“I am an American,” she responded emphatically. “This is my country. And I am an American.”Tammy Kim reps Irvine, CA’s fastest-growing large city, thanks in large part to influx of Asian households. Its all-white council went Asian-majority in 2020.But its Asian Am members’ American bona fides are regularly challenged as seen happening here to Kim: pic.twitter.com/Q0eHWpMHCi— Josie Huang (@josie_huang) October 28, 2021
The exchange has drawn widespread attention, and turned a spotlight once again on the rise in anti-Asian hate during the Covid-19 pandemic and the vitriol that Asian American lawmakers face while doing their jobs. Hate crimes in Orange county, where Irvine is located, are on the rise too, while a new study found they increased in nearby Los Angeles county by 20% in 2020.The Guardian spoke to Kim, a non-profit leader, about the experience, the racism she’s faced as a lawmaker and changing demographics in Orange county.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.What happened at the 26 October meeting?This particular gentleman who spoke, it wasn’t the first time. During public comment you’re supposed to just listen and let everyone have their first amendment.He talked about the fact that I’m from Korea and they saved “my country” so therefore I should feel a certain way. That happened before, I didn’t say anything. That’s why, when it happened again, I just said: “This is my country. I’m an American, and this is my country.” I didn’t need to say anything more.The Korean war was 17 years before I was born and we did not come here as war refugees. His comments were based on ignorance and the white savior complex of thinking they went to Asia to save us … and that I owe him something. At every level that is the core of white supremacy.Had you thought about how you might respond or was it just an immediate reaction?It just came out the way it came out. As an immigrant, you are constantly challenged to prove how American [you are]. This is land that was stolen from Indigenous tribes and built on the backs of slaves and everyone here except those who are native to these lands are immigrants. People of European descent are not questioned about their loyalty or patriotism.After you responded to his comments and he finished speaking, what happened next?The small group of his supporters applauded and patted him on the back. The camera didn’t pick up on [that]. It’s infuriating when you see that being encouraged.It’s exhausting being the perpetual foreigner and it’s exhausting to have to prove my loyalty and my right to be here. You think you get to a certain point where this doesn’t matter any more but then it does. I’ve experienced more direct xenophobia as a candidate and a person in elected office than I have in my civilian life. It always exists, it just comes out because they’re thinking those thoughts anyway. That’s why you have anti-Asian hate. It’s very easy when you’re already viewed as the other. This is all part of a bigger systemic issue in this country. This is just a small manifestation of what’s under the surface.What response have you received?People were so glad I said something. Other communities have had these issues. In Orange county something similar happened to a supervisor who is Vietnamese and [was] told [in a meeting] to go back to Vietnam. This has happened before. I’m not the first person.Orange county has a history of rightwing extremism and white supremacy. How has the region changed in your time there?Orange county has long been a bastion and a safe haven for extremist white nationalists, the Klan. In Santa Ana they had lynchings of Chinese people in the early 1900s. Orange county has a long history of overt racism toward people of color, but demographics are changing. Irvine in particular has changed a lot. Orange county has changed a lot.Asians are the fastest growing population in Irvine by far. The demographics are changing, the stores are changing. When the Albertsons closed and then it was announced that H-mart would occupy the space, there were residents who were not happy. When I came here there wasn’t a boba place and now there’s about 40.What has your tenure been like on the Irvine city council?There were 14 candidates I ran against. I ended up being the highest vote-getter in the history of Irvine. It felt great that I could be me and true to who I am and that resonated.I’ve been able to move a lot of progressive items forward. The first thing I did was work with the police department to establish an anti-hate incident and hate crime portal in multiple languages. When we were working with the rental relief program during Covid, I insisted that the applications be in all the threshold languages [Farsi, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese], as a result we had people that had never been able to access rental relief before. This is what we talk about when we talk about equity and access. That’s what I wake up in the morning to try to accomplish.The flipside is that being a public figure people think they can do or say whatever they want, including that I’m a reverse racist. Everything I do, I’m fighting for all citizens. When you’re fighting for clean air, you’re fighting for clean air for everyone; when you’re fighting for equity, you’re fighting for equity for everyone.Across the US, the tenor of city council meetings and other other meetings has intensified with public officials facing increased vitriol. What do you think is driving that?We live in a very polarized society right now where it’s like good versus evil and everything is very black or its white. I think unfortunately these are the times we’re living in. Everyone’s in their bubble, their echo chamber, whether it’s social media or the news they watch. I also think just not seeing people, it’s very easy to be a keyboard warrior. It’s not just one thing.TopicsCaliforniaRaceUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

‘We’re here to deliver’: Biden touts infrastructure win as midterms loom President hits the road to sell bill as Democrats, facing daunting odds in 2022, fight to reach votersThe Port of Baltimore dazzled in the setting sun. Giant cranes arched over the Chesapeake Bay, the shoreline stacked with colorful shipping containers. At the center of the tableau was the American president, on a mission to promote his hard-won $1tn infrastructure package.“Infrastructure week has finally arrived,” Biden said last week, beaming at the mix of elected officials and local union leaders in attendance.The president’s visit to the bustling port came at the start of a cross-country tour to sell his sprawling public works plan to the American public, in the hope of parlaying the policy achievement into a political victory that will help Democrats keep their slim majorities in Congress.But while his policies are popular, Biden and his party, presently, are not. Last week, voters turned sharply against Democrats, delivering a number of surprising Republican victories in states Biden won handily in 2020.America needs help. Yet Democrats are getting sucked into fake culture wars | Hamilton NolanRead moreThe losses jolted Democrats into action on Capitol Hill, even as some moderates wondered if the president had misread his mandate. Within days, they sent the infrastructure bill, gridlocked for months amid intra-party feuding over a separate pillar of Biden’s agenda, to his desk for his signature.In the weeks ahead, the president’s promotional tour will test his political salesmanship and his theory of governance: that delivering concrete benefits is the best way to rise above the political tribalism roiling the country. “The American people sent us here to deliver. The American people sent us here to make the government work,” Biden said on Friday, during a cabinet meeting to discuss the implementation of his infrastructure bill. “They sent us here to make a difference in their lives. And I believe we’re doing that.”Facing daunting odds in next year’s midterm elections, Democrats are pleading with “Amtrak Joe” to make the pitch loud and clear.Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, who leads the campaign committee for House Democrats, pleaded with the White House to put Biden on the campaign trail as frequently as possible to trumpet his domestic agenda. In an interview with the New York Times, he said his message to the White House was, “Free Joe Biden.”“That campaign needs to start now before the next crisis takes over the news cycle,” he said.On Monday, Biden will sign the measure into law during a ceremony at the White House, surrounded by a bipartisan group of legislators, governors and mayors. Following that, the president will hit the road, with plans to visit a bridge in Woodstock, New Hampshire, and a GM electric vehicle plant in Detroit, according to the White House.In addition, Biden is dispatching his cabinet members, including the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg; energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm; and interior secretary, Deb Haaland, to promote the bill’s investments in states, cities, towns and tribal communities.So far, the strategy echoes the administration’s “Help is here” tour to showcase the Democrats’ $1.9tn coronavirus relief package Biden signed into law shortly after taking office. But the presidential messaging blitz was soon swamped by the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, a summertime resurgence of the pandemic and a rise in inflation.Even though the legislation sent $1,400 stimulus checks to millions of Americans, expanded the child tax credit program and increased unemployment insurance – all tangible, popular benefits – Democrats hardly reaped the political rewards. An August poll by Daily Kos/Civiqs found that 57% of voters said the Biden administration had not done anything that has benefited them personally.“Voters don’t go to the ballot box with a spreadsheet of policies. They go with a feeling about who values them,” said Jesse Ferguson, a senior Democratic strategist. The way to show that, he said, was “to deliver on the things that matter to people who work for a living”, like lowering the cost of prescription drug prices, making childcare more affordable and providing paid family and medical leave.​Whether a concerted appeal from the president ​can overcome ​a toxic political climate​ is an open question for Democrats. Biden’s standing with voters has dropped sharply, particularly among independents. Wide majorities say the nation is on the wrong track. A CNN poll released this week found that six in 10 American believe Biden has the wrong priorities. The number climbed among voters who ranked the economy as a top priority.As the administration’s messaging campaign ramps up, the White House says its digital team is developing explainer videos and other social content to educate voters about the Democrats’ initiatives. They are also planning for a burst of TV appearances, including with media outlets that serve Black and Latino communities.The push also includes an emphasis on local news organizations, such as WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, which sat down with Biden on Monday. In the interview, he predicted a long-overdue upgrade for the deteriorating Brent Spence Bridge that stretches between Ohio and the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky.McConnell was one of 32 Republicans in the House and Senate to vote for the legislation that has divided the party. Donald Trump savaged those in his party who supported the measure, blaming them for voting for “Democratic longevity” while his loyalists in the House accused them of disloyalty. Many of them have faced vicious backlash from constituents, including vulgar insults and even death threats.Speaking in Kentucky, McConnell squashed any suggestion that the unusual display of bipartisanship might extend beyond the realm of roads and bridges.“Let me sum it up this way,” he said. “I think every step we took this year … except infrastructure is in the wrong direction.”At home during the congressional recess, Democrats donned hard hats and lined up next to union workers to highlight how the once-in-a-generation investment in the nation’s infrastructure would benefit the wishlist of long-neglected public works projects in their districts and states. The plan, they said, would touch all 50 states, creating high-paying jobs and helping to rejuvenate the economy.The package, which includes the largest investment in infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower began the interstate highway system in the 1950s, is popular with voters. But many of the projects won’t be started, much less completed, until long after the midterm elections are decided.“It is part of our job to let people know exactly what Congress did for them,” Madeleine Dean, a Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania, said on a press call showcasing the infrastructure bill’s investments in her state. “We have a lot of educating to do.”A Monmouth University poll released this week found 65% of Americans support the infrastructure bill while 62% approve of the Democrats’ spending measure. Yet the poll showed that voters increasingly believe Biden’s policies have not helped middle-class or poor families.Taken together, the results suggest the White House and Democrats “lack a cohesive and concrete message about how this bill will help the American public”, said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Poll.The measure’s bipartisan passage has given some Democrats fresh optimism that they can muster the votes to pass a second, even larger domestic policy measure and begin to reverse their political fortunes ahead of next year’s midterm elections.“Democrats are delivering – and we are making sure that the American people know it,” Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement. The DNC is “doubling down” on their outreach to voters, working with state and local parties to help translate how the plan will benefit their communities.Matt Barreto, a Democratic pollster and senior adviser to Building Back Together, a group advocating for Biden’s agenda, said voters were swayed by results.“I really like our chances if we are messaging on very popular policy that we have passed and signed into law and the other side is complaining about cultural issues,” he said.If Biden doesn’t pass the climate bill, it will be the betrayal of a generation | Daniel SherrellRead moreA Navigator Research survey found that Biden’s overall approval rating climbed in the days since Congress passed his bipartisan infrastructure deal. The same survey showed that support for the major pieces of Biden’s agenda remains high as a growing number of voters say they’ve heard about the bill.Yet the challenges threatening to derail Biden’s PR campaign are myriad. When Democrats return to Washington next week, a new fight awaits over the next phase of his agenda. Republicans are eager to weaponize rising inflation, using it to attack the spending plan as reckless. And even when Biden attempts to take a victory lap, as he did in Baltimore on Wednesday, the news of the day interferes.Designed as a solution to fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, Biden said the measure would also address immediate economic concerns caused by rising inflation and supply chain bottlenecks.The obstacles were underscored by his appearance in Baltimore. In his speech touting the “once-in-a-generation investment” in the nation’s infrastructure, he also delivered a lengthy explanation of supply chains and conceded that “consumer prices remain too high”.After his remarks concluded, Biden, a retail politician at heart, waded into the crowd, joking and laughing as he worked the rope line and glad-handed local officials.TopicsUS newsUS politicsDemocratsJoe BidenRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

As Ronson’s BBC podcast Things Fell Apart begins, the documentary-makers and old friends discuss conspiracy theories, the problem of ‘activist journalists’ and what happened to Ceaușescu’s socksby Fiona SturgesJon Ronson and Adam Curtis became friends in the late 1990s, having bonded over their shared interests in power, society and the stories we tell about ourselves. Curtis, 66, is a Bafta-winning documentary film-maker whose credits include The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear and HyperNormalisation. His most recent six-part series, Can’t Get You Out of My Head, draws on the history of psychology and politics to show how we got to where we are today. Ronson, 54, is a US-based Welsh writer and journalist whose books include 2015’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, about social media brutality and the history of public shaming. In recent years, Ronson has turned to podcasting, investigating the porn industry in The Butterfly Effect and its follow-up The Last Days of August.Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.His forthcoming BBC podcast, Things Fell Apart, is about the roots of the culture wars and the ways the present is echoed in the past. Over eight episodes, he talks to individuals caught up in ideological conflicts, conspiracy theories and moral panics. These include Alice Moore, the wife of a fundamentalist minister and unexpected culture war instigator who campaigned to remove textbooks containing liberal material from schools, and Kelly Michaels, a daycare worker and victim of the “satanic panic” who was wrongfully imprisoned in 1988 by a New Jersey court for child abuse (the verdict was overturned in 1993).We are on: Curtis is talking from his office in London while Ronson is at home in New York. By way of preparation before their chat, Curtis has binged on Ronson’s new series. No sooner are cameras switched on than the reminiscences begin.Jon Ronson Do you remember that time we went to an auction of [the late Romanian dictator Nicolae] Ceaușescu’s belongings?Adam Curtis Yes, now that was exciting.JR It was. We went on a minibreak to Romania together.AC I bought Ceaușescu’s cap, and a pair of socks.JR I also got a pair of socks. There was some very heavy bidding from a mysterious gentleman who got all the ornaments. The prices were getting pretty high so I stuck with the socks. I don’t even know where they are now. I bet you know where your stuff is.AC I do, actually.JR We have had many conversations over the years and generally I find I’m asking you questions because I’m trying to get ideas. I always think of you as a fantastic source of insights into the future. In the early days of social media, you were the very first person to say to me: “Don’t think of this as a utopia. There are some problems here.” There are two or three people in my life where, when they talk, I really want to listen to what they have to say, and you are one of those.AC That is completely not true. What actually happens is that I bollock on about theories which you completely ignore and then you go off on your stories. Anyway, I’m trying to remember when we actually met.JR I think the first time I met you was when I made the [1997] documentary Tottenham Ayatollah and you came to the screening.AC And your wife Elaine invited me to meet you in a cafe off Tottenham Court Road. She said: “Can you come and talk to him? Then you could take some of the pressure off me by talking about his film.”JR She probably said: “I can’t take it any more. He won’t stop agonising.”AC But when we met you didn’t agonise at all. I think what we recognised in each other – and it’s been the professional bond between us – is that we’re both interested in what happens outside those normal areas that most political journalists examine that involve politics and power. We want to look at things like psychology and how a conspiracy theory plays out and how feelings work through society.JR I’m really surprised at how frequently the things that we tell stories about overlap. But the way we go about it is so different. I think your brain works better thinking about theories and my brain works better thinking about stories.AC I think you and I are creatures of our time. I got interested in this idea that power now works not through traditional forms but through the idea of individualism; it says you should be allowed to do what you want to do, but we will serve you to get that. You and I both know what it’s like to be an obsessive individualist, but we’ve become intrigued by how that plays out in a society in which you’ve got lots of people wanting to be individuals. I’ve always had this theory that self-expression is the conformity of our age. The most radical thing you can do is something extraordinary like walking naked around the world, and not tell anyone that you’ve done it. You can’t post anything online. When you say that to people, they can’t conceive of it.JR I really like that idea.AC The other thing that we both do when we’re interviewing people is not follow a list of questions. You go into a situation where you have questions in your head but suddenly they’ll say something which is either funny or unexpected and you just learn to go with it. It’s like suddenly a little piglet swerves off from the herd, and you go with it up and over the hill.JR One positive thing that has been said about what I do is that there’s a sincerity to it. I never go into something with an idea of how it will turn out.AC We’re talking about sincerity? Don’t go there, Jon! You’ll be writing poems next.JR [Laughs] Well it’s really to do with trying to figure out what I think from my research without being told what to think by other people. I think people appreciate the fact that I’ve worked hard to come to the thoughts I’ve come to.AC Yes, I agree with that.JR I guess what we have in common is we’re not ideologues. We don’t go into a situation with a set of agendas. We’re more willing to be a twig in the river of the story and just go where it takes us. By doing that we’re forced to keep an open mind. I don’t even have a list of questions in my head when I’m interviewing somebody. I’m literally a tightrope walker with no safety net, and I have, on many occasions, plummeted to my death like in Squid Game.AC I think that open-mindedness is clear in your podcast. And it’s absolutely the right time to examine the roots of what we’re calling the culture wars, which is such a difficult and sensitive area. So much journalism, when it goes back into the past to see why something happened, always interviews the people who are defined as the actors, the people who consciously set out to [create conflict]. What I’m increasingly intrigued by is the people who were acted upon by that thing or idea. Because the way ideas or concepts play out in society are never the way that the people who started them think. What you’ve done in these programmes is follow individuals who are acted upon by these forces, because it shows you the real dimensions of what these things called culture wars are.JR Well, I realised that I would watch people become overconsumed by these cultural conflicts, to the extent that it was impacting their mental health and tearing families apart. But every show that’s about the culture ends up a part of the culture wars, and I didn’t want to do that. So I thought the way to do it was by focusing on a moment and a human story and tell that story in as unexpected a way as possible. In the end we found eight stories about the complexity of human life and they all happen to be origin stories. These are the pebbles being thrown in the pond and creating these ripples.AC Yes, these people have got caught up in the great tides of history that have come sweeping over them. It feels real. If you follow people who are acted upon, you start to understand, in a much more sympathetic way, why people do things that you might not like or approve of. You see how someone is led to something, with no idea of the consequences. In the first two episodes, you talk about how the evangelical movement up until the early 1970s had been completely detached from any involvement in the moral, political or social questions of American society. And what you trace is how two people got sucked into a particular issue, which then acted like a fuse to reawaken the evangelical movement.JR For decades the Christian right were silent: they consumed their own media, they went to their own churches and they listened to their own radio shows, and they were totally unengaged with what was happening. But then a few things happened that finally galvanised them into becoming soldiers in a culture war, and one was a new diversity of thought in school textbooks. In the series I talk to Alice Moore, who is in her 80s now and was one of the earliest cultural warriors for the evangelical right. She was a church minister’s wife in West Virginia who discovered there was going to be a new sex education lesson taught in schools, and she wasn’t having that. So she got on to the school board, and then the new curriculum arrived in 1974 that was full of all these multicultural voices, and things got so heated over just one semester that school buses were shot at – in fact, shots were fired from both sides – and a school was bombed. And I discovered while talking to Alice that one of the reasons for the intensity of the anger was a misinterpretation of a poem [that appeared in one of the new school textbooks].AC By Roger McGough!JR Yes. It was a poem [1967’s At Lunchtime: A Story of Love] that featured a spontaneous orgy that takes place on a bus, because the passengers thought the world was about to end at lunchtime in a nuclear war. So Alice was reading out this poem to me and I was thinking: “I don’t think this is in favour of spontaneous orgies on buses. I think this poet is agreeing with you, to an extent.” So then I went off to talk to Roger about it.AC And then you went back to Alice, and she was quite grumpy about it, which was funny. But I think this is a beautiful example of what we were talking about. As I was listening to that episode I was thinking: “Hang on, this isn’t quite as bad as she thinks it is.” And then, Jon’s brain is thinking the same thing, but without judgment.JR I like to steer clear of conflict as much as I can.AC Which is good and also rare. Most people would pursue her with their agenda. Right now, everyone is judged as either being good or bad. It’s good versus evil – that’s where journalism has got to now. But yours doesn’t do that.JR I’m interested in everybody as a human being and I’m quite startled by the myriad examples of the media being a part of the culture wars. It seems to happen everywhere, this mistelling of a story so it fits into a particular ideology a little more clearly. It happens on all sides. I get very disheartened when CNN lies to me or is biased or omits certain aspects of the truth to tell a certain version of the story. During the Trump years I really felt that with CNN. I felt like I was in QAnon and my Q was Anderson Cooper.AC I would read the New York Times all about the close friendship between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. And I know enough Russian journalists who I trust to know that it’s just complete rubbish. So hysteria happened on both sides. I mean if you go back over reports even from my own organisation, the BBC, about how Trump was actually an agent of Putin, it’s extraordinary. It’s a conspiracy theory. That’s as much of a panic as anything else you get on the right.JR I also think a lot of journalists are, like: “Oh my God. All this time I’ve just been a liberal but look at these things that are happening: Trump’s election, George Floyd.” So they think it’s not enough to be a liberal journalist, they have to be an activist journalist. And I think it’s completely understandable and, in some cases, it’s a great thing. But then in other cases, it’s really troublesome because journalism now has pre-existing ideologies.AC And then journalism lifts off from Planet Real and goes off into the realms of histrionic personality disorder. I actually think histrionic personality disorder describes most of the progressive classes in western societies, in that they’ve given up on their progressivism and retreated into a histrionic attitude to the world.JR I do think these stories tell us an awful lot about the way we live our lives today. In the satanic panic episode, which is about moral panics in the 1980s, you think it’s going to be about the parallels today with QAnon. But it becomes clear that there are also parallels with the panics on the left today, and that we all have these cognitive biases. I tell this story in which daycare workers are being accused of satanic activity, which clearly never happened, and where people actually went to jail. Suddenly it wasn’t just the Christian right worried about satanic cults at the end of your street, but mainstream America. When the flame is burning hot, we can all act in irrational, brutal or inhuman ways, and you see it across the spectrum.AC The series did make me think: how has this happened? Not just the culture wars but their ferocity. And where is the escape hatch? Because I think all sides now feel that there’s something not quite right. If you examine the years since Trump and Brexit, there has been this enormous hysteria in newspapers and on television about it. But actually the politicians have done nothing to change society. It’s almost been like a frozen world. So, I think the real answer to why this is happening is because politics has failed. It’s become this dead area, this desert surrounded by thinktanks, and someone’s got to get in there and regenerate it. The new politics is waiting to come. And I think it will happen.Jon Ronson’s Things Fell Apart continues Tuesday, 9am Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. It will be available in the US and Canada exclusively on BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head is on BBC iPlayer.TopicsJon RonsonAdam CurtisPodcastsPodcastingUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Betrayal review: Trump’s final days and a threat not yet extinguished ABC’s man in Washington delivers a second riveting and horrifying read about how close America came to disasterTrumpworld is in legal jeopardy. The 45th president’s phone call to Brad Raffensperger, urging the Georgia secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes”, may have birthed a grand jury.‘A xenophobic autocrat’: Adam Schiff on Trump’s threat to democracyRead moreIn Manhattan, the outgoing district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, has empaneled one of those, to look at Trump’s business. As a Vanity Fair headline blared, “The Trump Organization should be soiling itself right now.”In Washington, the Department of Justice ponders the prosecution of Steve Bannon, chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign and a pivotal figure in the “Stop the Steal” movement second time round.For Trump, out-of-office has not translated into out-of-mind. He thrives on all the attention.Amid it all, Jonathan Karl dives once again into the Stygian mosh pit, this time with Betrayal, a sequel to Front Row at the Trump Show, a New York Times bestseller.In that book, in the spring of 2020, ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent prophesied that “Trump’s war on truth may do lasting damage to American democracy”. Sadly, he wasn’t wrong. Front Row preceded by months a coup attempt egged on by a defeated president. Looking back, Trump’s embrace of birtherism, “alternative facts” and crowd violence were mere prelude to the chaos that filled his time in power, his final days in office and all that has come and gone since then.In his second book, under the subtitle The Final Act of the Trump Show, Karl gets members of Trump’s cabinet to speak on the record. They paint a portrait of a wrath-filled president, untethered from reality, bent on revenge.Karl captures Bill Barr denouncing Trump’s election-related conspiracy theories and criticizing his election strategy. Appearing determined to salvage his own battered reputation, Trump’s second attorney general tells Karl his president “was making it too much of a base election. I felt that he had to repair the bridges he had burned [with moderate voters] in the suburbs.”By that metric, Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s governor-elect, has a bright future, a politician who puts suburban dads and rural moms at ease. No wonder Republicans think they have found a star, and with him a winning formula.As for Trump’s claims about rigged voting machines, Barr “realized from the beginning it was just bullshit” and says “the number of actual improper voters were de minimus”. No matter, to Trump: he continues to demand Republican legislatures carry out post-election audits.Karl delivers further confirmation of Mitch McConnell’s fractious personal relationship with Trump, a man the Kentucky senator reportedly repeatedly mocked. According to Karl, McConnell, then Senate majority leader, sought to formally disinvite Trump from Joe Biden’s inauguration. Kevin McCarthy, the chief House Republican, leaked the plan to the White House. In turn, Trump tweeted that he would not attend.McConnell attempted to thread the needle, placating Trump while keeping the GOP’s Koch brothers wing onside. But once he acknowledged Biden’s victory, the damage was permanently done. McConnell was an object of Trumpian scorn.That the senator jammed Amy Coney Barrett on to the supreme court days before the 2020 election and before that played blocking back for Brett Kavanaugh is now rendered irrelevant. Trump wants McConnell out of Senate leadership. Adding insult to injury, Trump recently told the Washington Post McConnell wasn’t a “real leader” because “he didn’t fight for the presidency”, and said he was “only a leader because he raises a lot of money”.“You know,” Trump said, “with the senators, that’s how it is, frankly. That’s his primary power.”He’s not wrong all the time.Betrayal also documents a commander-in-chief who scared his own cabinet witless. After Trump junked the Iran nuclear deal, for example, Tehran thumbed its nose back. Drama ensued, because Trump wanted to know his options.Chris Miller, then acting defense secretary, tells Karl that to dissuade Trump from ordering the destruction of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, he chose to play the role of “fucking madman” – his words, not Karl’s – which meant advocating that very course of action. According to Karl, not even Mike Pompeo, then secretary of state and an Iran hawk, played along.“Oftentimes with provocative people, if you get more provocative than them, they then have to dial it down,” Miller explains to Karl. “They’re like, ‘Yeah, I was fucking crazy, but that guy’s batshit.’”Here, the reader might pause to imagine a campaign slogan for Trump in 2024: “Fucking crazy, but not batshit”.On a similar note, Karl depicts Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s crony and attorney, as a walking timebomb. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser, avoided the former New York mayor. Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, saw him as a corrosive force.“I’m not going to let Rudy in the building for any more of these,” Meadows reportedly told Chris Christie, New Jersey’s former governor, and Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager, as they prepared for debates with Biden.These days, Giuliani is suspended from the bar, reportedly under investigation and unable to persuade Trump to pay his bills. Christie and Trump are at loggerheads too, over sins real and imagined, past and present.In Trump’s Shadow: David Drucker surveys the Republican runners and riders for 2024Read moreAs for Meadows and Stepien, they are in the crosshairs of the House select committee focused on the US Capitol attack. From the looks of things only Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, have so far remained intact, ensconced in Florida, sufficiently distanced from Big Daddy.Despite such fallout, Betrayal concludes with words of warning. Karl rightly contends that Trump’s “betrayal” of American democracy highlighted “just how vulnerable” the system is.“The continued survival of our republic,” he writes, “may depend, in part, on the willingness of those who promoted Trump’s lies and those who remained silent to acknowledge they were wrong.”In a hypothetical rematch, Trump leads Biden 45-43. Among independent voters, he holds a double-digit lead. Don’t hold your breath.
Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show is published in the US by Dutton
TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS elections 2020US Capitol attackUS politicsRepublicansreviewsReuse this content More

Chris Christie: Trump knows better about election lies – or is just ‘plain nuts’Former New Jersey governor’s new book bound to put him at odds with former president as 2024 approaches Chris Christie’s comeback tour will continue next week with publication of a book, Republican Rescue, in which the former New Jersey governor seeks to present himself as the face of the party after Donald Trump, and a plausible contender for the presidential nomination in 2024.Trump defended rioters who threatened to ‘hang Mike Pence’, audio revealsRead moreSuch efforts have already seen the one-time presidential candidate clash with Trump, who did not take kindly to Christie warning in a speech in Nevada last weekend: “We can no longer talk about the past and the past elections – no matter where you stand on that issue, no matter where you stand, it is over.”In a statement, Trump, who is likely to run again in 2024, claimed Christie was “absolutely massacred by his statements that Republicans have to move on from the past, meaning the 2020 election fraud”.Christie then told Axios, in an interview due to run on Sunday, he was “not going to get into a back-and-forth” with the longtime friend he helped prepare for debates with Joe Biden and who nearly made him White House chief of staff.But Christie’s book seems guaranteed to anger Trump further. In a copy obtained by the Guardian, Christie writes that Republicans “need to renounce the conspiracy theories and truth deniers, the ones who know better and the ones who are just plain nuts”.The former governor does not say if he thinks Trump knows better about his claims of electoral fraud, or is one of those who is “nuts”.But he adds: “We need to give our supporters facts that will help put all these fantasies to rest, so everyone can focus with clear minds on the issues that really matter. We need to quit wasting our time, our energy and our credibility on claims that won’t ever convince anyone or bring fresh converts onboard.”Condemning the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right Georgia congresswoman who has expressed support for conspiracy theories, Christie says Trump indulges such figures because he likes “anyone who says nice things about him”.Discussing the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that high-profile Democrats are involved in satanic child abuse, Christie writes that such beliefs “would be ridiculous” if they were not “so sad”.The FBI considers QAnon a potential terrorist threat. Trump, however, has said its followers share his concern about crime, “love our country” and “like me very much”.Told last year that QAnon supporters believe he is “secretly saving the world” from a “satanic cult of paedophiles and cannibals”, Trump said: “I haven’t heard that but is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?”“Many in our society,” Christie writes in Republican Rescue, “use these wild, untrue conspiracy theories to advance their political agendas.”Christie left office in New Jersey under the cloud of the Bridgegate payback scandal and with historically low approval. Regardless, he continues to tout his pugnacious Jersey persona – a political proposition roundly rejected by Republican voters in the presidential primary in 2016 – writing that “everyone knows I never pull my punches” and “I call things as I see them”.Some observers, however, question Christie’s sincerity in his stand against Trumpism, given his longstanding closeness to Trump.Eric Boehlert, author of the Press Run newsletter, wrote critically on Friday about a CNN special, Being Chris Christie, due for broadcast on Monday.“Today,” Boehlert wrote, “Christie is promoting himself, with the help of CNN, as a brave truth-teller who’s standing up to Trump and his Big Lie about the 2020 election … but Christie may have had the longest delayed conversion to the anti-Trump crowd of any Republican in America.“Just last year Christie helped Trump prep for a presidential debate. After watching Trump get impeached, Christie still jumped at the chance to be near the center of power to help the maniac get re-elected … Days after helping with Trump’s prep, where everyone was unvaccinated and unmasked, Christie was hospitalised with Covid.”In his book, Christie describes both his role in Trump’s debate prep and the bout with Covid which sent him to intensive care.On the debate stage, in Cleveland, Trump notoriously refused to condemn the far-right Proud Boys, instead telling them to “stand back and stand by”.The New Jersey columnist Charles Stile said then Christie’s defence of Trump’s words “served to remind us of his own trajectory” as a “one-time truth-telling, center-right darling of the GOP [who] embraced his role as a trusted adviser in Trump’s orbit”.Another Jersey columnist, Alan Steinberg, called Christie “a person of irrepressible ambition, without limits or guard rails … and an essential component of that ambition is an obsessive quest to be relevant”.Republican Revival will be published on Tuesday.TopicsBooksChris ChristieDonald TrumpUS elections 2024RepublicansUS politicsPolitics booksnewsReuse this content More

Former Trump ally Steve Bannon faces possible fines and time behind bars after being indicted on two counts of contempt of Congress.

The criminal charges, announced on Nov. 12, 2021, by the Department of Justice, follow a vote by the House of Representatives in October to hold Bannon in contempt when he defied a subpoena issued by a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Bannon’s lawyers have said their client refused to testify in accordance with the instructions of former President Donald Trump.

The indictment is the first in history to involve a contempt prosecution of someone claiming executive privilege.

But Trump and his advisers aren’t the first to try to keep some details of a president’s time in office from wider view. Every president in history has refused to disclose information to Congress. These refusals are so commonplace that there is not even a comprehensive listing of how often they occur.

The indictment of Bannon captures a near-constant power struggle between presidents and Congress.

It also raises questions about the constitutional authority of Congress and how lawmakers acquire the information needed to hold the executive branch accountable in the U.S. system of separation of powers.

Steve Bannon, former White House senior counselor to President Donald Trump.
Alex Wong/Getty Images

Power to investigate

No constitutional provision explicitly states that Congress has the authority to investigate problems or defects in the nation’s social, economic or political systems. But the legislature’s power to acquire information through investigation is an established part of representative democracy.

This is true regardless of the investigation’s end result or even whether critics accuse Congress of being partisan. As the Supreme Court put it in 1975, democratic governance means that some investigations may be nonproductive. In “times of political passion,” the court said, “dishonest or vindictive motives are readily attributed to legislative conduct and as readily believed.”

More than 200 years of Supreme Court precedent also recognizes that the fundamental right of Congress to investigate includes the power of subpoena, which compels testimony by an individual or requires production of evidence.

But the power of subpoena is of little value without the ability to enforce it. That mechanism is called contempt.

How contempt works

If a target of a congressional investigation refuses to comply with a subpoena, Congress can hold the individual in contempt. There are three forms of contempt – inherent, civil and criminal – each of which relies on a different branch of government for enforcement.

Congress has its own power to enforce a subpoena. However, to use that power, Congress has to conduct a trial and then find the individual in contempt. Because this process is lengthy and cumbersome, Congress has not used it since the 1930s.

Congress can also ask the courts to declare an individual in contempt. Known as civil contempt, this method requires a resolution authorizing a congressional committee or the House general counsel’s office to file a civil lawsuit. The courts then determine whether Congress has the right to the information it has demanded.

Congress used this power in the past three presidential administrations – Bush, Obama and Trump – to acquire information.

However, civil contempt is also slow moving. For example, Congress held Attorney General Eric Holder in civil contempt in 2012 for withholding information relating to Operation Fast and Furious, a Department of Justice policy that allowed certain illegal gun sales in order to track Mexican drug cartels. Congress eventually obtained some records, but it took seven years for courts to reach a settlement.

The last form of contempt relies on the executive branch – specifically the Department of Justice and U.S. attorneys – for enforcement. If someone refuses to testify or produce documents, a congressional committee can first cite the individual in criminal contempt and then ask its chamber of Congress to adopt a resolution affirming the committee’s decision. After that resolution, the Department of Justice and U.S. attorneys decide whether to pursue the matter in court.

Criminal contempt is what the House used in the Bannon case.

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Bannon’s defiance

In June 2021, the House of Representatives established a select committee to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. As part of the select committee’s investigation, committee Chairman Bennie Thompson signed a subpoena requiring Bannon to produce documents by Oct. 7 and to appear for a deposition on Oct. 14.

In response to the subpoena, former President Trump instructed Bannon not to comply.

Bannon refused to provide a single document or to appear for his deposition, citing Trump’s directive.

The select committee then issued a report recommending that the House hold Bannon in criminal contempt. On Oct. 21, the House agreed with the committee’s recommendation and adopted a resolution finding Bannon in contempt.

After House Speaker Nancy Speaker Pelosi officially referred the case to the Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the department would “apply the facts and the law when making the decision to prosecute.”

On Nov. 12, Garland announced the charges, noting: “The subpoena required him to appear and produce documents to the Select Committee, and to appear for a deposition before the Select Committee. According to the indictment, Mr. Bannon refused to appear to give testimony as required by subpoena and refused to produce documents in compliance with a subpoena.”

Each count of contempt carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail, along with fines of up to US$1,000.

The committee that issued the subpoena to Bannon is investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot by Trump supporters.
Win McNamee/Getty Images

The catch

While Bannon’s failure to comply with the congressional subpoena is striking, he needed to do so to challenge the subpoena.

To legally contest a congressional request for information, an individual first must refuse to comply and then, if held in criminal contempt, can provide a defense.

Bannon’s defense – and Trump’s instruction not to provide information to Congress – centers on the concept of executive privilege. Since President George Washington, executive officials have claimed the ability to withhold certain information that is fundamental to the operation of government. These claims relate to the idea that confidentiality encourages candor among presidents and their advisers when making important governmental decisions and policies.

In a letter to Bannon and three others under congressional investigation, Trump’s lawyer said they are protected from compelled disclosure “by the executive and other privileges, including among others the presidential communications, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges.”

Presidents and their advisers have always interpreted executive privilege broadly. However, President Trump and his advisers have taken an even more expansive view than previous administrations.

My own research suggests that Trump and his advisers have asserted this privilege in at least 84 different federal cases. In contrast, in President Obama’s first term, only 37 federal cases involved executive privilege claims. The claims in both administrations were made in a range of cases, from Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to lawsuits over agency actions.

Courts have recognized that cases over congressional access to information inevitably force the judiciary to side with one branch over the other. Yet courts acknowledge the need to arbitrate disputes resulting from congressional investigations, particularly when those investigations could implicate presidential misconduct or criminal activity.

At least 14 presidential administrations have been the subject of investigations that required sitting or former presidents and their advisers to produce evidence. Legal disputes over these investigations have rarely made it to court.

But Bannon has made it clear that he will not cooperate with Congress until the judiciary steps in.

How the courts handle the matter will have implications for how Congress holds current and future presidential administrations accountable.

This article is an updated version of a story that was originally published on Oct. 29, 2021. More

Steve Bannon indicted for refusal to comply with Capitol attack subpoenaFormer Trump adviser indicted by grand jury for contempt of Congress The former top Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been indicted by a grand jury for two counts of contempt of Congress after failing to appear before a congressional committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.The justice department said Bannon, 67, had been indicted on one count for refusing to appear for a deposition and the other for refusing to provide documents in response to the committee’s subpoena. It wasn’t immediately clear when he would be due in court.Steve Bannon indicted for refusing to comply with Capitol attack subpoena – liveRead moreCNN reported that an arrest warrant for Bannon had already been signed by a judge.The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said the indictment reflected the justice department’s steadfast commitment to ensuring it adhered to the rule of law, no matter who is accused of a crime.“Since my first day in office, I have promised justice department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law,” said Garland.Each count carries a between 30 days and a year in jail.The 6 January committee was created in the House of Representatives to investigate the attack, which saw a pro-Trump mob rampage through the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump.Some of the committee’s work has been stymied by a lack of cooperation from top Trump administration officials who have refused to comply with subpoenas to testify or turn over documents.Earlier on Friday, Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows failed to appear before the committee. He also faces a criminal referral to the justice department for contempt.Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican on the committee, told CNN he hoped the move would send a “chilling message” to other subpoena recipients.“It sends a really important message to future invited witnesses … You cannot ignore Congress,” Kinzinger said.Bannon’s attorney did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.TopicsSteve BannonUS politicsUS CongressUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More