US Politics

BooksI Alone Can Fix It review: Donald Trump as wannabe Führer – in another riveting read Gen Mark Milley saw that the US was in a ‘Reichstag moment’ – four days before the Capitol riot. With this and much more startling reporting, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post deliver the goods once againLloyd GreenFri 16 Jul 2021 07.37 EDTLast modified on Fri 16 Jul 2021 08.24 EDTCocooned at his resorts, the Trump Organization indicted, Donald Trump has come to embrace the insurrection.Trump told chief of staff Hitler ‘did a lot of good things’, book saysRead more“Personally, what I wanted is what they wanted,” he tells Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post.Five people died after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on 6 January, seeking to overturn the election.Last week, Trump declared: “These were peaceful people, these were great people.”So much for blaming Antifa. Think Charlottesville redux, on a larger stage. Or something even more ominous.In their second book on the Trump presidency, Leonnig and Rucker report that on 2 January 2021, two months after election day and as Trump still refused to concede defeat, Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told aides: “This is a Reichstag moment.”He was referring to the fire at the German parliament on 27 February 1933, an incident seized as a pretext by Hitler to begin arresting opponents and to consolidate his power.“The gospel of the Führer,” the authors quote Milley as saying.According to the general, the US under Trump was experiencing its own version of the late Weimar Republic, complete with modern-day “Brownshirts”. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia, Milley was not alone in seeing shadows of the past slither into the daylight.Trump, Leonnig and Rucker quote a senior official as saying, is a “guy who takes fuel, throws it on the fire, and makes you scared shitless”, then says “‘I will protect you.’“That’s what Hitler did to consolidate power in 1933.”This is a blockbuster follow-up to A Very Stable Genius, in which Leonnig and Rucker chronicled the chaos of Trump’s first three years in office. I Alone Can Fix It pulls back the curtain on the handling of Covid-19, the re-election bid and its chaotic and violent aftermath.The pair are Pulitzer winners, for investigative reporting. Their book is essential reading. They have receipts, which they lay out for all to see.Of Covid, they capture Marc Short, Vice-President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, telling folks in February 2020: “It’s not that bad.” The families of more than 600,000 dead Americans would probably disagree. (Short later contracted the virus.)Feeling burned by the authors’ first book, this time Trump sat for a two-and-a-half-hour interview. At the end of it, he let it be known – with a “twinkle in his eye” – that “for some sick reason” he “enjoyed it”.Much as he claims to hate the media and the elite, Trump craves their attention. Much as he believes in his own power of persuasion, Leonnig and Rucker were not converted.Trump’s hubris shines through. But for the pandemic, he claims re-election was inevitable. It’s a salesman’s pitch but one sufficiently rooted in reality. He also claims America’s two greatest presidents could not have defeated him. That is just surreal:
I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice-president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me.”
Before Covid, the economy was humming. Trump had taken down Qassem Suleimani, a top general in Iran’s Quds force, and the public approved.Joe Biden lost nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. His first win was on 29 February, days after the stock market’s Covid-induced crash, assisted by James Clyburn of South Carolina, dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and House majority whip.On the relationship between Covid and Trump’s defeat, Leonnig and Rucker describe Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s now former prime minister, sharing his thoughts with Tony Fabrizio, a pollster who worked for him and Trump, in early 2020.Netanyahu said: “The only thing that can beat President Trump is coronavirus.”With analytic capacity Trump could never muster and a sense of history he lacked, Netanyahu added: “If you don’t understand what a pandemic is and the mathematics behind how this will spread if we don’t contain it, it will collapse economies, and that changes the ball game tremendously.”In August, Trump reamed out Fabrizio after he warned the president the electorate was “really fatigued”. Trump bellowed: “They’re tired? They’re fatigued? They’re fucking fatigued? Well, I’m fucking fatigued, too.”The book’s rawest revelations concern 6 January. At best, Trump was blasé about Mike Pence’s plight, presiding over confirmation of Biden’s win, stuck inside the Capitol as halls and offices were plundered. Like Nero watching Rome burn, Trump fiddled in front of his TV.As for the rioters, Trump now claims he and they are one: “They showed up just to show support because I happen to believe the election was rigged at a level like nothing has ever been rigged before.”On 6 January, James Lankford of Oklahoma argued against certification, citing constituents’ concerns about voter fraud. He failed to mention it was Trump who spread that very concern.Hours later, however, the senator voted to certify. Months earlier, Tulsa was the venue for Trump’s infamous comeback rally, a flop which cost Brad Parscale his job as campaign manager and Herman Cain his life.Landslide review: Michael Wolff’s third Trump book is his best – and most alarmingRead moreLiz Cheney also makes a telling appearance in Rucker and Leonnig’s story. In a 7 January call with Gen Milley, the Wyoming congresswoman unloaded on Jim Jordan, a hard-right Ohio representative and Trump favorite, as a “son of a bitch”.Stuck with Jordan during the Capitol siege, Cheney discounted his expressions of concern, saying: “Get away from me. You fucking did this.” Cheney is now a member of the House select committee charged with investigating the riot.Leonnig and Rucker also quote Doris Kearns Goodwin: “There is nothing like this other than the 1850s, when events led inevitably to the civil war.”Politicians and acolytes make pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s mecca in Palm Beach. Each dusk, Leonnig and Rucker write, he receives a standing ovation.Just the way he likes it.
I Alone Can Fix It is published in the US by Penguin and in the UK by Bloomsbury
TopicsBooksPolitics booksDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsUS elections 2020US Capitol attackreviewsReuse this content More

The fight to voteUS news‘​​I think it kicked ass’: how Texas Democrats fought for voting rights by fleeing the stateThe lawmakers energized voters during a months-long attack by Republican legislatures on voting access The fight to vote is supported byAbout this contentSam Levine in AustinFri 16 Jul 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 16 Jul 2021 06.02 EDTSign up for the Guardian’s Fight to Vote newsletterGeorgia Roth wasn’t planning on making the two-and-a-half hour drive to the state capitol building in Austin on Tuesday. But when she saw dozens of Democrats in the legislature abruptly leave the state on Monday, blocking Republicans’ plan to enact new legislation to restrict voting access, the 74-year-old hopped into her car and drove east.“​​I think it kicked ass,” Roth, who is from Hunt in the Texas Hill Country. “At least they have to listen to us and understand they have to represent everybody.”On Tuesday morning, Roth was among hundreds of Texans who filled a cavernous underground conference room in the state capitol. They had come from all over the state, some driving hours, to meet with lawmakers and urge them to reject the bills. It was a lobbying day planned before the walkout, but took on new energy after it. When an organizer mentioned that Texas Democrats had brought the session to a halt by leaving the state, the room broke out into rapturous applause.The moment underscored the jolt of energy Democrats in the state house of representatives injected into the fight over voting rights this week by choosing to fly to Washington DC. Amid a months-long attack by Republican legislatures on voting access, Texas has quickly emerged as a kind of Alamo – a Hail Mary stand against a nakedly political effort to make it harder to vote in a state that saw its highest turnout in decades in 2020 and little evidence of voter fraud.Many of the provisions in the bill are aimed at Harris county, home of Houston and the state’s most populous, which has grown to be one of the most diverse in the state in recent decades. In Houston, 45% of the population is Latinx, 22.6% is Black, and nearly 7% is Asian, according to census estimates. Officials in the county took creative steps in 2020 to expand voting access, including allowing drive-thru as well as 24-hour voting. Republicans unsuccessfully sought to invalidate the votes of 127,000 people who used drive-thru voting last year.The lawmakers who left the state plan on remaining in the nation’s capitol until at least 6 August, denying the GOP-led legislature the quorum needed to proceed with legislation. Unfazed by threats of arrest from the legislature and Governor Greg Abbott, they’ve spent recent days lobbying Democrats in Congress to pass two significant federal voting rights bills, making the case that voting rights bills should be exempt from the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation. The rule has allowed Republicans to stymie Democratic efforts to pass federal legislation so far.Texas Republicans have vowed that they will call a new special session to pass the voting bill if this one fails. But even if they eventually succeed in enacting new restrictions, the Texas Democrats have energized voters who have watched Republicans both in Texas and across the US ram through voting restrictions over the objections of Democrats.“I am so happy they finally grew some balls,” said Michelle Anderson, 51, who traveled to Austin from Dallas to meet with lawmakers. “For somebody to stand up for me and risk going to jail so that I can vote. It sends a strong message.”After the walkout, many saw federal voting legislation from Washington as the last hope for Texas. Senate Democrats are trying to pass two separate significant bills: one would require states with a history of voting discrimination, like Texas, to get voting changes approved before they go into effect. The second would implement sweeping changes to voting policy, including requiring states to offer mail-in voting to everyone, as well as requiring automatic, same day and online voter registration (Texas has none of the three).“Those have to be enacted to stop the shenanigans that are happening in our state. I believe that’s our only hope,” said Joy Davis, 45, who came to the state capitol from Houston.That’s the hope of Texas lawmakers who are camped out in Washington, too.“Breaking quorum has been important in elevating voting rights to the national conversation once again,” said Rafael Anchía, a Democrat from Dallas who chairs the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said in an interview. “We are hopeful that the Senate will provide Texas with a federal backstop because the state legislature has proven repeatedly that it’s willing to discriminate against the freedom to vote.”While the Texas house stalled on Tuesday, business under the pink limestone of the Texas capitol continued normally, with tourists flowing in and out of the building, pausing to take pictures. But the Texas senate, which, unlike the house, still had a quorum, passed its own version of the new voting restrictions. The bill requires identification for mail-in ballots, prohibits local election officials from proactively sending out mail-in applications for voters and bans 24-hour and drive-thru voting.Rita Robles, a 51-year-old from Houston, was one of several people who called out the bans on 24-hour and drive-thru voting as the most alarming in the bill. “It’s taking away from people, like I said, who are blue collar. They can’t go to the polls on regular business days, business hours. They’re working, providing for their families, and they just don’t have the time,” she said. More than half of the voters who used both drive-thru and extended voting hours in Harris county last year were Black, Hispanic, or Asian, according to an analysis by the Texas Civil Rights Project.It’s not yet clear how the fight in Texas will end. Democrats may be able to use the leverage from their walkout to try to negotiate a more acceptable bill. Republicans may dig in and refuse to compromise. Federal reform from Washington could come and significantly change the bills. Or it could not.Regardless of the outcome, Texas Democrats have sent a clear message at a moment when there is heightened fears that nothing can be done to stop an unprecedented effort to restrict the right to vote.Trey Martinez Fischer, a Democrat from San Antonio, said he was sitting in the hallway of his hotel in Washington late Tuesday evening when he realized he had traveled to Washington, met with several United States senators, and spent more than an hour with the vice president of the United States, all in a little more than 24 hours.“That just shows the level of interest and the attention that Texas Democrats are bringing to the nation’s capitol asking for a national voting standard,” he said.“I can tell you we are here for the long haul.”TopicsUS newsThe fight to voteUS politicsTexasnewsReuse this content More

It’s been 50 years this month since Henry Kissinger, the then national security advisor, made a secret trip to the People’s Republic of China. Joan E Greve talks to the Guardian’s China affairs correspondent, Vincent Ni, to find out how the current diplomatic relationship compares with 1971

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When president Nixon visited China in 1972 – following the secret trip that Henry Kissinger, his national security advisor, took there in 1971 – it marked a turning point in the cold war and 20th-century history. But a lot has changed since the 1970s, such as China now having one of the largest economies in the world, data security concerns and, of course, Covid-19. So how have US-China relations changed in the 50 years since Kissinger’s visit in 1971? In this week’s episode, the Guardian’s China affairs correspondent, Vincent Ni, shares his thoughts. Send us your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts Archive: NBC News, the Obama Whitehouse, Richard Nixon Foundation, Hindustan Times More

US voting rightsDemocratic congresswoman arrested during voting rights protest at CapitolJoyce Beatty, chair of Congressional Black Caucus, was calling on the Senate to pass a key election reform bill Joan E Greve@ More

UyghursUS Senate votes to ban products from China’s Xinjiang over Uyghur abusesLatest effort in Washington to punish Beijing for what officials say is an ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups R More

Vladimir PutinKremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White HouseExclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy
Support independent Guardian journalism Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan SabbaghThu 15 Jul 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 15 Jul 2021 16.12 EDTVladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.They agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of the American president’s negotiating position.Russia’s three spy agencies were ordered to find practical ways to support Trump, in a decree appearing to bear Putin’s signature.By this point Trump was the frontrunner in the Republican party’s nomination race. A report prepared by Putin’s expert department recommended Moscow use “all possible force” to ensure a Trump victory.Western intelligence agencies are understood to have been aware of the documents for some months and to have carefully examined them. The papers, seen by the Guardian, seem to represent a serious and highly unusual leak from within the Kremlin.The Guardian has shown the documents to independent experts who say they appear to be genuine. Incidental details come across as accurate. The overall tone and thrust is said to be consistent with Kremlin security thinking.The Kremlin responded dismissively. Putin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the idea that Russian leaders had met and agreed to support Trump in at the meeting in early 2016 was “a great pulp fiction” when contacted by the Guardian on Thursday morning.The report – “No 32-04 vd” – is classified as secret. It says Trump is the “most promising candidate” from the Kremlin’s point of view. The word in Russian is perspektivny.There is a brief psychological assessment of Trump, who is described as an “impulsive, mentally unstable and unbalanced individual who suffers from an inferiority complex”.There is also apparent confirmation that the Kremlin possesses kompromat, or potentially compromising material, on the future president, collected – the document says – from Trump’s earlier “non-official visits to Russian Federation territory”.The paper refers to “certain events” that happened during Trump’s trips to Moscow. Security council members are invited to find details in appendix five, at paragraph five, the document states. It is unclear what the appendix contains.“It is acutely necessary to use all possible force to facilitate his [Trump’s] election to the post of US president,” the paper says.This would help bring about Russia’s favoured “theoretical political scenario”. A Trump win “will definitely lead to the destabilisation of the US’s sociopolitical system” and see hidden discontent burst into the open, it predicts.The Kremlin summitThere is no doubt that the meeting in January 2016 took place – and that it was convened inside the Kremlin.An official photo of the occasion shows Putin at the head of the table, seated beneath a Russian Federation flag and a two-headed golden eagle. Russia’s then prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, attended, together with the veteran foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.Also present were Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister in charge of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency; Mikhail Fradkov, the then chief of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service; and Alexander Bortnikov, the boss of the FSB spy agency.Nikolai Patrushev, the FSB’s former director, attended too as security council secretary.According to a press release, the discussion covered the economy and Moldova.The document seen by the Guardian suggests the security council’s real, covert purpose was to discuss the confidential proposals drawn up by the president’s analytical service in response to US sanctions against Moscow.The author appears to be Vladimir Symonenko, the senior official in charge of the Kremlin’s expert department – which provides Putin with analytical material and reports, some of them based on foreign intelligence.The papers indicate that on 14 January 2016 Symonenko circulated a three-page executive summary of his team’s conclusions and recommendations.In a signed order two days later, Putin instructed the then chief of his foreign policy directorate, Alexander Manzhosin, to convene a closed briefing of the national security council.Its purpose was to further study the document, the order says. Manzhosin was given a deadline of five days to make arrangements.What was said inside the second-floor Kremlin senate building room is unknown. But the president and his intelligence officials appear to have signed off on a multi-agency plan to interfere in US democracy, framed in terms of justified self-defence.Various measures are cited that the Kremlin might adopt in response to what it sees as hostile acts from Washington. The paper lays out several American weaknesses. These include a “deepening political gulf between left and right”, the US’s “media-information” space, and an anti-establishment mood under President Barack Obama.The paper does not name Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 rival. It does suggest employing media resources to undermine leading US political figures.There are paragraphs on how Russia might insert “media viruses” into American public life, which could become self-sustaining and self-replicating. These would alter mass consciousness, especially in certain groups, it says.After the meeting, according to a separate leaked document, Putin issued a decree setting up a new and secret interdepartmental commission. Its urgent task was to realise the goals set out in the “special part” of document No 32-04 vd.Members of the new working body were stated to include Shoigu, Fradkov and Bortnikov. Shoigu was named commission chair. The decree – ukaz in Russian – said the group should take practical steps against the US as soon as possible. These were justified on national security grounds and in accordance with a 2010 federal law, 390-FZ, which allows the council to formulate state policy on security matters.According to the document, each spy agency was given a role. The defence minister was instructed to coordinate the work of subdivisions and services. Shoigu was also responsible for collecting and systematising necessary information and for “preparing measures to act on the information environment of the object” – a command, it seems, to hack sensitive American cyber-targets identified by the SVR.The SVR was told to gather additional information to support the commission’s activities. The FSB was assigned counter-intelligence. Putin approved the apparent document, dated 22 January 2016, which his chancellery stamped.The measures were effective immediately on Putin’s signature, the decree says. The spy chiefs were given just over a week to come back with concrete ideas, to be submitted by 1 February.Written in bureaucratic language, the papers appear to offer an unprecedented glimpse into the usually hidden world of Russian government decision-making.Putin has repeatedly denied accusations of interfering in western democracy. The documents seem to contradict this claim. They suggest the president, his spy officers and senior ministers were all intimately involved in one of the most important and audacious espionage operations of the 21st century: a plot to help put the “mentally unstable” Trump in the White House.The papers appear to set out a route map for what actually happened in 2016.A matter of weeks after the security council meeting, GRU hackers raided the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and subsequently released thousands of private emails in an attempt to hurt Clinton’s election campaign.The report seen by the Guardian features details redolent of Russian intelligence work, diplomatic sources say. The thumbnail sketch of Trump’s personality is characteristic of Kremlin spy agency analysis, which places great emphasis on building up a profile of individuals using both real and cod psychology.Moscow would gain most from a Republican victory, the paper states. This could lead to a “social explosion” that would in turn weaken the US president, it says. There were international benefits from a Trump win, it stresses. Putin would be able in clandestine fashion to dominate any US-Russia bilateral talks, to deconstruct the White House’s negotiating position, and to pursue bold foreign policy initiatives on Russia’s behalf, it says.Other parts of the multi-page report deal with non-Trump themes. It says sanctions imposed by the US after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea have contributed to domestic tensions. The Kremlin should seek alternative ways of attracting liquidity into the Russian economy, it concludes.The document recommends the reorientation of trade and hydrocarbon exports towards China. Moscow’s focus should be to influence the US and its satellite countries, it says, so they drop sanctions altogether or soften them.‘Spell-binding’ documentsAndrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia’s spy agencies and author of The Red Web, said the leaked material “reflects reality”. “It’s consistent with the procedures of the security services and the security council,” he said. “Decisions are always made like that, with advisers providing information to the president and a chain of command.”He added: “The Kremlin micromanages most of these operations. Putin has made it clear to his spies since at least 2015 that nothing can be done independently from him. There is no room for independent action.” Putin decided to release stolen DNC emails following a security council meeting in April 2016, Soldatov said, citing his own sources.Sir Andrew Wood, the UK’s former ambassador in Moscow and an associate fellow at the Chatham House thinktank, described the documents as “spell-binding”. “They reflect the sort of discussion and recommendations you would expect. There is a complete misunderstanding of the US and China. They are written for a person [Putin] who can’t believe he got anything wrong.”Wood added: “There is no sense Russia might have made a mistake by invading Ukraine. The report is fully in line with the sort of thing I would expect in 2016, and even more so now. There is a good deal of paranoia. They believe the US is responsible for everything. This view is deeply dug into the soul of Russia’s leaders.”Trump did not initially respond to a request for comment.Later, Liz Harrington, his spokesperson, issued a statement on his behalf.“This is disgusting. It’s fake news, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA was fake news. It’s just the Radical Left crazies doing whatever they can to demean everybody on the right.“It’s fiction, and nobody was tougher on Russia than me, including on the pipeline, and sanctions. At the same time we got along with Russia. Russia respected us, China respected us, Iran respected us, North Korea respected us.“And the world was a much safer place than it is now with mentally unstable leadership.” TopicsVladimir PutinDonald TrumpRussiaUS elections 2016EspionageUS politicsEuropenewsReuse this content More

TexasTexas Republicans veer further right despite state’s demographic shiftsGovernor Greg Abbott appears to be filling out a ‘bingo card’ of rightwing policy desires, even though those proposals are not popular with Texans Alexandra Villarreal in AustinThu 15 Jul 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 15 Jul 2021 05.01 EDTFrom restricting voter access and politicizing the US-Mexico border to targeting transgender student athletes and further rolling back abortion rights, Texas’s current legislative agenda set by its governor, Greg Abbott, reads almost like a conservative bingo card.Death toll from Texas February cold spell rises by 59 to reach 210Read moreBut in the shadow of next year’s Republican primary contest, Abbott is already facing hostile challengers in his own party who are ideologically even more extreme and are pushing the radical governor even further to the right as he seeks re-election.So it may not be a coincidence that, during recent legislative overtime in Texas, he’s heaped on enough red meat to try to foil his rivals, who claim he’s only Republican in name – to the shock of many civic society activists in the state.“We’re really seeing a race of who can throw Texans under the bus in the fastest and most cruel way, simply to score political points and to remain in power,” said Juan Benitez, the communications director for Workers Defense Action Fund.For years, Democrats have been slowly chipping away at Republicans’ ironclad grip on Texas in a belief that the state may eventually turn blue. But the state’s conservative leadership in the Republican party is now doubling down on rightwing talking points ahead of 2022, relying on hot-button, emotional issues to rile up supporters.“What they’re doing is working harder and harder and harder, in my judgment, to stimulate a shrinking base, and going so far to the right they no longer represent the consensus view of Texans,” said Mike Collier, a Democrat who plans to run for Texas lieutenant governor next year.Despite Texas’s rapidly changing demographics, so far, it has remained staunchly red in terms of who wins.That, in turn, makes the state’s primaries the real contest in most races, said Juan Carlos Huerta, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.“I think there is a bit of a disconnect between the overall sense of what Texans want and what our elected officials do,” Huerta said. “They take care of those who vote for them.”Texas’s Republican primary voters are often rightwing Donald Trump loyalists, and statewide incumbents who want another term have little choice but to court those votes. If they succeed, they’re more than likely to prevail in the general election, regardless of how radical their platform is.So the Texas government is dominated by Republicans who have been hand-picked by their most extreme constituents, then rubber stamped by a wider electorate that is guided by party identification. Oftentimes, that means a minority’s beliefs – and not the broad will of the people – are reflected in state policy.“We are veering more and more right, without really taking a close look at the fact that democracy is just slowly and slowly getting more and more eroded,” said Benitez.The impact of this disconnect is clear in the politics of the state.A majority of Texans agree with the landmark US supreme court decision on Roe v. Wade, recognizing the constitutional right to choose an abortion. Yet earlier this year, lawmakers passed a strict new “heartbeat” bill, which restricts abortion access around six weeks into a pregnancy, and which more Texas voters oppose than support.Permitless carry will also become the law of the land come September, even though 57% of Texans are against gun owners being able to carry handguns without a license or training.And, despite most voters wanting background checks for gun purchases, the state legislature has failed to act.“Elections have consequences, all right? And the fact that Republicans win – conservative Republicans win in Texas – yes, that’s what they’re gonna advocate: conservative policies,” Huerta said.During a pandemic that has killed more than 51,000 Texans so far, far-right Republican party members chastised Abbott for instituting a statewide mask mandate and other precautions against their wishes.After critics were so peeved that they gathered in protest at the governor’s mansion, the state’s ultra-conservative politicians evidently smelled blood. Some, including the former Texas GOP chairman Allen West and one-term state senator Don Huffines, have already announced they’ll try to oust Abbott next year.“Why isn’t he here?” Huffines asked an audience at ​​the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas earlier this month. “He’s not here because he doesn’t want to face you.”But in reality, Abbott has a $55mn re-election war chest and a higher approval rating in Texas than Senator Ted Cruz, Senator John Cornyn, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and a slew of other prominent state politicians, according to the Texas Tribune.In case that’s not enough, he has started brandishing his conservative credentials ahead of the election. Some believe he’s branding himself as the standard bearer for the new GOP, not only to win in 2022 but also for a potential presidential bid.“I don’t think of him in terms of moderate or conservative. I just see him as someone who you can expect to adopt, you know, the consensus worldview, or the predominant –the dominant – worldview of the Republican party at any given time,” said Jason Lee, a strategist for Texas Right to Vote.In March, before the Covid-19 vaccine was widely available, Abbott opened Texas 100% and abandoned his mask mandate – a decision Joe Biden called “Neanderthal thinking”. Abbott has also banned government-mandated vaccine passports to avoid “treading on Texans’ personal freedoms”.He has recently made migrants and asylum seekers into political punching bags, announcing his intention to build a wall dividing Texas from Mexico. And following Trump’s endorsement, he echoed the former president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric when they met for a photo op last month, according to the Dallas Morning News.“It is time to make sure we seal this border and close it down,” Abbott said. “The people coming across the border are cartels and gangs and smugglers and human traffickers.”After Democrats walked off the state House floor to block a restrictive voting bill during the regular legislative session in May, Abbott vetoed the legislature’s funding and convened a special session to force them to address his priorities. When lawmakers thwarted him again by flying to Washington DC on Monday, he vowed to arrest them.“This special session to me is to get the bingo card filled out, to hit all the hot button issues that they identified, and basically take away any arguments from his conservative challengers that he didn’t, you know, fulfill his conservative mission,” Lee said.The session amounts to “political theater to build up to 2022”, Benitez said, and state leaders are using the opportunity to “see who can run farthest to the right”. Agenda items don’t include fixing Texas’s failing electric grid that left hundreds dead during a devastating winter storm last February.Instead, Abbott instructed the legislature to pass bills that would go after abortion medication, put up more obstacles for people trying to get out of jail and make it harder for Texans to vote.“It’s a two-step process,” Collier said. “First, frighten the base with nonsense. Second, propose so-called solutions and then try to win your primary. And what they aren’t doing is addressing the real issues.”TopicsTexasUS politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More