US Politics

Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, the former president’s personal lawyer, have been accused of conspiring to incite the violent riot at the US Capitol, in a legal action filed under a historic law known as the Ku Klux Klan Act.The lawsuit was brought on Tuesday by Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and the eminent civil rights organisation the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).It comes three days after Trump was acquitted by the US Senate on a charge of inciting the 6 January insurrection, only for the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit, to point out that presidents are “not immune” to being held accountable by criminal or civil litigation.The suit alleges that Trump, Giuliani and the extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers conspired to incite the attack on the Capitol with the goal of preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election.It argues that they therefore violated a law often referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act, passed in 1871 in response to Klan violence and intimidation preventing members of Congress in the Reconstruction south from carrying out their constitutional duties. The NAACP, founded in 1909, says the statute was designed to protect against conspiracies.Joseph Sellers, a lawyer with the NAACP who filed the lawsuit on Thompson’s behalf, told the Associated Press: “Fortunately, this hasn’t been used very much. But what we see here is so unprecedented that it’s really reminiscent of what gave rise to the enactment of this legislation right after the civil war.”Thompson, who chairs the House homeland security committee, was among members of Congress who donned gas masks and were rushed to shelter in an office building during the mayhem of 6 January, in which five people died. Members of he Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged with taking part in the riot.Thompson said in a statement that Trump’s “gleeful support of violent white supremacists led to a breach of the Capitol that put my life, and that of my colleagues, in grave danger. It is by the slimmest of luck that the outcome was not deadlier.“While the majority of Republicans in the Senate abdicated their responsibility to hold the president accountable, we must hold him accountable for the insurrection that he so blatantly planned. Failure to do so will only invite this type of authoritarianism for the anti-democratic forces on the far right that are so intent on destroying our country.”Filed on Tuesday in federal district court in Washington, the suit charts an expansive effort by Trump and Giuliani to undermine the election result despite state officials and courts rejecting their false allegations of fraud. The two men portrayed the election as stolen while Trump “endorsed rather than discouraged” threats of violence from his supporters leading up to the attack on the Capitol, the suit says.“The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence,” it continues. “It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the electoral college.”Presidents are typically shielded from the courts for actions carried out in office but this one focuses on Trump in his personal rather than official capacity. Seeking unspecified punitive and compensatory damages, it alleges that none of the conduct at issue is related to Trump’s responsibilities as president.[embedded content]Sellers explained: “Inciting a riot, or attempting to interfere with the congressional efforts to ratify the results of the election that are commended by the constitution, could not conceivably be within the scope of ordinary responsibilities of the president. In this respect, because of his conduct, he is just like any other private citizen.”Trump faces a potential slew of lawsuits now he has lost the legal protections of office. Additional actions could be brought by other members of Congress or police officers injured in the riot, a prospect acknowledged by the White House on Tuesday.Jen Psaki, the press secretary, told reporters Biden “certainly supports the rights of individuals, members of Congress and otherwise, to take steps through the judicial process but I don’t think we have a further comment on it than that”.She added: “I am not going to speculate on criminal prosecution from the White House podium. The president has committed to having an independent justice department that will make their own decision about the path forward.”Trump defence lawyers are expected to argue that his speech was protected by the first amendment to the constitution and point out that, in a speech on 6 January, he told supporters to behave “peacefully”.Jason Miller, a Trump adviser, said in a statement Trump did not organise the rally that preceded the riot and “did not incite or conspire to incite any violence at the Capitol on 6 January”. More

Family disagreements over US politics proliferated under four years of Donald Trump, with Facebook and other social media providing an accelerant for acrimony.
But relatives of Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois representative who is one of Trump’s rare Republican critics, have taken their beef with the congressman into the public square, in an open letter published on Monday by the New York Times.
Kinzinger, a centrist Republican whose ambitions could extend beyond the conservative district he serves, called for Trump to be removed from office after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol on 6 January.
Days later, nearly a dozen cousins and extended relatives in Illinois sent a blistering, handwritten, two-page letter to state Republican officials and to Kinzinger’s father.
“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!” said the letter, addressed to Kinzinger, the word “disappointment” underlined three times and “God” underlined once, according to the version published by the Times. “You go against your Christian principles and join the ‘devil’s army’ (Democrats and the fake news media).”
The letter accuses Kinzinger of transgressions culminating in his rejection of Trump.
“President Trump is not perfect, but neither are you or any of us for that matter!” the letter says. “It is not for us to judge or be judged! But he is a Christian!”
Kinzinger, 42, a former air force pilot who deployed with the national guard as recently as 2019, emerged as a sharp critic of Trump that same year, after the former president threatened “civil war” on Twitter over the presidential election.
“I have visited nations ravaged by civil war,” the congressman tweeted. “I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a president. This is beyond repugnant.”
Once a Tea Party darling, Kinzinger represents a rural district that crosses his state to touch Wisconsin and Indiana. Politically the district is closer to Republican-held Peoria to the south than Chicago, a Democratic bastion to the north.
A six-term member of Congress, Kinzinger is thought to be weighing a run for statewide office in 2022, possibly against the incumbent Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, or against Tammy Duckworth, one of two Democratic Illinois senators.
Kinzinger retreated in his confrontation with Trump late in 2019 when he voted against charges that Trump abused his power and obstructed Congress in his first impeachment, calling the charges, relating to approaches to Ukraine for dirt on political rivals, a “culmination of that anti-Trump fever”.
As the 2020 election heated up and Trump’s attempts to subvert the vote intensified, however, Kinzinger’s criticism of the president likewise intensified. After the attack on the Capitol, in which five people died, Kinzinger made a public call for Trump to be removed under the 25th amendment.
“All indications are that the president has become unmoored, not just from his duty or even his oath but reality itself,” Kinzinger said. “It is for this reason that I call on the vice-president and members of the cabinet to ensure the next few weeks are safe for the American people and that we have a sane captain of the ship.”
In Trump’s second impeachment, Kinzinger voted in favor of an article charging incitement of insurrection. He later released a statement calling on fellow Republicans to break ranks with Trump, even if that means risking their careers.
“We have a lot of work to do to restore the Republican party and to turn the tide on the personality politics,” Kinzinger said. “For me, I am at total peace with my decision on impeachment and my mission to restore the GOP, to uphold the principles we hold dear, and firmly put the country first. Our future depends on it.”
The letter from Kinzinger’s large family – his father has 32 cousins, the Times said –was not at total peace with the representative’s decision.
“You should be very proud that you have lost the respect of Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Greg Kelly etc. and most importantly in our book, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh and us!” the letter said, naming a string of Fox News hosts and conservative personalities.
“It is now most embarrassing to us that we are related to you. You have embarrassed the Kinzinger family name!” More

Even in a drama-filled election unlike any other, the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, and his assault on the postal service stood out.After Trump appointed the businessman to run the agency, DeJoy largely failed in his mission to help the former president discourage voters from casting ballots by mail, but evidence suggests his policies and the pandemic have decimated the postal service. Now many, including Democratic lawmakers, are calling on Biden to act swiftly to remove him and the Trump-majority UnitedStates Postal Service board of governors.Though Biden doesn’t have the authority to remove DeJoy himself, he could immediately appoint a Democratic-majority board that could fire the postmaster general, but the administration has yet to act. That’s left many asking “Why?”“We think he can move quickly and should move quickly and should be bold – there’s no debate about anyone being confirmed by the Senate, so let’s make it strong and powerful,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union.But it might take some time for that to happen. Representative Gerry Connolly, chair of the subcommittee on government operations, which oversees the postal service, labeled DeJoy a “huge problem” and is calling on Biden to fire the entire board, but told the Guardian he doesn’t think it’s “a fair question” to ask why the president hasn’t acted during his first three weeks in office.“Give him a little bit of time. We’re dealing with huge problems – a pandemic, huge economic challenges, he’s got to make cabinet appointments, he’s got his environmental agenda,” Connolly added. “But this needs to be on the priority list and I believe it will be.”Representative Tim Ryan, who in January sent a letter to Biden calling on him to “clean house”, stressed that late bill payments, late checks and delayed medication deliveries cause problems for many Americans and underscored the urgency. Though DeJoy has refused to release 2021 on-time delivery data, December numbers made public in lawsuits shows that only about 40% of first class mail was arriving on time – down from about 92% the year before.Those who spoke with the Guardian agreed that the delays affect Americans’ daily lives more than sub-cabinet appointments at a federal agency like the Department of Commerce.“We’ve got to hit the reset button because there’s no confidence in DeJoy and the board of governors who obviously have lost all control, and that’s inflicting pain on working-class people in places like Ohio,” Ryan said.Connolly said part of the delay in Biden taking action could stem from the administration “wrestling with” a strategy to remove DeJoy and deal with the board, which currently holds four Republicans and two Democrats. Biden could appoint three new Democrats, and that majority could, in theory, fire DeJoy. But some, like Connolly and Ryan, are calling on Biden to fire the entire board, including its Democrats, who Connolly accused of not providing meaningful resistance to DeJoy’s assault.“They’ve gone along to get along and that’s not what we needed,” Connolly said. “We needed forthright voices calling out DeJoy, so I believe they’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.”Ryan said the Biden administration didn’t respond to his letter, and he suspects that it may fear that immediate action would “create a lot of chaos”.Dimondstein also noted that the board is composed of older white men with no experience in the industry and who want to run the postal service as a business, when it’s actually a service.“We’re asking him to fill the openings immediately with strong postal service advocates and to bring some diversity to the board,” Dimondstein said. That includes someone who represents the interest of rural America, which relies heavily on the postal service because private delivery companies often won’t serve it.There’s also the symbolism: DeJoy, a Trump donor, was appointed to his role in May and immediately set to work enacting controversial changes that dramatically slowed first class mail service in critical swing states where large numbers of Democrats were expected to vote by mail. That’s viewed by many as an attack on democracy and weaponization of an essential service.“If you needed a reminder of how quickly this can become a political hot potato, that was it, and you ignore it at your own peril,” Connolly said.The postal service’s struggles don’t end at DeJoy. Its workforce has been flattened by the pandemic and officials say the operation is in need of a cash infusion and tens of thousands of additional employees. Its ageing equipment and 25-year-old delivery truck fleet are designed to largely handle first class mail but the postal service increasingly delivers packages, which makes the operation significantly less efficient.Meanwhile, a 2006 reform bill required the post office to pre-fund 75 years of its retiree healthcare costs, which has been a financial drag.Bipartisan legislation already introduced in the Senate and House would repeal the 2006 law, but Connolly said he was preparing a “more comprehensive” package that would address other major issues. Democrats are having “internal discussions” about the best approach, he added. Meanwhile, Ryan called on the federal government to provide relief to those who have incurred late fees or had credit scores dinged as a result of slowed mail service.Dimondstein applauded all the ideas, and said the USPS was also well-positioned to expand the services it offers, suggesting ideas like postal banking or electric vehicle charging infrastructure should the fleet be upgraded. That would help generate new revenue, but, regardless of what Democrats do, Dimondstein said they need to move quickly: “People are watching and patience is going to run thin.” More

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Under fire over his management of the coronavirus’ lethal path through New York’s nursing homes, Andrew Cuomo insisted Monday the state didn’t cover up deaths – but the governor acknowledged that officials should have moved faster to release some information sought by lawmakers, the public and the press.
“All the deaths in the nursing homes and hospitals were always fully, publicly and accurately reported,” the Democratic governor said, weeks after the state was forced to acknowledge that its count of nursing home deaths excluded thousands of residents who perished after being taken to hospitals.
He explained the matter Monday as a difference of “categorization”, with the state counting where deaths occurred and others seeking total deaths of nursing home residents, regardless of the location.
“We should have done a better job of providing as much information as we could as quickly as we could,” he said. “No excuses. I accept responsibility for that.”
Cuomo, who has seen his image as a pandemic-taming leader dented by a series of disclosures involving nursing homes in recent weeks, said he would propose reforms involving nursing homes and hospitals in the upcoming state budget, without giving details.
But he continued to blame a “toxic political environment”, and “disinformation” for much of the criticism surrounding his administration’s handling of the issue.
State lawmakers have been calling for investigations, stripping Cuomo of his emergency powers and even his resignation after new details emerged this week about why certain nursing home data wasn’t disclosed for months, despite requests from lawmakers and others.
First, a report late last month from the Democratic state attorney general, Letitia James, examined the administration’s failure to tally nursing home residents’ deaths at hospitals.
The state then acknowledged the total number of long-term care residents’ deaths is nearly 15,000, up from the 8,500 previously disclosed.
Next, in reply to a freedom of information request from the Associated Press in May, the state health department released records this week showing that more than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients in New York were discharged from hospitals into nursing homes in the pandemic’s early months – over 40% higher than the state had said previously, because it wasn’t counting residents who returned from hospitals to homes where they already had lived.
Then it emerged that Melissa DeRosa, a top Cuomo aide, had told Democratic lawmakers that the tally of nursing home residents’ deaths at hospitals – data that legislators had sought since August – was delayed because officials worried that the information was “going to be used against us” by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice.
Echoing an explanation DeRosa gave Friday, Cuomo said the state was slow to respond to the lawmakers because officials prioritized dealing with requests from the justice department and were busy dealing with the work of the pandemic: “It’s not like people were in the south of France,” he said.
“When we didn’t provide information, it … created confusion and cynicism and pain for the families. The truth is: everybody did everything they could.” More

Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert and chief medical and coronavirus adviser to Joe Biden, revealed on Monday that he had been nervous entering the White House when many there were coming down with Covid-19 late in Donald Trump’s presidency.Fauci is 80 years old and said that as such he was acutely aware that he was at high risk of suffering a “serious outcome” if he became infected by coronavirus, he told Axios in an interview clip posted online.“I didn’t fixate on that, but it was in the back of my mind because I had to be out there,” he said, adding: “I mean, particularly when I was going to the White House every day, when the White House was sort of a super-spreader location. I mean, that made me a little bit nervous.”Last October Donald Trump contracted Covid-19 and was taken by helicopter to Walter Reed military medical center, just outside Washington DC, where he was hospitalized and underwent treatment before being released.His falling ill followed a crowded Rose Garden ceremony during which the then president announced Amy Coney Barrett as his supreme court nominee, which was later criticized as a super-spreader event, with many not wearing masks while sitting side-by-side and congregating in crowded rooms inside the White House.At least seven figures in attendance tested positive for coronavirus, including Trump, his former counsellor, Kellyanne Conway, and two Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Mike Lee.Fauci was not at that particular event but as the leading public health official on Trump’s White House coronavirus task force, he had to go to the White House frequently.Trump played down the coronavirus from the start, despite knowing its dangers, repeatedly claimed it would disappear, discouraged face masks and exhorted businesses and schools to stay open. More

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday that the US Congress will establish an outside, independent commission to review the “facts and causes” related to the deadly 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency.Pelosi said in a letter to members of Congress that the commission would be modeled on a similar one convened after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attack on Washington and New York.Democratic and Republican lawmakers had issued calls for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate why government officials and law enforcement failed to stop the attack on the Capitol in January, while both chambers of Congress were engaged in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.The calls followed Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial, in which he was accused of inciting the insurrection after months of stoking his supporters with exhortations to try to overturn the election result and an inflammatory rally on the day itself, outside the White House, when he urged angry supporters to march on the Capitol.Pelosi said on Monday that the panel will also look at the “facts and causes” behind the catastrophe, in which five people died on 6 January, including a police officer, many were injured, and two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed.There were renewed calls from both parties on Sunday for such a commission.“We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again, and I want to make sure that the Capitol footprint can be better defended next time,” said Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator of South Carolina and close Trump ally who voted to acquit the former president on Saturday. “His behavior after the election was over the top,” Graham said of the former president on Fox News Sunday.Democrat Chris Coons of Delaware agreed. Speaking on ABC’s This Week, he said that a bipartisan commission would “make sure we secure the Capitol going forward and that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and how abjectly violating of his constitutional oath Trump really was”.Pelosi’s statement on Monday referred to a review that has been underway, led by retired US army general Russel Honoré.Pelosi said: “For the past few weeks, General Honoré has been assessing our security needs by reviewing what happened on January 6 and how we must ensure that it does not happen again … It is clear from his findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened.”She continued: “Our next step will be to establish an outside, independent 9/11-type commission to “investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex … and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement in the National Capitol Region.” More

The architect of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial has blamed “explosive and deranged” tactics by the former president’s lawyers for obscuring the strength of the case presented by House Democrats.But the lead impeachment manager, Jamie Raskin, said the Democrats’ case appeared nevertheless to convince even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Trump’s guilt in inciting the Capitol riot.Two days after Trump escaped conviction, and as his supporters reveled in the prospect of his return to frontline politics, Raskin also told the Washington Post it was both “good and terrible to watch” McConnell’s post-verdict speech in which he excoriated Trump – but said he had voted to acquit because the trial was unconstitutional.It was telling, Raskin said, that many of the 43 Republicans who voted to acquit “felt the need to hang their hats” on that argument, which was rejected by constitutional scholars and twice by the Senate itself.Not even Trump’s lawyers attempted to defend what Democrats characterized as Trump’s “big lie”: that he won an election he actually lost by more than 7m popular votes and 74 electoral votes.They couldn’t get a summer internship with My Cousin VinnyNor did Trump’s legal team, led by a personal injury lawyer and a former county prosecutor who declined to pursue charges against Bill Cosby, succeed in freeing Trump from blame for the attack on the Capitol, judging by Republican senators’ speeches.Instead, Trump’s lawyers denied a copious and unambiguous record of what the former president said and did, while drawing false parallels between routine political speech and Trump’s coup attempt.In the final vote of the impeachment trial, seven Republicans voted with Democrats to convict Trump – a 53-vote tally 10 short of the total required.In an indication of how the Republican party has diverged from the popular will, almost six in 10 Americans – 58% – believe Trump should have been convicted, according to a new ABC News-Ipsos poll.Raskin and his fellow House managers were widely praised for their work. Their case featured extensive use of video of events at the Capitol on 6 January, when supporters told by Trump to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat broke in, some hunting lawmakers to kidnap or kill. Five people died as a direct result of the riot.Raskin took on the lead role despite his son having killed himself in December. He told the Post he “told managers we were going to make a lawyerly case but would not censor the emotion”.There has been criticism among Democrats, after the managers persuaded the Senate to vote to call witnesses but then agreed to avoid that step, which could have lengthened the trial. On Sunday, Raskin said witnesses would not have changed any minds.“These Republicans voted to acquit in the face of this mountain of un-refuted evidence,” he told NBC. “There’s no reasoning with people who basically are acting like members of a religious cult.”The Virgin Islands delegate Stacey Plaskett, also widely praised for her role in the trial, told CNN: “We didn’t need more witnesses, we needed more senators with spines.”[embedded content]More evidence of Trump’s alleged wrongdoing may yet be unearthed. Members of Congress from both parties have called for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate why government officials and law enforcement failed to stop the attack on the Capitol.Trump lawyers Michael van der Veen, Bruce Castor and David Schoen celebrated their client’s acquittal but faced widespread ridicule for a case built on flimsy arguments about freedom of speech and scattershot whataboutism concerning Democratic attitudes to protests against racism and police brutality.“They couldn’t get a summer internship with My Cousin Vinny,” Raskin told the Post, perhaps a deliberate reference to a bizarre and famously sweaty press conference given in November by another Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, amid the former president’s failed attempts to prove mass fraud in his election defeat by Joe Biden.My Cousin Vinny is an Oscar-winning 1992 comedy about a hapless lawyer played by Joe Pesci. Giuliani said it was his “one of my favorite law movies, because he comes from Brooklyn”.Trump, who comes from Queens, refused to testify in his own defence. Raskin called him “a profile in absolute cowardice” and said: “He betrayed the constitution, the country and his people.“Trump’s followers need to understand he has no loyalty to them … Donald Trump is the past. We need to deal with the future.” More

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s second acquittal in an impeachment trial, his supporters celebrated confirmed dominance of the Republican party. But as they did so an influential voice warned: “Mr Trump may run again, but he won’t win another national election.”The Wall Street Journal also said moves by Trump other than a run for the presidential nomination in 2024, including a “revenge campaign tour” or third-party run, would only “divide the centre-right and elect Democrats”.No one so much as Democrats wishes for that analysis to be true: that if Trump insists on remaining a loud voice in US politics, he will succeed only in electing more Democrats.But the fantasy of Trump’s summary departure from the national political stage is to be guarded against, many warn – and the notion that he cannot win the White House again in 2024 has been rejected on both the left and the right.“Trump could win again because it is always a choice between two” candidates, tweeted the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, in reply to the Journal editorial.Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, by 306-232 in the electoral college and by more than 7m votes nationwide. But Biden is the oldest president ever inaugurated and though he has said he may seek a second term, on election day 2024 he will be 81. Trump could yet face Vice-President Kamala Harris or another relatively untested Democrat.About half of Republicans want Trump to stay head of their party. That said, half of American voters want him banished from politics altogether, according to a CNBC poll this month that echoed other surveys. There are a lot more Americans than there are Republicans. Furthermore, tens of thousands have left the party since the Capitol Hill attack on 6 January.On Saturday, seven Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting to convict Trump on a charge of insurrection arising from the Capitol riot. The defections were significant, the most against a president of their own party in any impeachment, but the vote still fell 10 short of the two-thirds majority needed.Many Republicans, most notably minority leader Mitch McConnell, excoriated Trump’s behaviour but said they voted to acquit because the trial was unconstitutional. Scholars dispute that, and the Senate voted twice to proceed.Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and a former governor of Massachusetts one of the most known quantities in politics, was among the Republicans to vote to convict. For that decision, he was attacked by Utah Republicans with a petition to censure him including the line, “Whereas, Senator Williard [sic] Mitt Romney appears to be an agent for the Establishment Deep State.” The petition, which misspelled Romney’s first name, “Willard”, was reported by The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins. The “deep state” conspiracy theory holds that a permanent government of bureaucrats and intelligence agents thwarted Trump’s agenda. Steve Bannon, a key propagator and former Trump strategist, has said it is “for nut cases”.Right now, for Trump 2024, the political math looks bad. But the factors on his side, including fundraising muscle and a rabidly devoted base, are plain to see. Trump raised more than $250m after the election on the back of his lie that it was stolen – and he has promised to stick around.“We have so much work ahead of us,” he said following his acquittal on Saturday, “and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future.”State Republican parties back him. At least four senators who voted to convict were on the receiving end of sharp rebukes. Such skirmishes could be further signs of how Trump threatens to pull the party apart.“It’s hard to imagine Republicans winning national elections without Trump supporters anytime soon,” the GOP strategist Alex Conant told Reuters. “The party is facing a real catch-22: it can’t win with Trump but it’s obvious it can’t win without him either.”Even more troubling for those concerned for the strength of US democracy, the continuation of Trumpian politics by a younger conservative – Senator Josh Hawley or Fox News host Tucker Carlson, perhaps – could render moot the question of whether Trump himself is onstage. In this thinking, a candidate as indifferent to democracy but better at organizing his party could succeed in a power grab where Trump failed.Monday’s editorial casting doubt on Trump’s prospects came from a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, a dominant voice on the right. It echoed moves by the New York Post, the Journal and Fox News last November, after an election Trump still refuses to concede.On its news pages on Monday, under the headline Pro-Trump Candidates Launch Early Senate, Governor Bids, the Journal looked at early moves in key states including Ohio, Virginia and Arkansas, ahead of the 2022 midterms.But on the opinion page, under the headline Trump’s Non-Vindication, the Journal’s editors added their voice to warnings from senior Republicans that Trump’s hold on the rank-and-file may not translate to another successful White House run – even though Democrats in Congress could not bar him from future office.“For four years,” the editorial board claimed, “Mr Trump’s conduct stayed largely within constitutional bounds … but Mr Trump’s dishonest challenge to the 2020 election, even after multiple defeats in court, clearly broke those bounds and culminated in the 6 January riot. “Mr Trump may run again, but he won’t win another national election. He lost re-election before the events of 6 January, and as president his job approval never rose above 50%.“He may go on a revenge campaign tour, or run as a third-party candidate, but all he will accomplish is to divide the centre-right and elect Democrats. The GOP’s defeats in the two 5 January Georgia Senate races proved that.“The country is moving past the Trump Presidency, and the GOP will remain in the wilderness until it does too.” More