US Politics

That someone is ludicrous doesn’t stop them being dangerous, as Donald Trump and now Marjorie Taylor Greene have demonstrated. The new Georgia congresswoman has not only repeatedly spread racist and antisemitic statements; she has suggested a Jewish banking family might have been involved in starting wildfires with “space lasers”, repeatedly endorsed QAnon conspiracy theories and questioned whether the Pentagon was attacked on 9/11. Her views are no less poisonous and extremist for being so bizarre.The most frightening and extraordinary thing about her, however, is that she is now welcome at the heart of the Republican party. Though Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has described her “loony lies and conspiracy theories” as “a cancer for the Republican party”, his diagnosis comes much too late. Kevin McCarthy, his counterpart in the House, boasts of a “big tent” – so large that it now includes those who have supported the killing of political opponents. It took Democrats to strip Ms Greene of her committee positions via a House vote on Thursday, an unprecedented move that should never have been necessary. They are happy to seize the opportunity to portray the GOP as Ms Greene’s party. But they are not so wrong to do so.All but 11 Republicans in the House thought a woman who had described two school shootings as false flag operations and hounded a Parkland survivor was fit to serve not only on the budget committee but on that for education and labour too. The supposed justification is that she expressed her noxious views before she was elected. She has apologised (though only in private) for some of them, and walked back from some others publicly, stating that “school shootings are real” and “9/11 absolutely happened” – while boasting of raising $1.6m through her calls for support against a “Democratic mob”.The real reason is her popularity with the party base. Trumpism is flourishing. Mr Trump may have left the White House, but Mr McCarthy takes care to pay respects at his court in Florida. Meanwhile, the same colleagues who offered Ms Greene a standing ovation lambasted Liz Cheney for backing the former president’s impeachment for inciting violent insurrection; the ultra-conservative is now portrayed as a spineless liberal. Americans who align with the Republicans are far more likely to support Mr McCarthy and Ms Greene than Mr McConnell or Ms Cheney.To call this a battle for the soul of the Republican party, as many have done, is generous; it is a calculated set of choices about its long-term viability, the political ambitions of those within it, and the fundamental clash between its radicalised base and grassroots political operatives, and the broader national electorate. (That renewed efforts at voter suppression are already under way is a reminder that the party’s primary response to a shrinking demographic base has been to rig the system.)Ms Greene is less the cause of their dilemma than the result of it. This week’s events both echo and spring from the Republican response to Mr Trump’s candidacy, his sins as a president, his attempts to overturn the election result, and even his incitement of sedition and the storming of the Capitol: feeble expressions of distaste, but ultimately acquiescence and complicity – throwing a cloak of political respectability over the ugly and intolerable. Some of the party would now like to turn back, but can no longer find the old path. The rest are travelling further and faster along their new road, and taking others with them. More

The Texas Republican party has endorsed legislation that would allow state residents to vote whether to secede from the United States.In a talkshow interview, the party chair, Allen West, argued that: “Texans have a right to voice their opinions on [this] critical issue.“I don’t understand why anyone would feel that they need to prevent people from having a voice in something that is part of the Texas constitution,” the former Florida congressman said of the Texas Referendum Independence Act. “You cannot prevent the people from having a voice.”West is the latest Republican to come out in support of declaring Texas an independent nation. Last month, thestate representative Kyle Biedermann confirmed that he will introduce the bill for a referendum as early as this week.“Texit,” named after the British referendum to leave the European Union, refers to the process of Texas exiting the United States to become an independent, self-governing nation.The endorsement drew intense backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Many took aim directly at Allen as party chair, continuing a slew of criticism that has been levied at him since first he took on the role in July.Back then, Allen was immediately criticized for changing the political organization’s slogan to “We are the Storm,” in what the New York Times called an “unusually visible example of the Republican party’s dalliance with QAnon”, the conspiracy theory.This week’s endorsement also is not the first time the former Florida congressman has promoted secession.Earlier he insisted that “law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution”, following a US supreme court ruling to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.When corporate donors to the Texas Republican party were asked for responses, many companies stated that they had not made any recent political donations – some paused all corporate giving after the 6 January deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, the political news site Popular Information reported.The ride-hailing company Lyft, which donated $5,000 to the Texas GOP in 2016, told the outlet that it had “no plans to donate to the party in the future”, adding that the company was “troubled by chairman West’s statements”. More

In the end, just 11 Republicans voted to discipline Marjorie Taylor Greene, despite the Republican congresswoman having claimed space lasers had started wildfires, suggesting mass shootings didn’t really happen, and supporting the assassination of Democratic politicians.The vote, on whether to strip Greene of her committee assignments, neatly reflected the dilemma facing Republicans in 2021: does the GOP continue on the unhinged, conspiracy theory-laden path trodden by Greene and others, or return to the staid, conservative outlook of the relatively recent past – potentially alienating Donald Trump’s supporters along the way.Most Republicans members of Congress chose the former, but Greene was removed from her committee roles anyway, as 230 to 199 representatives voted to leave Greene with little to no power in the House.The vote came after the Republican House leader, Kevin McCarthy, decided against punishing Greene in an internal party meeting this week – a meeting where the congresswoman reportedly received a standing ovation from some colleagues after she apologized for her past remarks.Those remarks, uncovered by Media Matters, a progressive watchdog, include the claim by Greene in 2018 that a laser beam from space had started a devastating wildfire in California. According to Greene, an executive from “Rothschild Inc” was somehow involved – the Rothschild family have repeatedly been the subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories.In Facebook posts, Greene also implied that Hillary Clinton was involved in the 1999 plane crash that killed John F Kennedy Jr – Clinton was not – and suggested that Barack Obama deployed MS-13 gang members to kill a Democratic staffer – Obama did not.In another Islamophobic Facebook screed, uncovered by CNN, Greene that Muslims “want to conquer” the US and aim to mutilate American women’s genitalia.Greene, who has expressed support for the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy, which has been linked with several violent acts in the US, will now be removed from her positions on the House budget and education and labor committees, although will probably remain a vocal presence outside Congress.Reflecting the influence of the Trump wing of the Republican party, few GOP members have criticized Greene publicly. In a statement, McCarthy said he condemned Greene’s past remarks, but suggested the congresswoman would hold herself to a higher standard in the future.“This Republican party is a very big tent,” McCarthy said on Wednesday. “Everybody is invited in.”McCarthy and the GOP faced fierce criticism from Democrats for their stance, including from Nancy Pelosi, who attacked McCarthy for his “cowardly refusal” to discipline Greene. “McCarthy’s failure to lead his party effectively hands the keys over to Greene – an antisemite, QAnon adherent and 9/11 Truther,” the House speaker said.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, has been one of the few to criticise Greene, attacking her “loony lies and conspiracy theories”, and calling her views a “cancer for the Republican party”.In a sign of the dangers non-conspiracy-minded Republicans face, however, Senator Ben Sasse is facing a censure resolution from his own party in Nebraska, for his criticism of Trump’s role in the US Capitol riot.Sasse, seen as a relative moderate, responded to the Nebraska Republican party in a video message on Thursday.“You are welcome to censure me again, but let’s be clear about why this is happening: it’s because I still believe – as you used to – that politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude,” Sasse said.As the vote on her committee assignments loomed on Thursday, Greene addressed some of her past comments, stating that “school shootings are absolutely real”, and that “9/11 absolutely happened”.By Friday morning, however, Greene seemed unrepentant, as she used a press conference to sum up the intertwining of the Republican party and Trump. “The party is his – it doesn’t belong to anyone else,” Greene told reporters. On Twitter, too, Greene seemed upbeat.“I woke up early this morning literally laughing thinking about what a bunch of morons the Democrats (+11) are for giving someone like me free time,” Greene posted.“In this Democrat tyrannical government, Conservative Republicans have no say on committees anyway. Oh this is going to be fun!” More

The US Senate has passed a budget resolution that allows for the passage of Joe Biden’s $1.9tn (£1.4tn) Covid-19 relief package in the coming weeks without Republican support.
The vice-president, Kamala Harris, broke a 50-50 tie by casting a vote in favour of the Democratic measure, which sends it to the House of Representatives for final approval.
 It marked the first time Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, had cast a tie-breaking vote after being sworn in as the first female vice-president on 20 January
Kamala Harris uses casting vote to pass Covid relief budget resolution
Senate passes budget plan to allow Biden’s $1.9tn Covid relief package without Republicans More

The US economy added back 49,000 jobs last month as coronavirus restrictions eased and fiscal stimulus from Washington goosed up the economy, the labor department announced on Friday.The unemployment rate dropped to 6.3%, down significantly from its pandemic high of 14.7% in April. While January’s figure marked a return to growth after job losses in December, the number was weak and big problems remain.On Thursday, the labor department said 779,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, down from the week before but still close to four times pre-pandemic levels. The latest figures showed some 17.8 million Americans are still claiming unemployment benefits.In December the US lost 140,000 jobs as the latest wave of Covid-19 infections led to more shutdowns across the country and a slowdown in economic activity. That figure was revised to a loss of 227,000 jobs on Friday.Professional and business services (up 97,000 jobs) and local government (up 49,000) saw the largest gains over the month. The US is still losing huge numbers of jobs in leisure and hospitality (down 61,000) and retail (down 38,000) and the stark gap in racial unemployment rates remains.The unemployment rate for white Americans was 6% while for Black Americans it was 9.2% and for Latinos it was 8.6%.The jobs figure come as the Biden administration is trying to push through a $1.9tn stimulus package which would send $1,400 cheques to many Americans and provide fresh aid for struggling businesses. It would also increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 – the first increase since 2009.The plan has widespread support from voters, with a Quinnipiac survey showing more than two-thirds of respondents in favor of the plan. But it has met with opposition from Republicans in Congress, who have balked at the size of the stimulus and proposed a far smaller package. Biden’s plan was approved in the Senate early Friday by a 51 to 50 vote, with the vice-president casting the tie-breaking vote, but still faces hurdles and is not expected to become law before mid March.The recovery in the jobs market may embolden opponents but some economists warned that the economic toll of the virus is far from over.Jason Reed, assistant chair of finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said: “We shouldn’t forget that the economy is still down about 10m jobs since the start of the pandemic. We aren’t anywhere close to where we were this time last year.“The rollout of the vaccine will surely help Americans get back to work, but we shouldn’t expect a return to normal until late 2021 or early 2022.” More

The US Senate has passed a budget resolution that allows for the passage of Joe Biden’s $1.9tn (£1.4tn) Covid-19 relief package in the coming weeks without Republican support.
The vice-president, Kamala Harris, broke a 50/50 tie by casting a vote in favour of the Democratic measure, which sends it to the House of Representatives for final approval. It marked the first time Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, cast a tie-breaking vote after being sworn in as the first female vice-president on 20 January.
The House passed its own budget measure on Wednesday. Congress can now work to write a bill that can be passed by a simple majority in both houses, which are controlled by Democrats. Mid-March has been suggested as a likely date by which the measure could be passed, a point at which enhanced unemployment benefits will expire if Congress does not act.
The vote came at 5.30am on Friday at the end of a marathon Senate debate session, known among senators as a “vote-a-rama”, a procedure whereby they can theoretically offer unlimited amendments.
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Biden is scheduled to meet with Democratic House leaders and committee chairs early on Friday morning to discuss the Covid economic stimulus, and is expected to make public remarks on the progress at an 11.45am EST (1645 GMT) briefing.
There was dissent from Republicans in the Senate overnight, particularly over plans for a $15 federal minimum wage. Iowa’s Republican senator, Joni Ernst, raised an amendment to “prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic”, which was carried by a voice vote.
The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said he still intended to support bringing the measure through: “We need to end the crisis of starvation wages in Iowa and around the United States.”
He outlined plans to get a wage increase, phased in over five years, included in a budget reconciliation bill. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, and has not been raised since 2009.
In a tweet after the vote, Sanders said: “Today, with the passage of this budget resolution to provide relief to our working families, we have the opportunity not only to address the pandemic and the economic collapse – we have the opportunity to give hope to the American people and restore faith in our government.”
During the debate Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said “This is not the time for trillions more dollars to make perpetual lockdowns and economic decline a little more palatable. Notwithstanding the actual needs, notwithstanding all the talk about bipartisan unity, Democrats in Congress are plowing ahead. They’re using this phony budget to set the table to ram through their $1.9 trillion rough draft.”
The $1.9 trillion relief package proposed would be used to speed Covid-19 vaccines throughout the nation. Other funds would extend special unemployment benefits that will expire at the end of March and make direct payments to people to help them pay bills and stimulate the economy. Democrats also want to send money to state and local governments dealing with the worst health crisis in decades. More

For two decades, Fox News has reigned supreme as America’s number one cable news channel. Until January, that is, when the network dropped to a once unthinkable third place in the ratings.The response from Fox News has not been a period of sombre self-reflection. Instead, the network seems to have made a chaotic lunge towards the right wing in recent weeks as hosts have dabbled in conspiracy theories and aggressively attacked the Joe Biden administration.Adding to the sense of crisis, Fox News laid off multiple staff in January – including the political editor who backed the network’s early decision that Biden had won Arizona – while on Thursday Smartmatic, an election technology company, filed a $2.7bn lawsuit against Fox News’ parent company, over allegations it participated in election fraud.As CNN and MSNBC, with their more liberal audiences rose to the top spots in January’s ratings, Americans who believe in the nonsensical QAnon conspiracy theory, or who harbor white nationalist beliefs, or who don’t trust vaccines, have all found themselves pandered to by Fox News, as it attempts to shore up its viewership.Nielsen numbers, published this week, found that Fox News ranked third out of the three main cable news channels in January. It was the first time since 2001 that Fox News found itself in third place, and continued a pattern from the end of 2020, when Donald Trump urged his supporters to abandon Fox News in favor of even more rightwing rivals like NewsMax and One America News.“Fox News has led in the ratings for two decades. They have historically been unrivaled in attracting an audience,” said Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at the progressive media watchdog Media Matters.Gertz said he had detected a shift at Fox as the network attempts to win back “the most hard-edge” Trump supporters.“The network really needs to win them back. It’s of great concern for Fox if they’re no longer in first place. It’s not going to be possible for them to command the same ad rates, it’s not going to be possible for them to demand the same fees from cable carriers,” he said.Gertz added: “Their business model really rests on them being number one, in a big way, and it appears they’re going to do anything they can to win that status back.”The plan to boost viewership so far seems to be based on an extremist push, led by its most prominent opinion hosts.Tucker Carlson, whose show is the most watched in cable news, is among those leading the charge. After Democrats called for a crackdown on white nationalists and domestic terrorism following a wave of extremist attacks, Carson had an interesting, and revealing, take for his audience.“They’re talking about you,” Carson told his viewers on 26 January.A day earlier, Carlson had defended QAnon, a racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory linked to multiple violent acts, including alleged kidnappings, the derailing of a train and arrests over threats to politicians.Carlson played a series of clips from left-leaning networks, in which analysts described QAnon as a dangerous, “frightening” conspiracy theory. The FBI has agreed with that sentiment, and warned of its dangers.Carlson, however, was having none of it. He proceeded to stand up for QAnon supporters, as he claimed that believing in and espousing QAnon ideas is an issue of free speech.“No democratic government can ever tell you what to think. Your mind belongs to you. It is yours and yours alone,” Carlson said.Carlson’s colleagues Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, Fox News’s two other biggest stars, have waded into similar waters.Ingraham noted that the government was looking into radicalization of some members of the military. She played a clip from a rival news channel where a commentator noted: “We can’t stand by idly and see people in uniform whether its law enforcement or military have QAnon patches on.”Ingraham’s take? “This is absolutely poisonous for the country,” she said.It’s not just white nationalism and QAnon that are getting airtime on Fox News. Hannity has been accused of dabbling in anti-vaxx ideas, after he hemmed and hawed over whether he would get vaccinated – citing skeptical friends of his in what seemed like an effort to appeal to anti-vaxxers watching.“I don’t know when my number gets called, I’m actually beginning to have doubts,” Hannity told his audience on 26 January. “I’ve been telling my friends I’m gonna get the vaccine,” he said. “Half of them agree and the other half think I’m absolutely nuts. They wouldn’t take it in a million years.”Hannity added: “I don’t know who to listen to.”Fox News has been floundering since earning the animus of many viewers on election night. It was the first news outlet to announce Biden had won Arizona – it would be days before most TV channels and newspapers made that call – and Trump was furious.So were his supporters. “Fox News Sucks!” Trump voters chanted at a vote-counting center in Arizona, and conservative social media were rife with people saying they were turning off Fox News. Trump even demanded on his now defunct Twitter account that people ditch Fox News and instead watch NewsMax and OAN.The trend to the hard right hasn’t just come from the primetime stars. In January, CNN’s media correspondent, Brian Stelter, noted: “Tucker Carlson Tonight essentially expanded to Tucker Carlson Day and Night.”“Part of their strategy in the wake of losing parts of audience has been to de-emphasise the news side and really start bringing opinion side voices into the news hours,” Gertz said. “You see Fox opinion hosts being guests on those news programs as well.”Some of the moves Fox News has made in recent weeks seem to illustrate a de-emphasis on “straight news”. On 19 January, the day before Biden’s inauguration, the network fired Chris Stirewalt, the Fox News political editor who was the public face of the Arizona call. A Fox News spokesperson declined to comment on the Stirewalt decision, citing employee confidentiality.The same day, Fox News laid off more than a dozen digital reporters – seen as relatively non-partisan journalists. A spokesperson for the network said it had “realigned its business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era”.Even Fox News’s less firebrand, daytime news anchors have courted controversy.After it emerged that Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist Republican congresswoman who has expressed QAnon beliefs, had also suggested the Parkland, Florida, school shooting was a false flag and claimed that California forest fires had been started by Jewish space lasers, she found a defender in the Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer, who claimed a false equivalence between Greene and the Democrat Ilhan Omar.In the long term, Fox News isn’t likely to go anywhere – even despite the Smartmatic lawsuit.“Fox News Media is committed to providing the full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion. We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court,” a spokesperson said.In terms of viewers, Newsmax, Fox News’s most ideologically similar competitor, averaged 247,000 daily viewers in January, far lower than its bigger rival. Fox News has also experienced dips in viewership following previous inaugurations – although during those dips it never fell behind CNN or MSNBC.Still, a Fox News spokesperson pointed to Nielsen ratings which showed Fox News outperformed CNN and MSNBC during primetime hours in the last week of January, while internal research conducted by Fox News, which was shared with the Guardian, suggests viewers seemed to be taking a break from news altogether in January – although several programs on CNN and MSNBC experienced their best ratings ever during the same time period.Overall, there’s a sense that it didn’t have to be this way.After Trump lost the election, media experts predicted Fox News could do well “financially and politically”, as a sea of agitated viewers seek a network that will mirror, and augment, their anger at Biden. CNN, MSNBC and other leftwing or centrist news organizations made huge audience gains during Trump’s presidency, but the same isn’t yet working for Fox News.Ultimately, the struggles at Fox News to represent radical elements of the right wing mirrors a problem facing the Republican party itself – where Trumpist politicians like Greene and more establishment figures like Liz Cheney or Mitch McConnell wrestle for its future.“Rupert Murdoch and Fox News generally sees itself as mouthpiece of Republican party. They were moving away from conspiracy theorists, they were moving away from Trump and hoping to turn the page,” Jonathan Kaufman, professor and director of the school of journalism at Northeastern University, said.“But like the Republican party, Fox is discovering that Trumpism, and conspiracy theories, have taken deep root in the Republican party and in their viewers.” More

This week Jonathan Freedland speaks to David Miliband. The former UK foreign secretary and current president of the International Rescue Committee explains why Joe Biden’s announcement on Thursday about resettling thousands of refugees in the US is important, following Donald Trump’s abandonment of the cause.

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President Joe Biden was quick to sign executive orders rescinding many of the anti-immigrant policies of his predecessor. On Thursday, in a speech outlining his foreign policy plans, Biden announced he intended to allow more refugees into the US this year, as part of a resettlement programme that Donald Trump all but stopped. David Miliband joins Jonathan Freedland to talk about the new president’s true bandwidth when it comes to rejecting Trump’s isolationist policies. Send us your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More