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      ParalympicsGB talks up LA Games amid US presidential election fears

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      ParalympicsGB officials say they hope “politics doesn’t get in the way” of a successful Los Angeles Games in four years’ time, amid the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency.The US presidential election remains on a knife-edge, with Trump – the Republican nominee who has infamously denigrated people with disabilities – and the Democratic vice‑president, Kamala Harris, in effect tied heading into the final weeks of the campaign.After completing a successful Games in Paris, where the British team once again finished second and ahead of the USA in the medals table, authorities insist they will take time to evaluate the approach towards LA, but said it would not be the first time that Britain had competed in a “politically challenging” environment.Asked if there were any circumstances in which not sending a team to a Games would be considered, Penny Briscoe, chef de mission of ParalympicsGB, said she hoped politics would not interfere with an event that is a crucial platform for people with disabilities.“LA is probably one of the most inclusive cities in the world,” she said, “and their ambition, which they presented just a few days ago, is that LA is a melting pot, and their commitment to delivering an incredible Paralympic Games experience is already out there.“So from our perspective, at the moment we’re really excited by the prospect of LA. We’re excited by the challenge that facing the Americans on their home turf poses for us, and I really hope that politics don’t impact our preparation or our Games experience in the US.”One of the most notorious moments in Trump’s successful presidential campaign in 2016 came when he mocked a disabled New York Times reporter at an event. “You gotta see this guy,” Trump said, appearing to impersonate Serge Kovaleski, who has a congenital joint condition. More recently, Trump has mocked Joe Biden’s stammer.“It’s too early to discuss any details, because we don’t know how it will play out,” said Kate Barker, the UK Sport performance director, who oversees funding and medal ambitions for both Olympic and Paralympic teams. “We don’t know what kind of governance structures will be around those Games.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“But what is important is what the Olympic and Paralympic Games stand for, and they don’t stand for political statements. They are deliberately against that, and I think our ability to be present at those events is really, really important, and that sometimes in and of itself can be the strongest statement that you can make.“So of course we’ll discuss it as we get closer and we know what we’re doing, but it won’t be the first time that we’re going into a Games with political challenges globally.” More

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      US House clashes over Harris’s role in 2021 Afghanistan troop withdrawal

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      Partisan divisions over the chaotic 2021 pullout of western forces from Afghanistan have burst into the open ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia after a Republican-led congressional report attempted to implicate Kamala Harris in the episode.A 250-page report from the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee castigated the Biden administration for failing to anticipate the Taliban’s rapid takeover and neglecting to prepare for the orderly departure of non-combatant personnel.The decision led to a shambolic evacuation effort and numerous American civilians and US-allied Afghans being left stranded as the country fell to hardline Islamist forces that America and its Nato allies had spent 20 years trying to defeat.The report, written by the committee’s Republican chairman, Michael McCaul, zeroes in on the supposed role played by the US vice-president – mentioning her name 251 times, although no evidence has emerged that she was directly involved in the decisions leading to one of the most damaging foreign policy chapters of Joe Biden’s presidency.By contrast, a 115-page interim report issued by McCaul on the committee’s investigation on 2022 name-checked Harris just twice.Democrats seized on the contrast, accusing McCaul of inflating Harris’s part in the incident simply because she had replaced Biden as the party’s presidential nominee.“Vice President Kamala Harris was the last person in the room when President Biden made the decision to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan; a fact she boasted about shortly after President Biden issued his go-to-zero order,” states the latest report, titled Wilful Blindness: An assessment of the Biden-Harris administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the chaos that followed.The report’s front page carries a picture of Harris prominently displayed below that of Biden, and above an image of Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, who played a more prominent role in the withdrawal.“Despite warnings against withdrawing by senior leaders, Vice President Harris’ aide disclosed the vice president ‘strongly supported’ President Biden’s decision,” McCaul’s report goes on. “President Biden’s former Chief of Staff Ron Klain affirmed Vice President Harris was entrenched in the president’s Afghanistan policy.”Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to exploit the withdrawal for election purposes while overlooking the fact that the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, took the original decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan when he was president.“Republicans now claim [Harris] was the architect of the US withdrawal though she is referenced only three times in 3,288 pages of the Committee’s interview transcripts,” wrote Gregory Meeks, the Democrats’ ranking member on the committee in a 59-page rebuttal to McCaul’s report.Harris’s alleged role in the withdrawal seems likely to arise when she meets Trump for their only scheduled televised debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday.Sharon Yan, a spokesperson for the White House national security council, said the the report was “based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations and pre-existing biases”.She added: “Ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result.”Harris’s campaign has tried to promote her role in Biden’s foreign policy decisions since she replaced at the top of the Democratic ticket. But she has said little about the Afghan withdrawal. The House report notes that she was on a trip to Singapore and Vietnam at the time and publicly pledged that the administration would protect Afghan women and children.It concludes: “Her promise has clearly not been fulfilled.”Democrats’ accusation of using the Afghan pull-out for campaign purposes echoes criticisms of Trump’s now notorious visit to Arlington national cemetery last month to mark the third anniversary of the event.The former US president’s campaign was rebuked by the US army after its staffers reportedly became embroiled in a confrontation with a cemetery worker when she tried to enforce rules against filming and photographing in a section reserved for service members killed in the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts.Pictures and footage subsequently emerged of Trump posing at the graveside of personnel killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate, near Kabul airport – which resulted in the deaths of 13 US personnel and roughly 170 Afghans. Trump denied that his visit was a campaign event, pointing out that he had been invited by families of the fallen servicemen. More

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      Harris campaign lists policies on eve of debate after criticism of vagueness

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      Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has posted a list of her policy positions on its website, less than 48 hours before her debate against Donald Trump on Tuesday, after critics have called her vague and thin on proposed policies since the Democratic nominee launched her run for the White House in July.The Harris campaign’s move came as she and the Republican former president enter the final weeks of the 5 November election – and as new polling published on Sunday showed the candidates are locked in a tight race. The vice-president had initially gained significant momentum over Trump after she replaced Joe Biden at the top of her party’s presidential ticket.A national poll conducted by the New York Times and Siena College released on Sunday found that Trump was up one percentage point over Harris, noting that many voters wanted to know more about the vice-president’s policies.Another poll, conducted by CBS/YouGov, indicated a close race in key swing states, with Harris narrowly leading in Michigan and Wisconsin – but tied in Pennsylvania.By Sunday evening, the Harris campaign had posted a list of policy positions on her website, organized into four main sections focused on the economy, “fundamental freedoms”, safety and crime, and national security.The campaign promised to build “an opportunity economy and lower costs for families” and to implement economic proposals such as tax cuts for the middle class as well as making rent more affordable and home ownership more attainable by providing first-time homebuyers with up to $25,000 to help with down payments.In the list of proposals, Harris also said that she would work to make childcare more affordable, strengthen social security and support small businesses by expanding the startup expense tax deduction for new businesses from $5,000 to $50,000.Harris pledged to reduce the healthcare costs, increase the minimum wage, remove taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers, and address competitive practices by big corporations.Her campaign said that she would block any national abortion bans, and if Congress were to pass a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, Harris would sign it into law. She also plans to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans in healthcare, housing, education and more into law, the website reads.On the border, the campaign stated that Harris would bring back a bipartisan border security bill and sign it into law after it was blocked by Republicans earlier this year to deny Biden a legislative victory when he was still planning to run for re-election. Harris understands the need for “strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship”, the website reads.When it comes to gun violence and crime, the campaign said that – if elected president – Harris would ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require universal background checks, and support red flag laws. She will also continue to “invest in funding law enforcement, including the hiring and training of officers and people to support them”, it added.Harris is committed to ending the opioid epidemic and tackling fentanyl, the campaign stated, adding that the bipartisan border bill she intends to sign would fund detection technology to intercept even more illicit drugs.On foreign policy and national security, Harris pledged to stand with US allies, stand up to dictators, “lead on the world stage” and make sure that “America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership”. She added a promise to invest in American workers, innovation and industry.The policy proposal list also mentions Israel’s war in Gaza, where Harris stated that she would “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and she will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself”.The website stated that she and Biden – who ended his re-election campaign on 21 July – were “working to end the war in Gaza, such that Israel is secure, … hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination”.At the end of each of the policy sections on the website, the Harris campaign compared and contrasted her positions with Project 2025 – a conservative roadmap for a second Trump term written by the Heritage Foundation, a powerful conservative thinktank.Among other things, Project 2025 has called for the elimination of the education department along with the reductions of environmental protections as well as LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights.Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, amid criticism and backlash regarding the group’s proposals as being too far right. But many of the authors and groups behind the project have Trump ties – and that many of the policy goals align with things that Trump has said he intends to do if he wins in November. More

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      Politicians often warn of American decline – and voters often buy it

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      Presidential candidates talk about national decline while campaigning. A lot. This was front and center during the June 2024 debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

      “Throughout the entire world, we’re no longer respected as a country,” Trump said, as he has repeatedly.

      Trump continued by saying that if the United States had a president that Vladimir Putin respected, “he would have never invaded Ukraine.” Trump said “we’re laughed at” and that “the United States’ reputation under this man’s leadership is horrible.”

      Biden countered Trump’s evocative statement with the argument that the U.S. has “the finest military in the history of the world” and that it remains well respected abroad.

      “The idea that somehow we are this failing country,” Biden said, “I never heard a president talk like this before.”

      Public polls on other countries’ views of the U.S. support Biden’s point.

      Yet politicians’ warnings of decline persist because they invoke fear for the country’s security, anxiety about another country gaining more power and anger about the United States’ various problems.

      Donald Trump speaks at a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity on Sept. 4, 2024.
      Nathan Morris/NurPhoto via Getty Images

      Messages of decline over the years

      While Trump’s messages of American carnage are dramatic, exchanges of this sort are not uncommon in U.S. politics.

      During the 1960 presidential election, for example, John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, frequently warned that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union, in everything from space exploration to international respect.

      “I don’t want historians, 10 years from now, to say these were the years when the tide ran out for the United States,” Kennedy said during his first televised debate against his Republican opponent, Vice President Richard Nixon, on Sept. 26, 1960.

      Warning of national decline has remained a common campaign message ever since, with the challenging party’s side claiming that the country is falling behind or losing respect, forcing the incumbent’s side to play defense.

      Pushing back on messages of decline

      My research examines the role of perceived threats to national status in domestic and international politics. I ran an experiment in March 2024 with 1,079 Americans, aimed at trying to understand how their concerns about national decline affect their foreign policy opinions.

      One-third of respondents were randomly assigned to read a prompt warning that experts and leaders from both parties agreed that the U.S. was declining, relative to its rivals. Another third of respondents read the opposite message, which listed facts from bipartisan experts arguing that concerns about national decline were overblown. The final third read about a topic unrelated to politics.

      Those who read about American decline reported increased levels of fear, anger and anxiety than the group who did not read about this topic. One respondent, for example, wrote, “My biggest concern is other countries won’t respect us. Once we show weakness, other countries will try to overtake us.”

      However, the text of bipartisan experts arguing that the U.S. was not declining did not assuage Americans’ anxieties.

      Approximately 30% of people, both liberal and conservative, who read that experts said the concerns over national decline are overblown outright rejected the premise of the text, compared with just 11% of those who read that U.S. global standing is declining.

      Some respondents asked if the text was a joke and said that the U.S. is becoming a “third-world country.” Others pointed to the state of U.S. health care or reproductive rights to question how one could suggest that the country is not falling behind.

      Kamala Harris waves as she arrives at a campaign rally in Savannah, Ga., on Aug. 29, 2024.
      Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

      Fighting emotion with emotion

      When the Democratic ticket changed and Biden announced in July 2024 that he would not run for reelection, the political messaging of Democratic leaders did, too.

      Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, have, at times, incited fear about what a second Trump term would look like. But they have also used language and talked about topics that center on joy and excitement, celebrating things like Walz’s tenure as a teacher and football coach and the pride Harris has for her mother’s work and sacrifices.

      “Guided by optimism and faith,” Harris said in her nomination speech in August 2024, she encouraged her supporters to “write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”

      Harris has also provided an emotionally powerful counter to Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” in the form of “Not Going Back.”

      In Walz’s first appearance as the Democratic candidate for vice president on Aug. 6, he thanked Harris for “bringing back the joy.” With rallies filled with boisterous call-and-responses and chanting, Harris has seized on joy and excitement in detailing a vision of America’s future, juxtaposing her rallies with what she described as Trump’s “the-world-is-doomed rallies.”

      The subtitle of one Harris campaign press release following a Trump news conference, for example, read: “Split Screen: Joy and Freedom vs. Whatever the Hell That Was.”

      US global standing in 2024 campaign

      While Harris’ rallies have largely focused on domestic issues like abortion rights and economic inequality, debates over the country’s global standing will reemerge and persist. In an August 2024 poll, the second-most-common reason likely Harris voters said they supported her was because she would strengthen the United States’ status in the world – while the second-most-common reason other voters opposed her was because they thought she would weaken the country on the global stage.

      Trump has continued to describe the U.S. as a “nation in decline.” Harris, in her Democratic National Convention speech, countered that she will work to ensure that “America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership.”

      Harris also remarked in her acceptance speech: “You know, our opponents in this race are out there every day denigrating America, talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach: Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are.”

      Campaign rhetoric warning of American decline has been common since at least 1960, and it isn’t going away anytime soon. But with a new Democratic ticket and a transformed race, Democrats are now fighting emotion with emotion. And that is more likely to resonate than informing people that things are not as bad as they fear. More

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      How will Harris debate Trump? Six key moments offer insight

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      Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will arrive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday for their first (and potentially only) presidential debate. The event will mark the first time that Harris and Trump have ever met face to face, and it comes less than two months after Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race following his own fateful debate performance in June.The change at the top of the Democratic ticket appears to have unnerved Trump and his campaign advisers, who have struggled to land attacks against Harris. The debate will present Trump with his most significant opportunity yet to negatively define Harris in voters’ minds, as polls show a neck-and-neck race in key battleground states.For Harris, the debate could allow her to deliver on her oft-repeated promise to voters: that she will prosecute the case against Trump. Her political history – both on the debate stage and in Senate hearings – suggest she is well-positioned to make that case. But Harris is not without her vulnerabilities either.Here are five key moments from Harris’s career that could offer a preview of her debate strategy:Sense of humorBefore Harris became vice-president, she served as the attorney general of California and then the state’s junior senator. When Harris ran for her Senate seat in 2016, her top opponent was Democratic congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. The two candidates faced off in an hour-long debate in October 2016, and despite the robust conversation around policy, the event is best remembered for Sanchez’s bizarre closing statement.Sanchez chose to punctuate her final comments with a dance move: the dab. For those who were not extremely online in 2016, a dab involves stretching out an arm and lowering one’s head into the crook of the other arm.Harris reacted to the move with baffled amusement, tightly pressing her lips together, in an apparent attempt to hold back laughter, before she said with a chuckle: “So there’s a clear difference between the candidates in this race.”The simple retort effectively undercut Sanchez and bolstered Harris’s pitch. And it worked; Harris defeated Sanchez by 23 points a month later. Harris has already deployed her sense of humor to undercut Trump, who has shown no tolerance for mockery, and she may be looking to do so again on Tuesday.Prosecutorial skillsAfter taking her seat in the Senate, Harris quickly made a name for herself as a tough questioner who could put witnesses on the spot as she dissected their political records. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general, experienced this first-hand in June 2017.When he appeared before the Senate intelligence committee, Harris pressed Sessions on his contact with Russian nationals during the 2016 campaign, as he was serving as a surrogate for Trump. Harris rattled off a series of questions to Sessions, who grew frustrated as he struggled to give clear, concise answers.As Sessions tried to further elaborate on one of his answers, Harris told him: “Sir, I have just a few minutes …”Sessions then interrupted, saying, “Will you let me qualify it? If I don’t qualify it, you’ll accuse me of lying, so I need to be correct as best I can … I’m not able to be rushed this fast. It makes me nervous.”The exchange cast even more scrutiny on the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russian officials and showcased Harris’s prosecutorial skills. A clash with KavanaughHarris’s questioning of Brett Kavanaugh went viral in 2018, when she pressed the supreme court nominee on his conversations about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and his views on abortion access.Harris asked Kavanaugh whether he had discussed Mueller’s investigation with anyone at a law firm founded by Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz. “Be sure about your answer, sir,” Harris told Kavanaugh.The nominee fumbled for a moment before saying, “I would like to know the person you’re thinking of.”Harris replied: “I think you’re thinking of someone, and you don’t want to tell us.”A Republican senator interjected to relieve the pressure on Kavanaugh, but Harris’s questioning raised questions about the nominee’s credibility.An even more telling exchange came when Harris asked Kavanuagh, “Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?”Kavanaugh replied: “I’m happy to answer a more specific question.” When pressed, he conceded: “I’m not thinking of any right now, senator.”That comment gained renewed attention in 2022, when Kavanaugh became one of the supreme court justices who ruled to overturn Roe v Wade, ending federal protections for abortion access. Harris has blamed Trump for that decision, as he nominated three of the justices who issued the ruling, and she is sure to uplift the fight over abortion access on Tuesday.A challenge on busingHarris launched her first presidential campaign in January 2019, but she and other Democratic candidates found it difficult to overtake Biden’s early polling advantage.At a primary debate in June 2019, Harris decided to confront Biden head-on. Biden had recently attracted controversy for praising the past “civility” of politics, citing his cordial relationships with two late segregationist senators as examples. Harris attacked Biden over the comments and connected them to his past opposition to busing, the practice of transporting children to schools outside their local neighborhood to help achieve racial equity in classrooms.“You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me,” Harris told Biden. “So I will tell you that, on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously.”The attack line increased Harris’s national profile, boosting her standing in the polls. But that surge became the high-water mark for Harris’s campaign, and she was forced to withdraw from the race in December.‘Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking’Despite their earlier clash, Biden selected Harris as his running mate after winning the nomination, and the new vice-presidential candidate immediately got to work promoting their campaign.In her debate against Mike Pence in October 2020, Harris had to push back against the then vice-president as he attempted to talk over her.In what became a viral moment, Harris told Pence, “Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking.”The catchphrase inspired campaign merchandise and painted Pence as out of touch. The success of that moment might explain why Harris’s campaign fought to have the candidates’ mics unmuted at all times during the debate on Tuesday, as that could create an opportunity to establish a similar dynamic against Trump. But Trump’s team successfully fought that rule change, so mics will only be unmuted when moderators cue a candidate to speak.Regardless, the pushback against Pence might still teach Trump a lesson going into the debate: Harris refuses to be steamrolled.An imprecise answerTrump has reason for concern as he plans for Tuesday. But Harris has also displayed vulnerabilities that could help Trump in the debate.In Harris’s first major interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, CNN host Dana Bash started off with a rather obvious question: what were her plans for day one of her administration?“Well, there are a number of things,” Harris said. “I will tell you first and foremost one of my highest priorities is to do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class. When I look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people, I think that people are ready for a new way forward.”The vague answer prompted Bash to follow up by reiterating, “So what would you do day one?”Harris then described her plans to implement an “opportunity economy”, including expanding the child tax credit, but the exchange underscored the nominee’s penchant for avoiding specifics when discussing policy. Trump is not exactly known for his detailed policy positions either, but voters will be looking for Harris to outline a more precise vision for her presidency when she takes the debate stage on Tuesday. More

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      Election outcome may depend on whether Harris or Trump can rebrand themselves as ‘new’

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      When Kamala Harris sat down for her first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee, she praised Joe Biden for his intelligence, commitment, judgment and disposition. But twice she used the phrase “turn the page”. And twice she used the phrase “a new way forward”.This was no accident. US voters are yearning for a shift in direction, with two in three saying the next president should represent a major change from Joe Biden, according to a national poll conducted by the New York Times and Siena College. Yet in November they face a choice between two known quantities: Harris, the sitting vice-president, and Donald Trump, a former president with an inescapable four-year record.Just 25% of voters think Harris signifies a major change, the poll found, while 56% believe she represents “more of the same”. When it comes to Trump, 51% think he would offer major change, whereas 35% consider him more of the same. Victory in the race for the White House might be decided by which of these quasi-incumbents can rebrand themselves as a breath of fresh air for a weary, divided nation.Despite the polling, Democrats are convinced that Harris has the momentum. “The American people are looking for not just new faces but a new message,” said Donna Brazile, a former acting chair of the Democratic National Committee. “They’re looking for somebody who can heal our divisions and close our partisan divides. To the extent she’s running on a message of bringing the American people together, it helps her become a change agent.”Since 1836, just one sitting vice-president, George HW Bush in 1988, has been elected to the White House. Those who tried and failed include Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Al Gore in 2000. Gore’s decision to distance himself from his popular but scandal-plagued boss, Bill Clinton, may have proved costly in his narrow defeat by George W Bush.Harris, a former senator, California attorney general and local prosecutor, became the first woman and person of colour to serve as vice-president after Biden selected her as his running mate in the 2020 election. Like most vice-presidents, she gained relatively little public attention for three and a half years.And when she did, some of the headlines were negative, for example those regarding her role in tackling the root causes of immigration and apparent discontent in her office. Axios reports that of the 47 Harris staff publicly disclosed to the Senate in 2021, only five still worked for her as of this spring.But after the president’s feeble debate performance against Trump on 27 June, everything changed. Biden bowed to pressure, dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris. The Democratic party quickly rallied around her with a combination of relief and energy bordering on ecstasy.Speakers at the recent Democratic national convention in Chicago dutifully paid tribute to Biden’s service but then pivoted to looking forward to a new era under Harris. Her acceptance speech, and a biographical video, did not dwell on her vice-presidency but rather introduced her life story as if for the first time.Brazile, a Democratic strategist, said: “People see don’t see her as vice-president in large part because they rarely see the vice-president as leading the country. But she’s campaigning on a platform that includes bringing people together, ensuring that most Americans can make ends meet.“Donald Trump is a prisoner of the past. She’s a pioneer of a future. That’s the message that brings people in line with her values versus what he campaigns on every day, which is all about attacks, insults and derogatory statements.”On the campaign trail, Harris has been walking a political tightrope, embracing her boss’s achievements while keeping his unpopular baggage at arm’s length. Whereas Biden touted jobs and growth numbers, Harris has acknowledged the rising cost of living and proposed a federal ban on grocery price-gouging.Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “She wants it both ways. She wants to take credit for the improvement in the economy, the number of jobs, the successes of bringing inflation down. But she doesn’t want to be blamed for voters’ continuing frustration that they’ve been hurt because of inflation.He added: “She’s been trying to run as the change candidate, which is very strange because the change motif is for the challenger, not the incumbent party.”The switch from Biden, 81, to 59-year-old Harris instantly removed the Democrats’ biggest vulnerability – age – and weaponised it against Trump who, at 78, is the oldest major party nominee in US history.At the first debate in June, he came over as more engaged and vital than Biden, who stumbled over answers and stared into the distance with mouth agape. At the next debate on Tuesday, it is Trump whose age will be thrown into sharp relief by a rival nearly two decades younger – who would become the first female president in the country’s 248-year history if she wins.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “We went from a generic where we had two candidates who were pushing 80, so anytime that you add in a new element and someone who is generationally younger, that’s a change without even having to say a word. The fact that we are going from two old white men to a woman of colour – that screams change. It creates the tangible illustration of past versus future.”Trump has been wrongfooted by the Democrats’ abrupt change of nominee and still complains bitterly about it. Nicknames such as “Crooked Joe” and “Sleepy Joe”, as well as criticism of alleged Biden family corruption, now ring hollow. He has continued to repeat his false claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election as he makes his third bid for the White House. Still promising to “Make America great again”, he has lost the mantle of a disrupter taking on the status quo.Bardella, a former spokesperson and senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee, added: “Any time that you’re the candidate whose slogan uses the word ‘again’, that doesn’t scream change. That screams going backwards. Clearly voters want something that’s more forward-facing and, frankly, more optimistic as well. I don’t think we can overestimate the tone difference.“One campaign is saying, it’s a disaster, everything is terrible, America will be destroyed if Kamala Harris is president. The other campaign is saying we can do better, we can be better, our best days lie ahead. It’s much more optimistic and for voters coming out of Covid, January 6, the sense of weariness they have with both Biden and with Trump, that idea of turning the page and having a fresh start is a very appealing sentiment.”The Trump campaign has unleashed countless attacks tying Harris to Biden’s record on immigration, inflation and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan but with little tangible effect, at least so far. Instead, Harris continues to wear her vice-presidency lightly and cast herself as the candidate of the future.Whit Ayres, a political consultant and pollster, said: “She’s not pulling it off because of particular policy positions, but her race and gender create an image of change without ever stressing it or mentioning it.“The idea that a Black, Asian American woman could be president of the United States says change all by itself. That’s how she has created this impression that she is the change candidate in a change election, even though she’s the incumbent vice-president.”Trump would be wise to contrast his White House record with that of the Biden-Harris administration, Ayres argues. “Emphasising the economy and immigration is an obvious place for him to go. And then painting Harris as a San Francisco liberal – and there are plenty of issue positions that she has taken, in the past at any rate, that allow him to do that. If he could actually focus on that rather than using schoolyard bullying name-calling, he could win the thing.”Trump represented the shock of the new in 2016, running as an anti-establishment outsider, rattling the foundations of the Republican party and defeating the Democratic stalwart Hillary Clinton. But eight years, four criminal cases and two impeachments later, many Americans say the act has gone stale and the novelty has worn off.Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, said: “He feels diminished to me. He feels smaller, less relevant, he’s not breaking through. In part it’s because she’s rising above and talking about where she wants to take the country; she’s not engaging him. He’s using this old formula of creating chaos and fighting with his opponents and she’s not playing, and it’s hurting him.”He added: “There’s only one Trump. This Trump isn’t working the way it used to and they don’t have a plan B, and the Trump campaign’s in trouble. He’s singing the same songs and they’re not connecting the way they used to. It’s a real problem for him.”But the latest New York Times and Siena College poll – in which Trump is up by one percentage point at 48% to Harris’s 47% – makes Republicans sceptical of the notion that she has become synonymous with change in the minds of the electorate.Lanhee Chen, who was the policy director for the 2012 Mitt Romney presidential campaign, said: “There’s no question that if you look at the media narrative, that’s how she’s been framed. But with voters it could be a very different picture. As we get a little bit more data, we’ll be able to get a firmer sense of whether this framing is one that’s taken hold or if it’s just an inside-the-Beltway creation. Hard to say at this point.” More

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      ‘We’re all sitting ducks’ without more substantial gun control, Warnock says

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      Americans “are all sitting ducks” unless Congress passes more substantial gun control, US senator Raphael Warnock said Sunday, four days after two students and two teachers at a high school in his home state of Georgia were shot to death, allegedly by a teenager wielding a military-style rifle.Warnock’s comments Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press came in direct response to statements from Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, who had previously said the killings at Appalachee high in Winder, Georgia, demonstrated how it was a “fact of life” that US schools present “soft targets” to a “psycho [wanting] to make headlines”.Vance added that US schools therefore must take steps to bolster their security, but such an approach would not eliminate the mass shootings in the US that have occurred in many other types of locales, Warnock – a Democrat – said both on Meet the Press as well as on CNN’s State of the Union.Of the nearly 390 mass shootings that had been reported in the US so far this year at the time of Warnock’s remarks, three of them were at schools, including the attack at Appalachee, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive and Education Week. Meanwhile, the killings at Appalachee were the only mass murder of 23 reported in the US so far to have happened at a school.The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are killed or wounded. A mass murder is one in which four or more victims are killed.Vance “talks about hardening our schools and making them secure – well the reality is this is happening in spas, in shopping malls”, Warnock said on CNN. “It’s happening in houses of worship, in medical clinics.“What are we going to do? Make the whole country into a fort?”He told NBC: “We’re all sitting ducks. And any country that allows this to continue without putting forward just common sense safety measures is a country that has – in a tragic way – lost its way.”Warnock alluded to an April 2023 Fox News poll which reaffirmed that the vast majority of Americans favored strengthening gun safety laws. And he said Congress took an encouraging first step toward treating such public support as a mandate when it enacted bipartisan legislation that expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers while funding mental health and violence intervention programs.But what was the first major federal firearms safety bill to pass Congress in nearly three decades was “clearly not enough”, Warnock said, noting how the US continues recording a number of mass shootings that is disproportionate at the global level.Warnock said polls show most in the US overwhelmingly support universal background checks. Furthermore, Warnock said that large numbers of Americans support banning general access to assault-style rifles and semi-automatic firearms.Yet federal lawmakers have not been able to get enough votes to clear procedural hurdles preventing Congress from meaningfully consider either issue. Warnock on Sunday blamed that reality on congressmembers who – out of ambition or fear – accept financial support from the wealthy gun industry.“We are at an impasse because there are people in … politics … who are doing the bidding of the corporatist gun lobby even as they line their pockets with the blood of our children,” Warnock said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs if on cue, the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Sunday published a clip on its Twitter/X account showing Warnock answering a question about whether Kamala Harris should support a mandatory gun buyback program as she runs for the White House in November against Donald Trump.Warnock did not say “yes”, instead replying: “We’re not going to be able to get where we need to go without action in Congress. We’ve got to be able to pass some laws to deal with this.” Additionally, he repeatedly told CNN and NBC that he was not proposing to repeal the constitutional US right to bear arms.The NRA – which remains an influential lobbying group – nonetheless wrote Sunday that Warnock “wants to confiscate millions of guns from law-abiding Americans”.The shooter suspect at Appalachee faces murder charges over the slayings of two of his fellow 14-year-old students and a pair of mathematics teachers. The accused shooter’s father is also charged with second-degree murder for gifting his son the AR-15-style rifle used in the school attack.“Fourteen-year-olds don’t need AR-15s,” Warnock said. More

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      Here is what will happen on day one of Trump’s presidency, according to Project 2025 | Daniel Martinez HoSang

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      It’s a cold day in Washington DC in late January 2025. Though Donald Trump has lost the popular vote for a third consecutive election, his narrow capture of the electoral college has delivered the presidency.During the campaign, Trump offered some symbolic gestures to distance himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led policy blueprint for the next Republican administration, matched with a database of conservative personnel to execute those plans. “Personnel is politics,” they explain.But with Republicans now holding bare majorities in both chambers of Congress, the gloves come off. As Trump utters the last phrase of the oath of office – “so help me God” – the first phase of what Project 2025’s authors call “the playbook” begins.First come the firings. Thousands of federal, non-partisan civil servants –environmental and food safety regulators; authorities in disaster relief coordination; attorneys overseeing anti-discrimination policies in housing, education and employment; medical and scientific researchers – receive immediate layoff notices. Many will not be replaced, as entire federal programs and agencies are shuttered. The new personnel that do arrive come from conservative thinktanks, or are rightwing activists who applied through the Project 2025 application database. Political cronyism is now the official hiring policy of the US federal government.Next come the roundups. As drafted by the Maga nativist-in-chief Stephen Miller, a broad range of law enforcement, from the national guard to state and local police are deputized for a new deportation army. Sweeps of neighborhoods and businesses take aim at blue states and cities, but general terror is their intended goal. Detention centers are established on military bases and federal facilities with quick access to airfields to execute mass removals. Nearly a million lawfully present immigrants are stripped of their legal protections, subjecting them to immediate deportation. An end to Daca and a return of the Muslim ban follow.In the following months other parts of the agenda unfold. Cuts in corporate taxes so generous they would make the robber barons blush. An end to federal funding for public television and radio that forces many local stations to shutter. The termination of Head Start programs leaves hundreds of thousands of parents and guardians without preschool or childcare. The elimination of the Department of Education and programs like Title I halt funding and many protections for students with disabilities, English learners and students from low-income households.Pornography is criminalized. Ditto for abortion rights, emergency contraception and many reproductive health programs. Adiós also to most public sector unions, labor organizing rights and anti-poverty programs.It can be difficult at times to distinguish the hyperbole of Trump and the Maga movement from actual governing plans. “Build the wall” was always more of a campaign performance and fundraising stunt then a policy blueprint. But after attending several rightwing conferences and rallies for research in the last year, I have little reason to doubt their intentions this time around.I’ve heard Miller at CPAC describe the deportation plans in chilling detail. I heard speaker after speaker at a Turning Point USA conference promise violence and retribution against political opponents, the dismantling of nearly all public goods, and plans to bring a shrill Christian nationalism to the center of governance and civic life. I’ve listened to unapologetic defenses of eugenics and scientific racism on rightwing media channels with millions of followers.And perhaps most frighteningly, I’ve observed growing numbers of young people, people of color and others outside of the traditional conservative base join the Maga faithful and embrace the cynicism and demonization that is the heartbeat of the contemporary right.Conservatives often celebrate the unity of their governing philosophy, rooted in small government, entrepreneurship, faith and family. But there is nothing coherent or rational about these policies. Plunder is the prevailing principle.And these ideas are not limited to the Heritage Foundation or Trump alone. They have been embraced across a network of rightwing formations, some with agendas even more extreme than Project 2025.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNor can this agenda be described as populist. Polls show large majorities of the US public deeply opposed to the Project 2025 agenda. Corporate giveaways, drastic cuts to public services and legalized discrimination against queer people won’t alleviate any of the very real crises faced by masses of people in the US and around the world.In the face of this threatened calamity, what can be done? To be sure, the material consequences of this agenda must be exposed. Maga supporters often suggest Trump should be taken “seriously but not literally”. Project 2025’s 920-page policy document is not political theater, and its threat to the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of people must be laid out in stark terms. These fissures must be exposed.At the same time, we must not succumb to a fatalism. Rightwing tacticians like Christopher Rufo have explained that they publicize their strategies to intentionally demoralize their opposition. If we only warn against the threat of fascism, we risk leaving people even more fearful and isolated, cynical towards the prospect of any collective change or resistance.And if the only alternative offered is a call to defend a decaying liberalism, one that is itself saturated in violence, precarity and premature death, the reactionary threat will surely quicken.Instead, warnings about the authoritarian menace of Project 2025 and its ilk must be wedded to clear ambitions to rebuild our emaciated public institutions, to protect people from the predations of a rigged economy. The fascist threat collapses when ordinary people have meaningful opportunities for social connection and purpose, the groundwork of human dignity.

      Daniel Martinez HoSang is an associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University. He is author of Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California and co-author of Producers, Parasites, Parasites: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity More