US Politics

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Is the US really preparing to ban TikTok?

      by

      The House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would require TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a total ban in the United States.The legislation now moves to the Senate, where its likelihood of passing is uncertain. But with a landslide of support in the House – 352 Congress members voted in favor of the bill and only 65 voted against – it’s clear that TikTok is facing its biggest existential threat yet in the US.Here’s what you need to know about the bill, how likely TikTok is to be banned, and what that means for the platform’s 170 million US users.Is the US really trying to ban TikTok, and why?The bill that passed in the House on Wednesday is the latest salvo in an ongoing political battle over the platform, which exploded in popularity after its emergence in 2017. It quickly surpassed Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in downloads in 2018 and reported a 45% increase in monthly active users between July 2020 and July 2022.The platform’s meteoric rise alarmed some lawmakers, who believe that TikTok’s China-based parent company could collect sensitive user data and censor content that goes against the Chinese government.TikTok has repeatedly stated it has not and would not share US user data with the Chinese government, but lawmakers’ concerns were exacerbated by news investigations that showed China-based employees at ByteDance had accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users.TikTok has argued that US user data is not held in China but in Singapore and in the US, where it is routed through cloud infrastructure operated by Oracle, an American company. In 2023, TikTok opened a data center in Ireland where it handles EU citizen data.These measures have not been sufficient for many US lawmakers, and in March 2023 the TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was called before Congress, where he faced more than five hours of intensive questioning about these and other practices. Lawmakers asked Chew about his own nationality, accusing him of fealty to China. He is, in fact, Singaporean.Various efforts to police TikTok and how it engages with US user data have been floated in Congress in the past year, culminating in the bill passed on Wednesday.Is this bill really a TikTok ban?Under the new bill, ByteDance would have 165 days to divest from TikTok, meaning it would have to sell the social media platform to a company not based in China. If it did not, app stores including the Apple App Store and Google Play would be legally barred from hosting TikTok or providing web-hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.Authors of the bill have argued it does not constitute a ban, as it gives ByteDance the opportunity to sell TikTok and avoid being blocked in the US.“TikTok could live on and people could do whatever they want on it provided there is that separation,” said Representative Mike Gallagher, the Republican chair of the House select China committee. “It is not a ban – think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient in the process.”TikTok has argued otherwise, stating that it is not clear whether China would approve a sale or that it could even complete a sale within six months.“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” the company said after the committee vote. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”How did we get here?TikTok has faced a number of bans and attempted bans in recent years, starting with an executive order by Donald Trump in 2020, which was ultimately blocked by courts on first amendment grounds. Trump has since reversed his stance, now opposing a ban on TikTok. Joe Biden, by contrast, has said he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.Montana attempted to impose a statewide ban on the app in 2023, but the law was struck down by a federal judge over first amendment violations. The app was banned on government-issued phones in the US in 2022, and as of 2023 at least 34 states have also banned TikTok from government devices. At least 50 universities in the US have banned TikTok from on-campus wifi and university-owned computers.The treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in March 2023 demanded ByteDance sell its TikTok shares or face the possibility of the app being banned, Reuters reported, but no action has been taken.TikTok was banned in India in 2020 after a wave of dangerous “challenges” led to the deaths of some users. The ban had a marked effect on competition in India, handing a significant market to YouTube’s Shorts and Instagram Reels, direct competitors of TikTok. The app is not available in China itself, where Douyin, a separate app from parent company ByteDance with firmer moderation, is widely used.How would a ban on TikTok be enforced?Due to the decentralized nature of the internet, enforcing a ban would be complex. The bill passed by the House would penalize app stores daily for making TikTok available for download, but for users who already have the app on their phones, it would be difficult to stop individual use.Internet service providers could also be forced to block IP addresses associated with TikTok, but such practices can be easily evaded on computer browsers by using a VPN, or virtual private network, which re-routes computer connections to other locations.To fully limit access to TikTok, the US government would have to employ methods used by countries like Iran and China, which structure their internet in a way that makes content restrictions more easily enforceable.Who supports the potential TikTok ban?While Trump – who started the war on TikTok in 2020 – has reversed his stance on the potential ban, most Republican lawmakers have expressed support of it. The Biden administration has also backed the bill, with the press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying the administration wants “to see this bill get done so it can get to the president’s desk”. Biden’s campaign joined TikTok last month.Despite Trump’s opposition to the bill, many Republicans are pushing forward with the effort to ban TikTok or force its sale to an American company.“Well, he’s wrong. And by the way, he had his own executive orders and his own actions he was doing, and now … he’s suddenly flipped around on that,” said the representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and member of the far-right Freedom Caucus. “I mean, it’s not the first or last time that I’ll disagree with the former president. The TikTok issue is pretty straightforward.”Who opposes the TikTok bill?TikTok has vocally opposed the legislation, urging the Senate not to pass it. “We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7m small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said following Wednesday’s vote.Within the House, 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the bill, including the Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who cited her experiences of being banned from social media. House Democrats including Maxwell Frost of Florida and Delia Ramirez of Illinois joined TikTok creators outside the Capitol following the vote to express opposition to the bill. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      House votes to force TikTok owner ByteDance to divest or face US ban

      by

      The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would require the TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a total ban in the United States.The vote was a landslide, with 352 Congress members voting in favor and only 65 against. The bill, which was fast-tracked to a vote after being unanimously approved by a committee last week, gives China-based ByteDance 165 days to divest from TikTok. If it did not, app stores including the Apple App store and Google Play would be legally barred from hosting TikTok or providing web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.The vote in the House represents the most concrete threat to TikTok in an ongoing political battle over allegations the China-based company could collect sensitive user data and politically censor content. TikTok has repeatedly stated it has not and would not share US user data with the Chinese government.Despite those arguments, TikTok faced an attempted ban by Donald Trump in 2020 and a state-level ban passed in Montana in 2023. Courts blocked both of those bans on grounds of first amendment violations, and Trump has since reversed his stance, now opposing a ban on TikTok.The treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in March 2023 demanded ByteDance sell their TikTok shares or face the possibility of the app being banned, Reuters reported, but no action has been taken.The bill’s future is less certain in the Senate. Some Senate Democrats have publicly opposed the bill, citing freedom of speech concerns, and suggested measures that would address concerns of foreign influence across social media without targeting TikTok specifically. “We need curbs on social media, but we need those curbs to apply across the board,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said.The Democratic senator Mark Warner, who proposed a separate bill last year to give the White House new powers over TikTok, said he had “some concerns about the constitutionality of an approach that names specific companies”, but will take “a close look at this bill”.The White House has backed the legislation, with the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, saying the administration wants “to see this bill get done so it can get to the president’s desk”.Authors of the bill have argued it does not constitute a ban, as it gives ByteDance the opportunity to sell TikTok and avoid being blocked in the US. Representative Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the House select China committee, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the panel’s top Democrat, introduced legislation to address national security concerns posed by Chinese ownership of the app.“TikTok could live on and people could do whatever they want on it provided there is that separation,” Gallagher said, urging US ByteDance investors to support a sale. “It is not a ban – think of this as a surgery designed to remove the tumor and thereby save the patient in the process.”TikTok, which has 170 million users in the US, has argued otherwise, stating that it is not clear if China would approve any sale, or that it could be divested in six months.“This legislation has a predetermined outcome: a total ban of TikTok in the United States,” the company said after the committee vote. “The government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression. This will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFollowing the committee’s passage of the bill, staffers complained that TikTok supporters had flooded Congress with phone calls, after the app pushed out a notification urging users to oppose the legislation.“Why are Members of Congress complaining about hearing from their constituents? Respectfully, isn’t that their job?” TikTok said on X.Although the bill was written with TikTok in mind, it is possible other China-owned platforms could be affected, including US operations of Tencent’s WeChat, which Trump also sought to ban in 2020. Gallagher said he would not speculate on what other impacts the bill could have, but said “going forward we can debate what companies fall” under the bill.Reuters contributed to this report More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Lead, follow or get out the way’: House speaker urged to act on Ukraine aid bill

      by

      A group of congressional Democrats including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and armed services veterans urged the current Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to “lead, follow or get out of the way” of more military support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders.“In the military, we have a great expression,” Mikie Sherrill, a House Democrat from New Jersey and a former navy helicopter pilot, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “‘Lead, follow or get out of the way.’ That is exactly what our speaker has to do.”Last month, Senate Democrats and Republicans passed a $95bn foreign aid package covering Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel.The Democrats who spoke on Wednesday faced vocal competition from protesters with Code Pink: Women for Peace opposing funding for Israel in its war against Hamas. On Ukraine policy, though, House Republicans have proved more obstructive than Medea Benjamin, the Code Pink co-founder, was able to be at the Capitol.Under the direction of Donald Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee who openly favors Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, Johnson has shown no sign of bringing the Senate package up for a vote. The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, recently emerged from meeting Trump to say that if Trump is re-elected, he will not give “a penny” to Ukraine.Trump has said he will encourage Russia to attack US allies he deems not to pay enough to be members of Nato.House Democrats have lodged discharge petitions, a mechanism by which the speaker can be bypassed. Despite significant Republican support for Ukraine aid such efforts remain unlikely to succeed. On Wednesday, one petition was about 50 votes short of success.Johnson, Sherrill said, “has to show some leadership and put this bill on the floor so we can get an up-or-down vote on it. We know we have about 300 votes in favour.“He can follow the Democrats: we have put our discharge petition on the board, get his members to sign this petition and again, support Ukraine. Or he could just get out of the way because we know that the American people are behind the Ukrainians.“We know that each and every day that goes by is another day that Ukrainians are dying. We have members of the Ukrainian armed forces in my district, people who have lost legs, who have lost their vision, because they were standing in the breach … We’re fighting hard for this, Mr Speaker. Lead, follow or get out of the way.”Other Democrats who spoke to reporters included army, navy and air force veterans with service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.All saluted Ukrainian courage. More than one called the Ukrainians “MacGyvers”, an admiring evocation of their make-do-and-mend spirit with meagre supplies, arising from a cult 1980s TV series starring Richard Dean Anderson.The press conference in the House Triangle was staged in conjunction with Vote Vets and introduced by Alexander Vindman. A former US soldier of Ukrainian heritage, Vindman and his brother Eugene helped blow the whistle on Trump’s attempts as president to extract political dirt from Ukraine, prompting his first impeachment. Both were pushed out of the military. Eugene Vindman is now running for Congress in Virginia.Representing Vote Vets, Rick Harris, the father of Thomas Gray Harris, a former US marine killed in Ukraine, said: “It is hard to have lost my son but I am proud of what he did. If he were here today, though he would use much more colourful language than me, he would tell the speaker to call the vote now.”Dan Goldman of New York was not the only speaker to say Ronald Reagan, the Republican president revered in his party for standing up to Moscow, would be “rolling in his grave if he knew his party was not supporting democracy against Russia”. Vote Vets unveiled a new ad, featuring Reagan saying “democracy is worth dying for” and set to be broadcast on Fox News.On Tuesday the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, told reporters Johnson should “let the House speak”. Asked about Republican proposals to offer aid to Ukraine as a loan not a grant, McConnell said it was more important to act quickly.“The only way to get relief to the Ukrainians and the Israelis quickly is for the House to figure out how to pass the Senate bill,” he said, adding: “We’ve got a bill that got 70 votes in the Senate. Give members of the House of Representatives an opportunity to vote on it. That’s the solution.”Also on Tuesday, the White House said the US would send Ukraine aid worth $300m, the first such move in months. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the funds came from unanticipated savings from Pentagon contracts and would be used for artillery munitions.“This ammunition will keep Ukraine’s guns firing for a period but only a short period,” Sullivan said. “It is nowhere near enough to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs and it will not prevent Ukraine running out of ammunition.”US officials have also looked at options for seizing $285bn in Russian assets immobilised in 2022, then using the money to pay for weapons for Ukraine.Also on Tuesday, Biden met the president and prime minister of Poland, to talk about Ukraine. On Capitol Hill, US intelligence agency chiefs pressed House members, saying new Ukraine aid would also discourage Chinese aggression.The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told French media Kyiv had improved its strategic position despite shortages of weaponry, but suggested the situation could change again if new supplies were not forthcoming. He also said Russia was preparing a new offensive for late May or summer.Zelenskiy has said 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the two-year war. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden slightly behind Trump but voters’ views of economy improve, poll shows

      by

      Joe Biden officially begins his general election campaign with a slight polling deficit against Donald Trump, and no indications that his forceful State of the Union address has provided much of a boost with voters, according to a public opinion survey released on Wednesday.But the newly released USA Today/Suffolk University poll also shows views of the economy have hit their highest level of Biden’s presidency, a sign that voters may be starting to agree with the president that his policies helped the country recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.Biden and Trump on Tuesday clinched the final delegates they needed to win the Democratic and Republican nominations, respectively, with primary victories in Washington state, Mississippi and Georgia. They will be officially named the nominees at their party’s conventions over the summer, but by all indications, Americans are not looking forward to the first rematch between presidential candidates in almost seven decades.Polls have repeatedly shown both men are unpopular with voters, but the USA Today/Suffolk University survey finds Trump has a slight advantage over Biden nationally, with 40% of voters preferring him over the president’s 38%.And while unfavorability ratings for both men are 55%, the poll finds Republicans are more fired up about a second Trump presidency than Democrats are for another four years of Biden. Forty-three per cent of Republicans say they are “excited” about Trump’s nomination, versus 22% of Democrats about Biden.Biden’s approval ratings have been underwater for more than two and a half years, and the dip roughly coincided with the intensification of inflation that accompanied the economy’s bounceback from the mass layoffs and business closures caused by Covid-19.While the White House has tried to redirect voters’ attention to the strong labor market, ebbing rate of price growth and the potential offered by Biden’s legislative accomplishment, views of the economy specifically have remained negative.But the USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows that voters are becoming less pessimistic. A third of registered voters believe the economy is recovering, the highest share saying that since Biden took office, the survey says.“This data point is particularly important to track. If the trend continues, more voters could connect the economic recovery to President Biden, especially if the economy continues to dominate other issues as we get closer to November,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocrats were also cheered by Biden’s performance at the annual State of the Union address last week. The president laid into Trump in a passionate speech that, for some of his allies, quieted fears about the 81-year-old Biden being too old to campaign effectively.But it didn’t do much to move the needle among the poll’s respondents. While a majority watched the speech, they were nearly evenly split on whether it improved or worsened their views of Biden, and 39% said it made no difference at all. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      The voting bloc that could decide the US election: Swifties

      by

      After weeks of maddening speculation over whom Taylor Swift might support in the 2024 US presidential elections, the venerated pop star finally revealed her endorsement: the right to vote itself.“Vote the people who most represent YOU into power,” Swift urged fans in an Instagram story amid Super Tuesday’s primary elections, perhaps the last chance to stop Donald Trump from once again seizing the Republican nomination for president.Although Swift could still endorse a candidate in the months ahead, her “no comment” on who should win on Super Tuesday was a noted refusal to engage in party politics at this stage. Joe Biden’s campaign is still jockeying for her endorsement, while Trump has said Swift would be “disloyal” for backing Biden and rightwingers have suggested that her 18-year career is a “psy op” – a ludicrous theory that nearly one in five Americans have said they believe.What is true, though, is that Swift currently possesses unprecedented power: an endorsement from the most beloved singer in the United States could potentially tip the balance in what’s likely to be a close election. A reported billionaire, Swift can reroute economies, trigger congressional action and spur tens of thousands of people to register to vote. While her endorsement is unlikely to sway a voter who is undecided between Trump and Biden – if such an American exists – experts believe Swift could convince people who don’t feel energized by Biden to vote for him anyway.But whether Swift will wield that power or instead stay out of the electoral fray remains unclear. Although Swift endorsed Democrats in 2018, she has in recent years increasingly withdrawn from such overt displays of partisanship or making controversial statements. That change that has coincided with her return to the top of the celebrity food chain and, in the process, left some Swifties feeling like their idol could do better.View image in fullscreen“She’s at the height of her popularity right now, so I think she’s probably pretty hesitant to do any sort of political activism,” said Jared Quigg, a 22-year-old Indiana journalist who said he listened to Swift every day. “But because of the influence she has, if she came out and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, I think that … would put more pressure on the US government, especially if Biden wants her endorsement.“I don’t think that’s an exaggeration,” Quigg added. “She is one of the most popular people in the world.”So are Swifties a voting bloc the parties should be targeting?Usually portrayed as a blur of sequin-wearing women draped in friendship bracelets, Swifties are not quite so homogeneous as they may seem. More than half of Americans identify as Swift fans and 16% say they are “avid fans”, according to a March 2023 Morning Consult poll that was conducted before the launch of Swift’s Eras tour. While the avid fans are mostly white and suburban, 48% are men, contrary to the popular perception that Swift’s music appeals largely to women.If about one in six Americans is a Swiftie, there is simply no way they’ll all agree – on Swift, or on anything else.However, there is a clear political tilt within Swiftiedom. Swift’s own politics lean to the left, and her listeners follow suit: more than half of her avid fans are Democrats, while 23% are Republicans and another 23% are independents.Swift has long taken a pragmatic approach to politics. She timed her Instagram post endorsing Democrats in the 2018 midterms to hit the internet after the US leg of her Reputation tour concluded, breaking her career-long silence on politics but shielding herself from red-state backlash. Swift then portrayed her next album, Lover, as an embrace of liberalism and love – including queer love, in the song You Need to Calm Down.By any normal artist’s standard, both Reputation and Lover were wildly successful, but neither album sold quite as well as 2014’s 1989. Notably, neither garnered many Grammy nods; in her 2020 documentary Miss Americana, which tracked Swift’s political awakening, Swift was devastated by the snub to Reputation.Yet, at her (extremely relative) commercial lowest – and when politics could feed into the personal narrative linked to Lover – Swift was willing to use her cachet for divisive political causes. In May 2020, when that year’s presidential nomination process was all but sewn up – much like this year’s Super Tuesday – Swift took to the platform then known as Twitter to spit at Trump: “After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? We will vote you out in November.”Today, three original albums and one Ticketmaster-breaking world tour later, Swift has managed to soar past even the stratospheric heights of her 1989 fame, becoming as ubiquitous as gravity and just as untouchable. Yet after endorsing Democrats in 2018 and 2020, including Biden, she only urged fans to “vote” in the 2022 midterm elections, just as she did on Super Tuesday.“I feel like a lot of the things that she has spoken out about are things that are directly benefiting her if they go one way or negatively affecting if they go the other way,” said Jess Simpson, a 21-year-old who is a member of the University of Oregon Taylor Swift Society, which holds Swift-related karaoke and trivia events. “She claims to be a feminist, but that’s not what that is. It’s not just speaking out about the things that you fall into. It’s about reaching past that.”Ryan Kovatch, who also belongs to the University of Oregon Taylor Swift Society, was frustrated to see the Eras tour visit states that had passed laws attacking the rights of LGBTQ+ children.View image in fullscreenSwift did give a short, relatively vague speech about those laws and Pride month. “There have been so many harmful pieces of legislation that have put people in the LGBTQ and queer community at risk,” Swift told a Chicago crowd in June. “It’s painful for everyone, every ally, every loved one, every person of these communities, and that’s why I’m always posting, ‘This is when the midterms are, this is when these important key primaries are.’”Meanwhile, far less successful artists, such as Swift’s friend Haley Kiyoko, took a risk by bringing drag queens on stage in Tennessee after the state passed a law banning drag shows. Ariana Grande, whose fame comes closer to Swift’s, has publicly pledged to donate more than $1m to fight bills targeting transgender people.“It feels like the stakes have gotten higher and she’s backed off pretty starkly,” Kovatch said. “It is strongly disappointing, as a member of the LGBT community, to see that and see the potential there and watch it be foregone time and time again.“Especially using the rainbow during the You Need to Calm Down set,” Kovatch added, referring to a song in which Swift struts amid rainbow lights and proclaims her support for LGBTQ+ rights.“What is there to lose? You have billions of dollars,” asked Trey Pokorny, a 21-year-old whose drag persona is Treylor Swift and another member of the University of Oregon Taylor Swift Society. “Small artists – their careers can be canceled by a tweet. It takes so much more than a tweet to end Taylor Swift.”Swifties have also repeatedly raised eyebrows at Swift’s use of private jets. In 2022, Yard named Swift as the celebrity with the worst CO2 emissions; a Reddit post about the topic on the main subreddit for Taylor Swift fans triggered more than 2,000 comments.“It’s a little rough to see how many celebrities abuse their power of flying all over the place in their private jets and clogging up the environment,” said 19-year-old Addy Al-Saigh, who said she paid $2,000 to sit in nosebleed seats at the Eras tour. But, she added: “In the end, I know that there’s not really much I can do about it.”If Swift does endorse Biden, Al-Saigh said she would probably direct her Pennsylvania college’s Swift fan club to get involved in the 2024 elections. “If she came out and actually did that, I think I would have a reason to also put it up and say, ‘Go vote for Biden,’ because we’re related to Taylor,” she said.View image in fullscreenWhen it came to the 2024 elections, the Swifties who the Guardian spoke to said they were confident any Swift endorsement would ultimately be for Biden – a move they support. (Or, at least, preferred to the alternative.) But Quigg also cautioned fans to think for themselves.“I generally believe that people should not get their politics from a pop star,” he said. “At the end of the day, she’s a songwriter. She’s not a political genius.”He’s not sure fellow fans share that view. He recently saw a post on X declaring: “I definitely believe Taylor could convince Swifties to do a January 6.”“There is something to that,” Quigg said. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      My feeling about this presidential election? Nauseous optimism | Robert Reich

      by

      I feel a nauseous optimism about the presidential election.I chose the word nauseous over cautious because my stomach is churning at the very possibility Trump could get a second term. But I don’t believe that will happen. The progressive forces in America are overtaking the regressive.I’m not paying attention to polls. It’s way too early to worry about them. Most of the public hasn’t even focused on the upcoming election.Biden gave a powerful State of the Union address – feisty, bold, energetic and upbeat. He was combative – taking on Trump with gusto, even besting Republican hecklers like Marjorie Taylor Greene. I’m convinced he’s equipped to win re-election.The broad American public is starting to see just how weird Maga Republicans really are. Republicans comprise only 28% of voting Americans. More than 40% of voters consider themselves independent, unaffiliated with either party. Most of these independents don’t want the unhinged running the government.During the State of the Union, Americans saw Republicans heckle and boo Biden and then sit on their hands when Biden declared that “No child should go hungry in this country.” Hello?And the official Republican response to Biden’s speech by the Alabama senator Katie Britt was, to say the least, bizarre. Delivered from her kitchen, her rebuttal vacillated from wholesome to horrific.The centerpiece of her attack on Biden’s border policies was a story about a 12-year-old Mexican girl who was sexually trafficked and raped multiple times a day at the hands of cartels before escaping. But the girl was not, in fact, trafficked across the US border; she never sought asylum in America; and her terrifying experience occurred when George W Bush was in the White House.Britt’s oddball performance baffled even fellow rightwingers. “What the hell am I watching right now?” a Trump adviser asked Rolling Stone. “One of our biggest disasters ever,” a Republican strategist told the Daily Beast.The Republican party is so out of touch with American values that it’s putting up outspoken bigots for major offices.Case in point: Mark Robinson, who won the Republican nomination for governor of North Carolina last Tuesday night, has hurled hateful remarks at everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. He’s called homosexuality and transgenderism “filth” and formerly said he wants to outlaw all abortions. He’s also ridiculed the #MeToo movement, women generally and the climate crisis.Oh, and he has a history of Holocaust denialism and antisemitic remarks. He’s suggested that 9/11 was an “inside job”, that Hollywood and the music industry are run by Satan, and that the billionaire Democratic donor George Soros orchestrated the Boko Haram kidnappings of schoolgirls in 2014. (Robinson denies he is antisemitic, and has said that some of his claims were “poorly phrased”.)Robinson is hardly the only rather out-there Republican nominee, but he typifies the grotesque values of Maga leaders, including those of the Republican party’s likely presidential candidate.Of course, the reason these bigots and haters are fighting so hard to defeat us is they know progressives are the future of America.Neither their filibusters, nor their gerrymanders, nor their attempts at voter suppression can stop our rise – nor can their absurd “great replacement theory” or their supreme court majority.I’ve been at this game for almost three-quarters of a century. It’s a long game, and America still has a long way to go. But apart from Trump fanatics, the nation is in many ways better and stronger now than it has ever been – more inclusive, tolerant, diverse, accepting, dynamic. And it will be far better and stronger years from now, because we are rising.Sure, we must do better at organizing, mobilizing and energizing. We need elected lawmakers, along with judges and supreme court justices, who reflect our beliefs and values. The Democratic party must be bolder at countering the power of big corporations and big money, and more aggressive in recruiting and supporting a new generation of progressive leaders in electoral politics.All of us must become a pro-democracy movement – with all the passion and tenacity that movements require.Even so, I see a new progressive era dawning in America and I don’t believe Trump Republicans can hold back the tide.For one thing, I see the strongest support for unions since the 1960s. Last year, at least 457,000 workers participated in a record 315 strikes in the US – and won most with contracts providing higher wages and better benefits.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOver the past 18 months, graduate student-teachers and research assistants at Berkeley, MIT and Caltech have voted overwhelmingly to unionize. The United Auto Workers has scored signal victories for autoworkers, as has the Teamsters for UPS workers. Hell, even Dartmouth College’s men’s basketball team has voted to unionize.Microsoft just agreed not to oppose unionization efforts. Starbucks – which has spent the last two and a half years employing union-busting attorneys and refusing to bargain with any of the roughly 400 outlets that have voted to go union – has just agreed to do the same.Here’s the bottom line: the majority of Americans view today’s record-breaking inequalities of income and wealth as dangerous. They believe government has no business forcing women to give birth or telling consenting adults how to conduct the most intimate aspects of their lives.They want to limit access to guns. They see the climate crisis as an existential threat to the nation and the world. They want to act against systemic racism. They don’t want innocent civilians killed, whether on our streets or in Gaza. They don’t want to give Putin a free hand. They want to protect American democracy from authoritarianism.The giant millennial generation – a larger cohort than the boomers – is the most progressive cohort in recent history. They’ve faced an inequitable economic system, a runaway climate crisis, and the herculean costs of trying to have a family – including everything from unaffordable childcare to wildly unaffordable housing. They’re demanding a more equitable and sustainable society because they desperately need one.Young women have become significantly more progressive over the past decade (even if young men have remained largely unchanged). They’re more likely than ever to support LGBTQ+ rights, gay or lesbian couples as parents, men staying home with children and women serving in the military. And more likely to loathe Donald Trump and any politician who emulates him.Over the next two decades, young women will be moving into positions of greater power and leadership. They now compose a remarkable 60% of college undergraduates.Meanwhile, the United States is projected to become a majority-minority nation within around two decades.This is not to say that just because someone is a person of color means that they believe in all the progressive values I mention above, of course. Yet overall, people of color are deeply concerned about the nation’s widening inequalities. They’re committed to social justice. They want to act against systemic racism, and they want to protect American democracy.Unsurprisingly, these trends have ignited a backlash – especially among Americans who are older, whiter, straighter, without college degrees, and male. These Americans have become susceptible to an authoritarian strongman peddling conspiracy theories and stoking hatred.Trump Republicans want us to be discouraged. They want us to despair. That’s part of their strategy. They figure that if we’re pessimistic enough, we won’t even fight – and they’ll win everything.But I believe their backlash is doomed. The Republican party has become a regressive cesspool, headed by increasingly unmoored people who are utterly out of touch with the dominant and emerging values of America. And most Americans are catching on.I don’t mean to be a Pollyanna. We’re in the fight of our lives. It will demand a great deal of our energy, our time, and our courage. But this fight is critical and noble. It will set the course for America and the world for decades. And it is winnable.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Brett Kavanaugh knows truth of alleged sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford says in book

      by

      The US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh is not a “consummately honest person” and “must know” what really happened on the night more than 40 years ago when he allegedly sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser writes in an eagerly awaited memoir.A research psychologist from northern California, Ford was thrust into the spotlight in September 2018 as Kavanaugh, a Bush aide turned federal judge, became Donald Trump’s second conservative court nominee. Her allegations almost derailed Kavanaugh’s appointment and created headlines around the world.Ford’s memoir, One Way Back, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.“The fact is, he was there in the room with me that night in 1982,” Ford writes. “And I believe he knows what happened. Even if it’s hazy from the alcohol, I believe he must know.“Once he categorically denied my allegations as well as any bad behavior from his past during a Fox News interview, I felt more certainty than ever that after my experience with him, he had not gone on to become the consummately honest person befitting a supreme court justice.”Kavanaugh’s nomination became mired in controversy after a Washington Post interview in which Ford said Kavanaugh, while drunk, sexually assaulted her at a party in Montgomery county, Maryland, when they were both in high school.“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” Ford, then 51, told the Post. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”Kavanaugh vehemently denied the accusation, helping fuel hearing-room rancor not seen since the 1991 confirmation of Clarence Thomas, a rightwinger accused of sexually harassing a co-worker, Anita Hill.Supported by Republicans and Trump, Kavanaugh rode out the storm to join Thomas on the court. Trump would later add another conservative, Amy Coney Barrett, tipping the court 6-3 to the right. That court has since passed down major rightwing rulings, most prominently removing the federal right to abortion.In her book, Ford says she thought Kavanaugh might “step down to avoid putting his family through an investigation or further scrutiny”, adding that she wanted to tell him he should “save us both the trouble”, because “I don’t want this as much as you don’t want this”.She has been asked, she says, what she would have done if Kavanaugh had “reached out and apologised”.She writes: “Who would he be apologising to – me? The country? What would he be apologising for – that night? The harassment [of Ford by Trump supporters] around the testimony?“All I can guess is that if he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general … I might’ve wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know what, he was a jackass in high school but now he’s not.’“But when my story came out and he flat-out denied any possibility of every single thing I said, it did alleviate a little of my guilt. For me, the question of whether he had changed was answered. Any misgivings about him being a good person went away.”Ford says she decided to press through the difficulties of coming forward – meeting Democratic senators opposed to Kavanaugh, being grilled by Republicans supporting him, becoming famous herself – because of the importance of the court.She writes: “Honestly, if it hadn’t been the supreme court – if my attacker had been running for a local office, for example – I probably wouldn’t have said anything.Calling this “a sad, scary thing to admit”, Ford adds: “But this was a job at one of our most revered institutions, which we have historically held in the highest esteem. That’s what I learned at school.”Saying she was “thinking and behaving according to principle”, she adds: “I was under the impression (delusion?) that almost everyone else viewed it from the same perspective.“Wasn’t it inarguable that a supreme court justice should be held to the highest standard? A presidency you could win, but to be a supreme court justice, you needed to live your perfection. These nine people make decisions that affect every person in the country. I figured the application process should be as thorough as possible, and perhaps I could be a letter of (non)reference.”Ford also describes occasions on which she discussed the alleged attack as Kavanaugh rose to prominence. As well as conversations in therapy reported by the Post, she cites others triggered by high-profile events.Among such moments, Ford says, were the 1991 Thomas hearings in which Hill was brutally grilled by senators of both parties; a 2016 criminal case in which a Stanford swimmer was convicted of sexual assault but given a light sentence; and the #MeToo movement of 2017, in which women’s stories of sexual assault led to convictions of prominent men.After Kavanaugh was named as a potential supreme court nominee, Ford contacted Anna Eshoo, her Democratic California congresswoman, and the Post. She may have inadvertently leaked her identity, she writes, by contacting a tip line using her own phone. Either way, she was soon at the centre of a political hurricane.“I never, ever wanted [Kavanaugh’s] family to suffer,” Ford writes, adding: “When my allegations came out publicly, the media started reporting that he was getting threats. It troubled me a lot.“Then I remembered that I’d already had to move to a hotel because of the threats to me and my family. Again and again I thought, ‘Why is he putting us all through this? Why can’t he call those people off? Say something – anything – to condemn the harassment happening on both sides?”Kavanaugh, she writes, was at the mercy of rightwing interests pushing for his confirmation. Ultimately, she says, he should have expected “a thorough review of [his] entire history to be part of” becoming a justice.“If you can’t handle that,” Ford writes, “then maybe you’re not qualified for the job.” More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden and Trump clinch nominations, sealing presidential rematch in 2024 election

      by

      Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump won primary elections in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state on Tuesday, soldidifying a rematch a majority of voters aren’t looking forward to.Both men captured nearly all the votes cast so far in what had become token state primaries, along with the primary for Democrats Abroad and the Republican caucus in Hawaii. Biden also won the Northern Mariana Islands primary Tuesday morning, earning 11 delegates.In Georgia, a nascent effort to register opposition to the Biden administration’s support for the war in Gaza could not be easily expressed with “no preference” protest votes in Georgia, because the ballot does not provide a way to do so. One woman in Roswell, Georgia described voting for Representative Dean Phillips, who dropped out of the Democratic contest last week, as a substitute.“I voted a protest vote against the war in Gaza because I think it is horrible what is happening and I’m ashamed of my country right now,” said Robin Hawking, 56, a software developer from Roswell. She said she is normally a Republican voter. “I’m hoping if enough people vote for not-Biden, he’ll get the message that he’s going to lose this election unless he does a cease fire.”Uchenna Nwosu, a gynecologist, said her decision was a no-brainer.“It’s clear that I couldn’t vote for somebody who repealed women’s rights for abortion, for instance, for healthcare,” she said. “I don’t know why Trump should be in the race. I mean, that alone is a good reason. He doesn’t stand for anything that I stand for. So that’s it.”Trump ran unopposed in Georgia, though other names appeared still appeared on the ballot, attracting a few voters.Scott Carpenter of Roswell voted for former ambassador Nikki Haley because he hated Trump, he said. He voted for Biden in 2020. “I don’t like Trump. I don’t like Biden. I just wanted a different choice,” he said.Travis Foreman, 46, an attorney in Alpharetta, said he thought Trump was good for America and expressed frustration with the Democratic party.“I don’t agree with the party and some of their core beliefs,” Foreman said, adding that he’s voted Democratic and independent during his life. “And it’s hard for me as a preacher’s kid from South Georgia to just agree with some of their core fundamental beliefs that they want me to. A whole gender ideology, movement – I just have a problem with it. I don’t mind what anyone chooses to do with their lives and how they live their lives, but don’t try to force me to accept certain things against my own principles. It just came to me that’s the No 1 issue.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden won enough delegates in Georgia almost immediately to win the Democratic nomination, which required 1,968 on the first ballot to win.“Four years ago, I ran for president because I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. Because of the American people, we won that battle, and now I am honored that the broad coalition of voters representing the rich diversity of the Democratic party across the country have put their faith in me once again to lead our party – and our country – in a moment when the threat Trump poses is greater than ever,” he said in a statement.Trump was also on track to secure the required 1,215 delegates needed for the Republican nomination. More