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      ‘Trump is inconsistent with Christian principles’: why the Democratic party is seeing a rise of white clergy candidates

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      He grew up on a farm in Indiana, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty, a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.Two decades later, Justin Douglas is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat.He is among around 30 Christian white clergy – pastors, seminary students and other faith leaders – known to be potential Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections, including a dozen who are already in the race. While stressing the separation of church and state, many say that on a personal level their faith is calling them into the political arena.The trend marks a break from a traditional racial divide. Whereas Black pastors who run for office are typically Democrats, their white counterparts are usually Republicans, reflecting the strength of the religious right and the party’s dominance among evangelical voters.Douglas, 41, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is among a new generation of the Christian left aiming to change that narrative by ensuring that the Democratic brand is not associated with only college-educated urbanites, but can also connect with white working-class churchgoers.“We’ve seen Democrats time and time again sell out working-class people and we’ve seen Democrats time and time again look like liberal elitists who are looking down on people who think going to church on Sunday is a core part of their life,” said Douglas, who has been in ministry for more than 20 years. “Some people might feel judged for that.“But I also think the stereotypes of Republicans being pro-faith are bullshit too. We’re seeing a current administration bastardise faith almost every day. They used the Lord’s Prayer in a propaganda video for what they’re now calling the Department of War. That should have had every single evangelical’s bells and whistles and alarms going off in their head: this is sacrilegious.“But unfortunately, sometimes, when you’re in it, you can’t see it and it takes somebody who has an ability to communicate to that audience, to help show that you’re being manipulated.”For decades, many white Christians were not partisan and often voted Democratic, especially in the south. But by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Democratic party’s identity was shifting toward civil rights, feminism and secular liberalism. Many white conservative Christians felt increasingly alienated from the party they had long inhabited.The racial divide can in part be traced to the mid-1970s when the Internal Revenue Service began removing tax-exempt status from private schools that discriminated by race. Conservative Christian leaders such as Jerry Falwell saw this as federal overreach and seized on abortion as an issue that could be framed in religious and political terms.Falwell’s organisation the Moral Majority used abortion as a broader symbol of moral decline alongside feminism, sex education and gay rights. His followers then felt betrayed when Jimmy Carter, the first evangelical Christian to occupy the White House, failed to pursue their priorities.View image in fullscreenThey defected to Republican Ronald Reagan, and, by the end of the 1980s, white evangelicals had become one of the most consistently Republican voting blocs, even as Black churchgoers remained loyal to Democrats. That has persisted over the past decade under Donald Trump, seen by critics as vulgar and unchristian but by supporters as a blunt instrument to defend a church under siege by a godless liberal culture.Whereas Carter earned 60% of the white evangelical vote in 1976, fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton gained only a 16% share in 2016. It was a troubling realignment that caught the eye of Doug Pagitt, a pastor and executive director of the progressive Christian group Vote Common Good.He said: “That’s not natural. That’s not just a policy change. There was something more significant going on. It’s been a two-sided effort. Republicans have oriented themselves primarily around religious voter identity and Democrats have set aside religious voter identity, including the fact that in 1992 Democrats removed from the voter access file the category of religious identity.”Pagitt said Charlie Kirk’s organisation Turning Point USA was vital in turning out young Christian voters for Trump last year: “The difference couldn’t be more stark, which is why white clergy running for office is such a big deal when they’re running as Democrats in Iowa, in Arkansas, in Pennsylvania, in California.”Trump’s first election was the trigger for a new wave of white clergy to overcome fears of being seen as partisan and run for elected office. Pagitt added: “After 2016 and 2018, a whole lot of people started thinking: ‘Hey, maybe running for office is something we should actually do.’“Few people are surprised when Raphael Warnock says: ‘I’m a working pastor at Ebenezer Baptist church.’ He comes from the Martin Luther King tradition, from that pulpit, and it made sense: people are like: ‘Yeah, of course a Black clergyman’s going to run as a Democrat.’ But when a white woman pastor in Iowa says, ‘I’m going to run as a Democrat,’ it’s a real statement. It’s taken some of these people a little while to get comfortable with the fact that they are going to be partisan.”Vote Common Good was founded in response to a schism created by the election of Trump, which left many religious people feeling “politically homeless”. The group operates as a “dating service”, connecting these voters with Democrats and non-Maga Republicans. The group will spend time in 50 congressional districts this year helping candidates meet faith voters and leaders in their districts.Douglas is a county commissioner looking to unseat Republican Scott Perry in Pennsylvania’s 10th district. But he was previously the lead pastor of a growing church that allowed LGBTQ+ individuals to participate fully in its community; over the course of a year, this developed into a huge bone of contention and in 2019 Douglas eventually lost his licence. He had to find a new house and go from one job to three jobs including driving an Uber and CrossFit coaching. He started a new church that is still operating today.Douglas recalls: “I paid the price for standing with the LGBTQ+ people. I would do it again. It taught me that doing what’s right is often costly but always necessary, and everyone deserves to be safe, respected and fully included. That’s not a religious belief. It’s a human belief that I have.”James Talarico, a Texas state representative and a 36-year-old part-time seminary student who has amassed a sizable social media following – has become an unlikely standard-bearer in the Democrats’ 2026 Senate primary.In a series of social media posts, he deploys scripture to champion the poor and vulnerable while castigating Republicans for what he casts as their drift towards Christian nationalism and corporate interests. He asked in one: “Instead of posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom, why don’t they post, ‘Money is the root of all evil’ in every boardroom?”View image in fullscreenIn Iowa, state representative Sarah Trone Garriott, an Evangelical Lutheran pastor, is seeking her party’s nod to challenge Republican incumbent Zach Nunn in what is already billed as one of the nation’s marquee congressional races.In Arkansas, Robb Ryerse, a Christian pastor and former Republican, is mounting a challenge to representative Steve Womack, adopting the slogan “Faith, Family & Freedom” – rhetoric more commonly found in Republican campaign literature.Ryerse, 50, from Springdale, Arkansas, said: “I joke sometimes that the two people who have changed my life more than any others are Jesus and Donald Trump, for very different reasons. Donald Trump is absolutely inconsistent with Christian principles of love and compassion, justice, looking out for the poor, meeting the needs of the marginalised.“But Donald Trump has also used and been used by so many evangelical leaders who want political power. He has used them to validate him to their followers and they have used him to further their agenda, which has been a Christian nationalist culture war on the United States, which I think is bad for both the church and for the country.”White clergy are deciding to run for office, Ryerse believes, in part as a response to the rise of Christian nationalism and the reality that, according to a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey, Trump won 85% of the white evangelical vote in last year’s presidential election.Ryerse said: “We realise, hey, our churches and the people in our churches have been duped by this guy and so rather than hope someone else will clean up the problem, what we’ve seen is a lot of pastors respond with, you know what, I’m going to jump in and I’m going to be a part of the solution.“On a more positive note, there’s also that notion we need to do something for the common good. There’s so much alignment between what I believe personally is good for my neighbour, what it means to love my neighbour, and how that aligns with what public policy ought to be.” More

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      Republicans are regimented. Democrats are undisciplined. Just look at the shutdown | Robert Reich

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      Chuck Schumer couldn’t hold his senators together at a time when their unity and toughness were essential. And at a time when they were winning: most of the public was blaming Republicans for the shutdown, and pressure was growing to reopen the government (flight delays were mounting).Does this mean Schumer should go? Yes.But the issue runs deeper. There’s a fundamental asymmetry at the heart of American politics. Democrats are undisciplined. Republicans are regimented.For as long as I remember, Democrats have danced to their own separate music while Republicans march to a single drummer.That was the story in 1994, when Democrats had control over both chambers of Congress, but Bill Clinton couldn’t get the Democratic Senate to go along with his healthcare plan, on which Clinton spent almost all his political capital.And again in 2002, when most Democratic senators voted for George W Bush’s resolution to use military force against Iraq.It happened under Joe Biden, when Democrats again controlled both chambers but Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema blocked Biden’s agenda.And now, when Senate Democrats finally have some bargaining power to force Republicans to restore expiring healthcare subsidies that could send millions of Americans’ insurance prices soaring next year, what happens? They cave.I don’t want to over-generalize. Of course, Democrats have on occasion shown discipline while Republicans have fought one another bitterly.But overall – and even before Trump – Democrats have tended to cave or come apart when the going gets tough, and Republicans have held firm.Why? Because of a psychological-structural difference between the two parties.Democrats pride themselves on having a “big tent” holding all sorts of conflicting views.Republicans pride themselves on having strong leaders.People who run for office as Democrats are, as a rule, more tolerant of dissent than are people who run for office as Republicans.Modern-day Democrats believe in diversity, E Pluribus. Republicans believe in unity, Unum.Research by the linguist George Lakoff has shown that Democrats represent the nurturing mother in our brains: accepting, embracing, empathic. Republicans represent the strict father: controlling, disciplining, limiting.This asymmetry helps explain why the Democrat’s “brand” has been weak relative to the Republican brand, why Democrats often appear spineless while Republicans appear adamant, and why the Democratic message is often unclear while the Republican message is usually sharper.Even during the shutdown, when Democrats demanded legislation that would reduce healthcare costs next year, polls showed voters still favoring Republicans on the economy and cost of living. Why? Because the Democratic message was so garbled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionI don’t mean this as either criticism or justification of Democrats. I offer it as an explanation.As the US has grown ever more unequal and contentious, people who identify as Democrats tend to place a high value on the tenets of democracy, in my experience: equal political rights, equal opportunity and the rule of law. That’s unambiguously good.People who identify as Trump Republicans tend to place a high value on the tenets of authoritarianism: order, control and patriarchy. In fact, Trump authoritarianism is the logical endpoint of modern Republicanism.A majority of the current supreme court, composed of Republican appointees, is coming down on the side of order, control and patriarchy – which they justify under the constitutional fiction of a “unified executive” – rather than equal political rights, equal opportunity and the rule of law.None of this lets Chuck Schumer off the hook. He failed to keep Senate Democrats in line at a critical time. And none of what I’ve said exonerates the seven Senate Democrats and one independent who broke ranks to join with the Republicans.The lesson here is not that Democrats should become more authoritarian, especially now, when Trump Republicans are threatening the basic principles of American democracy.The real lesson is that when we – voters who support Democrats in Congress – want them to hang tough, we need to force them to hang tough.Republican voters can pretty much assume their senators and representatives will be unified and tough because that’s what Republicans do: they march to the same drummer (who these days sits in the Oval Office).But Democrats cannot and should not make this assumption. When we want our senators and representatives to be unified and tough, we must let them know in no uncertain terms that we expect them to be unified and tough. We must demand it.And if they’re not, we must hold them accountable.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now More

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      Democrat Eric Swalwell faces federal criminal inquiry for alleged mortgage fraud

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      The Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell is the latest target of Trump’s retribution campaign against his critics, the congressman confirmed on Thursday.NBC News reports that Swalwell is facing a federal criminal investigation for alleged mortgage fraud, just as three other Democratic officials have faced in recent months. The outlet says the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a letter to the attorney general claiming Swalwell may have committed mortgage and tax fraud.Swalwell said in a statement: “As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me.”The move is the latest in Trump’s ongoing retribution campaign, in which he is pushing for criminal charges against his enemies and issuing executive orders that punish those who have worked against him.Trump has gone after the New York attorney general, Leticia James, Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and Senator Adam Schiff, all with claims of mortgage fraud originating from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He posted on Truth Social a public note of pressure to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to bring charges against his critics. James has been charged and is fighting the allegations.In separate instances, the former FBI director James Comey was indicted for allegedly making a false statement and obstructing a congressional investigation during a testimony to Congress in 2020, and former national security adviser John Bolton was charged over mishandling classified materials.“Like James Comey and John Bolton, Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, Letitia James and the dozens more to come – I refuse to live in fear in what was once the freest country in the world,” Swalwell said. “As Mark Twain said, ‘Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.’ Mr. President, do better. Be Better.”The referral to the justice department “alleges several million dollars worth of loans and refinancing based on Swalwell declaring his primary residence as Washington” and says Swalwell should be investigated for a host of potential fraud crimes, according to NBC News. More

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      The Guardian view on Trump and Epstein: the truth about Maga and its conspiracy theories | Editorial

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      It is 20 years since Florida police first investigated the financier Jeffrey Epstein for the sexual abuse of underage girls; six years since he killed himself in prison following his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges; and more than a year since Donald Trump said that he would have “no problem” with releasing the FBI files on the offender.As the Democratic politician Ro Khanna noted, releasing the files “was core to Trump’s promise … It was his central theme that the American corrupt elite had betrayed forgotten Americans”. The question is not only what Epstein’s associates did, but also what they knew and what they did not do. It is not only about their own behaviour, but about any knowledge or suspicion of his crimes, and willingness to overlook them.Yet the Maga base is still waiting. Mr Trump has said that he had “no idea” about Epstein’s crimes. On Wednesday, questions were reignited by the Democrats’ release of emails in which Epstein described Mr Trump as “that dog that hasn’t barked”, adding that “[victim’s name redacted] spent hours at my house with him”. Republicans said the victim was the late Virginia Giuffre, who told lawyers that “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything”. Separately, Epstein wrote that “of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine [Maxwell] to stop” and that “Trump knew of it” but “he never got a massage”.Mr Trump, who has mainstreamed and legitimised conspiracy politics and the championing of emotion over fact, attacks the issue as a “hoax”. The very people who urged Maga supporters to pursue this story – such as Kash Patel, now FBI chief – abruptly changed their minds this year without adequate explanation. Republicans released thousands of documents in response to the emails published by Democrats. But Mr Trump faces a bipartisan demand for the full release of the files, with members of the Maga far right joining Democrats.The Republicans took a drubbing in off-year elections last week, and Mr Trump’s approval rating is the lowest of this term. The ending of the longest government shutdown in history – after a handful of Democrats folded on Wednesday – relieved the White House, but opens the way for a vote on releasing the files, expected next week.Mr Trump has shaken off troubles that would have ended any other political career – including E Jean Carroll’s successful civil suit against him for sexual abuse (which he is again asking the supreme court to dismiss) and two dozen allegations of sexual assault, which he denies. The full release of documents might aid him: the slow drip of information has kept the scandal running and made it look, rightly or wrongly, as if the administration has something worse to hide.For the Maga base, previously fired up by lurid and false “Pizzagate” claims of a paedophile ring connected to the Democratic political elite, this remains a burning issue. Their claims about Epstein’s circle have at times been partisan, provably wrong and antisemitic. Yet it’s hard to deny that the mills of justice usually grind slower when the rich and well-connected are involved, and that powerful figures who benefited from a relationship with Epstein, such as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson, have sought to avoid scrutiny and minimise their ties. It took the courage of victims and dogged reporting to make Epstein accountable, and it took far too long. A fuller reckoning for his associates – from across the political spectrum – is overdue.

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      US government reopens after shutdown with House to vote on Epstein files next week – politics live

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      Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, said on Wednesday he would put the bill compelling the release of government files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the House floor next week.“We are gonna put that on the floor for [a] full vote next week, [as] soon as we get back,” Johnson told reporters, as the chamber gathered to debate legislation to reopen the government.Johnson, who opposes the bill, made the announcement just hours after swearing in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who took her oath of office seven weeks after she won a late September special election to succeed her father, the longtime representative Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.Grijalva’s swearing-in cleared the path for the vote to release the Epstein files, as she became the 218th and final signature on a discharge petition that automatically triggers a House floor vote on legislation demanding the justice department release the files. In her floor remarks on Wednesday, Grijalva said:
      Justice cannot wait another day. Adelante.
      Under the rules governing discharge petitions, Johnson would not have been mandated to require a vote until early December, so his announcement that the vote would take place next week is earlier than expected.Even if the bill passes the House, it still needs to get through the Senate and be signed by Trump. Senate leaders have shown no indication they will bring it up for a vote, and Trump has decried the effort as a “Democrat hoax”.More on this story in a moment, but first here are some other key developments in US politics:

      A tranche of documents released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday revealed that Jeffrey Epstein’s staff kept him apprised of Donald Trump’s air travel as it related to his own transportation – and that the late sex trafficker kept up with news about his former friend years after their relationship soured. This disclosure of about 20,000 pages from Republican members of the committee related to Epstein comes as Trump continues to battle with the political fallout related to their past friendship – and his justice department’s failure to release documents as he had long promised on the campaign trail.

      The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. Trump signed the bill into law on Wednesday night. The legislation comes in the wake of a Senate-brokered compromise in which a handful of Democrats voted to forego the extension of expiring healthcare subsidies, which have been at the heart of the long impasse.

      Trump has said he feels he has “an obligation” to sue the BBC over its editing of one of his speeches, as a deadline looms for the corporation to respond to his billion-dollar legal threat. The US president accused the broadcaster of having “defrauded the public” with an edition of Panorama last year that spliced together two parts of a speech he made on 6 January 2021 and has given it until Friday to respond.

      Trump has repeated a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases. The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. No rulings have been delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated.
      After 42-day standoff, government is back open – and the minority party won no concessions from the party in power, writes Guardian US’ senior politics reporter Chris Stein in this analysis piece:The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. You can see how lawmakers voted via this interactive:The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators. The legislation restarts federal operations but does not include the healthcare funding the minority party demanded.You can watch the Guardian’s video report on it here:The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators.The compromise sets the stage for government operations to return to normal through January, while leaving unresolved the issue of expiring tax credits for Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare health plans, which most Democrats demanded be extended in any deal to reopen the government.After it was unveiled over the weekend, the Senate approved the compromise on Monday, and the House followed suit two days later by a margin of 222 in favor and 209 against, with two not voting. Donald Trump signed the bill on Wednesday night, saying “we’re sending a clear message that we will never give in to extortion, because that’s what it was … the Democrats tried to extort our country”.Six Democrats broke with their party to vote for the bill: Adam Gray of California, Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Jared Golden of Maine. Two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida, voted against it.House Republican leadership said in a statement:
      The Democrat shutdown is finally over thanks to House and Senate Republicans.
      There is absolutely no question now that Democrats are responsible for millions of American families going hungry, millions of travelers left stranded in airports, and our troops left wondering if they would receive their next paycheck.
      In remarks on the House floor shortly before the vote, the Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had pledged to continue to press for the subsidies’ extensions.He said:
      This fight is not over. We’re just getting started.
      Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year, or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J Trump once and for all. That’s how this fight ends.
      The spending standoff was the biggest battle between congressional Democrats and Republicans since Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. It resulted in unprecedented disruptions to government services, with the Trump administration ordering cuts to commercial air travel across the country, and the first-ever halt to the largest federal food aid program.Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, said on Wednesday he would put the bill compelling the release of government files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the House floor next week.“We are gonna put that on the floor for [a] full vote next week, [as] soon as we get back,” Johnson told reporters, as the chamber gathered to debate legislation to reopen the government.Johnson, who opposes the bill, made the announcement just hours after swearing in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who took her oath of office seven weeks after she won a late September special election to succeed her father, the longtime representative Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.Grijalva’s swearing-in cleared the path for the vote to release the Epstein files, as she became the 218th and final signature on a discharge petition that automatically triggers a House floor vote on legislation demanding the justice department release the files. In her floor remarks on Wednesday, Grijalva said:
      Justice cannot wait another day. Adelante.
      Under the rules governing discharge petitions, Johnson would not have been mandated to require a vote until early December, so his announcement that the vote would take place next week is earlier than expected.Even if the bill passes the House, it still needs to get through the Senate and be signed by Trump. Senate leaders have shown no indication they will bring it up for a vote, and Trump has decried the effort as a “Democrat hoax”.More on this story in a moment, but first here are some other key developments in US politics:

      A tranche of documents released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday revealed that Jeffrey Epstein’s staff kept him apprised of Donald Trump’s air travel as it related to his own transportation – and that the late sex trafficker kept up with news about his former friend years after their relationship soured. This disclosure of about 20,000 pages from Republican members of the committee related to Epstein comes as Trump continues to battle with the political fallout related to their past friendship – and his justice department’s failure to release documents as he had long promised on the campaign trail.

      The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. Trump signed the bill into law on Wednesday night. The legislation comes in the wake of a Senate-brokered compromise in which a handful of Democrats voted to forego the extension of expiring healthcare subsidies, which have been at the heart of the long impasse.

      Trump has said he feels he has “an obligation” to sue the BBC over its editing of one of his speeches, as a deadline looms for the corporation to respond to his billion-dollar legal threat. The US president accused the broadcaster of having “defrauded the public” with an edition of Panorama last year that spliced together two parts of a speech he made on 6 January 2021 and has given it until Friday to respond.

      Trump has repeated a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases. The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. No rulings have been delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated. More

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      Democrats sift through shutdown’s ashes after resistance finally breached

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      More than 42 days ago, beleaguered congressional Democrats employed a tactic they were not known for using – refusing to fund the government unless their demands, in this case, an extension of tax credits that lowered costs for Affordable Care Act health plans, were met.Fast forward to Wednesday evening, and the federal government is back open, the Democrats’ resistance breached by the combined forces of Congress’s Republican majorities and a splinter group of Democratic senators who provided just enough votes to get a funding bill past the chamber’s filibuster.The minority party’s lawmakers are now sifting through the ashes of what wound up being the longest government shutdown in history. Though it was the Republicans whose demands fueled other recent funding lapses, this one ended just like those did: with the minority party winning no concessions from the party in power.And yet, many Democrats are calling it a win anyway, arguing it gave them an opportunity to prove to voters that, despite accusations to the contrary, they are still capable of putting up a fight in Donald Trump’s Washington.“I hope that people in America will see those of us who are willing to stand, and hold the line for them,” said Pennsylvania congresswoman Summer Lee.Nor do they plan to let the issue rest any time soon.“These are choices that are being made,” said Wesley Bell, who may after next year be the only Democratic congressman in Missouri, if the state’s Republican-friendly gerrymander is allowed to stand.“[Republicans] have the majorities in the House, Senate and the presidency, and if they wanted to address the skyrocketing health care costs, they have the ability to do it, and they have a willing partner in Democrats,” he said.The spending standoff was a turnaround from months that the party spent seeing its priorities mauled by the ascendant Republican government, enabled by a conservative-dominated supreme court. The country’s main foreign aid agency was closed, droves of federal workers were fired or urged to resign, the premier federal health program for poor and disabled Americans was downsized and tax cuts directed at businesses and the wealthy were extended forever.Democratic-aligned groups succeeded in getting millions of people to take to the streets in protests nationwide against what they saw as Trump’s executive overreach, but the brutal realities of their poor showing in the 2024 election were unavoidable. Democratic lawmakers had few avenues in Congress to block Trump’s policies, and the supreme court repeatedly turned back legal challenges to his orders.Then Congress was asked to extend the government’s funding authorization beyond the end of September, when it was set to expire, and Democrats saw their chance to issue an ultimatum. The current Affordable Care Act tax credits, which were created under Joe Biden, were to expire at the end of the year, and they wanted them extended. They also wanted the cuts to Medicaid reversed, and an undoing of Trump’s use of rescissions to slash congressionally approved funding.It was strategic ground to make a stand, for Democrats had long put healthcare at the center of their pitch to voters. In the end, all they got in the deal that reopened the government was a promise from John Thune, the Senate majority leader, to hold a vote on a bill to reauthorize the credits. There’s no telling if enough Republicans will support it to pass the chamber, if House Republican leaders would allow it to come up for a vote, or if Trump would sign it.The party may have reaped rewards that are less tangible. Polls consistently showed voters putting more blame on the GOP for the shutdown than the Democrats. Last week, the party swept off-year elections in several states, in part by flipping voters who had turned out for Trump last year.The choice of tactics nonetheless disquieted some in the party. As the shutdown went on, Trump moved to halt payments of the government’s largest food aid program, while federal workers missed paychecks.North Carolina congressman Don Davis, one of six Democrats who voted for the funding bill that ended the shutdown in the House of Representatives, said tales of hardship from his constituents convinced him it was time to end the standoff.“I had a person, a constituent, talking to me, literally in tears. That’s not what I want,” he said. Republicans in North Carolina’s senate recently passed a new congressional map that will make his district more difficult to win next year.All signs point to the reauthorization of government funding being merely a lull in the larger war over healthcare in the United States.The funding bill Congress passed keeps the government open only through January, meaning Democrats could issue another set of demands for their votes then. Just before the House voted to restart funding on Wednesday evening, Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries made clear the party was not letting this defeat deter them.“We will stay on this issue until we get this issue resolved for everyday Americans,” he said. More

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      Trump signs funding bill to end longest US government shutdown

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      The longest US government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday after more than 42 days, following the House of Representative’s passage of a bill negotiated by Republicans and a splinter group of Democrat-aligned senators.The compromise sets the stage for government operations to return to normal through January, while leaving unresolved the issue of expiring tax credits for Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare health plans, which most Democrats demanded be extended in any deal to reopen the government.After it was unveiled over the weekend, the Senate approved the compromise on Monday, and the House followed suit two days later by a margin of 222 in favor and 209 against, with two not voting. Donald Trump signed the bill on Wednesday night, saying “we’re sending a clear message that we will never give in to extortion, because that’s what it was … the Democrats tried to extort our country”.Six Democrats broke with their party to vote for the bill: Adam Gray of California, Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Jared Golden of Maine. Two Republicans, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida, voted against it.“The Democrat shutdown is finally over thanks to House and Senate Republicans,” House Republican leadership said in a statement.“There is absolutely no question now that Democrats are responsible for millions of American families going hungry, millions of travelers left stranded in airports, and our troops left wondering if they would receive their next paycheck.”In remarks on the House floor shortly before the vote, the Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had pledged to continue to press for the subsidies’ extensions.“This fight is not over. We’re just getting started,” he said. “Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year, or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J Trump once and for all. That’s how this fight ends.”The spending standoff was the biggest battle between congressional Democrats and Republicans since Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. It resulted in unprecedented disruptions to government services, with the Trump administration ordering cuts to commercial air travel across the country, and the first-ever halt to the largest federal food aid program.Reeling from their election defeats last year, Democrats had seized on an end-of-September expiration of government funding to make a stand on healthcare, a signature issue of the party over the past decade and a half. The Obamacare tax credits were created during Joe Biden’s presidency, and lowered premiums for enrollers of plans bought under the law.Democrats wanted them extended as part of any deal to continue government funding. The party made other demands as well, including curbs on Trump’s use of rescissions to slash money Congress had previously authorized and an undoing of cuts to Medicaid which Republicans had approved earlier in the year. But as the battle went on, it became clear that an extension of the subsidies was the main objective.Republicans, who control both the House and the Senate, counter-offered with a bill to fund the government through the third week of November, without any spending cuts or major changes to policy. They passed the measure through the lower chamber with only a single Democrat in support, but the minority used the Senate’s filibuster to block its passage there.The shutdown began on 1 October, resulting in around 700,000 federal workers being furloughed. Hundreds of thousands of others, from active duty military to law enforcement to airport security screeners, remained on the job without pay.Russell Vought, the White House office of management and budget director known for his hostility towards the federal workforce, seized on the funding lapse to order further layoffs of government employees. He also cut funding for infrastructure projects in states that voted for Kamala Harris last year.Though Trump ordered military members be paid in a move that many experts called likely illegal, other federal workers missed paychecks. Food banks began reporting increased demand as the shutdown went on, with the need worsening after the White House halted payments under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, citing the government funding lapse.Last week, Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, ordered a cutback in flights at US airports, saying air traffic controllers were facing unprecedented strain after weeks of unpaid work. Widespread flight cancellations were reported in the days that followed.In the Senate, most Democrats remained onboard with the party’s strategy for weeks. Senate majority leader John Thune held 14 votes on the GOP funding measure, but only three members of the minority caucus ever broke ranks to support it.In early November, Democrats swept off-year elections, winning gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey by significant margins, as well as voter approval for new congressional maps in California that will help the party’s candidates.Democratic leaders said the wins vindicated their strategy in the funding fight, a statement Trump echoed, saying “the shutdown is a big factor” in the GOP’s poor performance. He began pressing Republican senators to scrap the filibuster, which would have negated the 60-vote threshold spending legislation needs to clear in the chamber, where the GOP holds 53 seats.Meanwhile, a small group of moderate members of the Senate Democratic caucus had been negotiating a compromise to end the shutdown. It ended up funding the government through January and undoing the layoffs the Trump administration had ordered after the shutdown began.But it included no additional funding for the Affordable Care Act tax credits – instead, Thune agreed to allow a vote on the issue by mid-December. There’s no telling if it will win the GOP support needed to pass, and Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has not said he will put any legislation up for a vote.Despite howls of outrage from both House and Senate Democrats, the Senate passed it with 60 votes on Monday: eight from lawmakers in the Democratic caucus, and the rest from Republicans.Yet the fight over the ACA subsidies is unlikely to be over. Enrollers in the plans received notices of premium increases in November because of the tax credits’ expiration. One study predicted they would rise by an average of 26%, potentially bringing them to levels unaffordable to many.With government funding expiring again at the end of January, Democrats could use the opportunity to again demand the subsidies be extended.“Dozens of House Republicans have been claiming over the last few weeks that they know that is something that needs to be addressed,” Jeffries said in a Tuesday interview with CNN.“And now we’re going to have to see some action or whether it was just talk from these House Republicans because Democrats are going to continue to stay in the arena as it relates to dealing with the healthcare crisis that Republicans have visited on the American people.” More