Democrats

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Are Black voters abandoning the Democratic party? | Steve Phillips

      by

      Are Black voters gravitating towards Donald Trump in meaningful numbers? Recent polls and articles, most notably the New York Times/Siena College poll, have set off alarm bells across the country with their survey results finding the former president garnering historic levels of support among African American voters.The short answer is no, there is little credible evidence showing a meaningful shift in the levels of support Black voters give to Democrats. The longer answer is that the current chorus of media concern illuminates serious shortcomings in polling methodology, political interpretation of polling data, and the responsible communication of information to the public in an ostensible democracy.Ground zero for the latest round of articles and commentary is the 6 October New York Times/Siena College polling that found Kamala Harris attracting support from just 78% of Black voters. By contrast, the 2020 exit polls found that four years ago the Biden-Harris ticket was backed by 87% of African Americans. These recent poll results have spawned lengthy articles, extended podcast discussions and widespread water cooler conversation about just what’s going on with Black voters.There are four fundamental problems with relying on this single poll’s findings.First, the poll’s findings are contradicted by other contemporary polls sponsored by major news organizations. In the CBS News/YouGov poll conducted the week after the Times poll, Harris is backed by 87% of Black voters. NBC’s latest poll, concluded 8 October, pegs Harris’s Black number at 84%. The 8 October ABC News/Ipsos poll has Harris’s Black support at 82%.Second, there is a glaring methodological anomaly buried in the underlying data that raises serious questions about the cultural competence of those conducting the poll. When I was writing my first book Brown is the New White, I was guided by the data scientist Dr Julie Martinez-Ortega, who helped me grapple with the elemental, but actually quite complicated, question of which people in the population you include in the category of African Americans. The Census Bureau has two designations: “Black Alone” and “Black in Combination”. Martinez-Ortega schooled me to ignore the “in combination” grouping as it would yield a distorted picture of the Black population.Unfortunately, it appears that the New York Times received no such guidance, and their polling data includes truly astounding findings about the differences between Black Alone and Black in Combination. Among the Black Alone population, Harris receives the support of 80% of that group, but the Times finds that just 60% of the Black In Combination grouping supports Harris. Such a dramatic divergence of results from subsets of what are supposedly the same sector of the population raise profound questions about the entire data set.Which leads to the third problem: the lack of common sense. Good scientists look at the data they gather and then step back and try to make sense of it all. If a subset of data falls outside of the realm of decades of prior empirical findings, then one has to ask some basic questions.Is there a dramatic difference in the electoral behavior of African Americans and mixed-race Black people? Given that no Democratic presidential nominee has ever received less than 83% of the Black vote, how likely is it that Harris – a Black woman (and also an Asian woman) – is backed by a smaller share of the Black population than Michael Dukakis, John Kerry and a plethora of more mainstream Democratic presidential nominees? How do you reconcile these findings with the demonstrable and quantifiable Black enthusiasm for Harris in the form of the early Zoom calls that engaged tens of thousands of African Americans in a mere matter of hours; the 10,000 people who turned out to the early rally in heavily Black Atlanta, Georgia; and the historic fundraising numbers that have recently eclipsed $1bn? Which set of information is the outlier?Tied to the lack of common sense is the fourth problem: insufficient cultural competence. If someone who had deep and extensive experience with African Americans looked at the polling data, they could quickly spot the glaring anomalies. Black mixed-race people aren’t dramatically more pro-Republican than other African Americans. The enthusiasm and excitement demonstrated in the early Zoom calls flow from enduring a lifetime of disrespect and discrimination, and that excitement of finally having someone who shares your cultural experience in the White House isn’t going to dissipate over a few weeks.Now, to be sure, there are differences in Black voting behavior along gender lines. The most apt example to Harris’s situation occurred in Georgia when Stacey Abrams, an African American woman, won the Democratic nomination for governor. In both of Abrams’s runs, there was a nine-point difference between her support margins from Black women and Black men (97% from Black women in 2018 and 88% from Black men). And cultural competence and common sense would not find this surprising as sexism is embedded in the fabric of this nation and affects all racial groups.But even in Abrams’s case the vast, vast majority of African Americans backed the Black woman’s bid, and the pertinent and reliable data suggests that a similar phenomenon is unfolding in the 2024 presidential race. The overwhelming majority of Black Americans voted for Democrats in 2020 and in the 2022 midterms (86% according to the exit polls). That enthusiasm is only amplified for Harris.

      Steve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color, and author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Georgia election rules passed by Trump-backed board are ‘illegal’, declares judge

      by

      A Georgia judge has declared that seven new election rules recently passed by the state election board are “illegal, unconstitutional and void”.Fulton county superior court judge Thomas Cox issued the order Wednesday after holding a hearing on challenges to the rules. The rules that Cox invalidated include three that had gotten a lot of attention – one that requires that the number of ballots be hand-counted after the close of polls and two that had to do with the certification of election results.Cox found that the rules are “unsupported by Georgia’s Election Code and are in fact contrary to the Election Code”. He also wrote that the state election board did not have authority to pass them. He ordered the board to immediately remove the rules and to inform all state and local election officials that the rules are void and not to be followed.The Associated Press has reached out to the lawyers for the state election board, as well as the three Republican members who had supported the rules, seeking comment on the judge’s ruling. They could appeal but time is running short with less than three weeks to go until election day.The state election board, which is controlled by three Republicans endorsed by Donald Trump, has passed numerous rules in recent months mostly dealing with the processes that happen after ballots are cast. The former president narrowly lost Georgia to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election but claimed without proof that widespread fraud cost him victory in the state.Democratic party organizations, local election officials and a group headed by a former Republican state lawmaker have filed at least half a dozen lawsuits over the rules. Democrats, voting rights groups and some legal experts have raised concerns that some rules could be used by Trump allies to delay or avoid certification or to cast doubt on results if he loses next month’s presidential election to Kamala Harris.Cox’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, which was founded and led by former state representative Scot Turner, a Republican. The organization had argued that the state election board overstepped its authority in adopting the rules.Reached by phone Wednesday evening, Turner said he was “thrilled with the victory”.“It was a complete and total victory for the constitution of the United States,” he said. “These rules were opposed by citizens that are Republican, as well as Democrats and independents. This is not about party. It’s about doing what’s constitutional and re-establishing separation of powers, and that’s something that every conservative in this country should be concerned with and support.”One new rule that the judge blocked requires that three separate poll workers count the number of election day ballots by hand to make sure the number of paper ballots matches the electronic tallies on scanners, check-in computers and voting machines.Georgia voters make selections on a touchscreen voting machine that prints out a piece of paper with a human-readable list of the voter’s choices as well as a QR code. That is the ballot that the voter puts into a scanner, which records the votes. The hand-count would be of the paper ballots – not the votes.Critics, including many county election officials, argued that a hand-count could slow the reporting of election results and put an extra burden on poll workers at the end of an already long day. They also said there isn’t enough time to adequately train poll workers.Fulton county superior court judge Robert McBurney on Tuesday had temporarily blocked the hand-count for the November election while he considers the legal merits. He said the hand-count may ultimately prove to be good policy, but it’s too close to the general election to implement it now.Cox wrote that the rule “is nowhere authorized” by Georgia laws, which “proscribe the duties of poll officers after the polls close. Hand-counting is not among them”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTwo other new rules that Cox invalidated were passed by the state election board in August and have to do with certification. One provides a definition of certification that includes requiring county officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying results, but it does not specify what that means. The other includes language allowing county election officials “to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections”.Supporters argued those rules are necessary to ensure the accuracy of the vote totals before county election officials sign off on them. Critics said they could be used to delay or deny certification.The first certification rule is not part of Georgia law and “adds an additional and undefined step into the certification process”, Cox wrote, saying it is thus “inconsistent with and unsupported by” Georgia law, making it “void and unenforceable”. The second rule is “directly inconsistent” with Georgia law, “which provides the time, manner, and method in which election-related documents must be produced and maintained”, he wrote.The other rules Cox said are illegal and unconstitutional are ones that: require someone delivering an absentee ballot in person to provide a signature and photo ID; demand video surveillance and recording of ballot drop boxes after polls close during early voting; expand the mandatory designated areas where partisan poll watchers can stand at tabulation centers; and require daily public updates of the number of votes cast during early voting.At least half a dozen lawsuits had been filed challenging some or all of the new rules. The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic party of Georgia had filed two lawsuits and joined others. Election boards in some counties and individual election officials in other counties had also sued. More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump stands by false claims about immigrants – as it happened

      by

      Bret Baier has asked Kamala Harris repeatedly about immigration.You supported allowing immigrants in the country illegally to apply for drivers licences and to apply for free healthcare, he says. Do you still support those things?The vice-president says it was five years ago that she said those things, and that what she supports is the law. Baier presses her and again, she says she and Tim Walz believe in supporting and enforcing the law.We’re wrapping up our live US politics coverage for the day, thanks for following along.Here is our news story on the Kamala Harris interview on Fox news:Kamala Harris said her presidency “would not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency” in a testy interview with the rightwing Fox News channel on Wednesday night as she criticized Donald Trump over his continuing threats against “the enemy within”.The 25-minute interview, conducted after Harris held a rally with more than 100 Republican officials in Pennsylvania, was the first time Harris had sat for a conversation with Fox News, which has been a consistent supporter of Trump.Bret Baier, Fox News’s chief political anchor, is seen as a straight news counterbalance to the vitriol of Fox News’s evening shows, but still came with a laundry list of rightwing topics, including immigration, the rights of transgender people and Joe Biden’s performance, as Harris attempted to sell herself to the channel’s older, largely Republican, audience.The event featured pointed questions for Trump, about his wife Melania’s support for abortion rights, noted in her new memoir, and about the 6 January, 2021, Siege of the US Capitol by his supporters who breached the building in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results.“Your own vice-president doesn’t want to support you now,” said Ramiro Gonzalez, of Tampa, Florida, a Republican who said he was no longer registered with the party but wanted to give Trump the chance to win him back. Gonzalez was referring to former vice-president Mike Pence, who has disavowed Trump in light of 6 January.Trump’s response: “Hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me. They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election. That’s why they came.”“That was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions,” Trump told Gonzalez.More now from Trump’s Univision town hall. During the event, hosted by Univision, America’s nation’s largest Spanish-language network, Trump defended his call for mass deportation of immigrants who are in the US illegally, even as he nodded to a need for immigrant labour, the Associated Press reports. “We want workers, and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally, and they have to love our country,” the Republican presidential candidate said during the event, scheduled to air Wednesday evening. Trump was answering the question of Jorge Velásquez, a farm worker who said most people doing such jobs are undocumented and suggested, if they’re deported, food prices will increase.Trump then returned to his criticism of Harris for being a critical player in the Biden administration’s that presided over an influx of migrants with criminal backgrounds.Here is some analysis from the associated press of Trump and Harris’s recent media appearances:Both candidates have largely avoided traditional interviews during the campaign, preferring to sit before friendly hosts, often in nontraditional media settings. The two-day interview marathon was a noteworthy partial break from that strategy.Harris, whom the Trump campaign hammered for not doing interviews after replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, has ramped up the pace this month. The vice-president appeared on ABC’s “The View,” spoke with radio host Howard Stern and taped a show with late-night comedian Stephen Colbert, among other appearances. She also sat down with the newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” as is traditional for presidential candidates, while Trump canceled his appearance with the show.Harris’ appearance on Fox with anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday seemed designed to show her willingness to face any questioner, especially after Trump bailed on “60 Minutes.” The risks of that became apparent quickly as Baier challenged her immediately on immigration and often interrupted her afterward.In contrast, Trump, in his Chicago interview Tuesday, frequently spoke over Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait and even insulted him as the audience cheered Trump on. Micklethwait challenged Trump’s support for tariffs and his plans to pay for his campaign promises.The former president also faced a friendly all-women audience in a Fox News town hall before participating in a town hall on the Spanish-language network Univision, where he faced pointed questions from Latino voters. Like Harris, Trump is trying to broaden his coalition to get the key votes he needs to win the neck-and-neck race. So, for him as well, every interview counts.Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday stood by debunked claims that immigrants in Ohio were eating pets, telling Latino voters during a town hall he was “just saying what was reported.”Trump in recent weeks has amplified a false claim that has gone viral that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing residents’ pets or taking wildlife from parks for food. There have been no credible reports of Haitians eating pets, and officials in Ohio – including Republicans – have repeatedly said the story is untrue.At a town hall hosted by Univision, an undecided Latino Republican voter from Arizona, a battleground state, asked Trump whether he truly believed that immigrants were eating pets.“I was just saying what was reported. All I do is report,” Trump replied during the event held in Miami. “I was there, I’m going to be there and we’re going to take a look.”Trump added that “newspapers” had also reported on the claim, without naming any or providing any details.Here is more of that exchange on Iran earlier.Baier asked Harris,“Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary?”She said, “Iran”.Baier said, “A number of experts thought you would say China…But you said Iran. If that’s the case, what do you say to critics who look at the actions of your administration and say you’re not acting like Iran is the number one threat?”Harris said, “Well, I will tell you most recently, whether it was in April or in October, and then several hours on each occasion that Iran posed a threat to Israel, I was there. Most recently in the Situation Room, in the most recent attack, working with the heads of our military in doing what America must always do to defend and to support Israel in its requirement to defend itself and to give American support to be able to allow Israel to have the resources to defend itself against attack, including from Iran and Iran’s terrorist proxies in the region.”Here is Harris calling out Fox News’s Bret Baier for playing a clip of Trump that was “not what [Trump] has been saying about the enemy from within”:US vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down for an interview on Wednesday evening with Fox News host Bret Baier.The interview was combative, with Harris, towards the end, speaking over Baier as asked him to interview her “grounded in full assessment of the facts”, and called him out for playing clips that she said were not relevant to what they were discussing.

      Harris was asked about the Biden administration’s efforts to tackle a surge in illegal immigration at the southern border, and laid the blame on Republicans for failing to pass a border bill.

      Harris was asked to defend the administration’s early decision to reverse some of Republican rival Donald Trump’s restrictive policies, and to respond to a mother who testified in Congress about the loss of her child at the hands of an illegal immigrant. “I’m so sorry for her loss, but let’s talk about what is happening right now,” Harris said.

      Harris said Trump told Republicans to reject a bipartisan immigration bill because “he preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.” The interview was part of a direct appeal by Harris on Wednesday to Republican voters in this year’s US presidential election, as she highlighted Republican support for her campaign in a battleground county in Pennsylvania before appearing on conservative-leaning Fox News.

      Harris was asked in the Fox News interview about her recent comment that there was “not a thing” she would change about the actions of the Biden administration, responding: “let me be very clear, my presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency,” but she did not elaborate. Earlier, in Bucks County, outside of Philadelphia, Harris emphasised Trump’s attempt to overturn his election loss four years ago, when he lost the White House to current President Joe Biden.

      Harris said Trump’s actions violated the US Constitution and, if given the chance, he will violate it again. “He refused to accept the will of the people and the results of a free and fair election. He sent a mob, an armed mob, to the United States Capitol, where they violently assaulted police officers, law enforcement officials and threatened the life of his own vice president,” Harris said.

      “No matter your party, no matter who you voted for last time, there is a place for you in this campaign,” Harris said.

      Harris was asked “Which foreign country do you consider to be our greatest adversary?” She said Iran. She has worked with the heads of the military to do what America must always do, which is to allow Israel to have the resources to defend itself from attack, “including from Iran and Iran’s territist proxies in the region. And my commitment to that is unwaivering”. The screen showed a graphic listing “Iran oil revenue”.

      Harris talked over Baier, continuing her answer about the Middle East as he tried to press her. He stopped speaking. She said, “I would like that we have a conversation that is grounded in the facts”. “Yes ma’am,” he said.

      “Madam vice-president they’re wrapping me very hard here, I hope you got to say what you wanted about President Trump,” Baier said. Harris said she has a lot more to say about Trump. She invited people to visit her website. Baier interrupted her again, she talked over him, listing the policies that would be found on her website.
      Former Democrat congressman Harold Ford Junior, on Fox news, says that Harris should be proud of her performance tonight, and that it shows that there are benefits to coming on Fox.“Tonight was a sign and a signal to the country about why we need more debates between candidates,” he says.He says Harris “Has to be pleased with how she performed this evening”.Brit Hume, Fox political analyst, says Harris was strong in some ways, but avoided answering other questions, including how she will differ from Biden.He says partisans will be pleased with her performance, they’ll say “Yay, Kamala,” he says.“But if people have doubts about her I don’t think she cleared them up”.Fox news presenters have said, variously, that Harris was strong on some answers, thin on others, and that other answers “won’t pass the smell test” – that last comment from Fox news host Dana Perino.She was praised for coming on Fox and allowing herself to “think on her toes” in a tough interview, rather than the interviews until now, which a Fox host said had been soft.The screen shows a graphic listing “Iran oil revenue”.Harris is talking over Baier. He stops. She says, “I would like that we have a conversation that is grounded in the facts”.“Yes ma’am,” he says.“Madam vice-president they’re rapping me very hard here, I hope you got to say what you wanted about President Trump,” he says.Harris says she has a lot more to say about Trump. She invites people to visit her website. Baier interrupts her, she talks over him, listing the policies that would be found on her website.Harris is asked about the Middle East and the threat posed by Iran.She says she has worked with the heads of the military to do what America must always do, which is to allow Israel to have the resources to defend itself from attack, “including from Iran and Iran’s territist proxies in the region. And my commitment to that is unwaivering”. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris pledges break from Biden presidency in testy Fox News interview

      by

      Kamala Harris said her presidency “would not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency” in a testy interview with the rightwing Fox News channel on Wednesday night as she criticized Donald Trump over his continuing threats against “the enemy within”.The 25-minute interview, conducted after Harris held a rally with more than 100 Republican officials in Pennsylvania, was the first time Harris had sat for a conversation with Fox News, which has been a consistent supporter of Trump.Bret Baier, Fox News’s chief political anchor, is seen as a straight news counterbalance to the vitriol of Fox News’s evening shows, but still came with a laundry list of rightwing topics, including immigration, the rights of transgender people and Joe Biden’s performance, as Harris attempted to sell herself to the channel’s older, largely Republican, audience.Harris was asked if there was anything she “would do differently” from Joe Biden, as Baier played a clip of the vice-president, in a previous interview, saying there is “not a thing that comes to mind” that she would have changed. That response has become an attack point among Republicans as they seek to tie Harris to the unpopular Biden administration.“Let me be very clear. My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership,” Harris said.“For example, as someone who has not spent the majority of my career in Washington DC, I invite ideas: whether it be from the Republicans who are supporting me, who were just on stage with me minutes ago, and the business sector and others, who can contribute to the decisions that I make.”Baier pointed to polling which shows a majority of Americans believe the country is “on the wrong track”, and asked Harris why they were saying that when she has been vice-president since January 2021. Harris suggested the polls show a fatigue with Biden and Trump, given the latter has “been running for office” since 2016.Harris noted that several high-profile former members of the Trump administration now believe “that he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader, who spends full time demeaning and engaging in personal grievances”.Baier asked why, given those criticisms, Trump has support of “half the country”. He added: “Are they stupid?”“I would never say that about the American people. And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean, and belittle, and diminish the American people,” Harris said.“He’s the one who talks about an enemy within. An enemy within, talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.”Trump had appeared on a Fox News town hall episode which aired earlier on Wednesday, where he doubled down on his comments about “the enemy from within”. He characterized this alleged internal enemy, which he has said should be “handled by” the military, as “the Pelosis” and his other political opponents.The former president had reacted furiously to the news that Baier would be interviewing Harris, posting on social media that the anchor was “often very soft to those on the ‘cocktail circuit’ left” and falsely claiming that Fox News “has grown so weak and soft on the Democrats”.But Baier, while being an alternative from the more radical nighttime hosts such as Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters, largely stuck to rightwing issues.He played a Trump campaign ad, which he suggested was among the few political ads to “break through” this year. The ad quoted an interview with Harris in 2019, when she said she supported “surgical care” for trans prisoners.Trump has spent tens of millions on anti-transgender advertising, but Harris brushed off the issue, pointing out that “under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system”.“And I think, frankly, that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of like throwing, you know, stones when you’re living in the glass house,” she said.Polls show Harris and Trump effectively tied in most swing states, as both campaigns seek to convince voters before 5 November. Harris’s appearance on Fox News came amid a raft of interviews over the past week. She was interviewed on CBS’s prestigious 60 Minutes news show, sat down with the crowd from The View talkshow, appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast, and on Tuesday spoke with radio host Charlamagne tha God.Harris is also reportedly in negotiations to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast – the most popular podcast in the US, which has a large following among young men. Trump, who refused to take part in a second debate on CNN with Harris, has said he will appear on Rogan’s podcast.This was Harris’ first sit-down interview with Fox News, although her running mate, Tim Walz, has appeared on the network multiple times. Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, has been a regular presence on Fox News screens, with his calm responses to sometimes hostile questions frequently going viral and delighting Democrats. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Jimmy Carter has voted in presidential election, representatives confirm

      by

      Jimmy Carter, the centenarian former Democratic president, has voted in the 2024 presidential election, his representatives confirmed on Wednesday.A statement from the Carter Center did not reveal who he voted for, but it is assumed the 100-year-old, who is in hospice care, cast his ballot for the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.“He’s never voted Republican in his life,” his son, Chip, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, after revealing in August that Carter’s greatest wish, more than reaching his 100th birthday, was to live long enough to support her.“I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” he said at the time.At the Democratic national convention in August, just weeks before Carter’s 1 October birthday, his grandson Jason, the Carter Center chair, told delegates that the former president believed Harris “carries my grandfather’s legacy”.The statement issued on Wednesday at lunchtime was brief: “The Carter Center can confirm that former US President Jimmy Carter voted by mail today, Oct 16, 2024. We do not have any further details to share at this time.”Some media outlets earlier reported falsely that Carter, whose single term of office was 1977 to 1981, had already voted on Tuesday’s first day of early voting in Georgia.

      Don’t miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts
      The Journal Constitution, confirming the correct details on Wednesday, said Carter filled out his ballot and it was placed in a drop box at the Sumter county courthouse near his hometown of Plains this morning.Carter has been “an especially reliable voter” over the years, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. The newspaper said he had routinely cast ballots in general elections as well as primary runoffs and special elections. For more than a decade, he has voted exclusively by mail in elections tracked by the state, it said.According to Jason Carter, his grandfather, the 39th US president, was in August “more alert and interested in politics and the war in Gaza”. He has been in hospice care since February 2023, nine months before the death of his wife, the former first lady Rosalynn Carter.The move was widely believed to be an indication that Carter was nearing the end of his life, a perception reinforced by his decision to ask Joe Biden to deliver his eulogy the following month.Biden then suggested he might have provided that information unintentionally, telling reporters: “Excuse me, I shouldn’t say that,” before adding Carter’s medical team had “found a way to keep him going for a lot longer than they anticipated”.The ultimate elder statesman of US politics, Carter became the first president in history to reach 100 years old, a milestone celebrated a couple of weeks before his birthday at a star-studded party in Atlanta.“Not everyone gets 100 years. But when someone does and uses that time to good, it’s worth celebrating,” Jason Carter, the 2014 Democratic nominee for Georgia governor, said.After losing to the Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election and leaving the White House, Carter dedicated himself to diplomacy, and was regularly provided counsel to subsequent presidents dealing with international crises.He was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2002 “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.He founded the Carter Center in 1982 with the intention it become a leading advocate for advancing human rights globally and alleviating famine, poverty and suffering. More

    • 288 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      If Kamala Harris is trying to show she can meet the needs of Black America, she has gaps to fill | Shamira Ibrahim

      by

      As we enter the final 21 days of the 2024 presidential election, the euphoric sheen from the summer’s “Kamala is Brat” phenomenon, which resonated with large swaths of gen Z voters, has waned. The Harris campaign is scrambling to communicate its case for selection at the polls, with the vice-president hurriedly pushing out platforms that address lingering skepticism amongst various demographic groups. On Tuesday night, during a broadcast conversation with the radio host Charlamagne tha God, Harris turned her attention to Black men.Harris’s concern is not completely unfounded – several notable Black male celebrities, such as the rapper 50 Cent and the sports personality Stephen A Smith, have expressed their receptiveness to the Trump campaign. On the aggregate, there has been a dip in support: a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Black voters reported that 78% of all Black voters expressed an interest in voting for Harris, which would be a significantly smaller turnout than the 90% of Black people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. The most pronounced drop comes from Black men, 85% of whom turned out for the US president in the last election and just 70% of whom now say they would vote for Harris.In the hour-long interview, Charlamagne, whose daily morning show The Breakfast Club reaches a predominantly Black audience of 8 million listeners monthly, prodded Harris on topics spanning reparations, criminal justice reform, economic inequality and the fearmongering of the Trump campaign. Harris homed in on her consistent talking points about the necessity of voter participation, a proposed influx of capital for the middle class and misinformation, responses that felt stale and limited. But at other times, her replies landed with impact: when asked about issues specific to Black people that she would prioritize, Harris stressed initiatives around Black maternal mortality and the child tax credit as long neglected needs.In a few cases, Harris’s answers felt like fitting a square peg into a round hole. When asked by a caller how she intends to address the homelessness crisis in the US when the current administration seems to overemphasize foreign interests such as the Israel-Gaza war, the Democratic nominee deflected, punting back to her well-tread lines on home ownership and small business loans.The full exchange, which aired on iHeartRadio’s podcast platform and was simulcast on CNN, both reflected Harris’s best assets and underscored her biggest flaws as a candidate. She remains unflappable on her key points – including the idea that Trump is an existential threat to democracy and Black advancement – and she’s deft at articulating the possibilities and limitations of the government.But her inability to veer away from her entrenched positions or to adequately explain how they could substantively apply to the poor and working class, where Black communities are disproportionately represented, leaves much to be desired. If Harris’s aim is to squash the nagging perspective that she will be unable to meet the needs of Black America, then she still has a gap to fill. Her insistence that “we can do it all” is undercut by the reality that a large part of the Black working class is struggling with unemployment, homelessness, and other critical issues that prevent successful class migration.Yesterday, Harris’s campaign released the Opportunity Agenda for Black Men, a five-point platform focused on Black entrepreneurship, mentorship, marijuana legislation, and cryptocurrency. The platform came on the heels of a contentious lecture from Barack Obama to Black men in Pittsburgh, where the former president alleged that they “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that”.Whether misogyny is a factor in Harris’s current polling numbers or it isn’t, the emphasis on Black men feels overstated. The Black population accounts for barely 13% of the country, with high distribution in metropolitan areas that skew predominantly Democratic, while white and non-Black populations have voted for Trump at significantly higher rates.Despite this disconnect, the Harris campaign has responded with an aggressive media blitz of interviews and campaign stops directly targeted at Black communities. As a result many Black voters are ultimately left with the idea of voting as a means of harm reduction and not one of enthusiasm. For all of Harris’s insistence that the Trump campaign thrives on driving fear, the most animating influence on her campaign’s push to get Black voters to the polls seems to be fear as well. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump bizarrely claims Democrats want to ban cows and windows in buildings

      by

      Donald Trump over the weekend told supporters of his campaign for a second presidency that his Democratic opponents want to ban cows and windows in buildings, inviting another round of questions about his mental fitness.“They just come up, they want to do things like no more cows and no windows in buildings,” the Republican White House nominee said during a campaign event with Hispanic voters in Las Vegas on Saturday. “They have some wonderful plans for this country.“Honestly, they’re crazy, and they’re really hurting out country, badly.”Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign subsequently reacted to the remarks on social media by writing, “a confused Trump goes on a delusional rant”.Other Trump critics echoed the Democratic vice-president’s observation, describing the rant as “stunningly senile” and “incoherent”.Nevada’s Democratic party also criticized the former president, writing: “Trump came to town and questioned Nevadans’ values and rambled about cows and windows.”Saturday was not the first time that the former president has accused Democrats of wanting to get rid of cows.

      Don’t miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts
      During a rally earlier this summer, Trump said that Harris would pass laws to outlaw red meat if elected. He added: “You know what that means – that means no more cows.”Trump has also said over the last several years that the Green New Deal, an expansive climate plan introduced and supported by progressive Democrats, would “take out the cows”.The Green New Deal, he said in 2020, “would crush our farms, destroy our wonderful cows”.“I love cows. They want to kill our cows. You know why, right? You know why? Don’t say it. They want to kill our cows. That means you are next,” he said.The Green New Deal, introduced in part by the progressive Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, outlines broad principles of a plan to fight inequity and tackle climate change while aiming to begin reducing the US’s reliance on fossil fuels that are fueling destructive global warming.The resolution does not call for eliminating animal agriculture. But it calls for “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible”.Though it suggests reducing emissions from agriculture, that “doesn’t mean you end cows”. Ocasio-Cortez said in 2019.According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, about 10% of total American greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, including cows, soils and rice production.Trump’s confusing comments about Democrats wanting to get rid of cows and windows on buildings on Saturday came just two days before another bizarre moment from this campaign cycle.On Monday, at a town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, Trump stood on stage swaying and bobbing his head for about 30 minutes while music played after medical emergency-related interruptions.At the same event, although his election against Harris is on 5 November, he told the crowd to get out and vote on “January 5 or before” – prompting critics online to again comment on Trump’s cognitive health.Harris released a medical report which found that the most notable aspects of her health history were seasonal allergies and hives. “She possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency” if she is elected in November, the report said.A senior aide to Harris, 59, stated that the vice-president’s advisers saw the release of her health report and medical history as a chance to call attention to questions about Trump’s physical fitness and mental acuity.On Sunday, more than 230 doctors, nurses and healthcare providers, called on the 78-year-old Trump to release his medical records, arguing that he should be transparent about his health as he seeks to become the oldest president elected.“With no recent disclosure of health information from Donald Trump, we are left to extrapolate from public appearances,” the doctors wrote in a public letter. “And on that front, Trump is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office and displaying alarming characteristics of declining acuity.”Trump has consistently declined to disclose detailed information about his health during his public life. On Tuesday, the former president went on his Truth social media platform and published a post claiming his health “IS PERFECT – NO PROBLEMS!!!” More