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      Any line of separation between Fox News and the US government is about to vanish | Margaret Sullivan

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      When Donald Trump tapped a Fox News host this week to run the mighty US defense department, even Pete Hegseth’s colleagues at the rightwing media outlet were taken aback.“What the heck – can you believe it?” wondered Jesse Watters on his primetime show on Tuesday.“Taken right from this very couch!” exclaimed Hegseth’s fellow Fox & Friends talker Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday.This bemused enthusiasm was for public, on-air consumption.But in private, some had a dimmer view, according to Brian Stelter, author of two books about the Murdoch-controlled network.“You’re telling me Pete is going to oversee 2 million employees?” clucked one Fox host to Stelter; as the CNN media analyst noted, it’s actually almost three.In Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, Stelter reported that Hegseth – a decorated veteran who served with the Minnesota national guard in Iraq and Afghanistan – consistently played to a singularly important viewer, checking his phone during commercial breaks in case Trump had commented on the show.And while Hegseth has directed a non-profit veterans’ advocacy group, nothing suggests he’s ready to run the world’s largest military. More alarmingly, he has encouraged Trump to pardon military personnel accused of war crimes, argued against women serving in the armed forces, and expressed the merit in a “preemptive strike” against North Korea.Although extreme, this development isn’t exactly breaking new ground.The Fox-to-Trump revolving door has been spinning for years. During his first term, Trump hired at least 20 officials who had previously worked at or contributed to Fox, making some of them cabinet secretaries and high-ranking White House aides.Remember, for instance, Richard Grenell, who joined Fox in 2009 and was still working there when he was nominated to be Trump’s ambassador to Germany in 2017? A few years later, Grenell was named Trump’s acting director of national intelligence. Or Ben Carson, a Fox contributor for years before becoming Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development?One particularly memorable case was Bill Shine, a high-ranking Fox executive, who left the network after allegedly helping to cover up the company’s culture of sexual harassment that brought down his buddy, co-founder Roger Ailes.No problem, though. Shine got a soft landing at the Trump White House as deputy chief of staff for communications, and later moved to Trump’s re-election campaign.It’s hard to jump from Fox to a job at a serious news organization. But, if you want to work at the Trump White House, there are few better résumé-builders.“The president’s worldview is shaped by the hours of Fox programming he watches each day, leading him to treat Fox employment as an important credential in hiring,” Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, wrote in 2019.In the past few days, he also tapped the Fox News contributor Tom Honan as his “border czar”. Honan joined Fox shortly after his retirement as acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director in 2018, during Trump’s first term.The door spins and spins again.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGoing for the trifecta, Trump named Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and former host of a weekly Fox show, as his preferred ambassador to Israel.Can a glorified perch for Sean Hannity – long the Trump whisperer – be far behind? And what about Tucker Carlson, despite being fired by the network last year?The Trump/Fox fit is a natural; one thing they share is a truth problem. Trump, of course, lies with fluid impunity.And Fox – though it insists on calling itself a news organization – has helped to spread lies and disinformation, including about the supposedly “rigged” 2020 election that Trump still insists he won. No matter that Fox had to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800m in a court settlement after they sued for defamation.“Instead of promoting lies and conspiracy theories from outlets like Fox News and the online fever swamps,” wrote Oliver Darcy in his Status newsletter, “these media personalities will now be doing so with the US government’s resources and backing.”There could be no Trump as president without Fox. And Fox’s market capitalization is now approaching $20bn.Whatever they’re doing is working for mutual benefit, if not for US democracy.With this week’s developments, any line of separation – if it ever existed – is being erased. The two are nearly a single organism.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      The Democrats must become an anti-establishment party | Robert Reich

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      A political disaster such as what occurred last Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted.This is known as the Lesson of the election.The Lesson explains what happened and why. It deciphers the public’s mood, values, and thoughts. It attributes credit and blame.And therein lies its power. When the Lesson of the election becomes accepted wisdom – when most of the politicians, pundits and journalists come to believe it – it shapes the future. It determines how parties, candidates, political operatives and journalists approach coming elections.What’s the Lesson of the 2024 election?According to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy – and their votes reflected their class and level of education.While the US economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees – that’s the majority – have not felt it.In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure.The real median wage of the bottom 90% is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large now as it was then.Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top.This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not.The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger, but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich.The basic bargain in America used to be that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d do better, and your children would do even better than you.But since 1980, that bargain has become a sham. The middle class has shrunk.Why? While Republicans steadily cut taxes on the wealthy, Democrats abandoned the working class.Democrats embraced Nafta and lowered tariffs on Chinese goods. They deregulated finance and allowed Wall Street to become a high-stakes gambling casino. They let big corporations gain enough market power to keep prices (and profit margins) high.They let corporations bust unions (with negligible penalties) and slash payrolls. They bailed out Wall Street when its gambling addiction threatened to blow up the entire economy but never bailed out homeowners who lost everything.They welcomed big money into their campaigns, and delivered quid pro quos that rigged the market in favor of big corporations and the wealthy.Joe Biden redirected the Democratic party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed – more vigorous actions against monopolies, stronger enforcement of labor laws and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors and non-fossil fuels – wouldn’t be evident for years. In any event, he could not communicate effectively about them.The Republican party says it’s on the side of working people, but its policies will hurt ordinary workers even more. Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices. His expected retreat from vigorous anti-monopoly enforcement will allow giant corporations to drive up prices further.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf Republicans gain control over the House as well as the Senate, as looks likely, they will extend Trump’s 2017 tax law and add additional tax cuts.As in 2017, these lower taxes will benefit mainly the wealthy and enlarge the national debt, which will give Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – their objective for decades.Democrats must no longer do the bidding of big corporations and the wealthy. They must instead focus on winning back the working class.They should demand paid family leave, Medicare for all, free public higher education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and housing credits that will generate the biggest boom in residential home construction since the second world war.They should also demand that corporations share their profits with their workers. They should call for limits on CEO pay, eliminate all stock buybacks (as was the SEC rule before 1982) and reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credit to companies and industries unrelated to the common good).Democrats need to tell Americans why their pay has been lousy for decades and their jobs less secure: not because of immigrants, liberals, people of color, the “deep state”, or any other Trump Republican bogeyman, but because of the power of large corporations and the rich to rig the market and siphon off most of the economy’s gains.In doing this, Democrats should not retreat from their concerns about democracy. Democracy goes together with a fair economy.Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system.If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America.Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment.The Democratic party should use this inflection point to shift ground – from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney and vacuous “centrism” – to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans.This is and should be the Lesson of the 2024 election.

      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

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      ‘Partisan politics’: how efforts to overturn the Johnson amendment could upend campaign finance

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      Donald Trump has long promised his evangelical base he will undo the Johnson amendment, allowing churches and other nonprofits to weigh in on and donate to political campaigns – and his path to doing so is now clearer than ever.A provision of the tax code since 1954, the Johnson amendment prohibits certain tax-exempt nonprofit organizations from making political endorsements in – or offering monetary support to – political campaigns. If the president-elect succeeds in overturning it through any of a few available methods, experts say it could have the profound effect of opening up a flow of dark money into politics.“I think it’ll have as big, or a bigger impact than Citizens United,” said Andrew Seidel, a constitutional attorney and expert on Christian nationalism. “I don’t think people are fully prepared for a country in which churches can accept tax deductible donations in the billions of dollars and then turn around and use that money for partisan politics.”With a likely narrow majority in the US House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump has multiple avenues to challenge the provision. He could try to push Congress to take legislative action. He could attempt to unwind parts of the provision through executive action, an approach that would likely be subject to litigation. Or, he could involve the Department of Justice – which he has vowed to mobilize politically – in a key, ongoing Texas lawsuit threatening the law.During Trump’s first term, he failed to deliver on his promise to destroy the amendment. Congress failed to roll back the regulatory measure and in an executive order gesturing at the issue, Trump only advised the treasury to take a lenient posture on the political speech of clergy – “to the extent permitted by law”.Now, with a lawsuit filed in Texas making its way slowly through the courts, Trump has yet another avenue to chip away at legal limits on churches’ political activity. The complaint, filed against the IRS by National Religious Broadcasters, two Texas churches and the group Intercessors for America – whose mission includes a “call for godly government” – seeks to find the Johnson amendment unconstitutional.It claims that churches are subject to “unique and discriminatory status” under the tax code and that the IRS “operates in a manner that disfavors conservative organizations and conservative, religious organizations” in enforcing the law.Named after its author Lyndon B Johnson, the Johnson amendment is inserted into section 501(c)(3) of the tax code to prevent certain nonprofits from “participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office”. The law also notes that “contributions to political campaign funds” would “clearly violate” the provision.Some churches already flaunt the law’s requirement to refrain from endorsing political candidates – a trend that the Texas Tribune has documented. Repealing the Johnson amendment would allow churches to go further, including potentially donating to partisan causes. Because churches, unlike other nonprofit organizations, are not required to file 990 forms disclosing key financial information to the IRS, such an arrangement would allow for little public oversight.Representing National Religious Broadcasters on the complaint is Michael Farris, the former CEO of the powerful rightwing legal outfit Alliance Defending Freedom and a driving force behind the “parental rights” movement, which seeks to limit schools’ ability to teach about race, gender and sexuality in the classroom. Like the conservative “parental rights” movement, the push to do away with the Johnson amendment could chip away legal barriers separating church and state.In the short run, overhauling the provision could, Seidel said, allow churches to function effectively as Super Pacs, accepting tax-deductible donations from politically-motivated donors and channeling them into political causes. Such a scenario could, Seidel cautions, force churches to subject themselves to the same financial disclosures that Super Pacs face.“The church could be the subject of litigation, but then again, who’s going to be running the IRS? Who’s going to be enforcing that?” said Seidel. “It’ll be the Trump administration.” More

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      We’ll need to fight to protect US reproductive rights. Here’s what to expect | Sophie Brickman

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      At around 10pm ET on election night, with prediction needles listing rightwards, and various friends’ group chats starting to become inundated by the river-of-tears-down-my-face emoji – even that early, we were collectively way beyond a single tear – I left Steve Kornacki frantically bobbing and weaving around a map of Georgia, and went to bed. Somehow, I slept through until the morning, when I awoke in “Trump’s America”, as news organizations were calling it, and to a torrent of emails and notes from friends bemoaning, among other things, the very real possibility of a federal abortion ban.“Are we still gonna have birth control?” one friend texted, in disbelief.“Sorry for the US you’re waking up to,” another wrote from Oxford. “Confounding,” his wife echoed, from across the pond.And so, to get a clear-eyed, postmortem picture of what might be facing women and their loved ones in America, two days after the election I called up Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group with a stated mission of “using the power of law to advance reproductive rights as fundamental human rights around the world”.In practice, that means unleashing an army of seasoned litigators to fight for abortion access, among other things, in courtrooms across the country and around the world – they currently work in five continents. She began as CEO in 2003, 30 years after Roe v Wade constitutionally protected abortion rights. Twenty years later, after fighting the good fight for decades, she and her litigators are revving up for what might be the fight of their careers.“We were always accused before Roe v Wade was overturned [of] crying wolf,” Northup told me on the phone from her office in Manhattan. “People don’t need to worry about whether or not we’re crying wolf now.”There are the women who have died when denied abortions by healthcare providers who are unsure of the legal ramifications of performing abortions unless the mother’s life is at risk. There are those who have spent days in the ICU after being denied care, and emerge with their future fertility forever compromised. There are the obstetricians fleeing states with strict abortion bans (over 20% of practitioners in Idaho, and over half of high-risk obstetricians), feeling that they are unable to safely, and properly, do the job they trained years to do. There are the downstream consequences of bans in restrictive states affecting states with robust abortion protections, simply because those who can travel to receive care end up taking appointments away from local residents.The question that kept circulating among my friends in the hours after the election results became clear was: How come seven out of 10 measures to protect reproductive rights passed at the state level, and Trump still won?Northup chalks the dissonance up to two things.“There’s a difference between what policy do I want, and what candidate do I like,” she said. “Of course they should be linked, but we can see that they aren’t.”On top of that, Northup fears there are too many mental leaps to make.“Most people think, You know what, if the right to abortion is protected in my state, I’m good. They don’t realize a federal abortion ban could override their state’s rights.”While she wrote in a statement after the results came in that Trump’s first term “lead to the deaths of numerous women who are likely the tip of the iceberg”, she said it was too early to paint a picture of just how large that iceberg might loom in his second. Still, she underscored that even if a bill isn’t signed into law – something she pointed out Trump has said he wouldn’t do, though “consistency isn’t the hallmark of the president-elect” – there are ways to threaten abortion access at a national level.Northup and other colleagues at the Center held an open video meeting a few hours before we spoke, the tone of which was sober, with lots of “no way to sugarcoat what we’re facing right nows”s, and “serious situation”s and “tough road ahead”s.Among her top concerns are, first, the fear that new laws will threaten patients’ access to medication abortion – something she calls “a lifeline”, as two-thirds of patients in the US use it – either by the FDA restricting mifepristone, or states using a 1873 chastity law known as the Comstock Act, which bans “any drug, medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion” from being transported by a mail carrier; and, second, the targeting of populations in states with bans. She recently found herself on the phone with a woman whose family was leaving Texas to get an abortion in New York, and wasn’t sure if her husband should come with her or not.“That’s a culture, or a climate, of fear of prosecution, and intimidation, and silencing,” she said. “It has a chilling effect.”And it’s a chilling effect that the minority of American voters want to cast over the country. One exit poll noted that while voters in 10 “key states” believe by a wide margin that abortion should be legal, only 14% considered it their most important voting issue.I reached out to a friend who works in the reproductive rights space for help parsing through this disconnect.“The lack of urgency that voters placed on this issue may reflect an erroneous belief that state protections can save them; misplaced faith in Trump’s softened messaging on abortion; or simply a reality that many are struggling to make ends meet and feel abortion is an issue they can’t afford to think about today,” she wrote. “Who knows.”Whatever the reason, it means the litigators at CRR have their work cut out for them, as they fight for what the majority of Americans want.Right now, Northup is revving up for a case that will start on Tuesday in Idaho, arguing that the state, by refusing to give stabilizing care to pregnant women in emergencies, is violating the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (Emtala), a federal law that ensures access to emergency care. And she is gaining strength from success stories, like Missouri, which overturned its near-total abortion ban on Tuesday, despite electing Trump, something she called “stunning”. (She remembers having a conversation with a senator in Missouri years ago, and bringing up the question of just how to talk about abortion rights in the state. The senator’s advice: “Don’t.”)How does she feel?“Armored up and ready to go.”For those of us who might not feel that way, there are other ways to help. On the video call, one colleague offered three action items: First, take care of yourselves and your communities. Second: sign up for alerts from the Center. Finally, find and donate to a local abortion access fund.Godspeed.

      Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age and the novel Plays Well With Others More

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      US election updates: Cabinet picks, Biden meeting and winning the House cap busy day for Trump

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      Donald Trump’s cabinet picks have sparked alarm among national security officials and divided Republicans just as they secured a majority in the House of Representatives, giving the party full control of Congress.The president-elect nominated congressman Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general, the country’s chief law officer. Gaetz has protested against election results alongside far-right groups and faced an inquiry by the House ethics committee over allegations including sexual misconduct. The inquiry ended when he resigned from Congress on Wednesday. He has denied any wrongdoing.Some of Gaetz’s Republican colleagues slammed his nomination, which representative Max Miller labelled “reckless” and “silly”, and senator Lisa Murkowski said was not serious. John Bolton, a former national security adviser, said Gaetz “must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history”.Trump also announced his nominee for director of national intelligence would be Tulsi Gabbard, who is a critic of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and has questioned atrocities attributed to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard has previously clashed with Marco Rubio, who Trump on Wednesday confirmed would be nominated as secretary of state.The new appointments followed Trump’s announcement of Peter Hegseth for defence in a move that stunned military officials, some of whom questioned whether Hegseth had the experience to manage a government department with a budget of more than $800bn.Here’s what else happened on Wednesday:Trump cabinet news and updates

      Republicans in the House of Representatives have retained their majority, securing the 218 seats required. Mike Johnson won the party’s nomination to stay on as House speaker, gaining Trump’s endorsement before the vote on Wednesday despite internal dissent from hard-right conservatives and the Freedom Caucus.

      Republican senators chose South Dakota’s John Thune as their new leader, rejecting a challenge from Florida senator Rick Scott, who had the backing of key Maga figures Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson. Thune’s elevation comes after long-serving Mitch McConnell stood aside.

      Joe Biden met Trump at the White House, extending a courtesy to the president-elect that Biden was not offered in 2020 when Trump refused to acknowledge Biden’s election victory. Trump thanked Biden for welcoming him back to the Oval Office and said: “Politics is tough, and it’s [in] many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.”

      The president-elect met with House Republicans before going to the White House, and joked about seeking a third term, which would be constitutionally prohibited after his second term.

      Wednesday’s appointments leave a handful of roles to fill in Trump’s cabinet. Reuters reported billionaire banker and co-chair of Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick had emerged as a serious contender against investor Scott Bessent for the role of Treasury secretary, the highest profile job without a name yet attached.

      The Democratic minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said his colleagues had “over-performed the national political environment”, pre-empting the news that Republicans had retained the chamber. Elizabeth Warren argued Democrats should show they stand ready to “unrig this economy” as billionaires join the Trump administration. Warren was appearing at an event alongside fellow senator Bernie Sanders.

      Two Democratic state governors have launched an initiative aimed at “pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy and fortifying the institutions of democracy”. The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and the Colorado governor, Jared Polis, hope to form a non-partisan coalition with their new organisation, Governors Safeguarding Democracy.

      Dan Scavino, who on Tuesday suggested Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, was running out of time, has been named as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff. Scavino’s provocative post on X has continued to fuel Australian anxieties over its relationship with the incoming president, whom Rudd in 2021 described as “a village idiot” and “not a leading intellectual force”. More

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      How a Republican trifecta makes way for Trump’s rightwing agenda

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      With the confirmation that Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump and his party will now have a governing trifecta in Washington come January, giving the new president a powerful perch to enact his rightwing agenda.Even without majorities in both chambers of Congress, Trump’s victory in the presidential race already gave him significant control over US foreign policy and the makeup of the federal government, both of which he is seeking to overhaul.But a Republican trifecta in Washington will give Trump much more sweeping authority to implement his legislative priorities. As the Guardian has outlined through the Stakes project, Trump’s plans include extending tax cuts, rolling back landmark laws signed by Joe Biden and advancing a conservative cultural agenda.One of Republicans’ most oft-repeated campaign promises is that they will extend the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017, many of which are set to expire at the end of 2025. An analysis from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that making the tax cuts permanent would cost $288.5bn in 2026 alone and disproportionately benefit the highest-income households. The highest-income 20% of Americans would receive nearly two-thirds of that tax benefit, compared with just 1% for the lowest-income 20% of Americans.Perhaps the most haunting possibility for Democrats is that Republicans would use their governing trifecta in Washington to enact a nationwide abortion ban. Trump has said he would veto such a policy, but his repeated flip-flopping on the issue has raised questions about that claim. Research has shown that existing abortion bans have forced doctors to provide substandard medical care, and they have been blamed for the deaths of at least four women: Josseli Barnica, Nevaeh Crain, Candi Miller and Amber Thurman.With majorities in both chambers, Republicans could also allocate vast resources to assist Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants, which became a central plank of his re-election platform. While US courts have affirmed that presidents have much leeway when it comes to setting immigration policies, Trump will need Congress to appropriate extensive funds to carry out such a massive deportation operation.In a worrying sign for immigrant rights advocates, Trump said after his victory on Tuesday that his deportation program would have “no price tag”, doubling down on his commitment to the project.“It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not – really, we have no choice,” Trump told NBC News. “When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here.”In addition to advancing Trump’s platform, Republicans would almost certainly be looking to unravel key portions of Biden’s legacy, including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA marked the country’s most significant response yet to the climate crisis and has spurred significant energy-related investments in many districts, prompting some Republicans to suggest that Congress should preserve some of the law’s provisions while repealing others.That quandary reflects a potential problem for Republicans in full control of Congress: what will they do with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? When Republicans last held a governing trifecta, during Trump’s first two years in office, they tried and failed to repeal and replace the ACA. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, recently suggested that there would be “no Obamacare” if his party won full control of Congress, according to a video published by NBC News.But he seemed to caveat that statement by telling supporters: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”In recent years, both parties have experienced the pains of governing with narrow majorities, and those problems could reappear in the new Congress. During Biden’s first two years in office, his legislative proposals were repeatedly blocked in the Senate despite Democrats holding a majority because of the concerns of two centrist members of their caucus, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen Republicans held a 52-48 majority in the Senate in 2017, they still failed to repeal and replace the ACA because three members of their conference opposed the proposal. Two of those members – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – are still in the Senate today and may be resistant to various components of Trump’s agenda, particularly a potential abortion ban.And although Republicans have won the House, their narrow majority could exacerbate issues that played out in the last session of Congress, when the conference’s inner turmoil repeatedly brought the chamber to a standstill. Johnson will have to corral a fractious conference that has repeatedly clashed over government funding, foreign aid and the debt ceiling.Despite the potential challenges of narrow majorities, Trump and his Republican allies have made clear at every turn that they will use their newly expanded power to its maximum effect.“The mandate that has been delivered shows that a majority of Americans are eager for secure borders, lower costs, peace through strength, and a return to common sense,” Johnson wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent last week. “With unified Republican government, if we meet this historic moment together, the next two years can result in the most consequential Congress of the modern era.”With the country torn between joy and revulsion over the prospect of seeing Trump’s agenda implemented, much will be riding on Republicans’ ability to remain unified. More

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      Republicans baffled after Trump picks ‘reckless’ Gaetz for attorney general

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      Donald Trump’s decision to nominate the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general has sent shockwaves through Washington, including the president-elect’s own party.Trump on Wednesday announced Gaetz as his pick to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the justice department, a role that directs the government’s legal positions on critical issues, including abortion, civil rights, and first amendment cases.Republicans were puzzled over this nomination, expressing this move was not on their “bingo card”.“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, told NBC News. “We need to have a serious attorney general. And I’m looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.”A rightwing firebrand, Gaetz was a thorn in the side of his fellow Republican and former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust McCarthy from his role.He was investigated by the justice department in a sex-trafficking case, though the department ultimately declined to bring charges. And was under investigation by the House ethics committee amid allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other alleged ethical breaches.Gaetz has fiercely denied wrongdoing.Amid consternation even within his own party, it’s unclear if Gaetz can win Senate approval.Republican congressman Max Miller of Ohio told Axios that “Gaetz has a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the Senate”.Miller also told Politico that Gaetz is “a reckless pick” with “a zero percent shot”.John Bolton, a former national security adviser, said Gaetz “must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history”.“Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn’t have the character. He is a person of moral turpitude,” Bolton said in an interview with NBC News.One anonymous House GOP member told Axios: “We wanted him out of the House … this isn’t what we were thinking.” Another remarked they were “stunned and disgusted”.Democrats, too, were left astonished by the announcement. Vice-President Kamala Harris’s team said in a statement that Trump and Gaetz “will weaponize the DoJ to protect themselves and their allies”.Congressman Ro Khanna of California argued that voters were not necessarily voting for these cabinet picks when they decided to elect Trump.“People voted for Trump to have lower prices and a secure border. I don’t think they voted for the appointments that they’re getting,” Khanna told CBS News. “He is not moving to the center. He’s going to his Maga base, and we’ll see if he’s overreaching on the mandate he had from the American people.”Kate Maeder, a California-based political strategist, said the announcement should not come as a surprise, but wondered whether Trump trusts Gaetz will make it through the confirmation process. “It’s not a surprise that Trump is rewarding his political loyalists,” Maeder told the Guardian. “It’s a shock to many that he’s considering Matt Gaetz for attorney general. But is this a serious pick? I don’t think so.”“In this political climate, it’s definitely possible for Matt Gaetz to be confirmed,” she said. “But I think it’ll be difficult. Some of the more moderate Republican senators are already on record questioning this choice.” More

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      What’s behind the global political divide between young men and women?

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      As the Democratic party licks its wounds and prepares for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a growing chorus of commentators is urging the party to confront a historic shift in voting patterns, which has seen Latinos, the working class and Black men all shift rightwards in 2024.But perhaps the cohort that offers the gravest warnings for the party’s future prospects is young men. In 2024, men aged between 18 and 29 turned out in force for Trump, with the Republican winning the demographic by 14 points, overturning a generational trend that has for decades seen young people favour left-leaning candidates.Experts variously put it down to a backlash against the #MeToo movement, efforts to achieve gender equality and the siloing of entertainment and news sources, but Trump’s victory in the “manosphere” is just one part of an unprecedented phenomenon across the world, in which the politics of a single generation has split across the gender divide.While votes are still being tabulated, last week’s election saw a chasm open up between the political preferences of 18- to 29-year-olds in America. Trump’s seismic win among young men was mirrored almost inversely by Kamala Harris’s huge, 18-point win among young women. Notably, that margin is more than double the gender gap in the overall electorate; Harris won female voters of all ages by just seven points.In this regard the US is not unique; political polarisation between the genders has been growing among young people across the globe. In South Korea’s 2022 presidential election there was a difference of just a few points in voting preference between men and women in every age range, except those aged 18-29.In Gen Z there was an almost 25-point difference when it came to voting for the conservative-leaning People’s Power party.The same patterns play out elsewhere: in the 2024 UK general election, almost twice as many young women voted Green than young men (23% to 12%). Conversely, young men were more likely to vote for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK (12% to 6%). Meanwhile in Germany, a sample of recent surveys showed men aged 18-29 were twice as likely to vote for the hard-right AfD than women in the same age range.Despite performing below expectations in the 2023 Polish elections, the far-right Confederation – which opposed vaccine mandates and mass migration, and was sceptical on the climate crisis – saw its strongest support among 18-29-year-olds, the vast majority of whom were men.The party’s leadership took an overtly misogynistic line, with one of its more prominent members, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, saying after the election that “women should not have the right to vote.”Echo chambers and the erosion of shared experienceA backlash against gender equality is one of the universal drivers of the polarisation between young men and women around the world, says Dr Alice Evans, senior lecturer in the social science of development at King’s College.“There is a growing concern among young men that maybe DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] is going too far,” she says, adding “some question if women’s gains are coming at the expense of them.”A 2024 Ipsos study bears this out. Taking samples from across the world – including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Turkey – researchers found that, when it comes to gender equality, those aged 18-29 displayed the largest differences of opinion between the sexes.On the statement “a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man”, 10% of baby boomer women and 11% of baby boomer men agreed. Among Gen Zs, however, there was an 11-point gap in opinion, 31% for men and 20% for women.According to some polling, the phenomenon is as much about a rightward shift from men, as it is about a leftward move by women. In September, Gallup polled adults under 30 in the US, and found that women were moving left on a number of issues.On issues such as the environment, gun control and access to abortion, Gen Z men and women had by far the largest gap in viewpoints.The pattern repeats in surveys around the world, showing young men and women with historically huge divisions in attitudes – the question is why?“It’s social media filter bubbles and cultural entrepreneurs,” says Evans, who has written about the issue at length.Gen Z has grown up in a fractured media environment that has seen the erosion of shared cultural experiences. Evans gives an example from her own childhood in England: “We only had four TV channels, all my friends were just watching BBC news, The Simpsons or Friends. There was very little choice so everyone watched the same thing.”Today though, media is consumed through smartphones and the choices across traditional platforms – as well as newer services such as Netflix, YouTube and TikTok – are nearly endless.“People can self-select into their preferences,” says Evans, “then the corporate algorithm kicks in to keep you hooked … feeding you information that other users like you have liked.”View image in fullscreenIts in these echo chambers that charismatic entrepreneurs thrive, says Evans.Joe Rogan is one of the most popular podcasters on the planet – his programme tops the charts in the US, as well as Australia, the UK and Canada – but his audience is over 80% male, according to YouGov.“You’re consuming this media, you’re listening to these perspectives, and whether it’s Joe Rogan or others, you come to trust them,” says Evans.Donald Trump faced criticism for the apparent narrow focus of his election appearances, eschewing a number of traditional media outlets for interviews on podcasts hosted by Rogan, Logan Paul and Theo Von. But experts say it was a strategy that may have helped him lock in a voting demographic that traditionally eludes rightwing politicians.“Young men are trying to understand their place in society that is rapidly evolving,” Daniel Cox, from the American Enterprise Institute told the BBC. “These are very real concerns and there’s a sense in the political realm that nobody’s advocating for them.”Prior to the 2024 US election, Hasan Doğan Piker, a YouTuber and video game streamer, warned that the Democratic party was falling behind the Republicans when it came to dominance of these online spaces.View image in fullscreen“If you’re a dude under the age of 30, and you have any hobbies, whether it be playing video games, working out or listening to a history podcast, every single facet of that is dominated by centre right … to Trumpian right,” he told the Pod Save America podcast.The siloing of spaces, the erosion of shared experiences and resentment of gender equality efforts are all leading to huge, intractable problems that go beyond the latest election cycle.Around the world, fertility rates are nose-diving, creating huge issues for economies as diverse as South Korea, Sweden and Australia. Governments across the globe have launched multi-pronged efforts to encourage couples to have children, with policies targeting childcare costs and housing shortages.Experts say the erosion of socialisation between the genders is starting in school. According to the Japanese Association for Sex Education, just one in five boys at senior high school have had their first kiss – the lowest figure since the organisation conducted its first survey of sexual behaviour among young people in 1974.But it’s in schools that the fightback against this growing isolation needs to begin, says Evans. It might feel like a drop in the ocean, but banning phones in schools and investing in local youth centres could help to turn the tide of polarisation.“Phones are out competing personal contacts,” says Evans, but if young people spend more time with the opposite sex, become friends and form relationships, they will start to see just how much they could have in common.” More