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      ‘They will bend the knee’: Lincoln project cofounder cautions against dismissing Trump

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      ‘They will bend the knee’: Lincoln project cofounder cautions against dismissing TrumpRick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist, suggests the ex-president still holds sway despite multiple crises Donald Trump, the former US president, is all washed up. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is poised to dethrone him. This is the view currently in vogue among many in Washington.Not so fast, argues Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group that shot to prominence with go-for-the-jugular advertisements before becoming mired in scandals of its own.Who’s next? Republicans who might go up against Trump in 2024Read more“The greatest danger in American politics is not recognising that there are great dangers,” Wilson, who lives in Florida, says in a phone interview. “The same people in 2015 and 2016 were confidently asserting Donald Trump could never, ever under any circumstances win the Republican nomination, and there were never any circumstances where Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton, and then he could never have almost a million people die because of his mishandling of Covid and on and on and on and on.“I know that the Republicans who right now are acting very bold and the donors who are acting very frisky – as Trump starts winning primaries, they will bend the knee, they will break, they will fall, they will all come back into line.”When Trump scheduled his announcement of a third run for the White House this month, he had hoped to ride a “red wave” of midterm election successes and sweep aside potential rivals within the Republican party. But the red wave ebbed and his anticlimactic campaign launch had the opposite effect.With Trump at arguably his weakest point since last year’s January 6 insurrection, senior Republicans are criticising his losing habit, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is ridiculing him and big money donors such as Ken Griffin and Stephen Schwarzman are deserting what they perceive as a sinking ship.The new conventional wisdom – or wishful thinking – among numerous pundits is that, after surviving crisis after crisis, Trump has finally met his Waterloo. A slew of federal, state and congressional investigations and opinion polls showing DeSantis ahead or level lend credence to this view.Some have noted, however, that Trump maintains an iron grip on his base and, just as in 2016, that might be enough to win a Republican primary race in which the anti-Trump vote is split among several candidates.Wilson, 59, author of the books Everything Trump Touches Dies and Running Against The Devil: A Plot To Save America from Trump and Democrats From Themselves, says: “He controls a quarter, at the minimum, of the Republican base. Even if it’s 15% and he goes into Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and he wins primaries because he has 15% going in, that’s the ballgame. It’s over. It’s done. Everybody else, it’s all over bar the crying.”He adds: “Right now they’re all talking so much shit: ‘I’m not going to get with Trump. I’m going to be with the hot new number, DeSantis.’ When DeSantis gets his ass handed to him, when he gets his clock cleaned in a debate or forum or just by Trump grinding away at him, eating him alive mentally for weeks on end, and suddenly Donald Trump’s numbers start posting up again, all the conservative thinkers who are right now like, ‘We will never vote for Trump again, we have integrity!’ will find themselves some excuse. ‘Well, you know, we don’t like Trump’s tweets, but otherwise it’s pure communism!’“It’s all bullshit, it’s all a fucking game, and that game is going to play out in a way that does not result in the outcome that the donor class thinks they’re going to get.”Wilson, who began his career on the 1988 presidential campaign of George HW Bush, worked as a consultant and political ad maker for numerous candidates and state parties. In December 2019 he and other Republican operatives founded the Lincoln Project, a political action committee that assailed Trump with a punch-in-the-mouth brio eschewed by “when they go low, we go high” Democrats.Some of the co-founders have acknowledged their part in the Republican party’s descent into bloodsport, hypocrisy and extremism. Wilson told an audience at the group’s launch event: “We have, as the great political philosopher Liam Neeson once said, a particular set of skills. Skills that make us a nightmare for people like Donald Trump.”He produced slick advertisements that got under the president’s skin and helped make the Lincoln Project the best known of the so-called Never Trump groups, raising tens of millions of dollars.But its meteoric rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall. The group’s co-founder John Weaver was revealed to have sent sexually charged messages to multiple men, sometimes with offers of employment or advancement. There were allegations of opaque accounting and financial impropriety that Wilson and others adamantly deny. A glut of high-profile figures resigned.But the Lincoln Project has survived in slimmed down form and continued to wage war on Trump and Trumpism in the midterms. Paradoxically, its continued relevance partly depends on Trump’s own; without him, it loses the principal reason for its creation. It has already launched attacks on DeSantis as a “new ultra-Maga megastar” who poses his own threat to American democracy.Living in the Florida state capital, Tallahassee, Wilson is ideally placed to take stock of the governor, a former US navy lawyer and congressman whose own brand of conservative populism and “anti-wokeness” helped him win re-election by nearly 20 percentage points over the Democrat Charlie Crist.He says: “Ron DeSantis won an election in Florida against a three-time loser, a campaign that was run by the best Republican party in the country, and I mean that because I’m a guy who helped over many years elect many people in the great state of Florida. The quality of our operation here made it look easy.“Has Ron DeSantis been to the rodeo? Has he been out there in the fight? Has he actually faced up against a full campaign of the brutality and the cruelty that Donald Trump will level against him? He has not. It’s like he’s walked on to the field on to third base and thought he hit a grand slam home run. It’s easy for Republicans to win in Florida. It’s how it’s supposed to be: we built it that way. In a Republican primary against Trump, even Trump in a weakened state still has an innate feral sense of cruelty and cunning that Ron DeSantis does not have. How does Trump know that? He watched the debate.”Wilson is referring to a gubernatorial debate in which Crist asked his opponent to commit to another full four-year term in the governor’s mansion; like a rabbit caught in headlights, DeSantis, 44, struggled to answer directly.“It was nine seconds of the gears moving in his head and you could see the agony on his face, like ‘I don’t know what to say.’ Trump never has a doubt. He may be an asshole but he never has a doubt. Ron is over-intellectualising it and I’m telling you: this guy has a glass jaw.”This, Wilson predicts, will become apparent on the debate stage, a setting where Florida Republicans such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio struggled against Trump in 2016. “All of a sudden, all that donor money is going to go, ‘Oh, fuck,’ and then they’re going to call Ron’s people and go, ‘Hey, listen, we love Ron but we’re worried. We’re gonna have to sit this one out for a little while. Let’s see what it looks like in a month.’“And then a month will pass and all of a sudden Donald Trump is the nominee. That’s how it’s going to go and I don’t say this out of any joy; I say this because I’ve just been to this fucking party too many times now.”Wilson also suggests that DeSantis may lack the personal touch and knack for retail politics that is crucial in a Republican primary. A recent New Yorker magazine profile noted several people describing “his lack of curiosity about others, his indifferent table manners, his aversion to the political rituals of dispensing handshakes and questions about the kids”.Wilson opines: “You’re telling me you’re going to send Ron DeSantis to New Hampshire where he has to go and sit in a diner with the Merrimack county GOP chairman and that 79-year-old codger is going to want to talk to Ron DeSantis about the gold standard or whatever and Ron DeSantis is going to sit there and get bored and restless and leave or be angry? I’m sorry. Sell me another fantasy of Ron DeSantis the perfect candidate.”TopicsRepublicansRon DeSantisDonald TrumpFloridaUS politicsHillary ClintonUS elections 2016featuresReuse this content More

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      Trump’s act is ‘old and tired’, says his own former national security adviser

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      Trump’s act is ‘old and tired’, says his own former national security adviserJohn Bolton is latest ex-White House official to condemn former boss and says Republicans are ready for a ‘fresh face’ John Bolton, former national security adviser to Donald Trump, has described the former US president’s act as “old and tired” and said the Republican party is ready to move on to a “fresh face”.Bolton is the latest ex-White House official to condemn Trump after Republicans underperformed in this month’s midterm elections, which added to a losing streak that convinced some he is now hurting rather than helping the party.“There are a lot of reasons to be against Trump being the nominee but the one I’m hearing now as I call around the country, talking to my supporters and others about what happened on 8 November, is the number of people who have just switched Trump off in their brain,” Bolton told the Guardian.Trump campaign announcement deepens Republicans’ civil warRead more“Even if they loved his style, loved his approach, loved his policies, loved everything about him, they don’t want to lose and the fear is, given the results on 8 November, that if he got the nomination, not only would he lose the general election, but he would take an awful lot of Republican candidates down with him.”Now 74, Bolton served as US ambassador to the UN under President George W Bush in 2005-06 and was a staunch advocate of the Iraq war. He became Trump’s national security adviser in 2018 only to be fired the following year, then wrote a scathing memoir that declared the president incompetent and unfit for office.He now joins Trump’s vice-president Mike Pence, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, attorney general William Barr, UN ambassador Nikki Haley, chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and onetime ally Chris Christie in a growing rebellion among alumni making the case – overtly or subtly – that Trump has become an electoral liability.They point out that Republicans lost the House of Representatives in 2018, the presidency and Senate in 2020 and the Senate again in 2022, while gaining a smaller-than-expected majority in the House. Paul Ryan, the most recent Republican speaker of the House, blamed the Trump factor, telling ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos: “I think it’s palpable right now. We get past Trump, we start winning elections. We stick with Trump, we keep losing elections.”Last week Trump announced his third consecutive run for the White House only for his headaches to be compounded when the attorney general, Merrick Garland, named a special counsel to lead the federal investigations into his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and removal of classified documents from the White House.Trump v DeSantis: Republicans split over 2024 run and predict ‘blood on the floor’Read moreYet the 76-year-old former president still commands a chunk of fervent and significant support in the Republican base. His power and influence were evident in Republican primary elections where many of his anointed candidates prevailed over establishment figures such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming.Bolton acknowledged: “There’s no doubt Trump’s endorsement in the primary can be very valuable to a candidate in the Republican party. But relying on that endorsement or trumpeting yourself as the Trump-endorsed candidate is poisonous in the general election. So if you actually want to win elections, Trump is not the answer.“William F Buckley [the conservative author] once had a rule that in Republican primaries he supported the most conservative candidate capable of winning the general election and, under that theory, Trump loses.”Bolton said he has conducted his own polling that shows Trump’s base within the party has been declining slowly but steadily for two years.He said: “One question we asked was: do you want Trump or do you want a fresh face? I think in our last poll over 50% said they wanted a fresh face. That’s only going to continue. I personally don’t think Biden is going to end up running on the Democratic side and that’ll have an impact as well.”Pence, Pompeo and Christie are among potential challengers to Trump for the 2024 nomination but the early frontrunner is Ron DeSantis, who delivered a “red wave” to Florida when he was easily re-elected as governor. DeSantis is a former navy lawyer who served at the base in Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq.His foreign policy positions are likely to sit well with Bolton and other foreign policy hawks. DeSantis has condemned Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, expressed opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and taken a hard line on China, Cuba and Venezuela. In 2019 he reminded his followers that he had “promised to be the most pro-Israel governor in America”.Trump discussed ‘burner phones’ several times, John Bolton saysRead moreBolton said he first met DeSantis before the latter first ran for Congress in 2012. He noted that DeSantis’s roommate in Iraq was Adam Laxalt, who worked for Bolton in the Bush state department and narrowly lost an election for the Senate in Nevada earlier this month.DeSantis has “had a very successful run as governor of Florida”, he said. “He won re-election on 8 November with a big majority. A lot of people look to him as the next generation candidate. That’s one of Trump’s biggest problems – his act is old and tired now.”But Bolton, who has his own Pac and Super Pac to raise funds for Republicans, insisted he was not yet throwing his weight behind any 2024 contenders. “I would certainly be available and happy to talk to any of the candidates that wanted to talk about foreign policy and happy to help me make them all be better prepared to be the nominee.”The next primary could also expose and exacerbate a foreign policy split in the Republican party between an interventionist wing, personified by Bolton and Liz Cheney, and “America first” isolationism embodied by Trump and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has called for a halt to funding Ukraine’s fight against Russia.Bolton, founder of the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, commented: “Within the party as a whole, support for the Ukrainian government and people are overwhelming. I do plan to spend some time in the next two years working against what I would call the virus of isolationism within the Republican party to make sure it does not become a serious force.”TopicsUS politicsJohn BoltonDonald TrumpRepublicansUS elections 2024Reuse this content More

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      Elon Musk says he will back Trump rival Ron DeSantis in 2024 if he runs for president

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      Elon Musk says he will back Trump rival Ron DeSantis in 2024 if he runs for presidentBillionaire says he prefers ‘someone sensible and centrist’ but that he had been disappointed by the Democrats so far Elon Musk has said he would support Donald Trump’s arch rival, Ron DeSantis, in 2024 if the Florida governor were to run for president.“Yes”, Musk said in a tweet when asked if he would support DeSantis in 2024, after suggesting he had not found his ideal candidate among Democrats.Elon Musk to launch new blue, gold and grey Twitter ticksRead more“My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist. I had hoped that would the case for the Biden administration, but have been disappointed so far,” Musk tweeted.The entrepreneur’s remarks are the clearest sign of his political backing after he indicated in June this year that he was still mulling his Republican preference for president but that he was “leaning towards” DeSantis.The move may prove a boost for DeSantis in what Republicans expect to be a bruising battle between Trump and DeSantis for presidential nomination, with some predicting “a lot of blood on the floor” in a fight between the two. The Florida governor won a landslide in this month’s midterm elections, while Trump was criticised for the Republicans’ failure to deliver the much-promised “red wave” after the defeat of key candidates he endorsed.Musk also said on Friday night that he was “fine with Trump not tweeting” after having his account reinstated last weekend. “The important thing is that Twitter correct a grave mistake in banning his account, despite no violation of the law or terms of service. Deplatforming a sitting president undermined public trust in Twitter for half of America.”Twitter banned Trump after the January 6 attack last year, saying his posts were “highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the US Capitol”. Trump was also banned from Facebook, Instagram and YouTube after the riot.Musk’s tenure at Twitter has been turbulent, with the owner admitting that Twitter has suffered a “massive” drop in advertising revenue amid concerns about his plans for moderating content on the platform, including the fate of banned accounts.He has told Twitter employees that “roughly half” of the platform’s revenues need to come from subscriptions in order to “survive the upcoming economic downturn”. According to Twitter’s last set of annual results, advertising accounted for 90% of its $5.1bn in revenues.With ReutersTopicsElon MuskRon DeSantisDonald TrumpTwitterUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      E Jean Carroll files new suit against Trump as New York sexual abuse law takes effect

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      E Jean Carroll files new suit against Trump as New York sexual abuse law takes effectJPMorgan and Deutsche Bank also face lawsuits in connection with Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking A New York law that temporarily allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their abusers beyond the statute of limitations for civil claims came into effect on Thursday – and with it, the first of what could be hundreds of new legal actions.Among the first claims filed under the Adult Survivors Act (ASA), signed into law in May by Governor Kathy Hochul, is that of E Jean Carroll, a writer who accused Donald Trump of rape. Carroll filed an upgraded lawsuit against Trump minutes after the new state law took effect.Claims were also brought against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank by lawyers acting for unnamed individuals who accuse the banks of turning a blind eye to alleged sex trafficking by the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in order to “churn profits”.The lawsuits, filed separately in a New York court, allege the banks “knowingly benefited and received things of value for assisting, supporting, facilitating, and otherwise providing the most critical service for the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking organization”.JPMorgan, the largest US bank, is accused in the suit of “financially benefiting from participating” in Epstein’s alleged operation by providing financial support from 1998 to August 2013.Deutsche Bank is accused of knowing it would “earn millions of dollars” from its relationship with Epstein. Both actions are seeking unspecified damages. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal the claim “lacks merit” and the bank would present its arguments in court. A spokesman for JPMorgan in London declined to comment to the Journal.Trump is running for president again – but these legal battles might stand in the wayRead moreAccording to Bradley Edwards, a Florida lawyer who has featured prominently in exposing Epstein’s alleged crimes and in seeking financial restitution from Epstein’s $577m estate, “Epstein and his co-conspirators could not have victimized without assistance from wealthy individuals and financial institutions”.The class-action suit against JPMorgan also names Jes Staley, former head of JPMorgan’s private bank, who was forced to step down as chief executive officer of Barclays after UK regulators shared with Barclays the preliminary findings of their inquiry into what he told the Barclays board about his relationship with the disgraced financier.“Staley made sure Epstein and his illegal sexual abuse organization was absolutely protected by the bank,” according to the lawsuit filed Nov. 24. Lawyers for Staley declined to comment, according to the Wall Street Journal. Bloomberg noted that “none of the allegations against Staley in the suit have been publicly proved”.In E Jean Carroll’s case against Trump, the former Elle columnist is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering, psychological harm, dignity loss and reputation damage.Carroll first made the claim in a 2019 book, saying Trump had raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1995 or 1996. Trump responded to the book’s allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll was “not my type”.His remarks led Carroll to file a defamation lawsuit against him, but that lawsuit has been tied up in appeals courts as judges decide whether he is protected from legal claims for comments made while he was president.In her new claims, Carroll maintains that Trump committed battery “when he forcibly raped and groped her” – and that he defamed her when he denied raping her last month.“Trump’s underlying sexual assault severely injured Carroll, causing significant pain and suffering, lasting psychological harms, loss of dignity, and invasion of her privacy,” the suit alleges, adding: “His recent defamatory statement has only added to the harm that Carroll had already suffered.”Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said at a court hearing that her client “intends to hold Donald Trump accountable not only for defaming her, but also for sexually assaulting her, which he did years ago in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman”.Trump, who has denied the allegations against him, said in a statement that Carroll “completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.”The JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Carroll lawsuits may be the first of dozens of new actions to be filed through the New York legal window. A previous two-year window, the 2019 Child Victims Act, saw cases brought that would otherwise have been beyond the statute of limitations, including Virginia Giuffre’s settled claim against Prince Andrew.Hundreds of lawsuits may now be forthcoming, including many by women who claim they were assaulted by co-workers, prison guards or medical providers, in part because it allows an institution like a hospital or jail to be held responsible.“I think there will be some very interesting cases that come about in the employment cases where powerful men, who were supervising women or overseeing women, sexually assaulted them and they will be able to hold their perpetrator accountable but also their employers,” the attorney Doug Wigdor, who has represented women in many high-profile civil or criminal actions of the #MeToo era, told CNN.The previous window, which limited new claims to child sex abuse cases, produced almost 11,000 claims, a New York state office of court administration spokesperson told CNN. It has been estimated that claims against the New York state prison system could include 750 women alleging sexual assault.New York’s department of corrections and community supervision said in a statement that it had “zero tolerance for sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and unauthorized relationships”.Also anticipated are new lawsuits on behalf of about 40 women who claim they were subjected to unlawful sexual abuse by the former Columbia University gynecologist Dr Robert Hadden. About 150 claims against the gynecologist have already been settled.Hadden was convicted in 2016 on sex-related charges in state court. He is due to be tried on federal charges of abusing female patients over two decades next year. He has pleaded not guilty.TopicsNew YorkDonald TrumpUS politicsJeffrey EpsteinJP MorganDeutsche BanknewsReuse this content More

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      ‘The US can still become a fascist country’: Frances Fox Piven’s midterms postmortem

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      Interview‘The US can still become a fascist country’: Frances Fox Piven’s midterms postmortemEd Pilkington The 90-year-old sociologist on ‘vengeance politics’, cruelty and climate change as she looks back on half a century of activismFrances Fox Piven has a warning for America. Don’t get too relaxed, there could be worse to come.“I don’t think this fight over elemental democracy is over, by any means,” she said. “The United States was well on the road to becoming a fascist country – and it still can become a fascist country.”The revered sociologist and battle-tested activist – an inspirational figure to those on the left, a bogeywoman for the hard right – is sharing with the Guardian her postmortem of the 2022 midterm elections and Donald Trump’s announcement of a 2024 presidential run. While many observers have breathed a sigh of relief over the rout of extreme election deniers endorsed by Trump, and his seemingly deflated campaign launch, Piven has a more sombre analysis.‘We dodged a mortar round’: George Packer on America in crisisRead moreAll the main elements are now in place, she said, for America to take a turn to the dark side. “There is the crazy mob, Maga; an elite that is oblivious to what is required for political stability; and a grab-it-and-run mentality that is very strong, very dangerous. I was very frightened about what would happen in the election, and it could still happen.”That Piven is cautioning against a false sense of security in the wake of the midterms would not surprise her many students and admirers. The co-author, with her late husband Richard Cloward, of the progressive bible, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, has for decades sounded the alarm.She has raised red flags over the vulnerabilities of the country’s democracy, the inequalities baked into its electoral and judicial systems, and how poor Americans, especially those of colour, are forced to resort to defiance and disruption to get their voices heard. Now, with the Republicans having taken the House of Representatives, she foresees ugly times ahead.“There’s going to be a lot of vengeance politics, a lot of efforts to get back at Joe Biden, idiot stuff. And that will rile up a lot of people. The Maga mob is not a majority of the American population by any stretch of the imagination, but the fascist mob don’t have to be the majority to set in motion the kinds of policies that crush democracy.”To say that Piven has come to such a perspective through years of experience as a sociologist and anti-poverty warrior would be an understatement. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday, and her earliest political memories go back to the 1930s.Her first is from 1939. It was prompted by the Russo-Finnish war which, though thousands of miles away, spilled out on to the streets of her neighbourhood. She was brought up in the New York borough of Queens by Jewish immigrant parents from Uzliany, in what is now Belarus.“I was seven, so perfectly equipped to have a position on this issue,” she recalls. “Tutored by my father, I took the side of the Russians and fought with all the kids on the block.”Her next vivid recollection relates to the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945. “When FDR died, the whole street was bereft, almost sobbing. And these were people who didn’t talk much about politics, immigrants whose perspective was very narrow, getting by for another day, another week.”Piven said she thought a lot about that communal mourning for FDR in the aftermath of the midterms with all their discord and rancour. “The thing about FDR was much bigger than partisan politics, anywhere,” she said.That shared grief over FDR’s death seems worlds apart from the acrimony of today’s politics – all the more so after Trump’s declaration that he is running for the White House again. She talked about the former president’s “performative politics”, and the way it incorporates what she called “the human capacity for cruelty”.Asked to point to an example of such cruelty, Piven referenced the attack last month on Paul Pelosi, husband of the Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. “This crazy man broke into the Pelosi home and attacked an 82-year-old man with a hammer, broke his skull. And there were actually politicians speaking to a mass audience and laughing at it.“As thinking people, we don’t pay enough attention to the human lust for cruelty. We are at a point in American politics where those aspects of our nature are being brought to the fore; Trump has been doing that for a very long time, and we have to stop it or else it will continue to grow.”What distinguishes Piven is not only her razor-sharp dissection of how American society fails its poor citizens, but also her determination to do something about it through activism. With Cloward, who died in 2001, she spearheaded rent strikes in New York’s Lower East Side through a group known as Mobilization for Youth, which she joined in 1962 and which became a prototype for Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty.More recently she helped to spawn in 2014 the progressive training program for movement organizers, Momentum. That in turn has seeded powerful grassroots networks such as the climate crisis disrupters the Sunrise Movement.The lengths to which she has been prepared to go in her own activism is captured in a photograph from 1967. It shows Piven scaling up the side of the maths building at Columbia University in order to join student protesters occupying the premises.“I was a fairly new assistant professor in the school of social work,” she explained. “An issue was bubbling among students and younger faculty about Columbia’s immoral, noxious policies with regard to the Vietnam war and participation in research for the defense department.”So up she clambered to join the occupation. No matter that in a couple of weeks she was due to face a crucial faculty vote on whether or not she would be granted tenure.The photo was published by Life Magazine and shortly after that, her troublemaking notwithstanding, she did get tenure. Being Frances Piven, however, she promptly quit the Ivy League university and transferred to Boston University, and from there to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she remains a distinguished professor emerita.That leaning towards agitation – what she calls the power of “dissensus” as opposed to “consensus” – still burns strongly in her. In her academic writings, as in her on-the-ground organizing, she sees movement politics and seeking change through the ballot box as essential partners.“I don’t think any large-scale progress has ever been made in the United States without the kind of trouble and disruption that a movement can cause by encouraging large numbers of people to refuse to cooperate,” she said. “But movements need the protection of electoral allies – they need legislative chaperoning.”She sees that dual model applying to today’s struggle to confront global heating. “The action on the climate crisis has to defeat the fossil fuel industry which in turn is closely connected to many politicians. You have got to break that, and the only way I think in American history that kind of power has been overcome is by just shutting things down.”Ousted Republican reflects on Trump, democracy and America: ‘The place has lost its mind’ Read moreHer championing of such acts of defiance have made her a popular hate figure for the far right. Security guards were posted outside her university office after the demagogue broadcaster Glenn Beck published a photoshopped image of her with her hair on fire on the front page of his website TheBlaze.“Beck blamed everything on Richard and me,” she recalled. “Are you kidding! I wish I could claim that credit.”It’s been a long, rich life of political thought and action. I ask her to stand back a little, take in the big sweep. How does America look today perceived through the lens of her years?“It’s a very strange time in history,” she said. “It’s not only the strangeness of our politics, it’s global warming, the seas are rising. I just had yet another booster shot. It’s very weird – I do not make predictions.”It sounded like her answer was completed. But after a pause she started up again.“I do think that the only way to live is to live in politics. To me, it’s an almost life-transforming experience – to be part of the local struggle. Even a dangerous struggle. You make friends that never go away. You see people in their nobility, and you find your own nobility as well. I would not trade my life for anything.”TopicsUS politicsDonald TrumpSociologyNew YorkfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Justice department asks Pence to testify in Trump investigation

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      Justice department asks Pence to testify in Trump investigationEx-vice-president considering the request, according to sources, but said last week he would not testify to the January 6 panel The US Department of Justice has asked Mike Pence to testify in its investigation of Donald Trump’s election subversion and the former vice-president was considering the request, sources with knowledge of the situation have told the Guardian.So Help Me God review: Mike Pence’s tortured bid for Republican relevanceRead moreLast week, Pence said he would not testify to the House January 6 committee, telling CBS: “Congress has no right to my testimony on separation of powers under the constitution of the United States. And I believe it will establish a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice-president of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”Pence also said the committee, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, was too partisan. The chair and vice-chair of the panel, Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, rejected that charge.The New York Times first reported the news of the approach to Pence and said he recognised that the Department of Justice investigation could not be dismissed.The newspaper said the request to Pence was made before the attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced last Friday the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the justice department investigation.Garland said the appointment of the career prosecutor Jack Smith would not slow the investigation of Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, culminating in the deadly Capitol attack on 6 January 2021.Smith will also oversee the investigation of Trump’s retention of White House records.Trump has tried to stop other senior aides testifying to the Department of Justice, claiming executive privilege. Many aides have been served with subpoenas.Pence and the Department of Justice did not immediately comment on the Times report.On Sunday, Pence was asked if he thought Trump committed a crime in connection with the events of January 6, when some Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol chanted “Hang Mike Pence”.Pence told NBC: “I don’t know if it is criminal to listen to bad advice from lawyers.”Eyeing his own presidential run in 2024, Pence must pursue a balancing act as he seeks to distance himself from Trump while appealing to Republican voters.In that spirit he has published a memoir, So Help Me God, which deals in detail with his version of events during his time at Trump’s side. The book includes an extensive account of Pence’s role in and views of Trump’s attempts to stay in office.Pence ultimately refused to block certification of electoral college results, a process over which he presided. Trump, he writes, said he was “too honest” to take part in a plot based on claims of widespread electoral fraud. But Pence also says Republicans were right to lodge objections to results in key states, as it “meant we would have a substantive debate”.Either way, it seems Trump would have reason to fear testimony to the Department of Justice by his former vice-president. In his book and in interviews to promote it, Pence has made clear he blames Trump for the Capitol riot.Earlier this month, Pence told ABC Trump’s words and actions “angered me”.“But I turned to my daughter who was standing nearby. And I said, ‘It doesn’t take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.’ The president’s words were reckless. It’s clear he decided to be part of the problem.”TopicsMike PenceDonald TrumpLaw (US)US Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      US corporations gave more than $8m to election deniers’ midterm campaigns

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      US corporations gave more than $8m to election deniers’ midterm campaignsBrands such as the Home Depot and Boeing donated to candidates who falsely claimed that Trump won presidency in 2020 Some of the best-known corporations in the US, including AT&T, Boeing, Delta Air Lines and the Home Depot, collectively poured more than $8m into supporting election deniers running for US House and Senate seats in this month’s midterm elections.‘Extremists didn’t make it’: why Republicans flopped in once-red ArizonaRead moreA study by the non-partisan government watchdog organization Accountable.US, based on the latest filings to the Federal Election Commission, reveals the extent to which big corporations were prepared to back Republican nominees despite their open peddling of false claims undermining confidence in democracy. Though many were ultimately unsuccessful in their election bids, the candidates included several prominent advocates of Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him.At the top of the list of 20 corporations backing election deniers through their political action committees (Pacs) is a familiar name in the world of rightwing agitating – Koch Industries. According to the Accountable.US review, the Koch energy conglomerate spent $771,000 through its Pac on Republican candidates with a track record of casting doubt on elections.Koch Industries is the second-largest privately owned company in the US. It is notorious for using its largely oil-related profits to push conservative politics in an anti-government, anti-regulatory direction under its owner brothers, Charles Koch and David Koch, the latter of whom died in 2019.Close behind Koch is the American Crystal Sugar Company Pac, which spent $630,000 supporting election deniers running for federal office; the AT&T Inc Employee Federal Pac, which contributed $579,000; and the Home Depot Inc Pac, which gave $578,000. Lower down on the list comes the media giant Comcast Corporation & NBC Universal Pac, which contributed $365,000; and the Delta Air Lines Pac, which gave $278,000.The $8m contributed by the top 20 corporations was just a slice of overall corporate giving to election deniers in the 2022 cycle. An earlier analysis by Accountable.US found that, in total, election deniers benefited to the tune of $65m from corporate interests.The new study suggests that top corporations that chose to use their financial muscle to enhance the chances of election deniers waged a non-too-successful gamble. The Washington Post has chronicled how 244 Republican election deniers ran for congressional seats in the midterms, and, of those, at least 81 were defeated.Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said that the fact that election deniers at both the federal and the state level struggled at the polls should make corporations reconsider their strategies. Backing candidates who advanced conspiracy theories harmful to democracy could damage their public reputations.“Voters’ rejection of numerous election objectors at the polls should send a clear message to corporations that prioritizing political influence over a healthy democracy could threaten their own bottom line,” Herrig said.The Guardian reached out to several of the top 20 corporate donors for their response. The Home Depot said that its associate-funded Pac supports candidates “on both sides of the aisle who champion pro-business, pro-retail positions that create jobs and economic growth”.AT&T and Delta did not immediately reply. The decision to support election-denier candidates stands in contrast with the strong public stance initially taken by several of the corporations in the wake of the 6 January 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. Boeing released a statement days after the insurrection in which it said it “strongly condemns the violence, lawlessness and destruction that took place in the US Capitol”. In the 2022 cycle the Boeing Company Pac contributed $418,000 to support Republican candidates who had been vocal in forwarding lies questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election.Boeing declined to comment.Among the individual candidates whose bid for federal office was supported by top corporations was Derrick Van Orden, who won a close race to represent a swing district in Wisconsin with backing from Koch Industries. Van Orden, a former Navy Seal, was inside the Capitol grounds on January 6.Scott Perry received support from the Kochs, AT&T, Boeing and other corporations in his successful campaign to hold onto his House seat in Pennsylvania. Perry was deeply involved in attempts to block Biden’s victory in 2020, and in the weeks after January 6 sought a presidential pardon from Trump.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The fight for democracyUS political financingDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsKoch brothersAT&TnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump v DeSantis: how ex-president’s fan could be his biggest rival – podcast

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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis passionately praised the former president – now he is being talked about as a possible presidential candidate himself.

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      When he was first running for governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis was fulsome in his admiration for Donald Trump. The Yale-educated, Catholic family man may have a very different background to the glamour-loving businessman, but politically they soon became entwined. But as Trump’s star has waned, DeSantis has shone brighter. In the midterms, Trump-backed candidates performed poorly, while DeSantis won a resounding victory to become re-elected governor of Florida with his focus on culture war issues. Yet as DeSantis has grown in political popularity, relations between him and Trump have cooled. Now many are talking of DeSantis as a potential Republican candidate for the presidential elections in 2024 – just as Trump announced his own bid. Is DeSantis ready to take on his former idol – and, if he does, what could a bitter battle between the two Republicans mean for the party and US politics? More