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      Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spat

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      Republican McCarthy risks party split by courting extremists amid Omar spat
      Anonymous moderate predicts rocky road to speakership
      Omar: Boebert’s ‘Jihad Squad’ bigotry is ‘no laughing matter’
      Interview: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence
      The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said on Saturday he had “reached out” to Democrats over Islamophobic comments made by one of his party, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, about the Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar.While Americans mark Thanksgiving, Republicans panned over Harris attackRead moreBoebert apologised for the remarks, in which she likened one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress to a suicide bomber, on Friday, saying she wanted to meet Omar in person. Omar responded by condemning the remarks and calling for action from party leaders.In a statement to CNN, McCarthy said: “I spoke with Leader [Steny] Hoyer today to help facilitate that meeting so that Congress can get back to talking to each other and working on the challenges facing the American people.”McCarthy did not condemn Boebert’s remarks. He also faced criticism from within his own ranks, after another pro-Trump extremist, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, tweeted that she had “a good call” with McCarthy and liked “what he has planned ahead”.Greene had criticised McCarthy, seeking to cast doubt on his ambitions to be speaker should as seems likely Republicans take back the House next year.A Republican who spoke anonymously to CNN and was described as a moderate said McCarthy was “taking the middle of the conference for granted. McCarthy could have a bigger math problem [in the election for speaker] with the moderates”.The anonymous moderate said his wing of the party – more of a rump, perhaps, given Donald Trump’s dominance – was upset about McCarthy’s embrace of extremists.One such extremist, Paul Gosar of Arizona, was this month censured for tweeting a video which depicted him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York – like Omar a leading progressive and woman of colour in Congress – and threatening Joe Biden.Gosar lost committee assignments. McCarthy said he would get them back under a Republican speakership and held out the same prospect to Greene, who was stripped of her committees in February for racist, antisemitic and generally incendiary behaviour.McCarthy has faced calls from the right to punish Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as the 10 who voted to impeach Trump over the deadly Capitol riot.Two who voted to impeach, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, will retire next year. Primary challengers await the rest including Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a stringent conservative nonetheless split from the Trumpists over the Capitol attack.On Saturday, Kinzinger criticised the minority leader’s call with Greene, writing: “Here is real strength, when Kevin McCarthy has to call a freshman begging for permission to stay in power. What has Kevin promised? The people deserve to know.”He also said it had “been a while” since most “normal members … last talked to Kevin”.Congresswoman Jackie Speier: ‘Republicans are about doing what’s going to give them power’Read moreThe anonymous moderate who spoke to CNN said the party was on a “collision course” with itself, as their side “isn’t going to take this much longer”.On Sunday, Asa Hutchinson, the governor of Arkansas who is seen by some as a possible presidential nominee from the more moderate side of the party, told CNN’s State of the Union McCarthy should have condemned Boebert.“Even in our own caucus, our own members, if they go the wrong direction, I mean, it has to be called out,” Hutchinson said. “It has to be dealt with particularly whenever it is breaching the civility, whenever it is crossing the line in terms of violence or increasing divides in our country.”Earlier this week, Jackie Speier, a senior Democrat from California, told the Guardian McCarthy had “a number of radical extremists in his caucus that are very effective communicators to the right fringe, and he can’t really rein them in because reining them in means they will attack him.“So they have become the face of the House Republicans. You might as well put a brass ring in Kevin McCarthy’s nose because they’re pulling him around.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesThe far rightnewsReuse this content More

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      Ilhan Omar: Lauren Boebert’s ‘Jihad Squad’ bigotry is ‘no laughing matter’

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      Ilhan Omar: Lauren Boebert’s ‘Jihad Squad’ bigotry is ‘no laughing matter’
      Colorado Republican apologises for remarks in home district
      Minnesota Democrat demands action from party leaders
      How the threat of political violence is growing across US
      Islamophobic remarks by Lauren Boebert are “no laughing matter”, Ilhan Omar said, demanding action from congressional leaders – after the Colorado Republican said sorry. Why Republicans are embracing Kyle Rittenhouse as their mascotRead more“Saying I am a suicide bomber is no laughing matter,” the Minnesota Democrat tweeted. “[House Republican leader] Kevin McCarthy and [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi need to take appropriate action, normalising this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims. Anti-Muslim bigotry has no place in Congress.”Boebert made the remarks in her home district. To laughs and whoops, she joked about encountering Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, in an elevator on Capitol Hill.“I see a Capitol police officer running to the elevator,” she said. “I see fret all over his face, and he’s reaching, and the door’s shutting, like I can’t open it, like what’s happening. I look to my left, and there she is. Ilhan Omar.“And I said, ‘Well, she doesn’t have a backpack, we should be fine.’ We only had one floor to go. I said, ‘Oh look, the Jihad Squad decided show up for work today.’”That was a reference to the “Squad”, a group of prominent House progressives of which Omar is a member. Boebert, a far-right Trump ally and controversialist, has also used the term on the floor of the House.In response, Omar said: “Fact. This buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up. Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout.“Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny and shouldn’t be normalised. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”In the face of widespread condemnation, Boebert apologised “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Representative Omar”.She also said she had “reached out to [Omar’s] office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction”.Democratic House leaders including Pelosi indicated that was not enough.“Racism and bigotry of any form, including Islamophobia, must always be called out, confronted and condemned in any place it is found,” they said in a joint statement.“Congresswoman Boebert’s repeated, ongoing and targeted Islamophobic comments and actions against … Ilhan Omar are both deeply offensive and concerning … we call upon Congresswoman Boebert to fully retract these comments and refrain from making similar ones going forward.”The statement also condemned as “outrageous” McCarthy “and the entire House Republican leadership’s repeated failure to condemn inflammatory and bigoted rhetoric from members of their conference”.Can the Republican party escape Trump? Politics Weekly Extra – podcastRead moreAnother far-right Republican, Paul Gosar of Arizona, was recently formally censured for tweeting a video in which he was depicting killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, another leading progressive, and threatening Joe Biden.Only two Republicans voted for censure: Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who both broke with the pro-Trump wing over the Capitol attack.On Friday, Kinzinger called Boebert “trash” and said: “I take sides between decency and disgusting.”Perhaps alluding to McCarthy’s silence on controversies involving pro-Trump figures, he wrote: “Ask some of the normal members when they last talked to Kevin? Been a while for most.”On Friday evening another pro-Trump extremist, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, tweeted that she “just got off a good call” with McCarthy.“We spent time talking about solving problems not only in the conference, but for our country,” she said. “I like what he has planned ahead.” TopicsIlhan OmarDemocratsUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesIslamophobiaRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Congresswoman Jackie Speier: ‘Republicans are about doing what’s going to give them power’

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      InterviewCongresswoman Jackie Speier: ‘Republicans are about doing what’s going to give them power’Joan E Greve in WashingtonThe Democratic congresswoman talks about her effort to censure Paul Gosar, her retirement and the shifting dynamics of the House For Jackie Speier, the growing threat of political violence in America is personal.Before becoming a member of the House of Representatives in 2009, Speier served as a staffer to congressman Leo Ryan. When Speier joined Ryan for a 1978 trip to Guyana to investigate the Jonestown settlement, she was shot five times.Speier survived the attack, but Ryan and four other members of their delegation did not.So when one of her Republican colleagues recently shared a threatening video about the president and another House member, Speier knew she needed to act. The Democratic congresswoman spearheaded an effort to censure Paul Gosar, who had tweeted an altered anime video showing him killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Joe Biden.‘Inciting violence begets violence’: Paul Gosar censured over video aimed at AOCRead moreThe censure resolution passed the House last week, in a vote of 223 to 207. All but three House Republicans voted against the resolution, with the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, condemning the measure as a Democratic “abuse of power”.The Guardian spoke to Speier to discuss the censure resolution, her coming retirement and the shifting dynamics of the House as lawmakers face more threats of violence. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.Why was it so important for the House to censure Gosar?The ramping up of vitriol on the House floor has been demonstrable for a number of years now. It was like a match got lit during Donald Trump’s presidency, and it was seen as benefiting members to be provocative and then fundraising off of statements they made on the House floor.It’s very clear that, if you are silent about a member of Congress wanting to murder another member of Congress, even in a “cartoon”, you are inciting violence. And if you incite violence, it begets violence.So that’s why I felt so strongly that we had to draw the red line. This has got to be a red line. And obviously my colleagues agreed, and we passed the resolution.We saw some of your Republican colleagues either trying to justify Gosar’s behavior or downplay it. Do you feel like some of your colleagues have not learned the lessons of the Capitol insurrection, when we saw that violent rhetoric can escalate to potentially deadly violence?The facts don’t matter. That’s the problem. The facts don’t matter. I heard one of the Republicans on a show this morning say she thought it was reprehensible, but she voted against the censure because it also stripped him of his committee assignments. So they always will come up with a rationale to allow them to continue to follow the lead of former President Trump or Kevin McCarthy. It’s not about doing what’s right any more. It’s about doing what’s going to give them power.Specifically in terms of Kevin McCarthy, do you think that his rationalization for this behavior makes it inevitable that this is going to happen again?He’s got a number of radical extremists in his caucus that are very effective communicators to the right fringe, and he can’t really rein them in because reining them in means they will attack him. So they have become the face of the House Republicans. You might as well put a brass ring in Kevin McCarthy’s nose because they’re pulling him around.Politics is politics, but we’re talking about taking the life of another member of Congress. How is that not appropriate for censure?Does it feel like there’s a disconnect between Republicans’ rationalizations and the very real violence we saw earlier this year [during the Capitol insurrection] that could have resulted in the death of a member?Not to mention the fact that they’re eating their young. They’ve got one member, one of these fringe rightwing members, who was giving out the telephone numbers of members who voted for their districts and voted for what is a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and [Republican congressman Fred] Upton gets death threats.You’ve got to have an alligator’s skin to do this job. We know that. I’ve been doing this for 38 years. I’m very accustomed to it. I’m also accustomed to getting death threats. And some are seen as credible, and some are not.So that happens. There has to be a repercussion for that. And, as someone said, if in corporate America, you put out an animated video killing one of your co-workers, you would be fired.There’s a lack of reality in Congress right now. And anything goes. The more hyperbolic you are, the more extremist you are, the more successful you are because it’s all about raising money. Raising money gets you clout and power within the caucus.They have made Minority Leader McCarthy impotent in terms of disciplining anyone in his caucus who strays, who crosses that red line.What is your response to suggestions that Republicans will strip Democrats of committee assignments when they come back into power?If one of my colleagues put up an animated video or a tweet that said they wanted to kill a Republican colleague, I would introduce a censure motion for that. You cannot excuse away that kind of conduct. Someone is going to get injured or be killed. That’s how serious that conduct was.You have been in and around the House for decades now. Do you think that the increased number of threats against members has changed the dynamics of the House in any way?I think it’s become a bloodsport. And if a bipartisan bill like the infrastructure bill that had bipartisan support in the Senate and has bipartisan support in the House is then turned on the members that worked in consensus-building, then that suggests that we don’t want to legislate any more.I know that you announced your retirement this week. As you prepare for your next steps, would you say that this resolution was one way to protect the House as an institution?I love this institution. It’s such a privilege to serve. And I think when you’re in the heat of doing your everyday job here, you might lose sight of the fact that this is such a privilege. We’re given the opportunity to fashion legislation to make lives better for the American people. And that’s what we should be doing.When we get sidetracked into wanting to just disparage each other, then we’re not doing our jobs.I introduced the resolution because it just hit me so dramatically. And it’s yet again another example of women becoming the subject of attacks – physical attacks, psychological attacks – women of color in politics even more. I’ve worked on this issue for years now. And I see it as a way of silencing women and discouraging women from running for office.So for all those reasons, it was really important to take action.TopicsUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesAlexandria Ocasio-CortezRepublicansCaliforniainterviewsReuse this content More

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      House Capitol attack committee subpoenas far-right leaders and groups

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      House Capitol attack committee subpoenas far-right leaders and groupsNew subpoenas aim to uncover whether there was any coordination between the groups and the White House The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Tuesday issued subpoenas to the leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, directly focusing for the first time on the instigators of the violence at the 6 January insurrection.The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony targeted both the leaders of the paramilitary groups on the day of the Capitol attack that sought to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, as well as the organizations behind the groups.Proud Boys leader denied early release from Washington DC jailRead moreHouse investigators in total issued five subpoenas to Proud Boys International LLC and its chairman, Henry “Enrqiue” Tarrio, the Oath Keepers group and its president, Stewart Rhodes, as well as Robert Patrick Lewis, the chairman of the 1st Amendment Praetorian militia.The chair of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said in a statement that subpoenas reflected the panel’s interest in uncovering potential connections between the paramilitary groups, efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election and the Capitol attack.“We believe the individuals and organizations we subpoenaed today have relevant information about how violence erupted at the Capitol and the preparation leading up to this violent attack,” Thompson said.Dozens of paramilitary group members have been indicted by the justice department as they pursue criminal charges against rioters involved in the insurrection, but the select committee had not yet publicly sought their cooperation in its investigation.The new subpoenas are aimed to uncover whether there was any coordination between the paramilitary groups and the White House, according to a source close to the investigation, and whether Donald Trump had advance knowledge of plans about the Capitol attack.The select committee said they subpoenaed the Proud Boys group since its members called for violence leading up to 6 January and that at least 34 individuals affiliated with the group had been indicted by the justice department for their roles in storming the Capitol.Thompson suggested in the subpoena letters to Proud Boys International LLC and Tarrio that the group appeared to have advance knowledge of the violent nature of the Capitol attack, having fundraised for “protective gear and communications” in planning for 6 January.The select committee said they similarly subpoenaed the Oath Keepers for their part in leading the deadly assault on Congress, which a federal grand jury indictment in Washington DC described as a conspiracy involving at least 18 members.The members of the Oath Keepers led by Rhodes, the select committee said, planned their assault on the Capitol in advance, and travelled to Washington DC with paramilitary gear, firearms, tactical vests with plates, helmets and radio equipment.According to the indictment, the main unnamed conspirator – believed to be Rhodes – was in direct contact with his Oath Keepers members before, during, and shortly after the Capitol attack, the select committee added in the subpoena letters.The justice department has said Rhodes directed members of the Oath Keepers as they stormed the Capitol on 6 January but has not been charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing. He surrendered his phone to law enforcement and has sat for an interview with the FBI.House investigators also subpoenaed the leader of the 1st Amendment Praetorian, as Lewis was in constant contact with Trump operatives based at the Willard hotel in Washington DC that served as a “command center” for Trump to stop Biden’s certification.The select committee said to Lewis that he was subpoenaed in part because he claimed the day after the Capitol attack that he “war-gamed” with constitutional scholars about how to stop Biden from being certified president on 6 January.Thompson noted in the subpoena letter that members of the 1st Amendment Praetorian wore body cameras, suggesting the select committee’s interest in obtaining those recordings.The five subpoenas come a day after House investigators issued subpoenas to several Trump operatives including Roger Stone and Alex Jones. The select committee demanded documents from the groups by 7 December, and testimony from its leaders later in the month.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesThe far rightUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      House Panel Subpoenas Roger Stone and Alex Jones in Capitol Riot Inquiry

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      Investigators summoned five more allies of former President Donald J. Trump as they dug further into the planning and financing of rallies before the Jan. 6 attack.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Capitol attack issued five new subpoenas on Monday, focusing on allies of former President Donald J. Trump who helped draw crowds to Washington before the riot on Jan. 6, including the political operative Roger J. Stone Jr. and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.The subpoenas, which come after the committee has interviewed more than 200 witnesses, indicate that investigators are intent on learning the details of the planning and financing of rallies that drew Mr. Trump’s supporters to Washington based on his lies of a stolen election, fueling the violence that engulfed Congress and delayed the formalization of President Biden’s victory.“We need to know who organized, planned, paid for and received funds related to those events, as well as what communications organizers had with officials in the White House and Congress,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee.Mr. Stone promoted his attendance at the rallies on Jan. 5 and 6, and solicited support to pay for security through the website stopthesteal.org. While in Washington, he used members of the Oath Keepers as personal security guards; at least one of them has been indicted on charges that he was involved in the Capitol attack.In a statement, Mr. Stone said he had not yet been served with the subpoena and denied any involvement with the violence.“I have said time and time again that I had no advance knowledge of the events that took place at the Capitol on that day,” he said.Mr. Jones helped organize the rally at the Ellipse near the White House before the riot — including by facilitating a donation from Julie Jenkins Fancelli, the heiress to the Publix Super Markets fortune — to provide what he described as “80 percent” of the funding, the House committee said. Mr. Jones has said that White House officials told him that he was to lead a march to the Capitol, where Mr. Trump would speak, according to the committee.Mr. Stone and Mr. Jones were among the group of Trump allies meeting in and around the Willard Intercontinental Hotel near the White House the day before the riot.Mr. Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, was seen flashing his signature Nixon victory sign to supporters as members of the Oath Keepers protected him. He was also photographed on Jan. 5 with Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser who has also been subpoenaed. But Mr. Stone has claimed that he was leaving town as rioters stormed the Capitol.Mr. Stone said he had decided against a plan to “lead a march” from the Ellipse to the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to a video posted on social media.Mr. Jones conducted an interview of Mr. Flynn from the Willard on Jan. 5 in which the men spread the false narrative of a stolen election. Mr. Jones was then seen among the crowd of Mr. Trump’s supporters the next day, amplifying false the claims but also urging the crowd to be peaceful. Among those who marched alongside him to the Capitol was Ali Alexander, a promoter of the “Stop the Steal” effort who has also been issued a subpoena, the committee said.“The White House told me three days before, ‘We’re going to have you lead the march,’” Mr. Jones said on his internet show the day after the riot. “Trump will tell people, ‘Go, and I’m going to meet you at the Capitol.’”The panel is also demanding documents and testimony from Dustin Stockton and his fiancée, Jennifer L. Lawrence, who assisted in organizing a series of rallies after the election advancing false claims about its outcome.Mr. Stockton was concerned that the rally at the Ellipse would lead to a march to the Capitol that would mean “possible danger,” which he said “felt unsafe,” the committee said. These concerns were escalated to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff.Understand the Claim of Executive Privilege in the Jan. 6. InquiryCard 1 of 8A key issue yet untested. More

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      Roger Stone and Alex Jones among five to receive Capitol attack subpoenas

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      Roger Stone and Alex Jones among five to receive Capitol attack subpoenasHouse select committee expands investigation into planning and financing of rally that preceded 6 January insurrection The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Monday issued new subpoenas to five political operatives associated with Donald Trump, including Roger Stone and the far-right media star Alex Jones, as the panel deepens its inquiry into the “Save America” rally that preceded the 6 January insurrection. Trump’s allies think they can defy the Capitol attack panel. History suggests otherwise | Sidney BlumenthalRead moreThe subpoenas demanding documents and testimony expand the select committee’s inquiry focused on the planning and financing of the rally at the Ellipse, by targeting operatives who appear to have had contacts with the Trump White House.House investigators issued subpoenas to the veteran operatives Stone and Jones, Trump’s spokesperson Taylor Budowich, and the pro-Trump activists Dustin Stockton and his wife, Jennifer Lawrence.The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said the subpoenas aimed to uncover “who organized, planned, paid for, and received funds related to those events, as well as what communications organizers had with officials in the White House and Congress”.Thompson said in the subpoena letter to Stone that he was being subpoenaed to explain why he had been invited to lead the march to the Capitol on 6 January from the rally at the Ellipse, but curiously did not ultimately attend the rally or go near the Capitol.The chairman also suggested that House investigators were interested in Stone’s connection to the Oath Keepers, the militia group he used as his private security detail before several members stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Stone was also at a “command center” at the Willard hotel in Washington DC on 5 January, where Trump lieutenants strategized late into the night about how to subvert the results of the 2020 election at the joint session of Congress.In the subpoena letter for Jones, the host of the far-right network InfoWars, Thompson raised the fact that he too did not lead the march from the rally from the Ellipse despite being invited to do so, in a potential indication he knew in advance about the Capitol attack.The select committee also subpoenaed Budowich, a Trump spokesperson who sought to set up a social media and advertising campaign to promote attendance at the rally, according to the subpoena letter.Thompson said, citing information on file with the select committee, that Budowich’s efforts extended to directing about $200,000 to rally organizers from unnamed donors “that was not disclosed to the organization to pay for the advertising campaign”.The new detail about Budowich’s involvement in the financing of the rally could suggest that the select committee is aware of intimate connections between organizers and the Trump campaign, and that the level of coordination was deeper than previously known.Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a member of the select committee, suggested on Saturday that the panel had uncovered new information pertaining to the Capitol attack, telling CNN they had interviewed more than 200 people.The select committee also subpoenaed Stockton and Lawrence, pro-Trump activists who have ties to the ex-president’s former adviser Steve Bannon and allegedly helped organize the rally, according to their subpoena letters.The new subpoenas came after counsel for the select committee said on Monday that allowing Donald Trump to block House investigators from accessing White House records held by the National Archives would threaten the safety of the 2022 and 2024 elections.In court filings with the DC circuit of the US court of appeals, the select committee said the integrity of future elections would be in jeopardy if they were unable to learn everything they could about Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.“The select committee’s task to study and suggest legislation to ensure that January 6 is not repeated, and that our nation’s democracy is protected from future attacks, is urgent,” the House counsel Douglas Letter argued on behalf of the panel.Trump sued last month to stop the select committee from receiving hundreds of pages of White House records from the National Archives, including memos by the former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin, over executive privilege claims.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesRoger StonenewsReuse this content More

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      How Higher Prices This Holiday Season Could Cost Democrats, Too

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      Rising prices for gas and a holiday meal could come back to bite Democrats, who fear that inflation may upend their electoral prospects in the 2022 midterms.AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Samantha Martin, a single mother shopping ahead of Thanksgiving, lamented how rising gas and grocery prices have eaten away at the raise she got this year as a manager at McDonald’s.Gas “is crazy out of hand,” Ms. Martin said as she returned a shopping cart at an Aldi discount market in Auburn Hills, a Detroit suburb, to collect a 25-cent deposit.Her most recent fillup was $3.59 a gallon, about $1 more than the price in the spring. Her raise, to $16 an hour from $14, was “pretty good, but it’s still really hard to manage,” Ms. Martin said. “I got a raise just to have the gas go up, and that’s what my raise went to.”Ms. Martin, 35, a political independent, doesn’t blame either party for inflation, but in a season of discontent, her disapproval fell more heavily on Democrats who run Washington. She voted for President Biden but is disappointed with him and his party. “I think I would probably give somebody else a shot,” she said.As Americans go on the road this week to travel for family gatherings, the higher costs of driving and one of the most expensive meals of the year have alarmed Democrats, who fear that inflation may upend their electoral prospects in the midterms. Republicans are increasingly confident that a rising cost of living — the ultimate kitchen-table issue — will be the most salient factor in delivering a red wave in 2022.Democrats’ passage in quick succession of the $1 trillion infrastructure law and, in the House, of a $2.2 trillion social safety net and climate bill, promise once-in-a-generation investments that Democratic candidates plan to run on next year, with many of the policies in the bills broadly popular.But, despite rising wages and falling unemployment, Democrats are also in danger of being swept aside in a hostile political environment shaped in large part by the highest inflation in 30 years, which has defied early predictions that it would be short-lived as the country pulled out of the pandemic.With control of Congress and many key governor seats at stake, Republicans are pointing to public and private surveys that show inflation is linked to Americans’ falling approval of Mr. Biden. And, given the wholesale gerrymanders drawn, particularly by Republicans, in the current round of congressional redistricting, the Democrats would face a high bar in keeping their paper-thin majority in the House of Representatives, even in a favorable environment. President Biden talking with an assembly line worker as he looks over an electric Hummer by General Motors during a plant visit in Detroit last week. Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe president’s recent tour of ports, bridges and auto plants — which was meant to promote the infrastructure legislation — was overshadowed in part by inflation anxieties. As he test drove an electric Hummer at a General Motors plant in Detroit this week, his message of a future of zero-emission vehicles was eclipsed by a present in which Americans are driving more miles in conventional vehicles, contributing to soaring gas prices.Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat in a vulnerable House district, wrote to Mr. Biden this week that inflation was the most pressing concern of her constituents. A former C.I.A. analyst in Iraq, she urged the president to pressure Saudi Arabia to increase oil output.Ms. Slotkin, who won her seat in the midterm wave of 2018, is one of two Michigan Democrats in highly competitive districts that include the Detroit suburbs. In the Trump years, Democrats had mixed results in the populous region, advancing in white-collar communities but losing ground with their traditional union supporters.In an interview, Ms. Slotkin said that during a recent visit home, she heard constantly about the high costs of gas and groceries, and experienced them herself. “I buy groceries, I drive a ton,” she said. “Thanksgiving week is going to be more expensive by a long shot than last Thanksgiving.”[This Year’s Thanksgiving Feast Will Wallop the Wallet.]She acknowledged the political peril that rising consumer prices could pose for her party if it continues next year. “Kitchen-table issues affect Michigan and the Midwest more than any other national issue going on in Washington,” she said.In interviews with voters in suburban Detroit, including from Ms. Slotkin’s district and that of the second vulnerable Democrat, Representative Haley Stevens, residents almost universally acknowledged the pain of rising prices on their budgets. But it was unclear, from their accounts, that Democrats would suffer politically. Most voters ascribed blame according to their party leanings — as they do on almost all issues in an era of hyperpolarization.Margie Kulaga of Hazel Park, a Trump voter in 2020, said she paid 49 cents a pound, up from 33 cents a pound last year, for a 23-pound turkey that she had just bought from a Kroger market. Prices for meat and eggs have risen by 11.9 percent in the Midwest from a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.“I blame Biden, his whole administration,’’ Ms. Kulaga, 55, said. “I never used to cut coupons, but now I do.”On the other hand, Gloria Bailey, 63, a special-education teacher who lives in the suburb of Redford, is a Biden supporter who said rising costs should not be laid at his doorstep.“The coronavirus has affected a lot of shipments and deliveries and crops and drivers who bring the food to market,” she said.Container ships waiting to enter the Port of Los Angeles in October.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThis month, Republicans broadly advanced in elections across the country, especially in Virginia, prompting forecasts of a similar tide in 2022. Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governorship after emphasizing the rights of parents to control how schools operate and what they teach.But Mr. Youngkin’s chief strategist, Jeff Roe, said the “big takeaway” of the election was how the rising cost of living had significantly motivated voters, an issue that was little covered by the news media. He predicted it would drive Senate and House races around the country next year (many of which he and his firm have a hand in).Biden’s ​​Social Policy Bill at a GlanceCard 1 of 6A narrow vote. More