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      ‘He’s not a quitter’: faithful out in force as Trump gets back to the campaign trail

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      There were raucous cheers and boos. There were Secret Service agents and metal detectors, food trailers in long grass and loudspeakers booming songs by Elton John and Dolly Parton. There were flags, hats, and T-shirts proclaiming Donald Trump the true winner of the 2020 election – or the man to beat in 2024.And flying overhead was a small plane trailing a banner that proclaimed: “Ohio is Trump country.”This strange carnival, unfolding on Saturday under the slogan Save America!, was the setting for Trump’s first post-presidential campaign rally and a noisy warning to Democrats – and democracy – that his cult of personality never went away. It was merely sleeping and, in hibernation, becoming ever more extreme.Although Trump has lost his hi-tech mouthpiece on social media, he still has the low-tech medium of standing in a field and ranting dangerous falsehoods to thousands of fans whose adulation and sense of grievance knows no bounds.“Each Trump rally is different and each one is beautiful,” said Deborah Wagner, 55, a retired court clerk wearing a “Count all the legal votes” T-shirt, who had driven four hours from New York to reach the fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio. “We just want happiness and love for all people. Trump is not a quitter.”For all the high spirits, attendees’ T-shirts held an inverted mirror up to reality: “Trump won, deal with it”; “Re-elect Trump. Make liberals cry again”; “Don’t blame me, I voted for Trump”; “Trump 2024. Make votes count again”; “Fuck Biden. Trump 2024”; “Biden is not my president”; “Unmasked, unmuzzled, unvaccinated, unafraid”.Everyone interviewed by the Guardian took it for granted that last year’s election was stolen from Trump, and some even clung to the belief that he will somehow be reinstated. As for the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol, the only disagreement was whether it was true patriots fighting for a just cause or an infiltration by Antifa and Black Lives Matter (there is zero evidence of this).In soft evening sunshine, with freight trains rumbling by, Trump walked out to rapturous chants of “USA! USA!” and tossed caps into the crowd. “After five months,” he declared, wearing his customary dark suit, white shirt and red tie, “the Biden administration is already complete and total catastrophe.”In a 94-minute speech, the former president complained of surging crime, weakened police, “illegal aliens” overwhelming the southern border, drug cartels back in business, schools turned into “leftwing indoctrination camps” and critical race theory – the mention prompted hearty boos – being “forced on the military”. He added: “Joe Biden is destroying our nation right before our very own eyes.”Trump, whose business could face criminal charges from the Manhattan district attorney, spoke of the urgency for Republicans of winning back the House of Representatives and Senate in next year’s midterm elections. He endorsed Max Miller, a former White House aide challenging Anthony Gonzalez – a congressman who voted to impeach Trump – in a local Republican primary.There were moments of time warp and throwback to his first wildly improvised campaign five years ago. When Trump pointed to “the fake news media”, supporters turned to boo and show the middle finger. “Do you miss me? They miss me. They look at their terrible ratings and they say, ‘We miss this guy’.” Later, the crowd chanted: “CNN sucks!” and a mention of Hillary Clinton prompted cries of, “Lock her up!”Trump has pushed “the Big Lie” in TV interviews and emailed statements but now it was made flesh. “What happened in the election, it’s a disgrace,” he said, embarking on long meandering riffs about it being “rigged”, insisting “We didn’t lose,” and delving into supposed irregularities state by state.“This was the scam of the century and this was the crime of the century,” he said. “We’re never going to stop fight for the true results of this election … Remember I’m not the one trying to undermine American democracy. I’m trying to save American democracy.” His false claim of voter fraud has been debunked by his own attorney general, state election officials and judges.But in this corner of Ohio, a bellwether state he won, it was an article of faith. The crowd shouted: “Trump won! Trump won!”When Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia, asked them, “Who’s your president?”, they roared back, “Trump!”, punching the air. Greene said bitterly that he should still be the president but “the dirty rotten Democrats stole the election”.An heir to the 45th president’s politics of outrage, Greene also said she wanted to fire Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease expert and coronavirus pandemic adviser, prompting shouts of “Lock him up!” The congresswoman asked gleefully: “Did you hear that Tony? They want you locked up.”She echoed a similar comment about Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York before making the nakedly racist statement: “She’s not an American. She doesn’t embrace our American ways.”Indeed, the rally was a vivid demonstration how distortions of the rightwing political and media ecosystem seep down into the grassroots with real world consequences.Wagner, the retired court clerk, argued that last year’s poll was “criminally stolen” and cited a fringe website as evidence. If Trump does not run in 2024, she would like to see his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, an arch conspiracy theorist, become the Republican nominee; she was not alone in floating his name.Wagner looks after her 12-year-old grandson and said she considering withdrawing him from school if coronavirus vaccinations become mandatory and critical race theory is taught. “The people that are calling people racist are actually being racist,” she said. “I treat everybody the same across the board.”Critical race theory examines systemic racism in law and institutions but has been caricatured and demonised by Republicans. Trump used the rally to call for it to be banned from schools, the military and other walks of life.Gary Bartlett, 65, who declines to be vaccinated, condemned critical race theory. “It’s teaching little five-, six-, seven-year-olds you’re supposed to be the oppressed and the white kids are supposed to be oppressors,” he said. “I don’t think critical race theory has any place in schools. There isn’t as much racism as Democrats want us to think there is.”Bartlett, from Lexington, Ohio, a retired manual worker at General Motors, was attending his first Trump rally, having always voted for Democrats until he switched to Trump in 2016. He, too, believes the 2020 election was stolen. “There were too many things on TV showing polling places and too many rumours. When I drive around Ohio and other states I see Trump signs everywhere; there’s no way Biden could have got that many votes.”Randy Weld, 53, a self-employed carpenter, was wearing a black T-shirt that proclaimed “If you don’t like Trump then you probably don’t like me … and I’m OK with that”. He said he “most definitely” wants to see Trump run for president again in 2024. “The best president we ever had. He’s a man of America.”And if Trump opts out? “I’d like to see his son run. I’d like to see some younger blood.”Asked if Trump should run in 2024, David Snell, 55, a logistics specialist who was at the US Capitol on 6 January but did not enter the building, said: “Earlier than that. I feel like he’s coming back real soon. He might be reinstated as president. God is exposing what’s going on. There was fraud, 100%.”Gary Sherrill, 65, a concrete mixer driver wearing a “Make America great again” cap, added: “There’s no doubt in my mind Biden stole it.” But asked for evidence, he replied: “I just know it in my heart. And I trust Trump when he says it’s true.”Trump’s rallies thrived in 2016 as presenting an insurgent campaign against the status quo. He has not yet committed to run in 2024, but once again he is the Washington outsider, striking a chord in restive crowds with invective against a Democratic president.Rose Kidd, 63, a retired nurse who watches the conservative Newsmax and One America News Network channels, said of Biden: “We have wide open borders because of that idiot. He can’t put a sentence together; he’s not there cognitively. He’s not much older than Trump but Trump is still very sharp. Their agenda is to destroy America; president Trump’s agenda is to save America.” More

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      Trump, Seeking to Maintain G.O.P. Sway, Holds First Rally Since Jan. 6

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      The former president’s speech in Ohio, made on behalf of a challenger to a Republican congressman who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, reflected both his power over the party and his diminished status.WELLINGTON, Ohio — Former President Donald J. Trump returned to the rally stage on Saturday evening after a nearly six-month absence, his first large public gathering since his “Save America” event on Jan. 6 that resulted in a deadly riot at the Capitol.On Saturday, the same words — “Save America” — appeared behind Mr. Trump as he addressed a crowd of several thousand at a county fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, about 35 miles southwest of Cleveland.He repeated familiar falsehoods about fraudulent 2020 votes. He attacked Republican officials for refusing to back his effort to overturn the election results — including Representative Anthony E. Gonzalez of Ohio, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, and whose primary challenger, Max Miller, was the reason for Mr. Trump’s visit. The former president praised Mr. Miller as they appeared onstage together.Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party, with large numbers of G.O.P. lawmakers parroting his lies about a stolen 2020 election and fearful of crossing him, and many in the party waiting to see whether he will run again for the White House in 2024.Yet in the audience and on the stage, the scene in Ohio on Saturday was reflective of how diminished Mr. Trump has become in his post-presidency, and how reliant he is on a smaller group of allies and supporters who have adopted his alternate reality as their own. One of the event’s headliners was Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the far-right Republican who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory.“Save America” signs were ubiquitous at the rally, where many supporters expressed a belief in Mr. Trump’s election falsehoods.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s speech — low-key, digressive and nearly 90 minutes long — fell flat at times with an otherwise adoring audience. Scores of people left early as he bounced from topic to topic — immigration, Israel, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s protective mask.“Do you miss me?” Mr. Trump asked in one of his biggest applause lines. “They miss me,” he declared.In interviews, many in the crowd expressed steadfast belief in Mr. Trump’s election falsehoods, and indulged his rewriting of history on the Capitol mob attack.Tony Buscemi, 61, a small-business owner from West Bloomfield, Mich., who stood with his daughter, Natalie, in the sun-baked field where Mr. Trump spoke, said he had been at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and he claimed falsely that it had been a “mostly peaceful” gathering.“People were praying. People were singing,” Mr. Buscemi said, adding that he might have gone inside the building himself had his daughter not persuaded him that it was a bad idea. “There was no insurrection,” he insisted. “I didn’t see anything wrong with it.”Polling suggests that most Republicans remain skeptical of President Biden’s election victory. Thirty-six percent of Republicans said in a Monmouth University poll released on Monday that Mr. Biden had won the election fairly, while 57 percent said his victory was the result of fraud.Still, there is evidence that Mr. Trump’s influence over Republican voters is waning — though only slightly.In late April, 44 percent of Republicans and G.O.P.-leaning independents said in an NBC News poll that they were more supportive of Mr. Trump than of the party itself. A slightly higher share, 50 percent, said they were more apt to support the party.It was the first time since NBC pollsters began asking the question in early 2019 that as many as half of Republicans said they were more supportive of the party than of the man.Giovanni Russonello More

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      Donald Trump returns to campaign trail with rally targeting Ohio Republican

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      Donald Trump was set to return to the campaign trail with a rally in Ohio on Saturday night, campaigning against a Republican who voted for his impeachment and trailing his own candidacy for president in 2024.“We’re giving tremendous endorsements,” Trump told the conservative Newsmax channel on Friday.“Fake Republicans, anybody that voted for the impeachment doesn’t get it. But there weren’t too many of them. And I think most of them are being … primaried right now, so that’s good. I’ll be helping their opponent.”Trump’s first impeachment, for abusing his power in approaches to Ukraine, attracted one Republican vote, that of the Utah senator Mitt Romney. In his second, for inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, 10 House Republicans and seven in the Senate voted for Trump’s guilt.Trump was acquitted twice but banned from major social media platforms over his role in the Capitol attack. Regardless, he dominates the Republican party.All bar one of the House Republicans who voted against him have attracted challengers. The 10th, John Katko of New York, co-authored a proposal for an independent, 9/11-style commission to investigate the 6 January attack on Congress, in which a mob roamed the Capitol, looking for lawmakers to capture or kill in an attempt to overturn the election. Senate Republicans blocked it.The rally outside Cleveland on Saturday was to support Max Miller, a former White House aide challenging Anthony Gonzalez, a former college football and NFL star censured by his state party for voting for impeachment.By Saturday afternoon, traffic was backed up from the fairgrounds into town, where pro-Trump signs dotted residents’ lawns. On street corners, vendors sold “Trump 2024” flags and other merchandise as supporters arrived.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman from Georgia who was stripped of her committee assignments over a number of extreme comments, mingled with attendees and took pictures.Trump has said he “didn’t win” the election but has not formally conceded defeat by Joe Biden and continues to voice his lie that the loss was the result of electoral fraud.On Friday he told Newsmax he would be “making an announcement in the not too distant future” about whether he will run again, and said supporters were “going to be thrilled” by election results in 2024.“We want a little time to go by, maybe watch what happens in [2022],” he said.In those midterm elections, Republicans hope to retake the House and Senate.Trump’s legal problems mounted on Friday, as his own lawyer confirmed that charges are likely in the investigation of the Trump Organization by the Manhattan district attorney. The company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and the company itself are in prosecutors’ sights.Many observers point out that Trump’s many legal problems did not stop him winning the presidency in 2016 and are unlikely to put off many Republican voters should he run for the White House again.In his Newsmax interview, the former president referred to his problems and to those affecting Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and loyal ally. The former New York mayor this week saw his law license suspended, over his advancement of Trump’s election fraud lie.“Right now,” Trump said, “I’m helping a lot of people get into office, and we’re fighting the deep state, and we’re fighting [the] radical left. “They’re after me, They’re after Rudy, they’re after you, probably. They’re after anybody.”The “deep state” conspiracy theory holds that a permanent government of bureaucrats and operatives exists to thwart Trump. Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016 then a White House strategist and chief propagator of the theory, has said it is “for nut cases”.“They’re vicious,” Trump went on, “and they don’t do a good job and they’re very bad for the country … But I’ve been fighting them for five and a half years.“Since I came down the escalator [at Trump Tower in New York in June 2015, to announce his run for president], I’ve been fighting them. These are vicious people … I honestly believe they don’t love this country.”Trump has spent much of his post-presidency at his Florida resort and his golf course in New Jersey. He also told Newsmax he was “working very hard not only for 2024, but we’re working very hard to show the corruption of what took place in 2020, and then we see what happens”.Trump’s rallies have been an instrumental part of his brand since he launched his 2016 campaign. The former reality star often test-drives new material and talking points to see how they resonate with crowds. His political operation uses the events to collect critical voter contact information and as fundraising tools.The rallies have spawned hardcore fans who traveled the country, often camping out overnight to snag prime spots. Some such supporters began lining up outside the Ohio venue days early this week. More

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      2.7m people have signed up for $1m vaccine lottery, Ohio governor says

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      The Ohio governor, Mike DeWine, on Monday hailed the success of the state’s Vax-a-Million lottery in boosting demand for coronavirus vaccines, announcing that more than 2.7 million adult residents had registered for the chance of winning $1m in one of five weekly drawings.DeWine’s giveaway approach, however, has drawn the ire of fellow Republican state lawmakers, who are introducing legislation to shut the project down as “a frivolous use of taxpayer dollars”.The prize money comes from Ohio’s share of the $2.2tn federal Cares Act, which was signed into law in March last year.At a press conference on Monday afternoon, DeWine said he was encouraged by the take-up rate for the lottery, which is open only to those over 18 who can prove they are at least partially vaccinated before each prize draw. The first draw is on Wednesday.In addition to the adult cash draw, DeWine said 104,386 younger Ohioans aged 12 to 17 had registered for a chance to win a four-year full college scholarship.“Where we’ve seen the biggest increase is those 16 and 17 years of age,” DeWine told reporters.“One assumes that they’re very interested in getting that scholarship, they’re looking at college coming up and they’re looking to see if they can get in.”After the lottery was announced on 12 May, the number of vaccines administered in Ohio jumped by 33%. In that time, DeWine said, vaccine take-up by 16 and 17-year-olds had increased by 94%, by 46% for 18- and 19-year-olds and by 55% for those aged 20 to 55.In all, 2,758,470 of the 5.17 million eligible adults had begun the process of receiving the vaccine and registering for the draw, he added.“We’re more than happy with the results. This was just so important to our future as a state, our immediate future and our long-term future. Having more people vaccinated really allows us to get back to normal.”State representative Jena Powell, meanwhile, said she would introduce legislation to end the lottery to the Ohio house this week. She wants the money used for other initiatives such as small business recovery grants and mental health services for children.“The vaccine lottery is a frivolous use of taxpayer dollars. They have the ability to take the vaccine if they want but we shouldn’t be putting $5m of taxpayer money to [it],” she told 2News of Dayton.“I have to look at the whole picture and I know you’ve had a difficult year but we can’t make the future more difficult.” More

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      Footage reveals Ohio state senator driving during Zoom call

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      An Ohio state senator used a virtual background of his home office in an apparent attempt to conceal the fact that he was driving during a Zoom meeting – on the same day a bill to ban distracted driving was introduced.Andrew Brenner might have succeeded in fooling the meeting with the state’s controlling board, were it not for the seatbelt strapped across his chest, glimpses of the road behind him and the constant turning of his head as he changed lanes.The footage of the meeting, which was streamed live to the public via the state’s broadcaster on Monday, came on the same day Ohio legislators introduced a bill to crack down on dangerous driving, including introducing penalties for texting and livestreaming while behind the wheel.At the start of the video conference of the board, which makes adjustments to the state budget, Brenner appeared in a parked car. A few minutes later, he left the call before reappearing with a different background featuring wooden cabinets, hanging artwork and a houseplant.The Republican, who represents a district north of the state capital Columbus, continued to participate in the call, listening and responding to questions while keeping his eyes mostly on the road ahead. As he drove, the background faltered, revealing glimpses of the view from the driver-side window.Brenner denied that he was driving unsafely. He told The Columbus Dispatch he “wasn’t distracted” during the meeting and was “paying attention to the driving and listening to” the discussion.“I wasn’t distracted. I was paying attention to the driving and listening to it [the meeting],” he said. “And I’ve actually been on other calls, numerous calls, while driving. Phone calls for the most part, but on video calls, I’m not paying attention to the video. To me, it’s like a phone call.”The incident coincided with the introduction of a bill to Ohio’s General Assembly to penalise unsafe driving. House bill 283 proposes expanding a ban on texting while driving, currently a secondary offence in the state, to explicitly outlawing texting, livestreaming, taking photos and the use of mobile apps while driving. It makes both the holding and use of an electronic device while driving a primary offence.The state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, said he planned to include provisions against distracted driving in his upcoming budget proposal. He said in a press statement last year: “Ohio’s current laws don’t go far enough to change the culture around distracted driving, and people are dying because of it.“Distracted driving is a choice that must be as culturally unacceptable as drunk driving is today, and strengthening our current laws will lead to more responsible driving.”Brenner’s multitasking joins the growing ranks of professionals who have pushed the boundaries of acceptable Zoom behaviour during the pandemic, ranging from the morally precarious to the downright hilarious.Last month, Rebecca Saldaña, a Democratic state senator in Washington, apologised after joining a Zoom hearing while driving, the Seattle Times reported, while in February, a California plastic surgeon came under an ethics investigation after appearing at a virtual traffic court hearing from an operating theatre.Meanwhile, the Canadian MP William Amos apologised after appearing stark naked during a virtual parliamentary session last month, covering his private parts with a phone as he stood between the flags of Quebec and Canada after his laptop camera accidentally turned on during the call. And a Texas lawyer went viral in February after he was left unable to undo a Zoom filter during a hearing and had to inform the judge that he was not a cat. More

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      Val Demings: officer who shot Ma’Khia Bryant ‘responded as he was trained’

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      Val Demings, a Democratic congresswoman and a former police chief, said on Sunday the officer who fatally shot teenager Ma’Khia Bryant in Ohio this week “responded as he was trained to do”.In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, Demings spoke about the Columbus officer’s actions and how her time as Orlando police chief informed her perspective on police reform.Ma’Khia, 16, was shot and killed on Tuesday, about 20 minutes before the former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis last year.Franklin county, where Ma’Khia was killed, has one of the highest rates of fatal police shootings in the US. In a departure from protocol, officials released body camera footage soon after Ma’Khia was killed. The video appears to show her swinging a knife at another individual. Officer Nicholas Reardon shoots at Ma’Khia, who falls.One of Ma’Khia’s close friends, Aaliyaha Tucker, told the Columbus Dispatch her friend was funny, kind, helpful and outgoing. “She’ll talk about how beautiful that you are,” Tucker said. “She was just a nice person.”On Saturday, a rally was held in memory of Ma’Khia’s at the Ohio statehouse.On CBS, host John Dickerson asked Demings about Reardon’s conduct, which would still be protected under a police reform bill, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which has passed the US House. The bill would restrain police officers from using excessive force unless a third party was in danger and de-escalation was not possible.“Everybody has the benefit of slowing the video down and seizing the perfect moment,” Demings said. “The officer on the street does not have that ability. He or she has to make those split-second decisions and they’re tough. “But the limited information that I know in viewing the video, it appears that the officer responded as he was trained to do with the main thought of preventing a tragedy and a loss of life of the person who was about to be assaulted.”Dickerson asked what Demings would say to officers who believe they are being scrutinized unfairly because of an increased focus on accountability. She said that when she spoke to officers, she told them to remember their training and that they work with human beings, and to use compassion.“The overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers in this nation are good people who go to work every day to protect and serve our communities,” Demings said. “I remind them of that. Always stand on the right side. Speak up.” More

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      'A good start but miles to go': progressive Nina Turner on Biden and Democrats' future

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      When Joe Biden, a 78-year-old white male moderate, was sworn in as US president, it was seen as only a matter of time before progressives became restive and “Democrats in disarray” headlines were dusted off.But two months in, the party remains uncharacteristically united. Biden is being hailed as an unlikely radical, drawing comparisons with transformative presidents such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson – his very reputation as a steady centrist enabling him to move further and faster.How long can the Democratic honeymoon last?One key arbiter of this grace period is the influential figure of Nina Turner, a longtime backer of Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-declared democratic socialist beaten by Biden in last year’s party primary. She believes the signs are encouraging – so far.“He’s doing all right but we’re going to press on, we’re going to keep pressing,” says Turner, 53, currently campaigning for election to Congress in Ohio. “We haven’t got all that we need but this is a good start. The people are the north star, not those of us who are politicians, and their needs are great. You got 33 million people out there who need a $15-an-hour minimum wage. So, a good start but we got many more miles to go.”A former Ohio state senator, Turner was a national surrogate for Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, led its spin-off grassroots organisation Our Revolution and served as national co-chair of Sanders’ 2020 run. Her own shot at national office in Ohio’s 11th congressional district has come about after Marcia Fudge resigned to become housing secretary under Biden.Turner was endorsed by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Jamie Raskin of Maryland. If successful in the Democratic primary in August and the special election in November, she would cement her position as a leader of the left of the party.Ohio voted twice for Barack Obama but then twice for Donald Trump as Republicans made gains among blue-collar voters. Turner reflects: “When I ran for secretary of state in 2014, what I heard in the rural areas of the state was there is a need for Democrats to show that it’s not just two corporate parties that people are choosing between, that the Democratic party really does get it.“We got to go back to the roots of FDR and the roots of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm – that kind of service speaks to the people of the great state of Ohio, whether they’re urban, suburban or rural. I know that it does because I was out there on the stump for President Obama, especially in 2012.”Biden’s sweeping $1.9tn coronavirus relief package, including direct cash payments to millions of Americans and measures to cut child poverty nearly in half, was seen as a win for working families. But it was not an unalloyed victory: Sanders’ amendment to include increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour was struck down by Republicans and moderate Democrats.Turner says: “The Covid relief bill is certainly a good start. That $1.9tn is a big deal; I think it’s 10% of GDP. It’s strong and the reason why we’re there is because progressives were pushing. Now we need to get that $15-an-hour minimum wage over the finish line because it’s the floor and not the ceiling.“We got to address the systemic problems that were there before the pandemic with systemic solutions and I believe the Democratic party can do it. And I’m going to Congress to help them along the way.”Biden’s bold advance may soon stall, however, on Capitol Hill. Senate Republicans in the minority can use a procedural mechanism called the filibuster to block his legislative agenda on gun control, healthcare, voting rights and much else. Many on the left regard the filibuster as a relic of the Jim Crow era and are calling for it to be abolished so that Democrats could pass bills with a simple majority.But Democratic senators such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema continue to support it. “They are on the wrong side of history,” Turner says. “Senator Joe Manchin needs to get a spine. People deserve to have robust debate in both chambers and not have it prohibited by people who want to play games with people’s lives.“While they collect their salary off the taxpayer’s dime, people like Manchin and Sinema have the pure and unadulterated gall to stand in the way of the people getting the resources that they need. There’s a moral contradiction there that must be addressed.”Manchin, from pro-Trump West Virginia, has defended the filibuster by articulating hopes of reviving bipartisanship. Biden promised to unify the nation but found Republicans unyielding in their opposition to the coronavirus relief bill. Turner warns the president against over-stretching to accommodate the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.“President Obama came in as the diplomat that he is – ‘I want bipartisanship’ – and tried to negotiate with these Republicans. Dr Maya Angelou said, ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’ They already showed us Democrats who they are and we ought to believe them and so I don’t want to see President Biden fall into that trap.“It was tried and tested under President Obama: the Republicans under Senator McConnell are just not going to do right and so Democrats are going to have to take the rein for these two years that we have and use the people’s power on the people’s behalf.“That is why the people gave us the presidency. That is why they answered the call in Georgia and that is why they allowed Democrats to keep control of the House. Now we’re going to have to show people something or we might be in for a rude awakening in 2022.”Turner, an assistant professor of history and podcast host, argues that opinion polls show a majority of Americans agree with progressives on issues ranging from the Green New Deal to canceling student debt, from increasing the minimum wage to reforming the legal system, especially for racial justice.“The thing that we are seeing coming from President Biden, even though it might not be all that progressives want, the progressives cast the die. The American people might not call themselves progressives, but when we drill down to talk to them about the issues, they are right where we are.“What we’re talking about is not radical. The people who are out of touch are people like Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Mitch McConnell because the last time I checked, there are poor people in Kentucky and there are poor people in West Virginia, just as there are poor people in Ohio who need their elected leaders to provide relief for them. That’s all we’re asking.”In the New York Times, Ezra Klein has noted that the $1.9tn stimulus package looks a lot like the proposals Sanders has fought for all his career. “Bernie Sanders didn’t win the 2020 election,” he wrote. “But he may have won its aftermath.”Does Turner believe that, after all these years, Sanders has been vindicated?“Sometimes visionaries are ahead of their time and, whether it was popular or not, he has stayed consistent and now the people have caught up with his vision,” she says. “The progressive movement – but America, by extension – is right where Senator Bernard Sanders is on these issues. We’re going to keep pushing.”An intrigue of the next four years is whether Biden will backslide – and whether Sanders will call him out on it. Turner adds: “You can both recognise somebody saying that President Biden’s on the right path and at the same time continue to push. Those things are not mutually exclusive. So I wouldn’t say the progressives are necessarily keeping their powder dry; they’re saying we are off to a good start but we got to make this thing better.” More

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      JD Vance eyes Ohio’s Senate seat as a working-class man – with millions in tech funds

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      As a prospective conservative candidate for the US Senate from Ohio, author JD Vance can claim a rarely authentic connection to the white working-class voters who helped make Donald Trump president.In his bestselling 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, Vance told the tale of his escape from generations of poverty and addiction in the shadow of Appalachia, thanks to a fiercely loving grandmother and a stroke or two of lonesome luck. (The Netflix film adaptation was less well received than the book.)Even if Vance, 36, were a Democrat, his life story – the Marines, Yale law school, venture capital, national renown – would make for political biography gold.But as the Republican party embarks on a highly tenuous makeover, in the aftermath of the Trump presidency, from being “the party of the country clubs” to the party of the working class, Vance and his political fortunes have attracted a disproportionate share of excitement in conservative circles – and a mounting pile of actual gold.Before he has even confirmed that he will run for office, Vance has built a campaign slush fund worth at least $10m on the strength of donations from the tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a formerly ardent Trump supporter, and the hedge fund heiress-slash-Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, Forbes magazine first reported.The new working-class face of the Republican party, it seems, will be rolled out on a distinctly ruling class budget.But a successful Vance candidacy might be worth a very large sum indeed for Republicans, who could see a rare opportunity to confer blue-collar legitimacy on the tricky project of sweeping decades of hostility on workers’ issues – from wages to unions to health care to the giant economic relief package signed into law by Joe Biden just last month – behind a red curtain.“They’re not going to get there on the standard worker issues,” said David Pepper, former chairman of the Ohio Democratic party, of the Republican attempt to rebrand. “There’s no way.”The conventional wisdom among political strategists has long been that the Republican party, whose supporters are disproportionately white, faces a demographic timebomb as the US electorate diversifies. Trump knocked down the theory a bit last year by making inroads among Latinos and, to a lesser extent, African American men.The “working-class” pitch is partly an appeal to those new Republican-curious voters. But Trump also pointed to another, powerful way for the Republican party to extend its reach: by winning an ever-greater share of working-class white voters, the kind who might have once belonged to a union and voted Democratic, but who backed Trump in both 2016 and 2020 by a margin 40 points greater than the national spread.Republican strategists are brainstorming about how to retain those voters. An internal Republican memo revealed this week by Axios, called Cementing GOP as the Working Class Party, advised that “House Republicans can broaden our electorate, increase voter turnout, and take back the House by enthusiastically rebranding and reorienting as the Party of the Working Class.”Plutocrats inside the party who might disagree are keeping mum for now, or placing their bets discreetly, while the party’s leading firebrands in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election – senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley – have taken up the message and are running with it.“The Republican party is not the party of the country clubs, it’s the party of hardworking, blue-collar men and women,” Cruz hypnotically declared in February, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).“We are a working-class party now,” Hawley tweeted a day after the November election. “That’s the future.”Democratic partisans snipe that a half-century long commitment by Republicans to increasing the comfort of America’s wealthiest combined with a more recent strategy of trying to prevent voters from voting cannot be erased with simple assertions of newborn political intent.But unfortunately for Democrats, in a world where politics has largely come detached from policy – taken over by culture wars and other more sinister currents roiled by Trump, including racist resentments and the scapegoating of immigrants – the Republican strategy is not dead on arrival, as top Democratic strategists themselves admit.“The Democratic party envisions themselves as the party of working people,” said David Axelrod, former Barack Obama adviser, in a debrief of the 2020 election, “but it doesn’t feel that way to a lot of working people, and the party needs to figure that out.”Both sides acknowledge that branding is important, and in 2022 in Ohio, that could be where Vance comes in. The Senate seat in play unexpectedly opened earlier this year, when incumbent Republican Rob Portman, a mild-mannered Trump skeptic who nevertheless supported the former president, indicated he had had enough of Washington.Older-style conservatives, who dislike Trump but might nod knowingly at the scenes in Vance’s book describing people who “gamed the welfare system”, have encouraged him to get in the race.“I hope Vance will run for Ohio Senator Rob Portman’s seat in 2022,” tweeted Rod Dreher, senior editor of the American Conservative magazine. “He is exactly the kind of new Republican we need.”Assuming that Vance’s Yale law degree or Silicon Valley money would not torpedo his working-class credibility with Ohio voters, however, he could face a second crisis of authenticity, one that could stop his candidacy short before he gets to face a single Democratic opponent.To get to the general election, if he runs, Vance must first survive a Republican primary race – and in the cutthroat world of base Republican politics, where fealty to Trump is all-important, Vance is distinctly vulnerable.“I think that I’m going to vote third party because I can’t stomach Trump,” Vance told NPR on book tour in 2016. “I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.”Perhaps even worse, Vance wrote admiringly of Barack Obama in the New York Times in 2017, saying he would “miss” the former president “and the example he set”.His primary opponents would hammer him relentlessly on plentiful past statements such as those, and in recent months a new version of JD Vance has been scrambling furiously away from the old JD Vance. He has tweeted broadsides against the “ruling class”; suggested that immigrants represent a pandemic threat; appeared on Fox News to trash Meghan and Harry, and bash Biden on immigration; gone after big tech, as he takes Silicon Valley money; and even played Twitter footsie with QAnon.“He’s clearly trying to mimic this Trump genuflection that we’re seeing from some of the other candidates, which is kind of embarrassing for JD Vance, because his brand was very different just a couple years ago,” said Pepper, the former Democratic party chair.It remains to be seen whether the internal tensions – not to say hypocrisies – of a Vance candidacy funded by coastal cash, or of the greater Republican rebranding project, will prove too great to sustain in real life. For now, they are both untested political theories.But with a $10m war chest, Vance has enough to get in the game.“That’s a lot of money, that will help him a lot,” said Pepper, adding that Vance’s popularity as an author belied a low name-recognition, for now, among Ohio voters. “But if the only reason he’s in the game is because of coastal big tech, it kills the ‘I’m-a-Trump-guy’ narrative – but it also kills his narrative about representing the working man.” More