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      How did Republicans turn critical race theory into a winning electoral issue?

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      US politicsHow did Republicans turn critical race theory into a winning electoral issue?Glenn Youngkin won the race to be Virginia’s governor having exploited concerns over teaching about race in schools David Smith in Washington@smithinamericaWed 3 Nov 2021 14.28 EDTLast modified on Wed 3 Nov 2021 15.34 EDTWhat is critical race theory?Developed by the former Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell and other scholars in the 1970s and 80s, critical race theory, or CRT, examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law and other modern institutions, maintaining the dominance of white people.CRT argues that racism is not a matter of individual bigotry but a systemic issue that creates an uneven playing field for people of colour.Body blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert DemocratsRead moreKimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a law professor widely credited with coining the term, told the New York Times: “It is a way of seeing, attending to, accounting for, tracing and analyzing the ways that race is produced, the ways that racial inequality is facilitated, and the ways that our history has created these inequalities that now can be almost effortlessly reproduced unless we attend to the existence of these inequalities.”A year or so ago few people had heard of it, yet Republicans have whipped up a moral panic that CRT is being rammed down the throats of schoolchildren. They caricature it as teaching Black children to internalise victimhood and white children to self-identify as oppressors.Is it taught in schools?No, it is not a part of the secondary school curriculum. The National School Boards Association and other education leaders are adamant that CRT is not being taught in K-12 schools, which teach students from five to 18 years old.But Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and other rightwing media have turned it into a catch-all buzzword for any teaching in schools about race and American history. They loosely apply it to concepts such as equity and anti-bias training for teachers.Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club in Virginia, told the Guardian last week: “They may not call it critical race theory, but they’re calling it equity, diversity, inclusion. They use culturally responsive training for their teachers. It is fundamentally CRT.“It’s dividing our children into victims and oppressors and what’s a child supposed to do with that?”Efforts to weaponise CRT were reinforced by former president Donald Trump and a rightwing ecosystem including influential thinktanks. Last year Christopher Rufo, a conservative scholar now at the Manhattan Institute, told the Fox News host Tucker Carlson that CRT was a form of “cult indoctrination”.In January the Heritage Foundation hosted a panel discussion where the moderator, Angela Sailor, warned: “Critical race theory is the complete rejection of the best ideas of the American founding. This is some dangerous, dangerous philosophical poisoning in the blood stream.”What role did CRT play in Virginia’s election?Winning Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin’s signature issue was education. He hammered government schools on “culture war” issues such as race and transgender rights and falsely claimed that his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, called his friend, President Joe Biden, and asked the FBI to silence conservative parents.Youngkin said he would ban the teaching of CRT in Virginia classrooms. At a campaign event in Glen Allen last month, the candidate said to applause: “What we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race. On day one, I will ban critical race theory.”McAuliffe was forced on to the defensive and had to engage with the issue. He accused Republicans of using the Trump playbook of division and deceit, a message that did not cut through in the same way.Why did the issue resonate with voters?This can be seen as a rightwing backlash to last year’s Black Lives Matter protests and conversations about structural racism that followed the police murder of George Floyd, an African American man in Minneapolis. It also can be seen as a response to America’s changing demographics, specifically the increase in the minority population.It also comes after lengthy school closures during the pandemic infuriated many parents. School board meetings in Virginia and elsewhere have turned ugly, even violent, and protest signs calling for bans on masks and CRT are sometimes almost interchangeable.This week conservatives targeted school board elections nationwide over masking rules and teaching racial justice issues. In Virginia, 14% of voters listed education as a top issue, and about seven of 10 of those voted for Youngkin.McAuliffe did not help himself when, during a debate, he said, “I don’t believe parents should be telling schools what they should teach” – a line that was constantly replayed in Youngkin attacks ads.Youngkin also highlighted a high school bathroom sexual assault case in affluent Loudoun county, in northern Virginia, to argue against allowing transgender students into their chosen restrooms.Is it just Virginia?No. Officials in Republican-controlled states across America are proposing numerous laws to ban teachers from emphasizing the role of systemic racism. Legislation aiming to curb how teachers talk about race has been considered by at least 15 states, according to research by Education Week.Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has described CRT as “state-sanctioned racism”.Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, signed into law a measure banning public schools from teaching CRT, which it claimed will “exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the wellbeing of the state of Idaho and its citizens”.Red states are also targeting the 1619 Project, a series by the New York Times which contends that modern American history began with the arrival of enslaved people four centuries ago and examines that legacy.Republicans are expected to use the Youngkin formula to woo suburban voters in next year’s midterm elections for Congress.TopicsUS politicsRepublicansRaceDemocratsVirginiaexplainersReuse this content More

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      Virginia votes as poll expert says ‘white backlash’ could power Republican win

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      VirginiaVirginia votes as poll expert says ‘white backlash’ could power Republican winGlenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe make final pitch for governor as polls show unexpectedly close race Lauren Gambino in Washington, Martin Pengelly in New York and agenciesTue 2 Nov 2021 17.03 EDTFirst published on Tue 2 Nov 2021 08.01 EDTVirginians on Tuesday headed to the polls to elect a new governor, in a closely contested race between the Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin widely seen as a referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency.Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidencyRead moreThey did so as a leading Virginia polling expert warned that Youngkin may be riding a wave of “white backlash” all the way to the governor’s mansion, having successfully focused on controversy over the place of race in education.In the final hours of the campaign, the candidates offered starkly different closing arguments, making their cases to voters whose odd-year gubernatorial elections have long reflected the national political mood a year into any new administration.Saddled by Biden’s sagging poll numbers and intra-party wrangling that has gridlocked the president’s domestic spending agenda, McAuliffe has attempted to tether his opponent to Donald Trump, a polarizing figure in voter-rich northern suburbs.Youngkin has mostly avoided the subject of Trump while embracing many of his tactics, a strategy many Republican strategists believe could be a model for the midterm elections next year.Polls showed an unexpectedly close race in a state that has trended Democratic since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. A loss in Virginia, which Biden won by nearly 10 points in 2020, would be deeply alarming for a party already bracing for a difficult challenge next year.Hours before polls closed in the commonwealth, Biden expressed confidence that Democrats would win the gubernatorial race in Virginia, and hold the governor’s mansion in New Jersey, where the incumbent, Phil Murphy, is seeking re-election in the Garden state.“We’re gonna win,” Biden said, leaning into the microphone for emphasis, during a press conference in Glasgow, Scotland. He acknowledged that the contest in Virginia was “tight”, saying the outcome would reflect “who shows up, who turns out”.But he waved off attempts to read the race as a barometer of his presidency, insisting that McAuliffe’s fortunes in the state were not tied to his poll numbers or his domestic agenda.“Even if we had passed my agenda, I wouldn’t claim we won because Biden’s agenda passed,” he told reporters.The president predicted that Americans would know the result by the time Air Force One touches down in Washington at roughly 1am local time, though some analysts have warned that it could take longer.Changes to Virginia law mean mail-in and early ballots will be tabulated more quickly than in 2020. As such, Democrats may appear to be ahead early in the night, before the localities more favorable to Republicans start counting election day ballots.On Monday, the last day of dueling events, McAuliffe continued to hammer Youngkin over his connections to Trump, warning darkly that a Republican win in Virginia could help pave the way for a Trump comeback in 2024. But then he went further.“Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” the former governor, 64, told a crowd in Fairfax. “He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.”That was a lie. Trump was not in Virginia, though he did boost the Republican candidate with a tele-rally. Youngkin did not participate.Youngkin, 54, a former private equity executive and political newcomer, closed his campaign with a final attempt to harness parents’ anger over school closures, mask mandates and what their children are learning, and turn it into an election night upset.Asked why education had become a central factor in Youngkin’s stronger-than-expected showing, Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia said: “One of the candidates decided it was his ticket to the governor’s mansion and he may well be right.”Speaking to MSNBC, Sabato pointed to the core of Youngkin’s appeal on education: a promise to ban critical race theory in schools. Critical race theory, or CRT, is an academic discipline that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society. It is not taught in Virginia schools, regardless of Youngkin’s promise to ban it.“The operative word is not critical,” Sabato said. “And it’s not theory. It’s race. What a shock, huh? Race. That is what matters. And that’s why it’s sticks.“There’s a lot of, we can call it white backlash, white resistance, whatever you want to call it. It has to do with race. And so we live in a post-factual era … It doesn’t matter that [CRT] isn’t taught in Virginia schools. It’s this generalised attitude that whites are being put upon and we’ve got to do something about it. We being white voters.”Cultural issues have dominated the race, Youngkin also promising to give parents more control over how public schools handle gender and Covid-19, McAuliffe vowing to protect voting rights and abortion access.McAuliffe, a Clinton ally who was governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018 – the state does not allow consecutive terms – has seen his lead evaporate. Polls have shown Youngkin succeeding by appealing to independents turned off by Trump without alienating his ardent supporters.Youngkin campaigned as an advocate for parents who want more say in their children’s education, capitalising on anger among conservatives who believe schools are overreaching in the name of diversity. Speaking in Richmond on Monday, he promised he would usher in “a Virginia where our government stops telling us what to do all the time”.McAuliffe also handed Youngkin a political gift when he said in a debate in September: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”He has attacked Youngkin for hesitating to say whether Biden won the presidency legitimately. Youngkin acknowledged Biden’s victory but also called for an audit of Virginia voting machines, prompting Democrats to accuse him of validating Trump’s baseless election conspiracy theories.Democrats strive to fire Black voter turnout in Virginia governor’s raceRead moreBoth Biden and Barack Obama campaigned for McAuliffe. Trump has not visited the state. In his tele-rally on Monday, the former president told voters Youngkin would protect suburbs and did not repeat his lies about voter fraud.McAuliffe responded on Twitter, saying Trump was “pulling out all the stops to win this race because he knows Glenn will advance his Maga agenda here in Virginia. Tomorrow, Virginia will choose a better way.”In their final word on the campaign, Sabato’s team at UVA moved their prediction from “leans Democratic” to “leans Republican”.“Our sense is that the race has been moving toward Youngkin,” Kyle Kondik and J Miles Coleman wrote, “in large part because of the political environment. McAuliffe’s Trump-centric campaign also just doesn’t seem as potent in a non-federal race with the former president no longer in the White House.”TopicsVirginiaUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansRacenewsReuse this content More

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      Minneapolis votes on whether to replace police department

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      MinnesotaMinneapolis votes on whether to replace police department Future of policing is on the ballot in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice Associated Press in MinneapolisTue 2 Nov 2021 08.51 EDTVoters in Minneapolis will decide on Tuesday whether to replace their police department with a new Department of Public Safety, more than a year after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer launched a national movement to defund or abolish police. ‘I had a big gasp’: George Floyd jurors speak on the trial, the video and the verdictRead moreThe Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, is also in a tough fight for a second term, facing opponents who attacked him in the wake of Floyd’s death.Frey opposed the policing amendment. Two of his leading challengers in a field of 17, Sheila Nezhad and Kate Knuth, strongly supported the proposal. Voters will also decide whether to replace an unusual “weak mayor, strong council” system with a more conventional distribution of executive and legislative powers.While results on the ballot questions were expected on Tuesday night, the mayoral race uses ranked-choice voting. If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the winner will be determined after a tally of second- and potentially third-choice votes. The future of policing in the city where Floyd’s death in May 2020 launched a nationwide reckoning on racial justice overshadowed everything else on the ballot. The debate brought national attention as well as out-of-state money seeking to influence a contest that could shape changes in policing elsewhere. The proposed amendment to the city charter would remove language that mandates Minneapolis have a police department with a minimum number of officers based on population. It would be replaced by a new Department of Public Safety that would take a “comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions” that “could include” police officers “if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety”. Supporters of the change argued that an overhaul is necessary to stop police violence, to re-imagine what public safety can be and to devote more funding to approaches that don’t rely on sending armed officers to deal with people in crisis. But opponents said the ballot proposal contained no plan for how the department would operate and expressed fear it might make communities affected by gun violence more vulnerable. The details, and who would lead the new agency, would be determined by the mayor and the council. Two prominent progressives – Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis area, and state attorney general Keith Ellison – supported the policing amendment. But some leading mainstream liberals, including Governor Tim Walz and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, opposed it, fearing backlash could lead to Democratic losses across the US in 2022. Opponents included several Black leaders, some top voices in the police accountability movement. Minister JaNae Bates, a spokeswoman for the pro-amendment campaign, told reporters that even if the proposal fails, it has changed the conversation. “No matter what happens,” Bates said, “the city is going to have to move forward and really wrestle with what we cannot un-know: that the Minneapolis police department has been able to operate with impunity and has done quite a bit of harm and the city has to take some serious steps to rectify that.”TopicsMinnesotaGeorge FloydUS politicsUS policingRacenewsReuse this content More

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      Republican contender in Virginia avoids Trump’s campaign event

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      VirginiaRepublican contender in Virginia avoids Trump’s campaign event
      Glenn Youngkin to give Trump’s ‘tele rally’ a wide berth
      Opinion: Republican racial culture war reaches new heights
      Martin Pengelly@MartinPengellyMon 1 Nov 2021 14.36 EDTFirst published on Mon 1 Nov 2021 10.39 EDTDonald Trump was to host a Virginia campaign event on Monday for Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate for governor in a race headed down to the wire. But Youngkin was not planning to participate, as he attempted to balance appeals to the former president’s supporters with a semblance of independence.Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidencyRead moreTrump hoped a phone-in “tele rally” would hoist Youngkin past his Democratic opponent, the former governor Terry McAuliffe.The contest is seen by many as a referendum on the Biden presidency and a bellwether for midterm elections next year. On the day before polling day, the realclearpolitics.com polling average had Youngkin ahead by less than two points. Fivethirtyeight.com put the Republican up by one.McAuliffe had scheduled rallies in Roanoke, Virginia Beach and Richmond and in northern Virginia. Youngkin was to rally in Roanoke, Richmond, Virginia Beach and Loudon county.In Richmond, Youngkin addressed “an energetic crowd of what his campaign said was around 800 people” at a small airport, the Associated Press reported.“This is a moment for Virginians to push back on this left, liberal progressive agenda and take our commonwealth back,” he said.McAuliffe, who has called himself a “pro-business pro-progressive”, is a close ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton and has campaigned with President Joe Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris, former president Barack Obama and other high-profile Democrats. Nonetheless he has struggled to generate enthusiasm in a state Biden won by 10 points.Youngkin, a businessman, has not appeared with Trump. On Saturday, he told reporters: “I’m not going to be engaged in the tele-town hall. The teams are talking, I’m sure.”Youngkin has however comfortably dealt in Trump-esque attack lines, most prominently and potentially fruitfully focusing on how race is taught in schools. In return McAuliffe has sought to tie Youngkin firmly to Trump, not a tough task in the debate over education.Youngkin has repeatedly raised the subject of critical race theory, an academic discipline turned into a bogeyman by Republicans nationwide. CRT examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society. It is not taught in Virginia public schools. Regardless, Youngkin has treated it as a genuine threat, stoking anger on the right, and has promised to ban it.Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, McAuliffe said Youngkin had gone too far. Citing a meeting with a voter in Hampton, he said the former school board member told him “our school boards were fine. Soon as Glenn Youngkin got nominated, all of a sudden, these people started showing up, creating such a ruckus, calling such obscene things”.“This was an African American woman,” McAuliffe said. “I can’t repeat on air what they’ve said about her. This was last night, up here in northern Virginia … we just lost a school board member … She said, ‘I was getting death threats. But when they said they were going to rape my children, I can’t take it anymore.’“That’s what Glenn Youngkin has done here in Virginia. He’s created hatred and division just like Donald Trump, and that’s why Donald Trump, his final campaign is going to be for Glenn Youngkin here in Virginia.“We don’t want Trump. We don’t want Youngkin. We don’t want the hatred and division.”In a statement on Monday, Trump freely demonstrated his willingness to exploit hatred and division.Lincoln Project members pose as white supremacists at Virginia GOP eventRead moreTaking barely veiled shots at the Lincoln Project – anti-Trump Republicans who have campaigned against him in Virginia, sometimes controversially, and who Trump referred to only as “perverts” – the former president said his enemies were “trying to create an impression that Glenn Youngkin and I are at odds and don’t like each other.“Importantly, this is not true. We get along very well together and strongly believe in many of the same policies, especially when it comes to the important subject of education.”Trump reiterated the need for Republicans to vote. He also sought to thread the needle between his insistence on mass voter fraud against him and the need for high Republican turnout – a trick he failed to pull off in Georgia in January, when Democrats won two Senate runoffs.If enough of his supporters voted, Trump said, they would overcome the fact that he was “not a believer in the integrity of Virginia’s elections”.TopicsVirginiaUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsRaceUS educationnewsReuse this content More

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      The people Kyle Rittenhouse shot can’t be called ‘victims’, a judge says. Surprised? | Akin Olla

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      OpinionRaceThe people Kyle Rittenhouse shot can’t be called ‘victims’, a judge says. Surprised?Akin OllaThough he crossed state lines with a semi-automatic rifle and shot three people, Rittenhouse has been treated with an alarming degree of grace Sun 31 Oct 2021 06.25 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 06.26 EDTIn the midst of the unrest following a police officer’s shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old boy from Illinois, shot and killed two anti-police brutality protesters and wounded a third. This week the presiding judge in Rittenhouse’s trial has decided that the men that Rittenhouse shot cannot be called “victims” during the trial.Despite purposefully crossing state lines armed with a semi-automatic rifle, Rittenhouse has been treated, before and after the act, with an alarming degree of grace. Rittenhouse’s case is about a lot more than just one armed vigilante seeking to protect the status quo at the expense of human lives: it is about an entire system that pushed him to violence.In August 2020, Rittenhouse and other white men answered a call to action by a former Kenosha city alderman for the formation of a militia to “take up arms” to defend Kenosha “from the evil thugs”. During the evening of the shooting, the presence of this militia was supported by local police officers who offered them water and affirmations, saying, “We appreciate you guys, we really do.”According to the militia member Ryan Balch, a police officer told him that officers would be pushing protesters back towards the armed men, claiming that police believed the militia would “deal with” the protesters. After Rittenhouse shot the three men, witnesses shouted for his arrest but nearby officers appeared to let him disappear into the night and return to his home state of Illinois.After the shooting, Rittenhouse was celebrated by conservative figures like Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter and, of course, President Donald Trump. A rally was held in his honor and hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised in support of his legal defense. At least one police officer donated to the fundraising effort, commenting, “God bless. Thank you for your courage … You’ve done nothing wrong.”Erin Decker, the Kenosha county Republican party chair, suggested that Rittenhouse was innocent and that “about 80% [of people in the area] support what Kyle did”. The Department of Homeland Security prepared talking points sympathetic to the shooter, prepping officials to say that he arrived in Kenosha to defend small business owners. As his case begins, it is clear that he will continue to receive support from many of those embedded in American institutions.Kenosha county circuit judge Bruce Schroeder, who is presiding over the controversial case, had already made some questionable decisions while setting the parameters of the trial. Schroeder has ruled that the men shot by Rittenhouse cannot be described as “victims’’ in court because the phrase is too “loaded” and may sway the opinions of the jury. Schroeder also advised against Rittenhouse’s legal team referring to the men he killed as “looters” and “arsonists” but did not forbid them from doing so – a double standard that props up rightwing talking points about protesters during last year’s summer uprisings against police brutality.Gaige Grosskreutz, the survivor of the attack, has not been charged with any crimes related to the protests, and the vast majority of 2020’s protesters engaged in peaceful action. Though those killed by Rittenhouse were white, the victim-blaming rings of the comments that often follow the murder of Black Americans at the hands of police and vigilantes. In 2014, more money was raised in support of the police officer who killed 18-year-old Michael Brown than was raised for Brown’s memorial service.The judge has given Rittenhouse’s defense more room to maneuver, while blocking some damning evidence against Rittenhouse from entering the case. This evidence includes a video of him expressing a desire to shoot people that he thought were looters and photos of him posing with members of the far-right organization the Proud Boys – who used Rittenhouse’s name to promote a rally in Portland.While Judge Schroeder may see his decisions as justified, he is still feeding into a larger pattern that surrounds Rittenhouse and the criminal justice system at large. The reality is that Rittenhouse was, compared with a Black man, less likely to be arrested for his crime, more likely to be bailed, less likely to be convicted and less likely to receive a prison sentence. It isn’t hard to imagine that a Black man in his position wouldn’t even be alive today – much like Philando Castile, who was shot by a police officer for simply disclosing that he had a firearm in his possession during a traffic stop.Rittenhouse may have pulled the trigger, but there is a larger system at play, a system that sent him to Kenosha and will probably send him back home after the trial.
      Akin Olla is a contributing opinion writer at the Guardian
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      Resilience: the one word progressives need in the face of Trump, Covid and more | Robert Reich

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      OpinionUS politicsResilience: the one word progressives need in the face of Trump, Covid and moreRobert ReichThe climate crisis, the economy, Biden’s struggle to enact his spending agenda. The list goes on. The lesson? Be strong Sun 31 Oct 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 31 Oct 2021 01.09 EDTI often tell my students that if they strive to achieve full and meaningful lives, they should expect failures and disappointments. We learn to walk by falling down again and again. We learn to ride a bicycle by crashing into things. We learn to make good friends by being disappointed in friendship. Failure and disappointment are prerequisites to growth.‘A deliberate, orchestrated campaign’: the real story behind Trump’s attempted coupRead moreThe real test of character comes after failures and disappointments. It is resilience: how easily you take failures, what you learn from them, how you bounce back.This is a hard lesson for high-achievers used to jumping over every hoop put in front of them. It’s also a hard lesson for people who haven’t had all the support and love they might have needed when growing up. In fact, it’s a hard lesson for almost everyone in a culture such as ours, that worships success and is embarrassed by failure and is inherently impatient.Why am I telling you this now? Because we have gone through a few very difficult years: Donald Trump’s racist nationalism and his attacks on our democracy, a painful reckoning with systemic racism, angry political divisions, a deadly pandemic accompanied by a recession, and climate hazards such as floods and wildfires.We assumed everything would be fine again once these were behind us. But we now find ourselves in a disorienting limbo. There is no clearly demarcated “behind us”. The pandemic still lurks. The economy is still worrisome. Americans continue to be deeply angry with each other. The climate crisis still poses an existential threat. Trump and other insurrectionists have not yet been brought to justice. Democracy is still threatened.And Biden and the Democrats have been unable to achieve the scale of change many of us wanted and expected.If you’re not at least a bit disappointed, you’re not human. To some, it feels like America is failing.But bear with me. I’ve learned a few things in my half-century in and around politics, and my many years teaching young people. One is that things often look worse than they really are. The media (including social media) sells subscriptions and advertising with stories that generate anger and disappointment. The same goes for the views of pundits and commentators. Pessimists always appear wiser than optimists.Another thing I’ve learned is that expectations for a new president and administration are always much higher than they can possibly deliver. Our political system was designed to make it difficult to get much done, at least in the short run. So the elation that comes with the election of someone we admire almost inevitably gives way to disappointment.A third thing: in addition to normal political constraints, positive social change comes painfully slowly. It can take years, decades, sometimes a century or longer for a society to become more inclusive, more just, more democratic, more aware of its shortcomings and more determined to remedy them. And such positive changes are often punctuated by lurches backward. I believe in progress because I’ve seen so much of it in my lifetime, but I’m also aware of the regressive forces that constantly threaten it. The lesson here is tenacity – playing the long game.The US should cut the Pentagon budget to fund social | Emma Claire FoleyRead moreWhich brings me back to resilience. We have been through a difficult time. We wanted and expected it to be over: challenges overcome, perpetrators brought to justice, pandemic ended, nation healed, climate saved, politics transformed. But none of it is over. The larger goals we are fighting for continue to elude us.Yet we must continue the fight. If we allow ourselves to fall into fatalism, or wallow in disappointment, or become resigned to what is rather than what should be, we will lose the long game. The greatest enemy of positive social change is cynicism about what can be changed.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS domestic policyJoe BidenBiden administrationDemocratsDonald TrumpRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Black candidates for US Senate smash fundraising records for 2022 midterms

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      US midterm elections 2022Black candidates for US Senate smash fundraising records for 2022 midtermsThird-quarter hauls raise hopes of transforming a body in which only 11 African American senators have ever sat David Smith in Washington@smithinamericaFri 22 Oct 2021 05.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 22 Oct 2021 05.01 EDTAfrican American candidates running for the US Senate smashed campaign fundraising records over the past three months, raising hopes of transforming a body that remains overwhelmingly white.There have only been 11 Black senators since the chamber first convened in 1789 and only two were women. Senator Kamala Harris’s ascent to the vice-presidency means there are currently no female members who are Black.Biden vowed to make racial justice the heart of his agenda – is it still beating?Read moreBut in the most recent Federal Election Commission reporting period, African Americans posted huge sums from donors, especially in the south, suggesting the potential to build a pipeline of Black politicians who can excite the grassroots and reshape the government.Democrat Raphael Warnock, a pastor who won a crucial runoff in January to become Georgia’s first Black senator, took in a staggering $9.5m over three months for his re-election bid. Val Demings, a congresswoman and former police chief challenging the Republican senator Marco Rubio in Florida, was close behind with $8.5m.Notably, both Warnock and Demings raised more money than any other Senate candidate of any racial demographic.Another Democrat, Charles Booker, running for Senate in Kentucky against the Republican Rand Paul, raised $1.7m in the third quarter, which ran from July to the end of September. Cheri Beasley, a judge running for Senate in North Carolina as a Democrat, netted $1.5m.Republicans have also capitalised on the trend. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina took a haul of $8.4m, fuelling speculation that he could mount a bid for the White House. Herschel Walker, a former football player taking on Warnock in Georgia, raised $3.8m in the first five weeks of his Donald Trump-endorsed campaign.The historic tallies – more than a year before the midterm elections – signal a potential turning point after decades in which Black candidates, especially women, struggled to raise funds to rival their white counterparts, feeding a vicious circle in which they were seen as unelectable by party establishments.“When we allow the narrative that Black women and Black candidates are not electable and viable to seep into an election cycle early, that is why money slows down,” said Glynda Carr, co-founder and president of Higher Heights, an organisation that supports Black women running for elected office.“So why the third-quarter report is so powerful is that it’s a proof of concept that Black women are electable and viable. Frankly, many of the Black women that are currently boldly serving across this country in Congress and in statehouses ran races with no early institutional support, party support or money and still ran winning campaigns.“You now add in early money, it is just going to position more Black women to run in competitive seats and be seeing what we already know are viable candidates that were given the additional resources early will succeed on election day.”The internet has enabled Black candidates to bypass the old networks by reaping small donations online. Elections such as Warnock’s in Georgia also proved the centrality of Black voters in the Democratic coalition. And last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests following the police murder of George Floyd could have a lasting political legacy.Antjuan Seawright, a senior adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said: “The net worth of African American voters has proven over time its value. Therefore, the Black candidates are reaping the benefits not just at the ballot box, but also when it comes to fundraising and other key ingredients it takes to be successful in this business. That is part of the reason you can see this explosion happening.”Seawright, based in Columbia, South Carolina, added: “The African American network has demonstrated over time that without us you cannot win up and down the ballot and so I think all that matters in terms of the conversation and the benefits.“And then you add that to the fact that the country’s changing. There’s not a race in this country that you can be successful at the ballot box without having a strong, deep and wide support amongst what I believe to be the most loyal and consistent voting bloc in the country.”Not all Black candidates swept the board. In Pennsylvania Malcolm Kenyatta, a state representative, was outraised by both the lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, and congressman Conor Lamb.And deep pockets alone cannot buy success. Jaime Harrison, an African American man who is the current chair of the Democratic National Committee, raised more than $100m last year but could not unseat the Republican Trump ally Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.Drexel Heard, a Democratic strategist based in Los Angeles, California, said: “Raising money does not always translate well to a candidate’s viability when it comes to voters. What it does show is that donors and voters can be enthusiastic about a candidate that is Black. I think that’s the difference.”But Heard noted: “The party has always known that Black voters are the most loyal voters to the Democratic party, and that’s been indisputable. The party also recognises that we have to build a bench that is reflective of the voting base and I think you’re seeing that in in those candidates that are popping up.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US SenateRaceDemocratsRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Abolish Trump-era ‘China Initiative’, academics urge, amid racial profiling criticism

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      US universities Abolish Trump-era ‘China Initiative’, academics urge, amid racial profiling criticism Stanford University professors say the programme is fuelling racism and harming US competitiveness, rather than uncovering spies in universities Vincent Ni China affairs correspondentTue 14 Sep 2021 22.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 14 Sep 2021 22.02 EDTCalls are growing to abolish a controversial Trump-era initiative that looks for Chinese spies at US universities, which critics say has resulted in racial profiling and harmed technological competitiveness.In a letter sent to the Department of Justice, 177 faculty members across 40 departments at Stanford University asked the US government to cease operating the “China Initiative”. They argue the programme harms academic freedom by racially profiling and unfairly targeting Chinese academics.The letter follows the acquittal last week by a US federal judge of a researcher accused of concealing ties with China while receiving American taxpayer-funded grants. “We understand that concerns about Chinese government-sanctioned activities including intellectual property theft and economic espionage are important to address,” the Stanford academics wrote. “We believe, however, that the China Initiative has deviated significantly from its claimed mission: it is harming the United States’ research and technology competitiveness and it is fuelling biases that, in turn, raise concerns about racial profiling.”The Guardian view on anti-Chinese suspicion: target espionage, not ethnicities | EditorialRead moreOn Thursday, a federal judge in Tennessee acquitted Anming Hu, an ethnic Chinese nanotechnology expert at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, who had been accused of concealing his ties to Beijing while applying for research funding to work on a Nasa project. The judge said the US government hadn’t proven its case.“Given the lack of evidence that defendant was aware of such an expansive interpretation of Nasa’s China funding restriction, the court concludes that, even viewing all the evidence in the light most favourable to the government, no rational jury could conclude that defendant acted with a scheme to defraud Nasa,” US district judge Thomas Varlan wrote in a 52-page ruling.Responding to the decision, the Department of Justice said “we respect the court’s decision, although we are disappointed with the result”, according to US media. Hu’s attorney, Phil Lomonaco, said the academic was focused now on recovering his tenured position at the University of Tennessee.“Many universities should have learned from the experience that professor was forced to endure,” Lomonaco said. “The Department of Justice needs to take a step back and reassess their approach on investigating Chinese professors in the United States universities. They are not all spies.”‘There’s a better way’The high-profile trial came after a series of arrests of US-based researchers who had been accused of not properly disclosing their work in China in recent years. After a jury deadlock, Hu’s case ended in mistrial in June. An FBI agent admitted that he had “used false information to justify putting a team of agents to spy on Hu and his son for two years”, according to local news reports.Confronting hate against east Asians – a photo essayRead moreThe Trump-era China Initiative began in 2018. In justifying such an operation, Department of Justice said on its website: “The Department of Justice’s China Initiative reflects the strategic priority of countering Chinese national security threats and reinforces the president’s overall national security strategy.” It also publishes a list of successful prosecutions – with the latest one on 14 May.But critics say while it is necessary for the US to protect its national security, such a programme that targets an entire ethnic group would end up in discrimination against Asian Americans – in particular those who are of Chinese origin.On 30 July, 90 members of the US congress urged the Department of Justice to investigate what they called “the repeated, wrongful targeting of individuals of Asian descent for alleged espionage”, in a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland.Last week, Democratic congressman Ted Lieu demanded the Justice Department apologise to Hu. “You should stop discriminating against Asians. You should investigate your prosecutors for engaging in what looks like racial profiling. If Hu’s last name was Smith, you would not have brought this case,” he wrote.Hate crimes in US rise to highest level in 12 years, says FBI reportRead moreThe recent round of calls came in the wake of growing violence against Asians in the US. According to an FBI annual report last month, the number of reported crimes against people of Asian decent grew by 70% last year, totalling 274 cases.Margaret Lewis of Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey, who has been calling on the US government to rethink its approach to research security, said: “I understand the need to be concerned about the Chinese government’s behaviour that incentivises violations of US law, but the US should first not engage in rhetoric that fuels xenophobia and racism.“It worries me that people with certain characteristics might fall under suspicion,” she said. “Let us not pretend there’s no concern about Beijing, but there’s a better way to do it. Getting rid of the name is the first step.”TopicsUS universitiesChinaDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsUS foreign policyAsia PacificnewsReuse this content More