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      Democrats are reeling. Is Stephen A Smith the way back to the White House?

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      The View, one of the US’s most popular daytime television programmes, was a vital campaign stop last year for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. This week, it played host to a cable sports channel personality who might be nurturing political ambitions of his own.Stephen A Smith was asked by co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin what he makes of hypothetical polls that show him among the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.“I make of it that citizens, particularly on the left, are desperate,” Smith said in characteristically forthright style. “And I mean it when I say it: I think I can beat them all.”Despite – or because of – his lack of political experience, Smith is emerging as an unlikely force in a Democratic party badly in need of critical friends, fresh ideas and blunt truth-telling. The idea of him running for the White House remains wildly speculative – but speaks volumes about a shift in the US media ecosystem and a blurring of the lines between culture, entertainment and politics.The 57-year-old, born Stephen Anthony Smith in the Bronx in New York, began his career in print journalism, writing for newspapers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, then made his name as a broadcaster, especially on ESPN. Smith is now the co-host of First Take, where he shares provocative opinions on basketball and other topics.His fans include Kurt Bardella, a media relations consultant and Democratic strategist who watches First Take “religiously”. Bardella said: “He is out there with passion and charisma and he provokes emotion and conversation and debate. He has become the singular most influential person in all of sports.“We live in a time where our politics is shaped and informed by culture more than at any time in our history. There’s that old adage that politics is just culture downstream, and Stephen A is a good embodiment of that.”Smith’s star continues to rise. It emerged this week that he had agreed to a new ESPN contract worth at least $100m for five years. He will continue on First Take but reduce other sports-related obligations, increasing his opportunities for political commentary: in recent months he has appeared on Fox News, NewsNation and HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.The Stephen A Smith Show, which streams on YouTube and iHeart, has featured interviews with Hakeem Jeffries, the House of Representatives Democratic minority leader; rightwing personality Candace Owens; and Andrew Cuomo, in his first interview since announcing his candidacy for New York mayorThe political chatter around Smith is also a symptom of the demoralisation in the leaderless Democratic party following last November’s defeat in elections for the White House, House and Senate. This week, for example, Democrats struggled to find a coherent response to Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress.After nominating Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in past elections, some in the party hunger for a fighter in the mould of Trump, an outsider not beholden to the traditional political establishment. And witnessing the rise of podcasters such as Joe Rogan and an entire “Maga” media ecosystem, they crave a liberal alternative.In Smith, they see a bracing energy. He voted for Harris but has been outspoken in criticising Democrats for failing to connect with voters and for prioritising niche issues – which in his view includes the transgender community – and failing to address the concerns of a broader electorate.In January, appearing alongside the Democratic representative Ro Khanna on Real Time with Bill Maher, he offered a blistering diagnosis of why Democrats lost to Trump: “The man was impeached twice, he was convicted on 34 felony counts and the American people still said: ‘He’s closer to normal than what we see on the left.’”Smith added: “What voter can look at the Democrat party and say: ‘There’s a voice for us, somebody who speaks for us, that goes up on Capitol Hill and fights the fights that we want them fighting on our behalf’?”His gift for storytelling and communicating impresses Bardella, a former spokesperson and senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee. Bardella said: “His style of speaking, the directness, the boldness, the bombastic at times kind of PT Barnum-esque quality that he brings to the conversation is exactly what Democrats are lacking and exactly what made Donald Trump the showman such an appealing character to begin with when he arrived on the stage.“Rather than just dismiss it or make fun of it or ignore it, Democrats would be wise to study what makes him so successful because there is nobody in the Democratic party that is as relevant a voice on a day-to-day basis as Stephen A Smith.”It was striking that a January poll by McLaughlin & Associates for the 2028 Democratic nomination decided to include him in a survey that put Kamala Harris at 33%, Pete Buttigieg at 9%, Gavin Newsom at 7%, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 6%, Josh Shapiro at 3%, Tim Walz at 3% and Smith at 2%.Still, many Democrats would think twice before gambling on an outsider such as Smith or the billionaire businessman Mark Cuban. Lack of experience could be a liability in the eyes of some voters. Smith’s controversial statements and “yelling” style could alienate certain segments of the electorate. The perception of Smith as a celebrity candidate could undermine his credibility.Bill Whalen, a former media consultant for politicians including the former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Smith’s eloquence and in-your-face style could be appealing to voters in this political moment: “But the question is, what does Stephen A Smith believe in at the end of the day? He’s been very vocal criticising the Democratic party. What positions does he hold? What does he believe in?“The fact is, if you’re going to run for a party’s nomination in America, there are about a half a dozen or so issues in which you need to be on the right side. Otherwise, you’re not going to go very far. Where is Stephen A Smith on abortion? Where is he on DEI? Where is he on quotas and affirmative action? Where is he on crime? Where is he on spending?“The list goes on. You just don’t know, so my advice to any Democrat looking at this is: before you become a Stephen A Smith supporter, give him a questionnaire and have him fill it out and see what the answers are.”Whether Smith, who has a recurring guest-acting role on the ABC soap opera General Hospital, would want to take on a gruelling election campaign is far from certain.He has expressed ambivalence on the topic but told the Daily Mail last month that “if the American people came to me and looked at me and said ‘Yo, man, we want you to run for office’, and I had a legitimate shot to win the presidency of the United States, I’m not gonna lie. I’ll think about that.”But on Friday, Smith’s agent, Mark Shapiro, sought to quell the rumours, insisting at a conference in Boston: “He will not run for president. He’s going to continue to entertain those conversations, but he will not run for president.”Still, the buzz reveals a bigger picture about Democratic soul-searching in the aftermath of election defeat. Trump proved effective at exploiting the new media ecology of podcasts, TikTok and other platforms in portraying the party as elitist, out of touch and obsessed with “woke” issues. Some Democrats are now recalibrating – for example, by removing gender pronouns from their social media accounts.David Litt, an author and former speechwriter for Barack Obama, said: “Democrats, for most of my lifetime, which is 38 years at this point, sort of assumed we are dominant in the culture, whether or not we’re dominant politically. One of the things we learned from this most recent election is, that may not be the case and either things are more even than we thought or, I would even argue, the right, at least during the election season, took an advantage in the culture.“It’s important that Democrats are saying our ‘political voices’ may not come from the world of politics, particularly at a moment when people are deeply sceptical of politicians. Who are some people who have ways of thinking and communicating that don’t sound like every politician out there? That search and that openness is going to end up being pretty useful and pretty important one way or the other.” More

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      Republican leadership tells party to stop holding public events – what impact will that have?

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      After Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas, was hounded out of his own town hall event last week, Republican party leaders had had enough. Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, and Richard Hudson, the chair of the GOP’s fundraising body, decided the embarrassment had to end, and they told Republicans to stop holding the public events.But while that might save some Republican politicians from public humiliation, it could also deprive Americans of opportunities to interact with their elected officials, experts said, and prevent people from letting their representatives they are not happy with the increasingly divisive direction of the Trump administration.“It’s certainly a unique view of representation that representatives should hear only from constituents who agree with them,” said Marjorie Hershey, professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University Bloomington.“But it’s entirely in keeping with the recent direction of the Republican party: to become more and more extreme because they listen only to their far-right base.”Johnson and Hudson’s edict came after several Republican town halls were interrupted in recent weeks. Scott Fitzgerald, a four-year congressman, faced an angry crowd at an event in West Bend, Wisconsin, in late February. Fitzgerald was repeatedly booed as he defended the role of Elon Musk, in particular.Apparently misjudging his audience, Fitzgerald said Musk is “getting rid of the DEI”, to loud jeers, before receiving a similar reaction when he praised “the fraud and abuse that has been discovered” by the department of government efficiency.A video from TMJ4 showed attendees carrying signs including “Presidents are not kings” and “No cuts to Medicaid”. Glenn Grothman, also from Wisconsin, received similar treatment at a town hall a couple of days later, being loudly booed as he claimed that “across the board [Trump] has done some very good things”, including birthright citizenship and – using the same phrasing as Fitzgerald – “getting rid of the DEI”.Marshall fared even worse. He left a public meeting after 40 minutes, the 64-year-old senator telling a hostile audience: “If you’re rude, which you’re being, I’m going to leave,” as he defended Trump’s extraordinary row with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a day earlier.That was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Johnson and Hudson rushed to their party members’ aid. While some Republicans, including Fitzgerald, have suggested they may buck party leadership, plenty will likely be relieved to use the screen provided by their leadership. But there are concerns about how this will affect Americans’ democratic rights, especially as the cancelling of town halls comes after Trump began to deny highly regarded news organizations access to the White House.“President Trump’s insistence on choosing which reporters get to travel with him and attend press conferences is in keeping with [this] effort,” Hershey said.“I think the people who wrote the constitution would argue that this is exactly the kind of behavior the American revolution was fought to stop.”She added: “Town halls are not the only way that constituents can express their views to representatives. But they are a meaningful way: not every citizen can access Zoom, and expressing our views in person is an important way of conveying a depth of feeling that isn’t as easily expressed in a letter, an email, or a visit to a representative’s staff member.”In issuing his town hall order, in a closed-door meeting, Hudson compared the atmosphere to town halls during Trump’s first term in 2017. Then Republican town halls repeatedly turned contentious as the Trump-led party sought to strip down the Affordable Care Act. There is a neat earlier precedent in the anger that erupted at Democrats’ town halls in 2012, as the Tea Party movement, seen as precursor to Trump’s Make America great again movement, disrupted Democrats’ public events in protest against the Affordable Care Act, which, according to the department of the treasury, has helped nearly 50m Americans access health care.Daniel B Markovits, a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Columbia, has published research on congressional town halls with fellow academic Andrew J Clarke. Markovits said that while there is no legal obligation for members of congress to hold town halls, people could lose out if Republicans follow through with their threat to limit in-district appearances.“A huge amount of what members of Congress do is non-partisan case work. It could be like: ‘There’s a problem with my social security check’, or: ‘I have trouble with whatever government agency,’” Markovits said.“A lot of this is done through staff, but sometimes it happens at town hall. So in common times, a lot of town hall questions are: ‘Here’s this problem, I want your help. I want you to interfere on my behalf.’ Or: ‘There’s a road broken in town.’ So there’s a lot of very clearly non-partisan business that happens at these things.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMembers of Congress are not popular in the US. A poll in 2013 found that Congress was less popular than hemorrhoids, cockroaches and toenail fungus, and there is little to suggest the law-making body has gone up in people’s estimations since then. That could become worse if politicians are seen as becoming more out of touch with their constituents – something a lack of public interaction could exacerbate.“There’s a lot of research saying that voters live in a bubble, which I think is true. But I think we shouldn’t understate the extent to which politicians can live in a bubble too,” Markowits said.“And there’s some good work showing that politicians don’t have the best understanding of their constituents’ beliefs. So I think one of the things you might see if these [town halls] stop happening, you might expect members of Congress to overstate, maybe even more than they already do, the extent to which their voters are agreeing with them.”Trump and Johnson have claimed, without evidence, that “paid troublemakers” are responsible for their members’ poor reception at town halls, something Democrats, including Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, have denied.“We don’t need paid protestors,” Jeffries said in a post on BlueSky. “The American people are with us.”Some local Democratic parties have encouraged members to attend town halls and air concerns, while Indivisible, a progressive activist organization formed during Trump’s first term, has listed events and sought to highlight some of the more contentious aspects of both the Trump presidency and the Democratic response.The organization, and others, are now planning to hold “empty chair town halls” in Republican districts – where they invite members of Congress to attend public forums, and hold a discussion anyway if they do not.“People who choose to go into public service, and have as your job that you are paid to represent other people, part of that job is talking to those people that you represent. And if you don’t like to do that, that’s okay. You can go become a lobbyist, you can go and do something else. Nobody is forcing you to represent other human beings in the United States Congress,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible.“But if you want to have that job, you’ve got two choices. You can show up and defend your positions, or you can hide and we’ll make sure people know you’re a coward.” More

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      House Republicans unveil spending bill boosting defense and trimming all else

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      US House Republicans unveiled a spending bill Saturday that would keep federal agencies funded through 30 September, pushing ahead with a go-it-alone strategy that seems certain to spark a major confrontation with Democrats over the contours of government spending.The 99-page bill would provide a slight boost to defense programs while trimming non-defense programs below 2024 budget year levels. That approach is likely to be a non-starter for most Democrats who have long insisted that defense and non-defense spending move in the same direction.Congress must act by midnight Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown.Speaker Mike Johnson is teeing up the bill for a vote on Tuesday despite the lack of buy-in from Democrats, essentially daring them to vote against it and risk a shutdown. He also is betting that Republicans can muscle the legislation through the House largely by themselves.Normally, when it comes to keeping the government fully open for business, Republicans have had to work with Democrats to craft a bipartisan measure that both sides can support. That’s because Republicans almost always lack the votes to pass spending bills on their own.Crucially, the strategy has the backing of Donald Trump, who has shown an ability so far in his term to hold Republicans in line.“All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday.House Republicans’ leadership staff outlined the measure Saturday, saying it would allow for about $892.5bn in defense spending and about $708bn in non-defense spending. The defense spending is slightly above the prior year’s level, but the non-defense comes in at about 8% below.The leadership aides said the deal does not include various side agreements designed to cushion non-defense programs from spending cuts. Those side agreements had been part of negotiations by Joe Biden, a Democrat, and then speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, when they were in office. The negotiations had allowed for a debt-ceiling extension in return for spending restraints. Under terms of that agreement, defense and non-defense spending had both been set to increase 1% this year.The measure will not include funding requested by individual lawmakers for thousands of community projects around the country, often referred to as earmarks.The bill does not cover the majority of government spending, including programs such as social security and Medicare. Funding for those two programs are on autopilot and not regularly reviewed by Congress.The Republican representative Ralph Norman said he had never voted for a continuing resolution – what lawmakers often call a CR – but that he is on board with Johnson’s effort. He said he has confidence in Trump and the so-called “department of government efficiency”, led by Elon Musk, to make a difference on the nation’s debt.“I don’t like CRs,” Norman said. “But what’s the alternative? Negotiate with Democrats? No.”“I freeze spending for six month to go identify more cuts? Somebody tell me how that’s not a win in Washington,” added the Republican representative Chip Roy, another lawmaker who has often frequently voted against spending bills but supports the six-month continuing resolution.Republicans are also hoping that resolving this year’s spending will allow them to devote their full attention to extending the individual tax cuts passed during Trump’s first term and raising the nation’s debt limit to avoid a catastrophic federal default.Democratic leaders are warning that the decision to move ahead without consulting them increases the prospects for a shutdown. One of their biggest concerns is the flexibility the legislation would give the Trump administration on spending.“We cannot stand by and accept a yearlong power-grab CR that would help Elon take a chainsaw to programs that families rely on and agencies that keep our communities safe,” said the Washington senator Patty Murray, the lead Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee.The Democratic leadership in both chambers has stressed that Republicans have the majority and are responsible for funding the government. But leaders also have been wary of saying how Democrats would vote on a continuing resolution.“We have to wait to see what their plan is,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. “We’ve always believed the only solution is a bipartisan solution, no matter what.”Trump has been meeting with House Republicans in an effort to win their votes on the legislation. Republicans have a 218-214 majority in the House, so if all lawmakers vote, they can afford only one defection if Democrats unite in opposition. The math gets even harder in the Senate, where at least seven Democrats would have to vote for the legislation to overcome a filibuster. And that’s assuming all 53 Republicans vote for it. More

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      Tim Walz says he and Harris were too ‘safe’ during 2024 presidential campaign

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      Tim Walz has said that he and Kamala Harris were too “safe” during their 2024 election campaign, with the former vice-presidential candidate claiming they should have held more in-person events around the US.“We shouldn’t have been playing this thing so safe,” Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said in an interview with Politico, as Democrats seek to learn the lessons of Donald Trump’s win in November, which has sent the party into the political wilderness.Walz, who was widely seen as one of the Democratic party’s most effective messengers against Trump and Vance in 2024, becoming best-known for his frequent description of the pair as “weird”, also said he and Harris had been hampered by the shortened length of their campaign.Harris effectively became the official Democratic party nominee on 5 August, just three months before the election, and Walz said that the abbreviated time frame limited the amount of risks the campaign was able to take.“These are things you might have been able to get your sea legs, if you will, 18 months out, where the stakes were a lot lower,” Walz said.He added: “[But] after you lose, you have to go back and assess where everything was at, and I think that is one area, that is one area we should think about.”Walz’s verdict was that he and Harris should have spent more time directly engaging with Americans, as they sprinted through their 107-day campaign.“I think we probably should have just rolled the dice and done the town halls, where [voters] may say: ‘You’re full of shit, I don’t believe in you,’” he told Politico. “I think there could have been more of that.”Walz has been returning to the national spotlight of late, conducting more TV appearances and last week headlining a fundraising event in front of 1,000 Democrats in his home state. His use of social media, and folksy appearances in TV interviews, were praised during the early party of the 2024 campaign, and Walz suggested he and Harris could have done more.He told Politico that Democrats “as a party are more cautious” in engaging with mainstream and non-traditional media. The former high school football coach added: “In football parlance, we were in a prevent defense [a strategy whereby a team focuses on a gritty defense, rather than attacking], to not lose – when we never had anything to lose, because I don’t think we were ever ahead.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris and Walz lost to Trump by 312 electoral college votes to 226, losing in the national vote by about 1.5%. Republicans also won both houses of Congress. Walz said he bears some of the blame for the loss, because “when you’re on the ticket and you don’t win, that’s your responsibility”.The 2028 Democratic presidential primary is expected to be extremely crowded, with Democrats boasting several high-profile governors, and Walz, who is yet to decide whether he will run for a third term as Minnesota governor, was coy about whether he would run, telling Politico he was “not saying no”.“I’m staying on the playing field to try and help because we have to win,” Walz said. “And I will always say this: I will do everything in my power [to help], and as I said, with the vice-presidency, if that was me, then I’ll do the job.” More

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      View from the couch: therapists on sessions in new Trump era

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      In his conversations with trans clients, Will Williams, a therapist in Oakland, California, sees the psychic toll exacted by the fusillade of recent executive orders targeting transgender protections. Many of his patients are filled with fear – and for legitimate reasons.In the days after Donald Trump took office, the administration required passports to be marked with sex assigned at birth, banned trans people from serving in the military and cut funding for gender-affirming care. On some federal websites, the “T” was removed from “LGBT”.“There’s this literal embodied experience of ‘Oh I’m a target,’” said Williams, who is trans. “[We are] the 1% that is going to be targeted and blamed, and when it comes down from the theoretical into daily life – psychically there’s an experience of being erased.”When clients ask him “Do I even exist?”, Williams can at least offer some comfort. He asks: “How is it to be in a room with another trans person?” The question makes plain what is in front of them: yes, they both exist. “The medicine is in that,” Williams says. “Trump can say the moon doesn’t exist anymore, but the moon still shines, and it still waxes and wanes.”Williams is among the many therapists who are figuring out how to navigate a profession that has been plunged into uncharted territory during a tense second Trump term. It’s a new atmosphere, and therapists say they are “learning beside” their clients as they go.Many of those who spoke with the Guardian requested anonymity so they could speak freely about sensitive issues.Liberal therapists say they sometimes incorporate their political views into the healing process to provide support for clients distressed by Trump’s actions. “You’re taught in school that therapists aren’t supposed to be political, but it’s very political,” one liberal practitioner said. “Now, at least in my therapist friend group, we’re like, ‘Screw that, no, this is very political.’”Trump’s policies, such as deporting immigrants, go against therapists’ code of ethics that requires them to uphold client’s dignity and worth, she said. That hasn’t precluded her from working with Trump-supporting clients. Some don’t return “and that’s OK”, but she successfully works with a range of conservative patients.On the other end of the spectrum, some therapists say they are encountering liberal clients who are fearful of coming to therapy: “They want to know if their therapist voted against their human rights.” Providing assurance to anxious clients is an instance in which many are choosing to share their political views. “When appropriate, I want to let them know that it’s really safe,” one therapist said.Liberal therapists, conservative clientsThe relationship between liberal therapists and conservative clients has demanded a slight revision of therapeutic calculus. A few said they find themselves revolted by their clients’ beliefs but figure out how to work with them effectively despite the fraught dynamic.None of the therapists I interviewed said they try to change clients’ political views, but therapy is often about getting people to think about problems in their lives differently – and sometimes there’s overlap.One therapist I spoke with used the example of some of her clients’ fear and hatred of transgender people. She asks them where those fears stem from, because they are often passed on generationally.“What kind of things were you taught as a child? If you heard your parents talking about this – do all of your values align with your parents’ values? Have you ever broken from them? Will you feel rejected by your family or community if you think differently?” she asks.As therapy progresses, fears are often unlocked, and some of those questions are answered. “Even if the client isn’t focused on the political aspect, we can work on some of those themes, like fear, without getting into politics,” she said.Another liberal practitioner who took on a Trump-supporting client had doubts about their potential for growth in part because of the latter’s very religious, conservative beliefs. The client was upset with their church’s liberal positions on some issues, and that was causing a problem in their life.The therapist encouraged the client to talk with church leadership and to try to understand a different viewpoint. “I didn’t look at it as an opportunity or say, ‘Oh, I got a chance to try to win them over,’” she said. “It was, ‘Oh, you have this conflict, and maybe if you can see another perspective that would help you.’”Sometimes, the roles are reversed and fear is on the other foot. A practitioner who fears fascism and societal collapse, and has stocked up on supplies in case “the shit hits the fan”, said the money she makes taking on conservative clients is worth it.“You know, I’m billing $90 an hour, and I can listen to that bullshit for 50 minutes for $90,” she said. “I feel gross saying that because I do think my [Trump-supporting] clients are doing something awful, and are the personification of the problems I deal with.”A website, ConservativeCounselors.com, highlights the work of conservative therapists around the country. The Guardian sent emails to five of them, but only one responded in a brief email.“Conservative therapists have formed a pretty tight group, and many of us have shared that you’ve reached out for an interview,” the therapist, Maria Coppersmith, said. “The general consensus is that the Guardian is so ultra-liberal, that any conservative therapist that shares his or her viewpoint is likely to have their words twisted and will be highly misrepresented. You might get a naive newbie therapist that will agree to an interview, but I am respectfully declining.”‘Screw that, this is very political’To describe what’s occurring in the interplay between therapy and politics, Bill Doherty, co-founder of Braver Angels, a non-profit that works toward depolarization, borrowed a term from practitioners in destabilized Latin American countries: political stress. “It’s the anxiety and psychological preoccupation that stems from what’s happening in our political situation, how government officials are behaving and how we’re treating each other when we disagree,” Doherty said. “The challenge is therapists have their own viewpoints – they vote – this is not external to their lives. So the major challenge that’s now happening is therapists trying to keep their own political leanings from influencing clients.”Broadly speaking, therapists say the profound shock and sharp sense of fear that was almost universal among liberal clients after Trump’s first win has been replaced with variations of numbness, hopelessness and resignation.“After Trump won in 2016 everyone was like, ‘Oh my God what’s going to happen? What are we going to do?’ And during Covid they were like, ‘Oh my God, there are no adults in Washington! What are we going to do?’” a therapist said. Now his clients are much more despondent. “They’re like, ‘Fuck it, let it burn,’” he said.Williams said there was indeed less “fear and scrambling” in November 2024, but it has been more difficult for trans clients this time around. Many are running against the clock to make changes to identification cards, birth certificates, passports and other documents.Similarly, a therapist who works with federal employees says there is a broad sense of “whiplash”. The administration has also attacked minorities and women employed at federal agencies, claiming that they are unqualified and were only hired due to DEI initiatives. That takes a toll on some clients, who may end up questioning how people view their worth.And then there’s intra-family strife. One therapist certified to practice in Michigan and California said familial stress is greater in Michigan, a purple, more religious state. His clients feel a dissonance: “They say, ‘I love my parents, and they’re showing up for me, but then I also know that they voted for this person who’s completely appalling.’”Start honoring the numbnessEach therapist who spoke with the Guardian said anger and numbness over the second administration are initially appropriate responses. “Anger is a protective force,” Williams added.But to help his clients to settle their nervous systems, he directs them inward: “In the stillness they can access the greater wisdom – usually the message is there of what’s going to be supportive to them.” He also urges them to “go to nature and connect to systems older and larger than this moment, and put energy toward something life-affirming and creative”.Another therapist has clients accept this new reality. “Normalize that there is this threatening energy that is closing down certain civil liberties and trying to change social norms,” he said, adding that he also urges people to be curious about their numbness.This doesn’t mean embracing being inactive, however. “Find ways to start honoring the numbness, while starting to move energy, whether that’s physical movement, or getting out, seeing people and finding light in what feels like a dark time for some folks, whether that’s through art, music or nature,” he added.Doherty recommends what he calls “buffering”: limiting intake of news and conversations with friends and family about politics. That’s an especially helpful strategy for couples he counsels who have differing political viewpoints. Many still make it work, Doherty said.Most therapists tell their clients to focus on what they can control. Some suggest putting energy into mutual aid projects or partaking in local political action. One therapist is seeing her siblings more, making herself an ally to trans folks. She also likes to listen to the Moth story hour as a healthy escape from reality.However, another therapist pointed to a meme in which a person is lying in the road, about to get hit by a large truck. In the meme, a nearby therapist waves, shouting: “Just focus on the things you can control!” She finds the advice to be ludicrous. “I feel like an asshole as a therapist sometimes, so I try to not say shit like that.”Liberal therapists often face many of the same fears as their clients. Williams recounted how he worked with some of his youngest clients who were “heartbroken”, and how there was synergy in that process.“What I tried to do in those situations was reconnect them to: ‘We’re here, we’re alive, there’s a purpose,’” Williams said. “I actually left those sessions feeling more purposeful, and feeling more power from what I witnessed after reconnecting them with themselves.”Another therapist said she felt a similar energy by opening up about her political views and fears: “It feels more like we’re in this together,” she said. More

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      Newsom condemned for ‘throwing trans people under bus’ after sports comment

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      Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California believed to be eyeing a run for president in 2028, is facing fierce backlash from LGBTQ+ rights advocates after his suggestion that the participation of transgender women and girls in female sports was “deeply unfair”.In the inaugural episode of his podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, the governor hosted conservative political activist and Maga darling Charlie Kirk. The co-founder and executive director of the rightwing Turning Point USA, a Phoenix-based organization that operates on school campuses, told Newsom: “You, right now, should come out and be like: ‘You know what? The young man who’s about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports – that shouldn’t happen.’ You, as the governor, should step out and say: ‘No.’”The governor responded: “I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that … it’s deeply unfair.”View image in fullscreenMembers of his own party in California quickly condemned the comments.“We woke up profoundly sickened and frustrated by these remarks,” assembly member Chris Ward and senator Caroline Menjivar, of the California legislative LGBTQ+ caucus, said in a statement. “All students deserve the academic and health benefits of sports activity, and until Donald Trump began obsessing about it, playing on a team consistent with one’s gender has not been a problem since the standard was passed in 2013.”California law has long protected trans youth’s rights to participate in school activities that match their gender.The governor’s remarks also earned him scorn from national LGBTQ+ rights leaders, with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) president, Kelley Robinson, saying in a statement: “History doesn’t remember those who waver – it remembers those who refuse to back down.”Newsom’s comments saw him agreeing with one of the central anti-trans talking points of Republicans and rightwing activists, who have fueled moral panics about trans women in public spaces and trans youth healthcare in recent years. Out of more than 500,000 college athletes, there are fewer than 10 who are trans and out, officials recently said.Proponents of anti-trans restrictions for K-12 students have often struggled to find examples of trans girls playing in school sports.The few openly trans athletes who are in the public eye have faced intense harassment and scrutiny. Civil rights advocates argue that for youth, their ability to play sports that align with their gender is a matter of basic dignity and equal protection under the law.Izzy Gardon, the governor’s communications director, said in a statement on Thursday evening: “The governor rejects the right wing’s cynical attempt to weaponize this debate as an excuse to vilify individual kids.” His office earlier pointed out that in the podcast, the governor noted the high rates of suicide and anxiety among trans people, saying: “The way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with. So, both things I can hold in my hand.”Bamby Salcedo, a longtime Los Angeles-based activist and president of the TransLatin@ Coalition, said it was devastating to hear Newsom fail to even correct Kirk when he appeared to be referring to trans women as men.“For someone who says he is supportive of our communities to come out and say these awful things, he’s using us as political pawns,” she said.“Denying the opportunity for young people to participate in sports is denying them the opportunity to be who they fully are. It is really damaging.”Scott Wiener, a state senator and proponent of trans rights, said in an interview that he considered Newsom a longtime ally of LGBTQ+ people and that it had been “brutal” to hear the governor’s comments. He noted there has been a “decades-long strategic plan by the right wing to demonize trans people”, adding: “They’ve done it very methodically. It’s disgusting, but it’s had some success.”Trans youth in the public eye have faced national ridicule, Wiener noted: “If they’re out as trans, they’re so courageous and they’re putting themselves at risk. It’s really important for people who know better to have their backs.”Wiener, who has introduced legislation to strengthen the state’s trans refuge law, said Newsom has had a good track record on trans civil rights bills, and he hoped that wouldn’t change.State assemblymember Alex Lee, another LGBTQ+ caucus member, said Newsom’s remarks were “shocking and offensive” and that it would hurt his future ambitions: “Throwing trans people under the bus will alienate lots of people who are LGBTQ+ and allies across the nation … If you’re running to be a Republican nominee, this is a great strategy. But if you want to run as a Democrat and someone who is pro-human rights, this is a terrible look.”Some California Republicans were dubious of Newsom, a longtime champion of LGBTQ+ rights who drew national attention when, as the mayor of San Francisco, he defied state law and began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is stunning,” the California assemblymember Bill Essayli wrote on X. “Talk is cheap @GavinNewsom. Why don’t you support my bill AB 844 to reverse CA’s law allowing boys to compete in girls sports? You’re the Governor, not a commentator!”Donald Trump made the issue of trans women in sports a central pillar of his campaign and as president has tried to erase trans and non-binary Americans from public life.He signed an executive order declaring that the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female, and another titled Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports, which threatens to withhold federal funds from schools that do not comply. Meanwhile, the US state department has ordered officials worldwide to deny visas to transgender athletes attempting to come to the US for sports competitions, including the Olympics, which Los Angeles will host in 2028.During his joint speech to Congress this week, the president spotlighted the story of a volleyball player who was injured by a trans athlete on the opposing team and threatened to pull federal funding from any school that defied his executive order.Earlier this week, Senate Democrats banded together to block a Republican bill that would have barred transgender women and girls from playing on female sports teams.“What Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up a culture war and divide people against each other and distract people from what they’re actually doing,” the senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat of Hawaii, said in a floor speech during debate over the bill on Monday. Instead of addressing the most pressing issues of the day, such as rising grocery costs and a growing measles outbreak, Schatz said, Republicans were instead focused on an issue that was “totally irrelevant to 99.9% of all people across the country”.Since Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss, Democrats have been embroiled in a debate over what went wrong, ostensibly the reason for the governor’s podcast in which he will “talk directly with people I disagree with”. Desperate for answers, some Democrats have pointed to the party’s support for trans rights as a reason for their defeat.In the interview, Newsom conceded Trump’s signature campaign ad – “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” – was both “brutal” and effective.“She didn’t even react to it, which was even more devastating,” the governor told Kirk.“It’s not just that this was like the Willie Horton ad of the 2024 [cycle]. It wasn’t just like Lee Atwater brilliance. It’s that it reflected truth that the voters felt,” Kirk said. “Yeah, I appreciate that,” Newsom interjected, as Kirk continued: “Because voters felt as if their country was slipping away.”As Democrats search for a way out of the political wilderness, and grapple with their position on the issue, LGBTQ+ rights advocates are warning the party not to play into Republicans’ hands.“Our message to [Governor] Newsom and all leaders across the country is simple,” Robinson, of the Human Rights Campaign said. “The path to 2028 isn’t paved with the betrayal of vulnerable communities – it’s built on the courage to stand up for what’s right and do the hard work to actually help the American people.” More

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      Elon Musk tells Republicans he isn’t to blame for mass firings of federal workers

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      Elon Musk is telling Republican lawmakers in private meetings that he is not to blame for the mass firings of federal workers that are causing uproar across the country, while Donald Trump reportedly told his cabinet secretaries on Thursday that they are ultimately in charge of hiring and firings at their agencies – not billionaire aide Musk.The two powerful figures appeared to be making parallel efforts to distance Musk from radical job slashing made over the last two months. This is despite the tech entrepreneur boasting about cuts, recommending the US “delete entire agencies” and taking questions on the issue alongside the US president, then wielding a chainsaw at an event to symbolize his efforts – all amid legal challenges and skepticism from experts.Musk said in private talks with lawmakers who are experiencing blowback from constituents angry over the firings of thousands of federal workers, including military veterans, that such decisions are left to the various federal agencies, the Associated Press reported.Despite copious evidence that Musk has acted as if he has the authority to fire federal workers, the representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, who leads the House Republicans’ campaign arm, said on Thursday: “Elon doesn’t fire people.”“He doesn’t have hiring and firing authority,” Hudson said after a meeting with Musk over pizza in the basement of the US Capitol in Washington DC. “The president’s empowered him to go uncover this information, that’s it.”That came as Trump told his cabinet that Musk’s authority lay in making recommendations to departments about staffing, not making unilateral decisions on that, Politico reported.The new Trump administration created and then expanded the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and put the unelected Musk in charge of it, with a mandate to slash jobs and costs across the federal government despite critics’ outcry about a growing US oligarchy.Trump reiterated earlier this week in a joint address to Congress that Musk was the head of Doge, which was quickly introduced as evidence in one lawsuit against the job cutting, and despite recent claims to the contrary from Musk and the administration.It’s a remarkable shift of emphasis away from the chainsaw-wielding tech entrepreneur whose vast power has made him an admired, revered and deeply feared figure in the second Trump administration.Trump said on Thursday that he had instructed department secretaries to work with Doge but to “be very precise” about which workers would stay or go, using a “scalpel rather than a hatchet”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe later told reporters at the White House: “I don’t want to see a big cut where a lot of good people are cut.”Then, after suggesting that cabinet and agency leaders would take the lead, he said Musk could push harder down the line.“If they can cut, it’s better. And if they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting,” Trump said.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting More