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      ‘You better pray’: Christian nationalist groups are mobilizing before the 2024 elections

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      On a cold night in November, a man named Jefferson Davis addressed a crowd of conservative activists gathered in an American Legion hall 20 miles north of Milwaukee. In his left hand, Davis brandished an unusual prop.“In this diaper box are all the receipts for the illegal absentee ballots that were put into the Mark Zuckerberg drop boxes all over the state of Wisconsin,” said Davis.Behind him, a long table stacked with papers, binders and a small pile of doorknobs stretched across the hall. They were for theatrical effect: the doorknobs were a tortured analogy for the multiple conspiracy theories Davis had floated, and the diaper box was a visual stand-in for the ballot drop boxes Wisconsin voters used across the state in 2020. The paperwork, Davis insisted, contained the evidence of an enormous plot to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump in Wisconsin. His audience of more than 70 people, including local and state-level elected officials, sat rapt.Davis was speaking at an event organized by Patriots of Ozaukee County, a rightwing group that vows to “combat the forces that threaten our safety, prosperity and freedoms” and compares itself to the musket-toting Minutemen of the revolutionary war.The organization is one of more than 30 such “patriot” groups in Wisconsin identified by the Guardian which claim that the last presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. Many, including the Ozaukee county organization, openly embrace Christian nationalist rhetoric and ideology, arguing that the laws of the US government should reflect conservative Christian beliefs about issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.Their religious interpretation of the US’s founding has propelled these groups not only into fights over elections administration but also against vaccine requirements and protections for transgender people.Now, with the 2024 presidential election less than a year away, Wisconsin’s patriot movement and its allies are fighting for legislation that they believe will protect the state’s electoral process from fraud, and mobilizing supporters to work the polls, observe polling places and spread the word about their concerns – pushing the GOP further to the right and threatening more challenges to the voting process come election day.Patriots of Ozaukee County was created in March 2021 by local activists who were “upset about the election”, said Scott Rishel, who founded the group. He felt there was nowhere he could speak freely about the 2020 election, or things like Covid-19 vaccines and masks. Plus, he said: “We were tired of the GOP, because they’re not really an activist organization.”At the urging of a friend, he convened the group’s first meeting.“With the 2020 election and Covid tyranny, that all opened my eyes,” he told the crowd of mostly older couples at the November event. “The silent majority was killing us. It was killing our country, killing our community. And we needed to learn how to no longer be silent.”By “we”, Rishel meant conservative Christians. “Jesus Christ is my savior, my lord. It’s amazing how some people didn’t have the courage to say that – they think it’ll make people uncomfortable.”Their movement of biblically motivated patriots has since roared to life, winning some powerful allies along the way.In attendance at the Ozaukee county meeting was the state senator Duey Stroebel, the vice-chair of the state’s powerful joint committee on finance. Stroebel, who has refrained from actually endorsing Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, has nonetheless backed numerous bills to restrict voting access, invoking the heightened anxiety on the right about election security to justify their passage.Nearly two hours into the meeting, Stroebel interjected. “One thing you might want to comment on is ranked-choice voting,” he said, voicing his opposition to a bipartisan effort in the legislature to adopt the voting method used in states including Maine and Alaska that allows voters to rank their preference on multiple candidates. The method ensures the winning candidate wins a majority rather than a plurality of the vote and essentially eliminates the risk of third-party candidates spoiling an election result.“Senator Stroebel is referring to what’s called ranked-choice voting,” Davis told the crowd. “What I call it is ‘guarantee that Democrats win’.”To members of this movement, this proposal is just the latest suspicious attempt to change the voting system to steal elections.Hardline conservatives have grown increasingly convinced that the election system is rigged against them, largely because Trump has pushed those claims hard since the 2020 election. And in spite of the fact that there was no evidence of significant voter fraud in recent American elections, it has also mobilized local groups into action across the US.Amy Cooter, a Middlebury College professor whose research focuses on militias and local rightwing groups, described the rise of patriot groups across the country as “a backlash movement”. After 2020, said Cooter, local rightwing groups have been motivated largely by “the last presidential election and thoughts that it was stolen – plus concerns that future elections might similarly be”.The patriot movement in Wisconsin appears to be growing. Attendees at November’s meeting were unsurprised by the packed house: closer to 200 had attended the Ozaukee group’s last event in October, which featured a long lineup of speakers including Davis.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPatriot groups in Wisconsin have found an awkward alliance with Republican officials and prominent activists in the state. A July gathering hosted by the Barron county Republican party, located across the state in north-west Wisconsin, drew closer to 500. That event, which included free beer and a gun raffle and was promoted by patriot groups, illustrated the common cause the movement’s activists have found with the grassroots of the GOP.The Brown county Republican party – also in the north-west of the state – has hosted Constitution Alive! events, which patriot organizations advertised broadly. (A spokesperson said the local GOP is formally unaffiliated with patriot groups.)“As you know, I travel the whole state,” Davis told me in December. “And everywhere I go, I’m either asked to speak by patriot freedom groups, or Republican party chapters. And most of the time both groups show up.”Many patriot groups in the state are animated by the Christian nationalist viewpoint.Patriots of Ozaukee County declares on its website that it views as fundamental “truths” that “God is our creator” and “Jesus is our savior”. The Ozaukee county group has also hosted Constitution Alive! events touting the claim that the US constitution is a Christian document – led by the Patriot Academy organization, a Christian nationalist group that also offers weapons courses.They’re not alone. Patriots United, a group in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, exemplifies the typical rhetoric of the Christian right, describing its membership as “constitutional conservative Christians who seek to glorify and honor God” with the explicit aim of increasing “Christian influence” in local government.Another Wisconsin patriot group called North of 29 has begun to put into action the work that Davis advocates. With the help of groups affiliated with Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist, the group has begun canvassing neighborhoods for voter fraud, using data that they refuse to share publicly to identify instances of suspicious activity. (A similar group in Colorado has been sued in federal court for allegedly going “door-to-door around Colorado to intimidate voters”, a practice the suit argues violates the Ku Klux Klan Act.)Most prominent elected Wisconsin Republicans have refused to outright endorse Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. But they have invoked the fears of election fraud to justify passing restrictive voting legislation that election-denying activists have clamored for.One bill, passed by the legislature and vetoed by the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, in 2022, would have made it harder for people to qualify as “indefinitely confined”, a status disabled voters can claim to receive an absentee ballot. During the 2020 election, during the peak of the Covid pandemic, the number of people who described themselves as indefinitely confined so they could vote from home increased dramatically – a fact that became a central point in conspiracy theories about the election. They’ve also tried to ban the use of private grants to help fund elections, keying off another conspiracy theory driven by money donated by Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation to local offices for election administration; Evers vetoed a bill to ban such money, but the legislature has now advanced the ban as a constitutional amendment which will be considered by voters this spring.Republicans in the legislature also unsuccessfully tried to force out Meagan Wolfe, the state’s nonpartisan top elections official who became the target of conspiracy theorists and election deniers after 2020.During his November presentation in Grafton, Davis handed out a pamphlet listing 53 issues that voters concerned about election security should focus on in Wisconsin. The priorities, which Davis and other election-denying groups across in the state have embraced, range from abolishing the bipartisan Wisconsin elections commission to requiring ballots cast in state and local elections to be counted by hand.Davis’s recommendations might prescribe technical changes to elections administration. But he cast their importance in starkly biblical terms.“I don’t know where you are with the Lord, and I mean this sincerely: you better pray,” said Davis. If the 2024 election wasn’t conducted “the correct way”, he warned, “there’s going to be you-know-what to pay.” More

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      Nikki Haley surges in poll to within four points of Republican leader Trump

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      The former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has pulled within four percentage points of frontrunner Donald Trump in New Hampshire’s 2024 Republican presidential primary, a contest which could prove closer than expected for the ex-president, according to a new poll.In an American Research Group Inc poll released on Thursday which had asked voters whom they preferred in the New Hampshire primary scheduled for 23 January, Haley earned 29% support to Trump’s 33%. That meant the gap between Haley and Trump was within the survey’s 4% margin of error after the former president had long held dominating polling leads in the race for the 2024 Republican White House nomination.Haley’s strong showing in the American Research Group Inc survey came a day after a poll from the Saint Anselm College New Hampshire Institute of Politics found she had doubled her support in the state since September, seemingly cementing her as a clear alternate choice to Trump for conservative voters. The Saint Anselm survey’s findings were more favorable to Trump, however, showing him with a 44% to 30% lead over Haley.But while Haley still has ground to gain to take the lead in the state, Trump coming in at less than 50% support “shows he has serious competition in the party”, the University of New Hampshire survey center director, Andrew Smith, has previously told USA Today.Haley’s strong poll showings appear to have drawn a mixed reaction from Trump, who is separately contending with more than 90 criminal charges as he seeks a second presidency.On one hand, he went on his Truth Social site on Friday and insulted Haley with his preferred nickname for her, writing: “Fake New Hampshire poll was released on Birdbrain. Just another scam!” He additionally spoke with rightwing radio show host Hugh Hewitt on Friday and dismissed the polls showing Haley performing well against him as “fake” and insisted he was untroubled by her as a potential primary contender.Yet citing two sources familiar with the conversations, CBS News reported on Friday that Trump had also simultaneously been asking his team about tapping Haley to serve as a vice-presidential candidate if he eventually wins the Republican primary to be the 2024 Oval Office nominee, which if accurate would be a sign that he covets capitalizing on her support. CBS said its sources had indicated the far-right reaction to a Trump-Haley ticket has been negative, however.Haley for now has been touting her recent polling performances.“Donald Trump has started to attack me,” Haley said at a campaign town hall on Wednesday in Iowa, where the caucuses that customarily kick off presidential election years are scheduled for 15 January. “He said, ‘I don’t know what this Nikki Haley surge is all about.’ Do you want me to tell you what it’s about? … We’re surging.”Haley was the US ambassador to the United Nations after Trump won the presidency in 2016, but she resigned in 2018. Prior to that, she was governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017.One of her more prominent acts as South Carolina governor was signing into law a ban on abortion which contained no exceptions for rape or incest. That ban took effect, along with similar ones in other states, after the US supreme court last year eliminated the federal right to abortion which had been established by the landmark Roe v Wade decision.Trump, for his part, faces 91 criminal charges accusing him of trying to forcibly reverse his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, illegally retaining government secrets after he left the Oval Office and illicit hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels.He has also grappled with civil litigation over his business practices and a rape allegation deemed “substantially true” by a judge.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump more recently has been on the defensive against resurfaced claims that he kept writings by Adolf Hitler – the Nazi leader who orchestrated the murders of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust – by his bed.Academics, commentators and political opponents have been quick to link Trump’s recent remarks that certain immigrants were “poisoning the blood of” the US to rhetoric used historically by Hitler, Benito Mussolini and other authoritarian world rulers.“I know nothing about Hitler,” Trump said to Hewitt on Friday. “I’m not a student of Hitler.”He then implied having at least some familiarity with Hitler’s sayings in regards to purity of blood.“They say he said something about blood,” Trump told Hewitt. “He didn’t say it the way I said it, either, by the way. It’s a very different kind of statement.” More

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      Are we laughing at George Santos, or is he laughing at us? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      George Anthony Devolder Santos was born in 1988 with a serious congenital condition which means he is incapable of feeling shame or embarrassment. I’m not sure what the name of the affliction is or whether it’s recognized by the medical establishment – but many of his former colleagues in government seem to suffer from the same thing.Still, the disgraced New York Republican, who was expelled from Congress three weeks ago and pleaded not guilty in October to a total of 23 federal felony charges ranging from wire fraud to money laundering, clearly has an extreme case. Santos, who was elected to represent parts of Long Island and Queens last year, has been dogged by controversy throughout his short political career. It turns out he lied about pretty much everything in his life – including his mother surviving 9/11.Every time he’s been called out on his lies and alleged frauds, however, he’s shrugged his shoulders and acted as if people were making a fuss out of nothing. “It’s the vulnerability of being human,” he said loftily when challenged on his claims to have an extensive property portfolio, for example. “I am not embarrassed by it.”Santos, who is just the sixth person ever to be expelled from Congress, doesn’t seem particularly fazed by his ousting either. I don’t know about you, but if I’d been kicked out of Congress – and was facing a 23-count federal indictment that alleged, inter alia, that I’d stolen campaign donors’ identities and charged thousands of dollars to their credit cards for things like Botox without their knowledge – I’d probably feel a tad sheepish. I’d probably lie low for a bit and try to avoid doing anything that brought undue attention to myself or got me into even more legal trouble.Santos, however? He’s busy trying to reinvent himself. He hasn’t let disgrace bring him down. Instead, Santos, the first non-incumbent gay Republican ever elected to Congress, seems to be busy trying to turn himself into some kind of ironic gay icon and is leaning into his camp and outlandish persona as far as he possibly can.He recently announced an X subscription where he promises to “spill tea” on Congress for just $7 a month, for example. He also signed up as a “former congressional ‘Icon’!” to Cameo, a website that offers access to personalized messages from celebrities. For a mere $200-$500 you can get a video message from him.Are people actually paying for this? I’m afraid they are! A friend of the Nebraska state senator Megan Hunt, who is bisexual and a big supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, hired Santos – who has endorsed several anti-trans policies – to send her a message of support which was widely shared.“Be yourself unapologetically,” Santos said in the video, seemingly oblivious that he had supported laws that would stop people doing just that. “Just love yourself. Just make sure that you don’t buy into the hate and stand your ground and don’t let them force you out. Don’t let them bully you. You do you, girl. I’m cheering for ya.”Then there was this week’s much-anticipated interview with Ziwe Fumudoh, a comedian famous for her deadpan interviews. Santos used drag slang like “boots the house down” (an expression of enthusiasm) multiple times throughout the interview in a seeming attempt to remind us all that he may be a disgrace and a Republican but he’s also gay, so he can’t be all bad, ya know?While he may be familiar with gay slang, Santos doesn’t seem to know much about LGBTQ+ history. Ziwe quizzed Santos on civil rights icons (the former politician once compared himself to Rosa Parks) and he admitted he had no idea who James Baldwin or Harvey Milk were. He also didn’t seem familiar with the transgender activist Marsha P Johnson.What about Santos’s own gay history? Namely allegations that Santos, a supporter of anti-LGBTQ+ policies like Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, had been a drag queen in the past. That was true, Santos said, but only for a day. “If I was a career drag queen then, like everybody likes to claim, then I must be a myth of a drag queen now … I wear far more makeup today.”The most important question Ziwe asked was probably her most earnest. “What could we do to get you to go away?” she demanded towards the end, speaking for a nation. “Stop inviting me to your gigs,” Santos replied quickly. “But you can’t. Because people want the content.”Santos may be fond of fiction but, for once, he was speaking the complete truth. You can be forgiven for pretty much anything in America if you generate entertaining enough content. You can lie, you can cheat, you can commit all manner of sins – but if you draw eyeballs and generate headlines you will probably be forgiven. You might even become president! And you certainly won’t go broke. The talkshow appearances, the book deals, the invitations to Dancing on the Stars will come.That said, there are a few things that do tend to kill your career in America. Espousing pro-Palestinian views being a major one. Ziwe, in fact, joked about that herself. “Do you support a ceasefire or are you afraid of losing your Hollywood representation?” she asked Santos at one point during the 18-minute interview.The former congressman, in case you’re interested, made it very clear that he did not support a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 20,000 people have died. What a strange world we live in, where calling for a ceasefire can get you cancelled faster than using campaign money on shopping sprees and lying your way into Congress.Ziwe is hilarious but, despite the laughs, the interview with Santos ultimately left a bad taste in one’s mouth. You can’t “gotcha” a guy like Santos. You can’t embarrass him. You can’t expose him. You can’t unsettle him. At one point, for example, Ziwe asked: “What advice do you have for young diverse people with personality disorders considering a career in politics?” Most people would get flustered. Santos just paused for a while then said, “You’re cute.”Ultimately, none of this is cute. Platforming a guy like Santos, a bigot who thrives on the oxygen of attention, only helps to rehabilitate him. We may think we’re laughing at the ex-congressman but with every view his interviews rack up, it’s clear that the joke is on us.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist More

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      How Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is taking over the Republican party

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      Donald Trump has the tacit blessing of senior Republican figures as he seeks to put border security front and center of the 2024 election by deploying fascistic language to fire up his support base, political analysts warn.The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 has called for a sharp crackdown on immigration and asserted at a weekend rally that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.The comment drew on words similar to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in his autobiography and manifesto Mein Kampf.But, despite widespread condemnation of Trump’s remarks, some top Republicans have shied away from criticizing the former US president, who is the overwhelming favorite to win the party’s nod to face off against Joe Biden in the race for the White House.Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I could care less what language people use as long as we get it right … I think the president has a way of talking sometimes I disagree with. But he actually delivered on the border.” Nicole Malliotakis, a New York congresswoman, told CNN: “He never said ‘immigrants are poisoning’, though … He didn’t say the word ‘immigrants’.”And this week Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, signed a law that allows police to arrest migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally and permits judges to order them to leave the US. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said: “It is very much in line with what many Republicans like to do or tend to do, which is demonise immigrants and also dehumanise immigrants.”Activists note how the Republican party has veered right with Trump. Maria Teresa Kumar, president and chief executive of Voto Latino, a grassroots political organisation, said via email: “Trump may say the quiet parts loud, but he’s far from alone. There were members of the Republican party not long ago who understood the need for bringing the country together. [President George W] Bush, a Texan, sought immigration reform.“Today, we see elected Republicans use rhetoric and policies for political expediency at the cost of unification. There is no doubt that we are living in a multicultural democracy – the first in history. Instead of embracing this superpower that will serve us well on the world stage, they choose division that hurts millions of fellow citizens.”Immigration is one of the most divisive problems in American politics, and bipartisan reform attempts have repeatedly failed over the past two decades. On Tuesday leaders of the Senate said a deal to bolster border security and provide additional aid to Ukraine is unlikely to come together soon.The White House’s willingness to consider concessions, and even a revival of Trump-like policies, has drawn fierce condemnation from progressives in Congress and activists who say the ideas would gut the asylum system and spark fears of deportations from immigrants already living in the US.Kumar warned against policymaking based on fearmongering. “Right now, extremists have taken the issue hostage, and they are making a commonsense solution impossible. The current immigration debate is way out of step with where Americans are on the issue, and I expect this will drive Latinos and moderates to the polls in 2024.”While Trump’s language echoes Nazis in its extremism, it arrives in the context of years of Republicans shifting the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable. Tom Tancredo, a former congressman from Colorado, pushed for strict immigration laws and enforcement and was accused of ties to white nationalist groups.Steve King, a former congressman from Iowa, once compared immigrants to dogs and defended the terms “white nationalism” and “white supremacy”. (King has recently campaigned with the rightwing Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in Iowa.) Nativist dog whistles have now been replaced by a totalitarian bullhorn.Joe Walsh, elected to Congress in the populist Tea Party wave of 2010, said of Trump’s recent comments: “As someone who used to say shit like that too much, I know that this issue animates the Republican party base better than any other issue, so Trump will keep saying shit like this because it works.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore than seven in 10 Republicans (72%) say newcomers are a threat, compared with a far lower percentage of independents (43%) and Democrats (21%), according to a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute thinktank in Washington. Two in three Republicans agree with the “great replacement” theory, which posits an elite conspiracy to supplant and disempower white people.Walsh, now a podcast host and outspoken Trump critic, added: “The Republican party base is older and white. You can scare the shit out of them by talking about all these brown and Black people coming from all these different countries into America and it’s going to change America. That scares the white party base more than anything.”But while Democrats abhor Trump’s choice of words, some may be vulnerable to the underlying message. As record numbers cross the US-Mexico border, seven in 10 voters disapprove of the president’s performance on immigration, according to a Monmouth University opinion poll released this week. It is no longer an issue for border states alone as thousands of migrants are bussed to major cities.Walsh commented: “Democrats better watch out because this issue – not Trump’s language – is a huge vulnerability for Joe Biden and the Democrats. There are a lot of people outside of the Maga [Make America Great Again] base who care about our border but are too afraid to say anything. This issue has resonance.”Democrats are on the defensive. At a press conference, Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the Senate, conceded: “What Donald Trump said and did was despicable, but we do have a problem at the border and Democrats know we have to solve that problem, but in keeping with our principles.”For many it is cause for alarm ahead of next year’s presidential election, expected to be a rematch between Biden and Trump. John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “What had been evenly balanced between Democrats and Republicans on the border and on undocumented workers has shifted now towards Trump.“He is defining the issue. The stance on border security is much more defined and much more the dominant position than the issue behind fairness, equity, even the role of federal government. Those who care about undocumented workers are just not in the mainstream any more.” More

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      Revisited: why do Republicans hate the Barbie movie? – podcast

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      The Politics Weekly America team are taking a break. So for the next two weeks, we’re looking back at a couple of our favourite episodes of the year.
      From August: Jonathan Freedland and Amanda Marcotte try to figure it out why rightwing politicians and pundits took such a disliking to Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster. They look at what the outrage can tell us about how the Republicans will campaign in 2024

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Is barring Trump from office undemocratic? Let’s assess point by point | Jan-Werner Müller

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      The decision by the Colorado supreme court to ban Donald Trump from the Republican primary has received pushback from some predictable and some not-so-predictable quarters.The former president’s supporters of course consider him the great Maga martyr, temporarily hindered by nefarious elites from his rightful return and revenge; in this morality play, the US supreme court, besieged with accusations of being undemocratic, can now play the savior by putting him back on the ballot and making the people Trump’s ultimate judge.Some liberals also fuss about the political fallout of the decision, worried that barring Trump from running will provoke chaos and violence. And the left, suspecting a “liberal plot against democracy”, is not happy either: they reproach the liberals who welcome Trump’s disqualification for wanting to short-circuit the political process – thereby revealing deep distrust of democracy or at least defeatism about confronting Trump in an open contest. All these concerns are mistaken.The Colorado supreme court comprehensively refuted Trump’s claims, especially the ones bordering on the absurd. The justices patiently argued that parties cannot make autonomous, let alone idiosyncratic, decisions about who to put on the ballot – by that logic, they could nominate a 10-year-old for the presidency. They also painstakingly took apart the idea that the now famous section three of the 14th amendment covers every imaginable official expectation of the president. In terms clearly tailored to appeal to justices on the US supreme court, they explain that plain language and the intent of the drafters of the amendment suggest that insurrectionists – including ones at the very top – were not supposed to hold office again, unless Congress voted an amnesty with a two-thirds majority.The court’s majority also made the case that the House of Representatives’ January 6 report is not some partisan attack on poor Trump and hence could be admitted as evidence; they then drew on that evidence to show that Trump had clearly engaged in insurrection; they did not have to prove that Trump himself had led it (of course, he didn’t valiantly enter the Capitol to “save democracy” – his words – but tweeted the revolution from the safety of the White House).We know that few Maga supporters will be swayed by the evidence – in fact, the entry ticket to Trump’s personality cult is precisely to deny that very evidence. But it is more disturbing that liberals still think that prudence dictates that Trump should run and just be defeated at the polls.For one thing, the same liberals usually profess their commitment to the constitution – and the Colorado court has given an entirely plausible reading of that very document. Should it simply be set aside because supporters of a self-declared wannabe dictator threaten violence?Some liberals also appear to assume that, were Trump to lose in November 2024, their political nightmare would stop. But someone who has not accepted defeat before, doubled down on the “big lie”, and ramped up authoritarian rhetoric is not likely to just concede. Would the logic then still be that, even if the law says differently, Maga supporters must somehow be appeased?The more leftwing critique is the most interesting. Liberals are charged with having a Mueller moment again. By trusting courts to save democracy, they reveal how little faith they have in the people; they appear to hope that, magically, wise old men (it’s usually men) like Robert Mueller, acting for more or less technocratic “institutions”, will solve a challenge through law when it should be solved politically.The only question is: by that logic, are any measures meant to protect democracy but not somehow involving the people as a whole as such illegitimate? Had Trump been impeached after January 6, would anyone have made the argument that this was the wrong process and that he just should keep running in elections no matter what?Countries other than the US are more comfortable with the notion that politicians or parties expected to destroy democracy should be taken out of the democratic game. The threshold for such a decision has to be very high – clearly, there’s a problem if attempts to save democracy are themselves undemocratic. Here the Colorado decision is more vulnerable: as one of the dissenting judges pointed out, Trump might not have been given due process; even prosecutor Jack Smith, a master legal chess player, is not going after Trump for insurrection.Three factors can mitigate anxieties about undemocratic measures to save democracy, though: one is that, before a drastic decision like disqualification is taken, an individual has to exhibit a very consistent pattern of wanting to undermine democracy. Check, for Trump.Second, there has to be some room for political judgment and prudence: disqualification is not automatic and not for life; in theory, Congress could pass an amnesty for Trump in the name of democratic competition.Third, banning a whole party can rightly make citizens with particular political preferences feel that their voices are silenced; in this case, though, no one is removing the Republican party. And, of course, two Trump epigones remain on the ballot.
      Jan-Werner Müller is a professor of politics at Princeton University. He is also a Guardian US columnist More

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      Colorado’s ruling to disqualify Trump sets up a showdown at supreme court

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      The Colorado ruling disqualifying Donald Trump from the ballot because he incited an insurrection on January 6 sets up another high-stakes, highly controversial political intervention by the US supreme court – a conservative-dominated panel to which Trump appointed three stringent rightwingers.Compromised in progressive eyes by those appointments and rulings including the removal of the federal right to abortion, the court was already due to decide whether Trump has immunity from prosecution regarding acts committed as president.Arising from one of four criminal indictments that have generated 91 charges, that case – concerning elected subversion if not incitement of insurrection – has produced intense scrutiny of Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving justice and a hardline conservative also at the centre of an ethics scandal.Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, is a hard-right activist who was deeply involved in attempts to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, a defeat which according to Trump’s lie was the result of electoral fraud.With the Colorado ruling, calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse from cases involving Trump will no doubt increase – and no doubt continue to be ignored.On Tuesday, the progressive strategist Rachel Bitecofer said: “Justice Thomas will get to weigh in on whether Trump engaged in insurrection for the same plot his own wife helped organise. Extraordinary.”Earlier, in a scene of extraordinary Washington pageantry, Biden addressed Thomas and the other justices at a memorial service for Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the court.Speaking at the National Cathedral, the president delivered a passage that would within hours assume greater significance.To O’Connor, Biden said, the court was “the bedrock of America. It was a vital line of defence for the values and the vision of our republic, devoted not to the pursuit of power for power’s sake but to make real the promise of America – the American promise that holds that we’re all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.”Citing that need for equality before the law, some prominent observers said the supreme court should uphold the Colorado ruling.J Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who testified before the House January 6 committee and has written with the Harvard professor Laurence Tribe on the 14th amendment, called the Colorado ruling “historic”, “masterful” and “brilliant”.“It will be a test of America’s commitment to its democracy, to its constitution and to the rule of law,” Luttig told MSNBC, adding: “Arguably, when it is decided by the supreme court, it will be the single most important constitutional decision in all of our history.“… It is an unassailable … decision that the former president is disqualified from the presidency because he conducted, engaged in or aided or supported an insurrection or rebellion against the United States constitution.”But others were not so supportive.Jonathan Turley, a conservative law professor from George Washington University who has appeared as a witness for House Republicans seeking to impeach Biden on grounds of supposed corruption, told Fox News: “This court has handed partisans on both sides the ultimate tool to try to shortcut elections. And it’s very, very dangerous.“This country is a powder keg, and this court is throwing matches at it. And I think it’s a real mistake. I think they’re wrong on the law. You know, January 6 was many things, most of it not good. In my view it was not an insurrection, it was a riot.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That doesn’t mean the people responsible for that day shouldn’t be held accountable. But to call this an insurrection for the purposes of disqualification would create a slippery slope for every state in the union.“This is a time where we actually need democracy. We need to allow the voters to vote to hear their decision. And the court just said, ‘You’re not going to get that in Colorado, we’re not going to let you vote for Donald Trump.’ You can dislike Trump, you can believe he’s responsible for January 6, but this isn’t the way to do it.”Adopted in 1868, section three of the 14th amendment barred former Confederates from office after the civil war. But it has rarely been used. In Trump’s case, much legal argument has centered on whether the presidency counts as an office, as defined in the text. In Colorado, a lower court found that it did not. The state supreme court found that it did. That argument now goes to the highest court in the land.After the Colorado ruling, many observers also pointed out that Trump has not been convicted of inciting an insurrection, or charged with doing so. He was impeached for inciting an insurrection on January 6 but acquitted at trial in the Senate, where enough Republicans stayed loyal.What is clear is that thanks to Colorado, a US supreme court already racked by politics and with historically low approval ratings will once again pitch into the partisan fight. On Tuesday, Trump seized on the Colorado ruling as he has his criminal indictments: as battle cry and fundraising tool. His Republican opponents also slammed the ruling.Last month, the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Eric Foner, an expert on the civil war and Reconstruction, spoke to the Guardian about 14th amendment challenges to Trump, including in Colorado. A successful case, Foner said, would be likely to act on Trump like “a red flag in front of a bull”.So, it seems clear, will anything the US supreme court now does regarding the Colorado ruling.On Wednesday a Trump attorney, Jay Sekulow, said on his own internet show he expected the court to act quickly, with “the next 10 days … critical in this case” and oral arguments likely by mid-January. His son and co-host, Jordan Sekulow, countered that a slow-moving case could not be counted out. More

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      Trump lawyers urge supreme court to reject fast-tracking immunity decision

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US supreme court to reject a request from the special counsel to expeditiously decide whether he was immune from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, contending prosecutors lacked standing to bring the petition.The argument from the ex-president was that prosecutors had no basis to appeal a lower court ruling that was favorable to them, and should instead defer intervening in the case until a federal appeals court issued its own judgment first.“This Court’s ordinary review procedures will allow the DC Circuit to address this appeal in the first instance, thus granting this Court the benefit of an appellate court’s prior consideration,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the 35-page filing.“The Special Counsel urges this Court to bypass those ordinary procedures, including the longstanding preference for prior consideration by at least one court of appeals, and rush to decide the issues with reckless abandon. The Court should decline that invitation at this time.”The papers filed by Trump’s lawyers in essence amounted to an attempt to refreeze the case – and indefinitely delay the March 2024 trial date – after prosecutors sought to bypass the potentially lengthy appeals process by directly asking the nation’s highest court to resolve the matter.Trump’s main argument asking the supreme court to defer the petition was procedural, arguing the narrow cases where prosecutors could appeal a favorable lower court ruling were limited to when the government had suffered some harm, which did not apply to the special counsel Jack Smith.The filing added that the court’s preference should be to allow the DC circuit to issue a judgment first, consistent with ordinary practice and especially when the DC circuit had already agreed to consider the question on an expedited basis.Whether Trump’s line of arguments will prevail remains uncertain, insofar as Trump repeatedly cited the case of Camreta v Greene (2011), in which the court expressly ruled that the fact that the victor filed the appeal did not deprive it of jurisdiction to hear the case.Trump also accused the special counsel’s office of conflating the “public interest” in a speedy trial with “partisan interest”, alleging prosecutors of wanting to go to trial before the 2024 election in order to tie him up in court during the height of his presidential campaign for political reasons.The supreme court is likely to decide whether to grant the special counsel’s appeal in short order. If it does take the case, it could schedule oral arguments in January and issue a decision within weeks. If it declines, it would return to the DC circuit’s jurisdiction.Earlier this month, Trump asked the US court of appeals for the DC circuit to reverse a decision by the trial judge rejecting his motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds that he enjoyed absolute immunity for any actions related to his official duties while president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump legal team suspected the motion would fail, according to people familiar with the matter, but filed it in the knowledge that it could be appealed before trial and, crucially, that it would cause the case to be paused pending the outcome of the appeals process.Trump’s lawyers appeared to expect the DC circuit to take months to schedule oral arguments and issue a ruling. They only intended to take the matter to the supreme court after a possible loss, which could again take months to decide whether Trump could be prosecuted in the case.But prosecutors pre-empted Trump and forced him to contend with the supreme court plank of his delay strategy earlier than he expected, requesting a grant of what is known as certiorari before the DC circuit issued a judgment. Prosecutors also separately asked the DC circuit to expedite its consideration.The federal 2020 election interference trial is currently set for 4 March, the day before Super Tuesday, when 15 states are scheduled to hold Republican primaries or caucuses. Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, has been adamant that he does not want to be stuck in a courtroom.Trump has also made no secret that his overarching legal strategy, for all of his criminal cases, is to pursue procedural delays. If the cases do not go to trial before next year’s election and he wins a second term, then he could direct his handpicked attorney general to drop all of the charges.And even if the case did go to trial before November, the people said, Trump’s preference would have been for the trial to take place as close as possible to the election because it would have given his 2024 campaign ammunition to miscast the criminal case against him as political in nature. More