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      Montana Republicans bar transgender lawmaker from the statehouse floor

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      Montana Republicans have barred the transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr from the statehouse floor for the rest of the session after she told colleagues they would have “blood on your hands” if they voted to ban gender-affirming medical care for trans children.Under the terms of the punishment, Zephyr will still be able to vote remotely. The Democratic representative had been forbidden from speaking for the past week over her comments, which Republicans said violated decorum.The decision to silence Zephyr had already drawn protests that brought the statehouse to a halt on Monday as demonstrators demanded Zephyr be allowed to speak.In a defiant speech on Wednesday before lawmakers voted, Zephyr said she was taking a stand for the LGBTQ+ community, her constituents in Missoula and “democracy itself”.She accused the Republican house speaker, Matt Regier, of taking away the voices of her 11,000 constituents and attempting to drive “a nail in the coffin of democracy” by silencing her.“If you use decorum to silence people who hold you accountable, then all you’re doing is using decorum as a tool of oppression,” she said.Zephyr’s punishment has ignited a firestorm of debate about governance and who has a voice in democracy in politically polarizing times, much like recent events in the Tennessee statehouse where two black lawmakers were expelled after participating in a post-school shooting gun control protest that interrupted proceedings.In Montana, Republicans said they would not let the Missoula lawmaker speak unless she apologized for her remarks last week on the proposed ban, which she refused to do. Conservative Republicans have repeatedly misgendered Zephyr since the remarks, deliberately using incorrect pronouns to describe her.Zephyr’s remarks, and the Republican response, set off a chain of events that culminated in a rally outside the capitol at noon Monday. Protesters later packed into the gallery at the statehouse and brought House proceedings to a halt while chanting “Let her speak.” The scene galvanized her supporters and and those saying her actions constitute an unacceptable attack on civil discourse. Police arrested seven people at the capitol.Tuesday’s floor session was cancelled without explanation, and Republican leaders closed the gallery to the public on Wednesday “to maintain decorum and ensure safety”, they said in a letter to Zephyr.The events have sent shockwaves through Missoula, a liberal college town where 80% of voters sent the first openly trans legislator in state history to the state capital.“When she first ran I thought, ‘they’re going to do something to limit her power’,” said Erin Flint, 28. But she didn’t expect Zephyr to be silenced completely.Montana has long leaned to the right, but with more of a libertarian bent than a zest for culture wars. That allowed Democrats to win the governorship regularly for decades, and occasionally to win control of one or more houses of the legislature.Andy Nelson grew up in a town of 750 people in eastern Montana, and only felt comfortable coming out as gay in his senior year of college at the University of Montana in Missoula, when he volunteered at the Center, a local LGBTQ+ community group where he is now executive director. He remembered long discussions wondering whether such a group was still necessary after gay marriage was legalized nationally in 2015. But that all changed in 2016, with the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump.Trump handily won the state that year and in 2020. Republicans now hold both congressional seats and all statewide offices, although one of the state’s two US Senate seats is held by Democrat John Tester, a top GOP target in 2024. Last year, as Zephyr was elected in her Missoula district of about 11,000 residents, the GOP Republicans rode a surge in popular support to win a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature.Zeke Cork, 62, one of the Center’s board members, recalled the 1970s as a great time to be out in Missoula, though he said he had to follow certain rules to be safe. A railroad dispatcher, Cork has lived all over the US but returned to Montana in 2015. He felt safe enough to transition fully two years ago.Cork has been traveling to the state capitol in Helena to speak against the legislation affecting trans people since it was first introduced. After Zephyr was silenced, he joined dozens of others from Missoula at the capitol earlier this week.“We would much rather be living quiet lives, out of the spotlight, living under the radar, living our best lives,” Cork said. “I don’t want to be having this battle.”But, Cork added, the community has no choice. “She speaks for me and I sent her to that house,” said Cork, who lives in Zephyr’s district. “We’re fighting for democracy right now.” More

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      Joe Biden formally announces 2024 White House run

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      Joe Biden has formally announced his campaign for re-election in 2024, asking Americans for four years to “finish this job”, possibly setting up an extraordinary rematch with Donald Trump.In a three-minute video opening with images of the US Capitol attack, Biden warned that the US remains under threat from the anti-democratic forces unleashed by his predecessor, who he beat in 2020.Biden said: “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America – and we still are.”The president launched his re-election campaign on the fourth anniversary of his return to politics in 2019, when he declared his third presidential run. Since then, the political landscape has changed.The US is still grappling with the scars of a pandemic that killed more than 1.1 million and with inflation that has eased from historic highs but remains painful. Americans remain deeply divided, convulsed by the loss of federal abortion rights, near-weekly mass shootings and worsening climate disasters.Already the oldest president, Biden would be 86 before the end of a second term, nearly a decade older than Ronald Reagan was when he left the White House in 1989. Trump is 76.In his video, Biden warned that “Maga extremists” – Trump’s slogan is “Make America Great Again” – were working to strip away “bedrock freedoms”.“Cutting social security that you’ve paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy,” Biden said. “Dictating what healthcare decisions women can make, banning books and telling people who they can love. All while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”The president and his wife, Jill Biden, had made his intentions known. But Biden felt little need to rush after a better-than-expected Democratic performance in the midterm elections tamped down calls for a serious primary challenge.Ultimately, the president chose to wait until after his tour of Ireland, a three-day trip he said restored his “sense of optimism”. Returning home, he told reporters he planned to “run again”.The vice-president, Kamala Harris, the highest-ranking woman and person of color in US politics, will be Biden’s running mate again.Biden is dogged by low approval ratings and concerns about his age. Only a quarter of Americans want him to run, according to the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Among Democrats, that figure is 50%. Should Biden win the nomination, as expected, most Democrats will support him.On Tuesday, Biden was due to welcome the president of South Korea. Next month, he will travel to the G7 summit in Japan. His team will begin to formalize a campaign expected to be headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware.Julie Chávez Rodríguez, a senior White House adviser and granddaughter of the celebrated labor leader César Chávez, will be campaign manager. Her principal deputy will be Quentin Fulks, a strategist who ran Raphael Warnock’s Senate re-election campaign in Georgia, a battleground state Biden won in 2020. The announcement begins a fundraising sprint. Donors have been summoned to Washington.Hours after making his candidacy official, during remarks to union workers at a conference in Washington, Biden was greeted by chants of “four more years”.“Our economic plan is working,” he said in a speech rife with references to his working-class upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania.“Let’s finish the job,” he said.Biden has made clear he plans to run on accomplishments in the first half of his presidency, when Democrats had majorities in Congress.Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, delivering financial assistance to those hit hard by Covid. He also approved a $1tn infrastructure bill; signed the first major federal gun safety bill in nearly 30 years; pursued initiatives to both treat veterans exposed to toxic burn pits and boost the semiconductor industry; and made Ketanji Brown Jackson the first Black woman on the supreme court.Perhaps his most significant legislative achievement to date is the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant US response to the climate crisis.But while Biden’s policies are broadly popular, he has struggled to earn credit. He has spent the last few months attempting to sell his economic policies and rally Americans before a showdown with Republicans over the federal debt limit.On the world stage, Biden has rallied a global coalition behind Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion while seeking to strengthen US defenses against China. The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, however, was among the lowest points of Biden’s presidency, even as he fulfilled a promise to end America’s longest war.Republicans greeted Biden’s announcement by assailing his handling of immigration and the economy.“Biden is so out-of-touch that after creating crisis after crisis, he thinks he deserves another four years,” said Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee. “If voters let Biden ‘finish the job’, inflation will continue to skyrocket, crime rates will rise, more fentanyl will cross our open borders, children will continue to be left behind, and American families will be worse off.”Biden must negotiate with a divided Congress, Republicans holding the House. Biden plans to use a showdown over raising the federal borrowing limit to draw a contrast with Republican economic priorities, which he argues are aligned with big business and special interests.In his campaign video, Biden warned that individual freedoms are under attack by far-right Republicans who have trampled reproductive, voting and LGBTQ+ rights.“This is not a time to be complacent,” he said. “I know America. I know we’re good and decent people.”After nearly a half-century in public life including 36 years as a senator from Delaware and eight years as the vice-president to Barack Obama, Biden called himself a “bridge” to the next generation of Democrats. But only two fringe candidates have challenged him for the nomination: the self-help author Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy Jr.The Republican field is growing. Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, has entered the race. The South Carolina senator Tim Scott has taken steps to run. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is widely expected to announce. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president, is also weighing a run.Trump announced his candidacy after the midterms in November. He and Biden both face federal investigations over their handling of classified information. In Biden’s case, documents were discovered at his office and home. His lawyers have stressed they are cooperating.Trump resisted efforts to retrieve materials he took to his Florida estate. But that is just one of many legal challenges he faces. Earlier this month, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges related to hush money payments to a porn star. He also faces investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, trial over a rape accusation, and a civil suit over his business affairs.Ahead of Biden’s announcement, Trump lashed out, saying the “five worst presidents in American history” combined had not inflicted the “damage Joe Biden has done”.In his video, Biden said: “Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they’ve had to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedoms. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights.”
      Joan E Greve contributed reporting. More

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      An end to political deadlock? Arizona’s experiment with third parties

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      In a swing state that’s likely to decide the next presidential election, two new third parties want to get on the ballot and other groups want to remake the way votes are cast and counted.Arizona, which voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 as the state has grown more purple, could see big shifts to its political establishment in the next year, all premised on the idea that the dominance of the two main political parties creates dysfunction and prevents progress on issues that matter to voters. That has Democrats and Republicans here worried.One new party, No Labels, gathered enough signatures to put candidates on the ballot in 2024. Another new party, Forward, is starting to gather signatures to get ballot status.Separately, a coalition of voting groups has surveyed voters to understand their thoughts on ranked-choice voting and open primaries in an effort to run a 2024 ballot measure that would greenlight the concepts in Arizona.While similar efforts are afoot in other states and nationwide, Arizona provides a fertile place to experiment with attempts to reimagine elections.About one-third of Arizona voters aren’t registered with a political party. Both major parties try to court these independent voters to build winning coalitions. In recent years, Democrats have been more successful at amassing independent support, though Republicans dominated for decades before that.The state also has one of the country’s most prominent independents – Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the former Democrat who left the party earlier this year and hasn’t said whether or how she’ll run to keep her seat in 2024.Because of its new status as a swing state, donors are now much more interested in spending money in Arizona. This influx of cash means more groups can afford to gather signatures and promote ballot measures, both of which can cost millions in Arizona.And with a state Republican party that’s affixed to the far right, there’s an opening for centrist and center-right candidates who could seek support from moderate Republicans and right-leaning independents.The level of extremism and dysfunction shows why a two-party system with closed primaries doesn’t work, said longtime consultant Chuck Coughlin, who is working with Save Democracy Arizona, a group advancing ranked-choice voting in Arizona.“You did experience the same election I just did, did you not? You did experience this overwhelming feeling of joy with candidates you had to choose from?” he joked about the vitriolic 2022 campaigns. “The obvious answer is because the system is so badly broken right now.”The rise of third partiesPaul Bentz, a Republican consultant and pollster in Arizona, said the dissatisfaction with the two main parties has created a lane for third parties. One big hurdle, though, is that independents often pride themselves on their lack of party affiliation.“What independents do care about is the candidates, and they want to choose based on the issues,” Bentz said. “So if this gives a platform for an alternative individual to present different issues and let independents choose them, that would be something that’s very attractive to them. But there is no independent party because independents specifically don’t want to be part of a party.”No Labels, a centrist party founded in 2010, so far has ballot status in Alaska, Oregon, Colorado and Arizona, though the group wants to be on the ballot in 22 states by the end of the year, spokesperson Maryanne Martini said.It’s not clear if the party will run any candidates in Arizona next year. Martini said the group isn’t actively recruiting candidates at this point.Soon after No Labels gained ballot status, the Arizona Democratic party sued to try to get it removed. Democrats overall have been more vocally concerned than Republicans about these incoming centrist parties, fearing they will peel off votes from the left and spoil races for Democrats.In its lawsuit, the Arizona Democratic party alleges No Labels isn’t following requirements for political parties and didn’t follow laws for signature-gathering, so it shouldn’t be recognized as a party in the state.“Arizonans deserve better and voters deserve to know who is behind this shadowy organization and what potentially nefarious agenda they are pushing,” the Arizona Democratic party spokesperson Morgan Dick said when the lawsuit was announced.Martini called the lawsuit “undemocratic and outrageous”.“If either party in Arizona is worried about a No Labels candidate taking votes away from them, we think they should focus more on appealing to the growing commonsense majority they often ignore and less on filing baseless lawsuits to try to kick competitors off the ballot,” she said.The Forward party, a moderate party co-chaired by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, has legal status in six states and is working toward it in nearly two dozen others this year. In addition to gathering signatures, the party is hosting community events in Arizona to build support, said Chris Hendrickson, the state lead for the party.At a kick-off event in March, four Democratic members of the Arizona house of representatives declared themselves “Forward Democrats”. They aren’t leaving their party, but they support Forward’s mission. Last year, Forward endorsed Democratic US senator Mark Kelly and independent congressional candidate Clint Smith.“I don’t think the objective is to push out any one party or another,” Hendrickson said. “We really need to have four or five legitimate parties who all bring something to the table.”A lot of the consternation over centrist parties relates to the 2024 presidential election. Democrats worry a third-party candidate could cost them the presidency and throw the election to Republicans, possibly to Trump.No Labels said it “is not running and will not run a presidential campaign”. The Forward party also said it won’t run a presidential candidate in 2024 and is primarily interested in state and local elections.Tony Cani, a Democratic consultant, said the third parties would serve more to hurt Democrats than dismantle a two-party system, though he understands voters’ interest in ending two-party dominance.“The problem is adding minor parties doesn’t put an end to a two-party system,” Cani said. “It just creates new minor parties that will end up with the same chance of winning elections as the Libertarian and Green parties.”A push for ranked-choice votingOther groups want to see the way Arizonans vote change to allow more moderate candidates to win elections and force the parties to run more broadly appealing campaigns.Ranked-choice voting comes in different forms, but typically asks voters to rank candidates in order of their preference. If a voter’s top choice doesn’t get enough votes, their second and subsequent choices are counted until someone gets more than 50% of votes. The system sometimes necessitates an open primary election, where voters don’t need to select which party’s primary to participate in.Coughlin, the consultant who’s working on a potential ballot measure, said the group is still surveying voters to understand whether a measure could be successful. So far, the groups are looking at a final-five version of voting, where all candidates appear on one primary ballot and the top five move to a general.“Our goal is to make sure that nobody can win in a primary and that all of the decisions are made in November and that we create the greatest amount of competition possible,” he said.Ranked-choice voting confuses some voters, but the idea of open primaries tends to get more support. Partisan, closed primaries are now paid for by taxpayers in Arizona, and focus groups have strongly favored defunding them, Coughlin said.To gather enough signatures and then run a campaign to support a ranked-choice ballot measure would cost around $20m. Coughlin said the group would need to start collecting signatures by August.Though Save Democracy Arizona may not shoot for a ballot measure next year, the idea of ranked-choice voting has Republican lawmakers pushing proposed laws to stop the effort.Republicans in the legislature sent a question to the ballot for next year that would prohibit anything but the kind of primary elections Arizona has now. That means there could be measures to approve ranked-choice voting and to prohibit it on the same ballot.They also approved a bill that prohibits ranked-choice voting at any level in Arizona, though that proposal was vetoed. The Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, said the bill was unnecessary as the practice isn’t used in Arizona, and that ranked-choice voting “is used successfully elsewhere in the country”. More

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      North Dakota governor signs law banning nearly all abortions

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      North Dakota on Monday adopted one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the US as the Republican governor Doug Burgum signed legislation banning the procedure throughout pregnancy, with slim exceptions up to six weeks’ gestation.In those early weeks, abortion would be allowed only in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency, such as ectopic pregnancy.“This bill clarifies and refines existing state law … and reaffirms North Dakota as a pro-life state,” Burgum said in a statement.Last year’s US supreme court ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide has triggered multiple state laws banning or restricting the procedure. Many were met with legal challenges. Currently, bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy are in place in at least 13 states and on hold in others because of court injunctions. On the other side, Democratic governors in at least 20 states this year launched a network intended to strengthen abortion access in the wake of the supreme court decision that eliminated women’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy and shifted regulatory powers over the procedure to state governments.The North Dakota law is designed to take effect immediately, but last month the state supreme court ruled a previous ban is to remain blocked while a lawsuit over its constitutionality proceeds. Last week, lawmakers said they intended to pass the latest bill as a message to the state’s high court signaling that the people of North Dakota want to restrict abortion.Supporters have said the measure signed Monday protects all human life, while opponents contend it will have dire consequences.North Dakota no longer has any abortion clinics. Last summer, the state’s only facility, the Red River Women’s Clinic, shut its doors in Fargo and moved operations a short distance across the border to Moorhead, Minnesota, where abortion remains legal. The clinic’s owner is still pursuing a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of North Dakota’s previous abortion ban.It’s expected that this new ban will also be the subject of legal challenges.Republican Senator Janne Myrdal, of Edinburg, sponsored the latest state legislation.“North Dakota has always been pro-life and believed in valuing the moms and children both,” Myrdal said in an interview. “We’re pretty happy and grateful that the governor stands with that value.”Liz Conmy, a Democratic representative, voted against the bill and said she had hoped Burgum would not sign it.“I don’t think women in North Dakota are going to accept this and there will be action in the future to get our rights back,” Conmy said. “Our legislature is overwhelmingly pro-pregnancy, but I think women in the state would like to make their own decisions.” More

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      ‘Let her speak!’: protests after Montana Republicans silence trans lawmaker

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      Montana protesters brought the state house to a halt on Monday after Republican legislative leaders prevented a transgender lawmaker from speaking for a third day over her remarks about banning gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.The interruption is the latest development in a three-day fight over Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr’s remarks against lawmakers who support a ban on gender-affirming care. Zephyr, who is trans and a first-term Democrat, hasn’t been allowed to speak on the state house floor since Thursday because she told Republican colleagues last week they would have “blood on their hands” if they banned gender-affirming medical care.Police arrested half a dozen of Zephyr’s supporters. Protesters, some of whom were forcibly removed from the chambers, chanted “Let her speak!” from the gallery before they were escorted out.The Missoula Democrat was silenced and deliberately misgendered by some Republican lawmakers throughout last week. She was silenced for a second day on Friday as her Republican colleagues refused to let her speak on the chamber’s floor about a bill that would prevent minors from seeing pornography online.Republican leaders have insisted Zephyr won’t be allowed to speak until she apologizes. Matt Regier, the house speaker, and his Republican colleagues have indicated they have no plans to back down.“There are 10,000 Montanans whose voice will not be heard because their representative will not be allowed to speak, and that makes me really sad,” said Representative Connie Keogh, another Missoula Democrat, as proceedings opened on Monday afternoon.The standoff is the latest example of emergent discussions around civility, decorum and how to discuss political issues many perceive as life and death. Proponents of the ban on gender-affirming care see Zephyr’s remarks as unprecedented and personal in nature. She and her supporters say they accurately illustrate the stakes of the legislation under discussion, arguing that restricting gender-affirming care endangers trans youth, who many studies suggest suffer disproportionately from depression and suicidal tendency.Katy Spence, a constituent of Zephyr’s who drove to the Capitol from Missoula on Monday, said the standoff was about censoring ideas, not decorum.“She’s been silenced because she spoke the truth about what these anti-trans bills are doing in Montana – to trans youth especially,” she said of Zephyr.Zephyr’s supporters gathered outside the statehouse on Monday, waving pride flags and chanting “Let her speak!”. As proceedings began, they filled the statehouse gallery and supplemental Montana highway patrol officers stood by to monitor developments. Zephyr voted on various measures, but leadership pushed discussion of a bill she requested to speak on to the end of the agenda.Republicans denied Zephyr’s requests to speak on a proposal that would have restricted when children could change the names and pronouns they use in school and required their parents’ consent, prompting her supporters to interrupt proceedings for nearly half an hour. In the initial moments after proceedings were paused Monday afternoon, Zephyr defiantly hoisted a non-functioning microphone into the air.Zephyr’s supporters were escorted from the gallery above the state house floor, several by force. Leaders cut the sound on the video feed and Zephyr remained on the floor holding her microphone. Zephyr did not return after lawmakers reconvened and wrote on Twitter that she would be back after showing “support for those who were arrested defending democracy”.Zephyr told the Associated Press she was headed to the county jail with the half dozen protesters who were arrested.The display followed a promise Zephyr made earlier on Monday, when she told supporters on the statehouse steps that she planned to continue speaking forcefully against legislation that members of the trans community, including herself, consider matters of life and death.“I was sent here to speak on behalf of my constituents and to speak on behalf of my community. It’s the promise I made when I got elected and it’s a promise that I will continue to keep every single day,” Zephyr said before walking into the house chamber.She connected the trans community’s plight against gender-affirming care bans to the political fights animating other marginalized groups throughout the United States.“When those communities who see the repercussions of those bills have the audacity to stand up and say, ‘This legislation gets us killed,’ those in power aren’t content with just passing those hateful harmful bills,” she said. “What they are demanding is silence. We will not be complicit in our eradication.”Last year, Zephyr became the first openly trans woman elected to the Montana legislature – putting her among a record number of trans lawmakers who began serving across the US.The dispute started last Tuesday when the house was debating the Republican governor Greg Gianforte’s proposed amendments to a measure banning gender-affirming care for minors. Zephyr spoke up in reference to the body’s opening prayer.“I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” she said.Sue Vinton, the Republican house majority leader, called Zephyr’s comments inappropriate and disrespectful. That evening, a group of conservative lawmakers known as the Montana Freedom Caucus demanded Zephyr’s censure and deliberately referred to her using male pronouns in their letter and a tweet.The bill banning gender-affirming care for minors is awaiting Gianforte’s signature. He has indicated he will sign it. The bill calls for it to take effect on 1 October, but the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal have said they will challenge it in court. More

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      Republicans ‘glorify political violence’ by embracing extreme gun culture

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      Republicans in Idaho have been criticized for “glorifying political violence” after the party hosted Kyle Rittenhouse, the American who shot and killed two people at an anti-racism protest and injured another, as a celebrity guest at a fundraiser.The 20-year-old was the guest of honor at a Bonneville county Republican party event, in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on 15 April, where an AR-15 style rifle signed by Rittenhouse was auctioned off as part of a fundraiser and people could buy tickets to “Trigger time”: a Rittenhouse-hosted shooting event at a gun range.The event, amid a prolonged spate of mass shootings – many conducted with AR-15s – suggests a further embrace by Republicans of the most extreme elements of the gun lobby in the US, despite polls showing a majority of Americans, across party-affiliation, supporting some gun control laws.Rittenhouse was 17-years-old when he traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, from his home in Illinois, armed with an assault-style rifle, in August 2020. Black Lives Matter protests had been taking place in the city after Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer, leaving Blake partially paralyzed.Rittenhouse joined other armed men acting as a self-described militia and roamed the city, before killing Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz, 27.In a speech to the Bonneville county Republicans, Rittenhouse complained that he faces “ridicule on a daily basis” since he killed Rosenbaum and Huber. He was found not guilty of homicide in November 2021.The now 20-year-old Rittenhouse, who told the crowd in Idaho that the government is seeking to “take our guns” and “take the rest of our freedoms”, has become a darling of the far-right since the shooting, appearing on Fox News and other rightwing media.The embrace and lauding of someone like Rittenhouse is dangerous, said Stephen Piggott, a researcher at Western States Center who focuses on white nationalist, paramilitary and antidemocracy groups.“Elected officials and media personalities should really be denouncing political violence, not embracing it,” Piggott said.“For a GOP [group] to not only host and organize a fundraiser with him, and a shooting range event, call that event trigger time, I think really is the very epitome of glorifying political violence.”Rittenhouse addressed the crowd in Bonneville county, where he said stricter gun control laws would not “lower the unfortunate school shootings”. He complained that he was facing two lawsuits, one from the family of one of the men he killed and another from Grosskreutz.“I’m being sued by the estate of Anthony Huber,” Rittenhouse said.“He was the guy who attacked me with a skateboard and I was forced to defend my life from him.”Rebecca Casper, the mayor of Idaho Falls, said Rittenhouse “does not represent the majority of the people in Idaho Falls”.“Make no mistake, this unfortunate, distasteful and insensitive event was in no way supported by the City of Idaho Falls,” Casper said. “We are an inclusive and welcoming community and we join with so many others in voicing our dismay over such an insensitive and patently offensive event.”Rittenhouse’s appearance comes as the GOP and rightwing media have increasingly embraced rhetoric previously confined to fringe extremist groups, Piggott said, sparking fear and potentially increasing violence.“The rhetoric that I’ve seen from elected officials, from media personalities, especially when it talks about things like urban crime is practically indistinguishable from what I’m seeing from white nationalists talking about the same subject,” he said.“We’re at a point now where elected officials and media personalities are almost doing the work for white nationalists, especially when talking about crime.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRittenhouse’s appearance comes amid a series of high-profile shootings in the US. According to the Gun Violence Archive there have been 167 mass shootings – defined as incidents where four people were shot or killed – in the US through 21 April.Six people, including three nine-year-old students, were murdered at a school shooting in Nashville on 27 March, while a gunman shot and killed five people at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, bank on 10 April. AR-15 style weapons were used in both mass shootings.On 13 April Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old Black boy, was shot twice by a white man after ringing the doorbell at the wrong house. Two days later a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed in New York state when she and some friends turned into the wrong driveway while looking for a house.“[Commentators] on the right have spent the last few years warning their viewers that vigilante justice might be necessary to keep their families safe – and Kyle Rittenhouse is the poster child for that inflammatory talking point,” said Matt Gertz a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a watchdog group that monitors rightwing media.Meanwhile there have also been spikes in hate crimes and incidents in the US. Violence against trans people and gender non-conforming people has risen in recent years, as have hate crimes against people based on their race, ethnicity or ancestry.Piggott said rhetoric against those communities could have contributed to the violence. He pointed to a Florida Republican recently describing transgender people as “demons” and “mutants”, and Paul Gosar, a Republican US representative, ​​referring to an “invasion of illegal aliens”, as examples.“When you’re using that type of rhetoric, that’s either violent or dehumanizing or both, I think it sends a green light that violence against those communities is acceptable,” Piggott said.The Bonneville county Republican party did not respond to a request for comment, and it seems unlikely that this will be Rittenhouse’s last invite to a rightwing event.So far this year alone Rittenhouse has appeared on Donald Trump Jr’s podcast, and been interviewed by Sebastien Gorka, a former Trump administration official, on his America First show.A planned appearance at an “anti-censorship” rally at a Texas brewery in January was canceled however. The brewery’s owner pulled the event after multiple customers complained. More