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      After Brexit and Trump, rightwing populists cling to power – but the truth is they can’t govern | Jonathan Freedland

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      After Brexit and Trump, rightwing populists cling to power – but the truth is they can’t governJonathan FreedlandThe farcical scenes among US Republicans have echoes in our Tory party. Both promise disruption, then deliver exactly that The US right has this week been staging a clown show that has had liberals in that country and beyond pulling up a chair and breaking out the popcorn. There has been a karmic pleasure in watching the Republicans who won control of the House of Representatives struggle to complete the most basic piece of business – the election of a speaker – but it’s also been instructive, and not only to Americans. For it has confirmed the dirty little secret of that strain of rightwing populist politics that revels in what it calls disruption: it always ends in bitter factional fighting, chaos and paralysis. We in Britain should know, because Brexit has gone the exact same way.Start with the karma that saw House Republicans gather two years to the day since they sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another: often overlooked in the anniversary recollections of 6 January 2021 is that, mere hours after rioters had stormed the US Capitol, a majority of Republican House members voted to do precisely as the rioters had demanded and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Yet here were those same House Republicans on 6 January 2023, having prevented the smooth transfer of power from one party to another – except this time, the party they were thwarting was their own.House still without speaker as McCarthy pleads with Republican holdouts – liveRead moreIt should have been straightforward. Republicans won a narrow majority in the House in November, which gave them the right to put one of their number in the speaker’s chair. The trouble was, while most backed Kevin McCarthy, about 20 rebels did not. By Thursday night, they had gone through 11 rounds of voting – the most since the civil war era – without McCarthy or anyone else winning a majority. The result: deadlock.It was a study in incompetence. A party asks the electorate to give them power; they get it and then freeze, unable to take even the first step towards using it. There’s no clear political logic to the stalemate. The rebels are devotees of Donald Trump, but McCarthy himself is a tireless Trump sycophant – patronised by the former president as “my Kevin” – who begged for and won the backing of the orange one. The pro-Trump rebels are divided among themselves: one rebuked Trump for sticking with McCarthy, while another voted to make Trump himself speaker.It’s telling that the rebels’ demands are not on policy but on procedure, seeking rule changes or committee seats that would give them more power. Otherwise, they can’t really say what they want. They succeeded in getting metal detectors removed from the entrance to the chamber, so now people can walk on to the floor of the House carrying a gun, but apart from that, and their hunger to start investigating Democrats, including Joe Biden’s son Hunter, nothing.All this has significance for the year ahead in US politics. For one thing, it’s yet more evidence of the diminishing strength of Trump among Republican leaders, if not yet among the party faithful. For another, if Republicans cannot make a relatively easy decision like this one, how are they going to make the tough but necessary choices that are coming – such as authorising the spending, and debt, required to keep the US government functioning?But its meaning goes far wider. For what’s been on display this week, in especially florid form, is a strain of politics that has infected many democracies, including our own. Its key feature is its delight in disruption, in promising to upend the system. That was the thrust of the twin movements of 2016, Trump and Brexit. Both promised to sweep away the elites, the experts, the orthodoxy – whether in Washington DC or Brussels. They were new movements, but they were drawing on deep roots. Four decades ago both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher cast themselves as radicals daring to shake off the dead hand of the government.So we can hardly be surprised that those who railed against government should be so bad at it. They promised disruption, and that’s what they’ve delivered. In the US it was the chaos of Trump himself, and now a House of mini-Trumps that can’t tie its own shoelaces. In the UK, it looks different: we have a prime minister in Rishi Sunak whose pitch is technocratic competence. But that should not conceal two things.First, the post-2016 Tory party delivered just as much parliamentary turmoil and intra-party division as McCarthy and co served up this week. Whether it was the Commons gridlock of the two years preceding the 2019 election or the psychodrama of the three years after it, Brexit-era Conservatism has proved every bit as unhinged as Trump-era Republicanism. When it comes to burn-it-all-down politics, the Republicans’ craziest wing are mere novices compared with a master arsonist such as Liz Truss. The US and UK are simply at different points in the cycle.House Democrats should unite with moderate Republicans to elect a speaker | Robert ReichRead moreSecond, even with Sunak in charge, and though painted in less vivid colours, Brexit-era Toryism is just as paralysed as its sister movement in the US. The five-point plan unveiled in the PM’s new year address consisted mostly of the basics of state administration – growing the economy, managing inflation – rather than anything amounting to a political programme.And that’s chiefly because his party, like the Republicans, cannot agree among themselves. Consider how much Sunak has had to drop, under pressure from assorted rebels. Whether it was reform of the planning system, the manifesto commitment to build 300,000 new houses a year or the perennial pledge to grasp the nettle of social care, Sunak has had to back away from tasks that are essential for the wellbeing of the country. True, he has avoided the farcical scenes that played out this week on Capitol Hill, but that’s only because he has preferred to preserve the veneer of unity than to force a whole slew of issues. The result is a prime minister who cannot propose much more than extra maths lessons lest he lose the fractious, restive coalition that keeps him in office.None of this is coincidence. It’s in the nature of the rightwing populist project, in Britain, the US and across the globe. Brexit is the exemplar, a mission that worked with great potency as a campaign, as a slogan, but which could never translate into governing, because it was never about governing. It was about disrupting life, not organising it – or even acknowledging the trade-offs required to organise it. It offered the poetry of destruction, not the prose of competence.The Conservatives are several stages further down this road than the Republicans, perhaps because their power has been uninterrupted throughout. But in both cases, and others, the shift is unmistakable. Once parties of the right saw themselves as the obvious custodians of state authority: the natural party of government. Now they are happier shaking their fists at those they insist are really in charge. They are becoming the natural party of opposition. Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpBrexitConservativesRishi SunakEuropean UnioncommentReuse this content More

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      The speaker of the House debacle is the Maga revolution eating its children | Jan-Werner Müller

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      The speaker of the House debacle is the Maga revolution eating its childrenJan-Werner MüllerThe extreme Republicans blocking Kevin McCarthy are refusing to accept a loss – the core of the Trumpist playbook Autocrats around the world, after a pretty bad 2022, must be delighted: just in time for the second anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, the US is providing a spectacle of democratic dysfunction for stunned global audiences to behold. But the Republican faction holding the country hostage – the farthest right inside what de facto has become a far-right party – wants to convince us that this is simply what democracy looks like – messy and frustrating, but all happening for the sake of a better result in the end. The Groundhog Day-style procedures are dignified as – in the words of failed speaker of the House candidate Byron Donalds – a “deliberative, open process” necessary for the “constitutional republic that is America”.The fact is that the Republicans blocking Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker are not crazy when they suggest that good-faith debate within the same political party can be beneficial for a democratic polity. Except that their political performance art is really about a refusal to accept a loss – the very core of the Trumpist playbook. This is not what democracy looks like; this is what acting out a belief in minority rule looks like.House Democrats should unite with moderate Republicans to elect a speaker | Robert ReichRead moreDemocracy inside parties is easy to ridicule. Oscar Wilde once quipped that the problem with socialism is that it takes too many evenings. What is billed as “deliberation” often means that the person who can stick around the longest – or who enjoys pontificating about political philosophy the most – wins the day: if in doubt, an educated white man who might not have to worry about the kids in the morning. Bickering inside parties also seems an obvious turn-off for voters. If even partisans supposedly agreed on political principles aren’t convinced by the program, why should anyone else be?And yet intra-party democracy is crucial for the health of democracy as a whole. People get used to good-faith disagreement on policies; the fact that they hold the same principles does not mean there can’t be debates, ideally allowing new arguments and evidence to come out. Lyndon Johnson held that “What the man on the street wants is not a big debate on fundamental issues; he wants a little medical care, a rug on the floor, a picture on the wall.” But, as his party learned the hard way, what “a little medical care” means, in practice, can be highly contentious. No principle automatically implements itself as policy; debates are necessary.What’s more, democracy inside parties gets partisans used to the idea that the other side could possibly be right – a stance crucial for democracy, in which opponents must be treated as legitimate adversaries, not as existential enemies. Losers of a conflict learn how to adopt a stance of legitimate opposition and critical loyalty: they agree on principles, but disagree about policies or even particular personalities; above all, they remain free to criticize the leadership. Naive? The absence of critical loyalty inside a party opens the path to something like January 6: no one was able to restrain Trump, as he had refashioned the Republican party into something like a personality cult. It is hardly an accident that rightwing populist leaders – think Modi, Orbán, Erdoğan – all govern their own parties in autocratic fashion.But what the far right of the far right is doing in Washington now has nothing to do with intra-party democracy. No real arguments are being offered when figures like Byron Donalds and Kevin Hern get their 15 minutes of fame. What Donalds lauds as “open process” unfolds behind closed doors; and, curiously for self-declared conservatives, blackmail aimed at radically changing the power of the speaker is pushed without serious claims about the constitution.The House speaker fiasco shows that Republicans are unable to govern | Andrew GawthorpeRead moreWhat the anti-McCarthy faction is doing is a miniature version of what the Republican party as a whole has increasingly adopted as a strategy at least since the 1990s: even if your stances are unpopular and you fail to win majorities, you somehow still want to govern. Except that this strategy is now consuming the party’s own leadership; the revolution is devouring both its radical children and the parents, like McCarthy, who benevolently looked on as the kids learned how to rampage during the Trump years.Concretely, the far right of the far right seeks a position from which to force the speaker to dominate a Democratic president through blackmail and brinkmanship. Newt Gingrich – as so often, the original model for what is playing out today – shut down the government to force Bill Clinton’s hand; John Boehner and Paul Ryan were not as willing to play hardball and paid the price. The underlying assumption is that the other party has no legitimate role in government at all and that sharing power is equal to betrayal. It is not an accident that figures like Scott Perry paint the Democrats not just as wrong, but as evil actors (he hinted that they might be like Nazis) hellbent on destroying America.This unseemly spectacle is not the debate Americans “need” and are “owed”; this is also not just instant proof that the Republican party is unable to govern, as many previews of the new Congress had asserted; rather, it is demonstration just how little has changed since the original January 6.
      Jan-Werner Müller teaches at Princeton and is a Guardian US columnist. His most recent book is Democracy Rules
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      House still without speaker as McCarthy pleads with Republican holdouts – live

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      Kevin McCarthy’s team insists there has been progress in negotiations with the hard-right Republican rebels who have denied him the speakership through 11 straight votes, but whether it’s the breakthrough the California Republican so desperately needs is far from certain.The House reconvenes at noon Friday in what has already been the lengthiest search for a speaker in 159 years, with an increasingly anguished McCarthy offering more concessions to the holdouts to try to secure the 218 votes he needs.The Washington Post on Friday was among several media outlets reporting signs emerging of a possible deal to end the impasse yet, crucially, notes that while it reflects “considerable momentum” for McCarthy, the expectation is he “will not get all the votes necessary to become speaker”.Moderate Republicans are also growing restless after three days of voting in which McCarthy has failed to show any progress towards the winning threshold, and a group of 20 House Republicans has consistently voted against him.There is, therefore, something of a “make or break” feel to today’s proceedings.One Republican lawmaker told Politico Playbook on Friday:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There is a limit to how much of this crap we can take.The website reports mounting frustration among a sizeable number of others, some of whom want to be out of Washington DC to be with sick relatives, attend family funerals or meet new babies for the first time.“There’s a lot more at stake than whether Kevin McCarthy’s going to be able to get the gavel,” the lawmaker told Playbook.“We’ve got lives that are being impacted right now, and this is tough for people.”The other area of concern is how much McCarthy seems to be giving away to the hardliners in order to make a deal.The Post, and others, say he has now consented to reduce the threshold from five to one of the number of House members needed to raise a “vacate the chair” motion, making it easier for the speaker to be ousted.Read more:McCarthy fails in speakership bid for third day after 11th voteRead moreA number of prominent politicians and others have taken to Twitter to express their thoughts on today’s second anniversary of the deadly January 6 Capitol insurrection. Some are linking it to the current paralysis in Congress caused by Republicans’ failure to elect a speaker after three days and 11 votes.Here’s Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the most recent speaker:Tomorrow, we solemnly observe the January 6th Attack on the Capitol.As we mark a day that threatened our Democracy, let us show our respect for the great institution of the Congress.We must open the House and proceed with the People’s work.— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 6, 2023
      Presidential historian Michael Beschloss: Any political leader who planned, abetted, praised or excused the violent attack on our Congress and Capitol of January 6, 2021, and that insurrection against our sacred democracy should never be trusted on the issue of law and order.— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 6, 2023
      Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer:This January 6th anniversary should serve as a wakeup call to the GOP to reject MAGA radicalism—which keeps leading to GOP failures.But the pandemonium wrought by House Republicans this week is one more example of how MAGA radicalism is making it impossible for them to govern.— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 6, 2023
      Democratic New Jersey congressman Donald Norcross:On #January6th 2021, rioters breached the Capitol, threatening the peaceful transition of power and democracy itself. Looking back at the footage I took gives me chills.Two years later, I am more committed than ever to protecting our democracy. pic.twitter.com/2bVql6GfU4— Congressman Donald Norcross 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@DonaldNorcross) January 6, 2023
      The official Senate Democrats account:Today marks two years since the deadly insurrection at the Capitol. We must defeat extremism and hold the Republicans who promote it accountable.We will not forget January 6. pic.twitter.com/AyPIaPodtI— Senate Democrats (@dscc) January 6, 2023
      Today marks the second anniversary of the deadly January 6 Capitol riot. This afternoon, Joe Biden will award the nation’s second highest civilian honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal, to 12 people, including law enforcement officers and politicians, who resisted Donald Trump’s insurrection. Ed Pilkington reports:Rusty Bowers, the former top Republican in Arizona’s house of representatives who stood up to Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and was punished for it by being unseated by his own party, is to receive America’s second-highest civilian honor on Friday.Bowers will be among 12 people who will be awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by Joe Biden at the White House at a ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. It will be the first time that the president has presented the honor, which is reserved for those who have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens”.All 12 took exceptional personal risks to protect US democracy against Trump’s onslaught. Many are law enforcement officers who confronted the Capitol rioters, others are election workers and officials in key battleground states who refused to be bullied into subverting the outcome of the presidential race.Several of the recipients paid a huge personal price for their actions. Brian Sicknick will receive the presidential medal posthumously – he died the day after the insurrection having suffered a stroke; a medical examiner later found he died from natural causes, while noting that the events of January 6 had “played a role in his condition”.Bowers’ award, first reported by the Deseret News, came after he refused effectively to ignore the will of Arizona’s 3.4 million voters and switch victory from Biden to Trump. As a result, he incurred the wrath of Trump, who endorsed a rival candidate in last year’s Republican primary elections.David Farnsworth, the Trump-backed opponent, went on to defeat Bowers and usher him out of the Arizona legislature. Farnsworth is an avid proponent of the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, going so far as to tell voters that the White House had been satanically snatched by the “devil himself”.Ahead of Friday’s ceremony, Bowers described the news of his award as “something of a shock”. He said that though some of his detractors were likely to denounce his call to the White House a political stunt, he thought it was designed to “create unity and put behind us the division of the past. I’m certainly in favor of that, no matter what.”He added: “I don’t think this is to stir up division, it’s to honor those who stood up and did their job as best they could. And that’s kind of what America is about.”Read the full story:‘All I did was testify’: Republican who defied Trump will get presidential medalRead moreKevin McCarthy’s team insists there has been progress in negotiations with the hard-right Republican rebels who have denied him the speakership through 11 straight votes, but whether it’s the breakthrough the California Republican so desperately needs is far from certain.The House reconvenes at noon Friday in what has already been the lengthiest search for a speaker in 159 years, with an increasingly anguished McCarthy offering more concessions to the holdouts to try to secure the 218 votes he needs.The Washington Post on Friday was among several media outlets reporting signs emerging of a possible deal to end the impasse yet, crucially, notes that while it reflects “considerable momentum” for McCarthy, the expectation is he “will not get all the votes necessary to become speaker”.Moderate Republicans are also growing restless after three days of voting in which McCarthy has failed to show any progress towards the winning threshold, and a group of 20 House Republicans has consistently voted against him.There is, therefore, something of a “make or break” feel to today’s proceedings.One Republican lawmaker told Politico Playbook on Friday:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}There is a limit to how much of this crap we can take.The website reports mounting frustration among a sizeable number of others, some of whom want to be out of Washington DC to be with sick relatives, attend family funerals or meet new babies for the first time.“There’s a lot more at stake than whether Kevin McCarthy’s going to be able to get the gavel,” the lawmaker told Playbook.“We’ve got lives that are being impacted right now, and this is tough for people.”The other area of concern is how much McCarthy seems to be giving away to the hardliners in order to make a deal.The Post, and others, say he has now consented to reduce the threshold from five to one of the number of House members needed to raise a “vacate the chair” motion, making it easier for the speaker to be ousted.Read more:McCarthy fails in speakership bid for third day after 11th voteRead moreGood morning and happy Friday, US politics readers. The longest of weeks on Capitol Hill continues today with Kevin McCarthy still chasing the speakership after losing 11 straight House votes.The California Republican’s team has been pleading with conservative holdouts overnight, trying to reach a deal to get him to the 218 votes he needs. But the troops are growing restless, and frustration among moderates is rising at how much control McCarthy seems willing to cede to the party’s extremist fringe.“There is a limit to how much of this crap we can take,” one Republican lawmaker tells Politico’ Playbook after three days and nights of stalemate.The circus tent opens again when the House reconvenes at noon, and we’ll know pretty soon thereafter if McCarthy has achieved any kind of breakthrough.Also happening today:
      It’s the second anniversary of the deadly January 6 Capitol riot. Joe Biden will present the Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation’s second highest civilian award, to 12 people, including law enforcement officers and politicians, who stood up to Donald Trump’s insurrection.
      Security services are on high alert with several rallies planned to take place at or near the Capitol building. Democrats fear the safety of lawmakers and staff has been compromised by a weakening of security measures since Republicans won the House majority.
      Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, will deliver her final briefing of the week at 12.45pm. More

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      Fears over lax security in Republican-controlled House two years after Capitol attack

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      Fears over lax security in Republican-controlled House two years after Capitol attackFresh concerns raised over stripping away of measures put in place by Democrats after January 6 insurrection Two years after the January 6 insurrection, fresh fears are being raised over safety for lawmakers and staff at the US Capitol, especially as Republicans have stripped away some of the security measures installed in the wake of the deadly attack on Congress.House Republicans, who secured a narrow majority in the 2022 midterm elections, removed the metal detectors outside the House chamber ready for the first day of business of the 118th Congress on Tuesday, 3 January. House Republicans aim to rein in ethics body preparing to investigate their partyRead moreThe Democrats had installed the facilities after a mob of extremist supporters of Donald Trump had stormed the Capitol in 2021 in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.The magnetometers’ removal came not just at a symbolically significant time heading up to the two-year anniversary on Friday of the Capitol attack, but also as federal lawmakers face increased risk.US Capitol Police reported 9,625 threats and directions of interest, which means actions or statements that cause concern, against members of Congress in 2021, compared with 3,939 in 2017. Metal detectors remain at the entrance of Congress for visitors and members of the public.Nevada Democratic representative Steven Horsford, incoming chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, criticized the removal of the metal detectors outside the House chamber, citing increased threats against lawmakers.“Over the last two years since 2020, members of Congress, particularly members of color, have been under direct attack in our districts, in DC, in the communities – and House Democrats worked to enhance those protections, not just for ourselves, but by passing legislation for our constituents,” Horsford said, speaking to the Guardian on his way to a meeting at the Capitol two days ago.“And now, the Republicans want to roll those protections back just like they want to roll back protections for women, protections for immigrants, protections for labor.“They’re not here to serve the people – they’re here to serve their special interest and that’s why we have to do everything we can to make sure their term in the [House] majority is very short,” he added.Maryland Democratic congressman and member of the recently-disbanded House select committee investigating the Capitol attack and Trump’s role in it, Jamie Raskin, voiced similar security concerns.“The January 6 select committee said that the forces that Trump arrayed against us are still out there,” Raskin said. “We need to be taking every precaution to make sure that January 6 [2021] doesn’t become a dress rehearsal for the next event.”Democratic former House speaker Nancy Pelosi had security officials erect the metal detectors to check members of congress for weapons. These devices quickly became a flashpoint in the bitterly-politicized discourse surrounding January 6, which was further intensified by deep partisan division over gun access in the US.‘Medium level of paranoia’: security concerns still loom on Capitol HillRead moreMany Republican members of Congress were unwilling to criticize the rioters that broke into and damaged the Capitol, shaking American democracy two years ago. The mob rampaged through the corridors, chasing and attacking police officers, while also threatening violence against lawmakers of both political parties, who had to flee for their lives. Republicans and the House January 6 Committee, meanwhile, both released reports that present dueling narratives.The bipartisan House committee directly blamed Trump for fanning the flames of insurrection. The Republican report, however, focused on security failures and did not explore rioters’ efforts to thwart Biden’s certification, CNN reported.Later on Friday, Biden was scheduled to speak at the White House to mark the anniversary of the insurrection and warn that extremists who continue to deny that Trump lost the 2020 election, which include hard right Republicans in office as well as conspiracy theorists and many right-leaning voters, pose a danger to American democracy.The midterm elections last November saw the defeat of many Trump-backed far right candidates across the US who continue to claim falsely that he was denied a second term in the White House because of widespread voter fraud, and pledged to back harsh voting restrictions.But the fringe element retains a strong voice, as demonstrated even in Washington this week via Republicans’ inability to elect a Speaker of the House of Representatives in the new Congress, as far right members of congress fought for influence, with the chaos spilling into the January 6 anniversary.And the US president also was set to present the nation’s second highest civilian award to 12 individuals involved in defending the Capitol during the insurrection, and in safeguarding the will of American voters in the 2020 presidential election.Among those being honored are seven members of law enforcement, including a posthumous award to Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after the attack, and an award to Officer Eugene Goodman, who was credited with directing rioters away from the Senate floor while lawmakers were evacuating the building.Biden is also recognizing Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, and Rusty Bowers, a former Arizona House speaker, who resisted pressure to overturn the election results; and Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss, election workers in Fulton county, Georgia, who were subjected to threats and harassment after ensuring votes in the county were properly tabulated.Following the Capitol attack, some lawmakers were leery of their own colleagues and thought that it was necessary to screen other representatives for firearms or other weapons.At first, several House Republicans refused to go through the magnetometers, entering the chamber without undergoing weapons screening, and were subsequently fined.Several Republicans heralded the detectors’ removal this week, including Lauren Boebert, a Republican Colorado representative and gun rights activist. Boebert, who got into a seeming dispute with an officer following the detectors’ installation – wouldn’t say whether she would bring a gun onto the House Floor.“I think they should be removed from the Capitol, filled with Tannerite and blown up,” Boebert told the New York Post shortly before the metal detectors were taken away, referring to an explosive material that’s used on firearms range targets.“They should not feel unsafe,” Boebert said of Democrats voicing safety concerns. “If they do, they should come see me for a concealed-carry weapons permit and I can make sure they are locked and loaded in Washington, DC, legally.”Democratic representative Ted Lieu was disconcerted by the prospect of armed representatives on the House floor.“I’m awfully concerned that Lauren Boebert wouldn’t answer on whether she would bring a gun to the House floor,” Lieu told the Guardian. “We have security here on the House floor, so there’s no reason for any member to bring a gun on to the House floor.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansDemocratsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘All I did was testify’: Republican who defied Trump will get presidential medal

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      ‘All I did was testify’: Republican who defied Trump will get presidential medalRusty Bowers is one of 12 people who took risks to protect US democracy who will be honored on anniversary of January 6 Rusty Bowers, the former top Republican in Arizona’s house of representatives who stood up to Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and was punished for it by being unseated by his own party, is to receive America’s second-highest civilian honor on Friday.Bowers will be among 12 people who will be awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by Joe Biden at the White House at a ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. It will be the first time that the president has presented the honor, which is reserved for those who have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens”.Ousted Republican reflects on Trump, democracy and America: ‘The place has lost its mind’ Read moreAll 12 took exceptional personal risks to protect US democracy against Trump’s onslaught. Many are law enforcement officers who confronted the Capitol rioters, others are election workers and officials in key battleground states who refused to be bullied into subverting the outcome of the presidential race.Several of the recipients paid a huge personal price for their actions. Brian Sicknick will receive the presidential medal posthumously – he died the day after the insurrection having suffered a stroke; a medical examiner later found he died from natural causes, while noting that the events of January 6 had “played a role in his condition”.Bowers’ award, first reported by the Deseret News, came after he refused effectively to ignore the will of Arizona’s 3.4 million voters and switch victory from Biden to Trump. As a result, he incurred the wrath of Trump, who endorsed a rival candidate in last year’s Republican primary elections.David Farnsworth, the Trump-backed opponent, went on to defeat Bowers and usher him out of the Arizona legislature. Farnsworth is an avid proponent of the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, going so far as to tell voters that the White House had been satanically snatched by the “devil himself”.Ahead of Friday’s ceremony, Bowers described the news of his award as “something of a shock”. He said that though some of his detractors were likely to denounce his call to the White House a political stunt, he thought it was designed to “create unity and put behind us the division of the past. I’m certainly in favor of that, no matter what.”He added: “I don’t think this is to stir up division, it’s to honor those who stood up and did their job as best they could. And that’s kind of what America is about.” Last June, Bowers testified before the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. He told the hearing that shortly after the November 2020 election he had received a phone call personally from Trump, who asked him to take the state’s 11 electoral college votes away from Biden and hand them to him. Bowers replied: “Look, you’re asking me to do something that is counter to my oath … I will not do it.” January 6 officer Michael Fanone warns ‘democracy is still in danger’Read moreIn an interview with the Guardian from his desert ranch outside Phoenix in August, Bowers characterized the plot to overturn the election as fascism. “Taking away the fundamental right to vote, the idea that the legislature could nullify your election, that’s not conservative. That’s fascist. And I’m not a fascist,” he said.Among the other recipients at Friday’s medal presentation will be Eugene Goodman, the Capitol police officer who drew angry rioters away from the Senate chambers where lawmakers were hiding in fear. Jocelyn Benson, who in the role of Michigan’s top election official fended off a virulent campaign of misinformation during the presidential vote count, will also be honored.Bowers was demure about the role he played to scupper Trump’s anti-democratic ambitions. “All I did was testify before the commission and do my own thing at home, go through my own little trials,” he said.He was heartened that all of the election-denier candidates endorsed by Trump who stood in statewide races last November had been defeated. They included Kari Lake who lost in the Arizona governor’s election and Mark Finchem, a state lawmaker who was present at the US Capitol on January 6, who failed to become the state’s top election official.“I’m very happy that they were so strongly defeated,” Bowers said. “The outcome to me is illuminative.”TopicsUS Capitol attackArizonaJoe BidenRepublicansDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      As Republicans take control of House, members fear watered down security

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      As Republicans take control of House, members fear watered down securityFresh concerns raised over stripping away of measures put in place by Democrats after January 6 insurrection Two years after the January 6 insurrection, fresh fears are being raised over safety for lawmakers and staff at the US Capitol, especially as Republicans have stripped away some of the security measures installed in the wake of the deadly attack on Congress.House Republicans, who secured a narrow majority in the 2022 midterm elections, removed the metal detectors outside the House chamber ready for the first day of business of the 118th Congress on Tuesday, 3 January. House Republicans aim to rein in ethics body preparing to investigate their partyRead moreThe Democrats had installed the facilities after a mob of extremist supporters of Donald Trump had stormed the Capitol in 2021 in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.The magnetometers’ removal came not just at a symbolically significant time heading up to the two-year anniversary on Friday of the Capitol attack, but also as federal lawmakers face increased risk.US Capitol Police reported 9,625 threats and directions of interest, which means actions or statements that cause concern, against members of Congress in 2021, compared with 3,939 in 2017. Metal detectors remain at the entrance of Congress for visitors and members of the public.Nevada Democratic representative Steven Horsford, incoming chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, criticized the removal of the metal detectors outside the House chamber, citing increased threats against lawmakers.“Over the last two years since 2020, members of Congress, particularly members of color, have been under direct attack in our districts, in DC, in the communities – and House Democrats worked to enhance those protections, not just for ourselves, but by passing legislation for our constituents,” Horsford said, speaking to the Guardian on his way to a meeting at the Capitol two days ago.“And now, the Republicans want to roll those protections back just like they want to roll back protections for women, protections for immigrants, protections for labor.“They’re not here to serve the people – they’re here to serve their special interest and that’s why we have to do everything we can to make sure their term in the [House] majority is very short,” he added.Maryland Democratic congressman and member of the recently-disbanded House select committee investigating the Capitol attack and Trump’s role in it, Jamie Raskin, voiced similar security concerns.“The January 6 select committee said that the forces that Trump arrayed against us are still out there,” Raskin said. “We need to be taking every precaution to make sure that January 6 [2021] doesn’t become a dress rehearsal for the next event.”Democratic former House speaker Nancy Pelosi had security officials erect the metal detectors to check members of congress for weapons. These devices quickly became a flashpoint in the bitterly-politicized discourse surrounding January 6, which was further intensified by deep partisan division over gun access in the US.‘Medium level of paranoia’: security concerns still loom on Capitol HillRead moreMany Republican members of Congress were unwilling to criticize the rioters that broke into and damaged the Capitol, shaking American democracy two years ago. The mob rampaged through the corridors, chasing and attacking police officers, while also threatening violence against lawmakers of both political parties, who had to flee for their lives. Republicans and the House January 6 Committee, meanwhile, both released reports that present dueling narratives.The bipartisan House committee directly blamed Trump for fanning the flames of insurrection. The Republican report, however, focused on security failures and did not explore rioters’ efforts to thwart Biden’s certification, CNN reported.Following the Capitol attack, some lawmakers were leery of their own colleagues and thought that it was necessary to screen other representatives for firearms or other weapons.At first, several House Republicans refused to go through the magnetometers, entering the chamber without undergoing weapons screening, and were subsequently fined.Several Republicans heralded the detectors’ removal this week, including Lauren Boebert, a Republican Colorado representative and gun rights activist. Boebert, who got into a seeming dispute with an officer following the detectors’ installation – wouldn’t say whether she would bring a gun onto the House Floor.“I think they should be removed from the Capitol, filled with Tannerite and blown up,” Boebert told the New York Post shortly before the metal detectors were taken away, referring to an explosive material that’s used on firearms range targets.“They should not feel unsafe,” Boebert said of Democrats voicing safety concerns. “If they do, they should come see me for a concealed-carry weapons permit and I can make sure they are locked and loaded in Washington, DC, legally.”Democratic representative Ted Lieu was disconcerted by the prospect of armed representatives on the House floor.“I’m awfully concerned that Lauren Boebert wouldn’t answer on whether she would bring a gun to the House floor,” Lieu told the Guardian. “We have security here on the House floor, so there’s no reason for any member to bring a gun on to the House floor.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansDemocratsUS CongressfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Kevin McCarthy faces mutiny over speakership: Politics Weekly America podcast

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      Everyone knew that this week was going to be tough for Kevin McCarthy, but not even Democrats could have hoped for such a humiliating few days for the Republican nominee to be speaker of the House of Representatives. Jonathan Freedland and Lauren Gambino discuss what unfolded on Capitol Hill

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      Kevin McCarthy loses US House speakership bid on third day as votes tally climbs to 11 – video

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