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      Kari Lake closes campaign office over envelope with white powder – reports

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      Kari Lake closes campaign office over envelope with white powder – reportsArizona Republican gubernatorial candidate’s staffer opened the envelope and is under medical supervision, spokesperson says Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake closed a campaign office after an envelope containing “suspicious white powder” was delivered to the premises on Saturday, according to reports.A member of the candidate’s staff unwittingly opened the envelope and is now under “medical supervision”, campaign spokesperson Colton Duncan told CNN.‘A really dangerous candidate’: Kari Lake, the new face of Maga RepublicanismRead moreThe FBI will analyze the item at its laboratory in Virginia, and agents stopped short of saying whether they had confirmed the powder was harmful.“It was one of two envelopes that were confiscated by law enforcement and sent to professionals at Quantico for examination, and we are awaiting details,” Duncan reportedly said.While Lake was taking the threat seriously, Duncan said, she would not be deterred. “In the meantime, know that our resolve has never been higher, and we cannot be intimidated,” Duncan added. “We continue to push full speed ahead to win this election.”Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state and Lake’s opponent in Tuesday’s election, decried the incident. “The reported incident at Kari Lake’s campaign office is incredibly concerning and I am thankful that she and her staff were not harmed,” Hobbs’ campaign reportedly commented. “Political violence, threats, or intimidation have no place in our democracy. I strongly condemn this threatening behavior directed at Lake and her staff.”This case ensnaring Lake’s office comes amid heightened concerns about political violence surrounding the 2022 midterm elections Tuesday and unrest generally. Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, was bludgeoned by a hammer-wielding home intruder on 28 October in an attack that authorities described as politically motivated.In June, California resident Nicholas John Roske was arrested near US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Maryland home for allegedly trying to kill the jurist. Roske, who has pleaded not guilty, allegedly told a police officer that he was angry over the then draft supreme court opinion overturning the federal abortion rights established by the landmark Roe v Wade case.Threats against politicians have surged in recent years, with the US Capitol police saying that they investigated 9,625 threats against legislators in 2021, which began with supporters of Donald Trump launching an attack on the congressional session that certified the former president’s defeat to Joe Biden. That toll was about a threefold increase from 2017, Capitol police said.While US House members will now receive a $10,000 security allowance, the stipend has been criticized as insufficient.The New York police department (NYPD) warned on 27 October that extremists might target political events and polling sites in advance of Tuesday’s race.A New York City voting site was shuttered for several hours Sunday after a bomb threat, authorities said. The threat was reportedly directed toward the school which housed the site.The NYPD said this threat was neither against the polling station nor politically motivated.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022ArizonaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans and Democrats make last arguments as midterms loom

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      Republicans and Democrats make last arguments as midterms loomDemocrats frame election as referendum on US democracy while Republicans say they will better address economic woes Political leaders from both sides of the aisle on Sunday made their closing arguments to voters two days before the hotly contested US midterm elections, with several top Democrats framing the election as a referendum on American democracy.Republicans, meanwhile, swung back by saying that they would better address Americans’ economic woes and repeatedly insisted their rivals were ill-equipped to help voters despite Democratic rhetoric that the GOP was to blame for the nation’s political divisiveness.Trump expected to announce 2024 campaign before end of NovemberRead more“The stakes are about economics,” Minnesota Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar said on CNN’s State of the Union. “Every country in the world has been through a hard time coming out of this pandemic.”“The question [that] voters have to ask is: who do you trust to have people on staff who see them, who’s going to stand up for them, social security and Medicare?”Klobuchar also warned that a shift right could spell danger for this country. She noted that numerous Republican candidates have sowed doubt over the 2020 elections – and said that Donald Trump’s shadow is “looming over” key states.“These candidates are throwing truth out the window – they’re shattering the rule of law and they’re laughing at political violence,” Klobuchar said. “If you’re a Democrat, independent, or moderate Republican, democracy is on the ballot and it is time to vote for democracy.”New Jersey Democratic senator Cory Booker voiced similar sentiments. “There’s a lot on the line and we have to remember after what we saw at January 6, Republican or Democrat, we should be electing people that believe in our democracy, that believe in our traditions, and that ultimately want to unite people and not divide them,” Booker said on ABC’s This Week.Referring in part to the attack on US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, he added: “There’s a culture of contempt in this country. You’re seeing election workers getting increased threats. You’re seeing judges getting increased threats. Heck, you’re even seeing members of Congress – as we saw with what happened to Paul Pelosi.“Something has gone wrong in our country where rising political violence, rising threats are really threatening who we are as a people.”South Carolina Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn on Fox News Sunday defended prior comments that the climate in the US had similarities to Germany in the early 1930s. The House majority whip pointed to denying election results and establishing ways that state executives can overturn election results, as well as calling the press “the enemy of the people”.Clyburn insisted that he didn’t think people were in the wrong if they didn’t vote Democrat. Rather, wrongness involved voting for persons trying to sow skepticism about elections’ validity.“If they don’t vote against election deniers. If they don’t vote against liars, people who lie, know full well they’re lying, we all know they’re lying,” Clyburn said. “So if they’re lying, they’re denying, they’re trying to delete, they’re trying to nullify votes – vote against that foolishness.”During a pre-recorded interview that aired on ABC, Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, told voters that his party better represented their economic interests. Youngkin also hit cultural talking points, invoking the bogeyman of rising crime.“Americans are hurting right now and Republican gubernatorial candidates, because that’s who I’ve been spending a lot of time with, are offering commonsense solutions to these most critical issues,” Youngkin said. “Americans are sitting around their tables in the evening and they’re worried about inflation and they’re worried about crime and they’re worried about their schools and they’re worried about the border.“Republicans have clearcut commonsense solutions to all of these,” Youngkin also said, without detailing any of those purported solutions.Both sides’ intensely ideological politicking ahead of Tuesday speaks to a potentially watershed outcome for the nation’s future. The party in control of Congress often loses its majority during midterm elections. So a Republican majority at this point of Joe Biden’s presidency would not be shocking historically speaking.Any dramatic political shift in the current climate, however, could fan the flames of unrest and pessimism pervading a country that is increasingly divided over issues such as voting, gun control, race, reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ rights.And, as political violence and conspiracy theories abound, Trump’s divisive politics might reign supreme once more, especially as he might soon declare his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.Regardless of the midterm election’s outcome, it remains unclear whether politicians will be able to shepherd meaningful legislative solutions to these problems. Major legislation will probably require bipartisan cooperation, which seems unlikely in a bitterly partisan political climate.On NBC’s Meet The Press, host Chuck Todd asked Florida Republican senator Rick Scott: “What’s the first bill a Republican Congress sends to the president’s desk that you actually think he would sign?”Scott did little more than toe the party line, saying: “I think the issue we’ve got to deal with is inflation. We’ve got to figure out how to spend our money wisely, so we don’t continue this inflation. I think we’ve got to do whatever we can to get this crime rate down, so I think we have to look at that. We’ve got to secure the border.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The Guardian view on the US midterms: a tale of two contests

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      The Guardian view on the US midterms: a tale of two contestsEditorialThese elections are key not just to what the president can achieve in the next two years but to the future of democracy When American voters go to the polls on Tuesday, they will be voting not only in a multitude of specific races, but in what feel like two separate elections. The first is a largely traditional version of the midterms: a referendum on the incumbent (helping to explain why Joe Biden has been keeping a relatively low profile, given his approval ratings) and on the economy. In a cost of living crisis, it may not be surprising that 92% of Republicans see the economy as very important, with predictable issues of crime and immigration following behind.But among Democrats, only 65% see the economy as very important – while 80% cite the future of democracy, 79% cite healthcare and 75% abortion. This is the second and very different contest. It is a “struggle for the very soul of America”, as Mr Biden warned on Wednesday, and a battle over people’s fundamental rights – to control their own bodies, and to have free and fair elections. The context is the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021; the vicious attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband by a man who told police he had planned to kidnap the House speaker and break her kneecaps if she “lied” to him; and the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade. The latter led to a surge in registrations, and more than half of registered voters still say abortion will be very important in determining their choice. But Republican candidates who have realised the unpopularity of their extreme views are now muddying their message, as even some voters who define themselves as “pro-life” balk at total bans.The question is how much ground Democrats lose. Polls suggest Republicans will almost certainly take the House and are favoured to take the Senate. Whether they prove more accurate than in recent years is critical to an outcome which will help to determine everything from US support for Ukraine to the 2024 presidential race. A triumph for the Republicans will mean a hobbled administration, facing legislative stagnation, hostile committees and investigations on matters such as Hunter Biden’s business dealings.But this is also a defining moment in the defence of democracy. Thanks to Donald Trump’s lies, amplified by hard-right media outlets like Fox News, grassroots Republicans believe, entirely wrongly, that the 2020 election was unfair or outright stolen – a belief not dented even when his own officials testified to his defeat. The consequences have included political violence; the danger of more is clear. But this “big lie” is also playing out in midterm races.The electoral system is already warped by years of gerrymandering, as the growing gap between the Democrats’ share of the popular vote and actual political power demonstrates (though the House race appears fairer than in recent contests). Now it is under fresh threat from outright election deniers who question or reject Mr Trump’s defeat and won’t commit to accepting defeat themselves. If the former president runs in 2024 – as he says he “very, very, very probably” will do – key election officials may not resist his attempts to overturn his defeat as they did in 2020. In Arizona, all but one of the Republican candidates for Congress, governor, attorney general and secretary of state have questioned the 2020 result.The very act of casting a vote in the midterms may help to preserve or imperil democracy. But because very protracted counts will probably be followed by legal challenges and threats, winning means not just persuading voters, but ensuring that their choices are upheld. An increasingly polarised electorate may move even further apart. It is unsurprising that there are two contests when there are, increasingly, two different Americas, who cannot even agree on the facts, still less what they mean for the nation.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpDemocratsRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

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      Inside the unhinged midterm election conspiracy theories on Truth Social

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      Inside the unhinged midterm election conspiracy theories on Truth Social Stuffed ballot boxes, ‘BlueAnon’, support for Russia and ‘corporate communists’ are catnip on the rightwing platform Ballot boxes being stuffed. “BlueAnon”. Men in underpants. Every Democratic candidate: a “complete weirdo psychopath”.To dive into Truth Social, Donald Trump’s Twitter-but-for-conspiracy-theorists social media platform, is to enter a world where all of the above are real topics of debate, breathlessly discussed by Trump-backing Republicans and anonymous rightwing provocateurs.Twitter sued by former staff as Elon Musk begins mass sackingsRead moreTruth Social has always been a platform for lies and obfuscations; about the 2020 election, the Democratic party, vaccines, Hunter Biden. But with less than a week before the election, the platform and its users have become even more unhinged.The site, formed as Trump’s alternative to Twitter after he was banned from that platform in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, is awash with false theories about how the Democratic party is attempting to manipulate the midterm vote, false claims about the attack on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and false accusations about Democratic candidates themselves.As one of the most followed Truth Social users, Donald Trump Jr, son of the former US president, has been one of the most prominent agitators.In the run-up to the election, Trump Jr has used the platform to echo rightwing talking points about vaccines, drugs, Ukraine and a host of other issues. His posts are eagerly lapped up by fellow Truthers, and he isn’t the only thought leader on the platform.The unusually named Catturd2 has emerged as one of Truth Social’s tastemakers since the site launched, and with more than 760,000 followers – Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority speaker has only 54,000 and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s on-off friend and lawyer, has 89,000 – when Catturd2 speaks, people listen.In recent days Catturd2 has mostly chosen to speak about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Like numerous other Truth Social users, Catturd2 has their doubts and has echoed a rightwing, homophobic, incorrect conspiracy theory about the attack – an idea Trump Jr also peddled on Truth Social.But Catturd2 has other thoughts, too, including on the Democrats running for election in the midterm elections.“Every single Democrat candidate is a complete weirdo psychopath,” Catturd2 wrote recently, in a truth that was liked by more than 6,000 accounts, and which largely captures the attitude of Truth Social users toward Democratic politicians and their supporters.Truth Social launched, chaotically, in February 2022. Billed as “a major new platform” where Republicans and Democrats alike could converse in an environment free from the “censorship” of big tech – an environment with an “ironclad commitment to protecting vigorous debate” – thousands of would-be users were unable to access the service for weeks, and Trump himself was said to be furious with the platform.Trump had planned a $1.3bn merger of Truth Social with Digital World Acquisition Corp, a blank check company, but the deal has been plagued by delays and is under federal investigation. In October it emerged that the co-founder of Trump’s social media company had told the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the company’s efforts to raise $1bn were based on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws”.Still, Truth Social has managed to grow in popularity, with its number of users surging past other rightwing platforms like Gab, Parler and Gettr. Even if Truth Social’s 1.7m US unique visitors a month is dwarfed by Twitter and Facebook, it has become the go-to meeting place for Trump supporters to voice unsubstantiated concerns about voter fraud.As the election looms, ballot “drop boxes” have become the particular bete noire for the rightwing crowd. Introduced so that people can drop off their early voting or absentee ballots, to Truth Social users these drop boxes are nothing more than election fraud in plain sight – flimsy, poorly guarded containers where Democratic backers or members of the deep state regularly stop off to jam hundreds of fraudulent ballots into the counting system.On Truth Social, people have been called to action.“Get out and help patriots. Watch those ballot drop boxes. We can’t let them steal another election,” msannthrope wrote, in a post similar to hundreds of others on the platform.In fact, on Tuesday a judge issued a restraining order against a rightwing group in Arizona which had deployed people to watch over drop boxes, after accusations of voter intimidation, but the obsession with the boxes hasn’t gone away.Thousands of users posted a link this week to a story from a rightwing website which alleged irregularities at ballot drop boxes in Pennsylvania, a state which Trump and his supporters have accused of seeing fraud in 2020. Politifact, a non-partisan fact-checking website, reported that people had “successfully inserted 18 ballots into three of the eight ballot drop boxes in Centre County, Pennsylvania, before the official window of time when the boxes were open to receive ballots”.But, Politifact wrote: “The ballots are not evidence of fraud. The voters simply didn’t follow directions,” while Michael Pipe, the county’s commission chair and chair of its election board, told local news station KDKA-TV. The ballots will not count towards the Pennsylvania vote, Pipe said, because they were returned incorrectly.If misinformation is king on Truth Social, then that might explain how Marjorie Taylor Greene, a darling of the Trump-Republican movement who is known for both extremism and incompetence, has become one of the loudest voices in what is a very loud room.Throughout October, her account has been a flurry of vague assertions about the Democratic party: half-baked off ideas and theories tossed off apropos of nothing, without explanation or justification.“There are more Democrat conspiracy theories & theorists on Twitter than Qanon ever produced,” Taylor Greene wrote on October 28.“Most have blue check marks, post their pronouns, support war in Ukraine, are triple vaxxed & boosted, and work in corporate media, Hollywood, or the government.“Blueanon [an apparent play on the rightwing QAnon conspiracy theory] is dangerous.”It wasn’t clear – because she didn’t say – what had set Taylor Greene off. But she clearly enjoyed this foreboding, dystopian style, because the next day, she was back at it.“Corporate communists control the speech of their employees & customers by only allowing Democrat speech and punishing, silencing, and canceling Republican speech,” Taylor Greene said.If it was unclear how the concept of a corporate communist would actually work, then it was also unclear what Taylor Greene meant by her grimly threatening follow up: “But there is a shift beginning,” she wrote. “People are beginning to refuse to be silenced and a Patriot economy is beginning.”Perhaps the real motivation for these posts is simply that people on Truth Social love stuff like this. Truth Social is, according to its bosses, a platform where anyone is free to say whatever they want, but what they mostly want to say is that they don’t have anywhere to speak.“Why are people being censored for misleading or false information and not the biggest offenders, the media?” user mikesonfire pondered obliquely this month.Mikesonfire’s other posts have included a suggestion that the military, not “biased clerks” count votes, and that: “Russia invaded the Ukraine to stop the NWO [New World Order, a conspiracy theory which states a cabal of elites is striving for a world government] for producing more viral weapons”.Russia has been a particular fascination for Truth Social users, many of whom have spoken sympathetically about the country and its invasion of Ukraine. Other users have posted approvingly about a Russian government plan to ban people from suggesting homosexual relationships are “normal”, and the hashtag IStandWithRussia has been used repeatedly over the past month.In recent days, despite users’ apparent satisfaction with Truth Social, the main interest has been Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and how it might impact the Democratic party in elections and beyond.Musk’s vague promise to overturn Twitter bans has had people giddy with excitement, claiming it could open the door to a glorious era of Republican reign.“Democrats are not going to be able to handle free speech and the corrupt Democratic Party will fall apart after hearing the truth,” one Truth Social user gravely intoned after Musk purchased Twitter.Another posted: “3 PATRIOTS🇺🇸 TRUMP, MUSK, & [Steve] BANNON,” above a photoshopped picture of the three men. Others “truthed” photos of Musk entering the Twitter HQ, and reveled in the departure of Twitter employees.Troublingly for Trump and Truth Social, however, the most striking response from Truth Social users was the large number of them pleading with Musk to be allowed to return to Twitter.For now, Truth Social might be the platform of choice for those loyal to Trump and his election lies, but it seems large numbers of the platform can’t wait to get away.TopicsDonald TrumpElon MuskSteve BannonUS politicsSocial mediaNancy PelosiRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Only the Strong review: Tom Cotton as hawk … too chicken to take on Trump?

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      Only the Strong review: Tom Cotton as hawk … too chicken to take on Trump?The Arkansas senator’s book may be a calling card for 2024 but he must know he is highly unlikely to be the next GOP nominee Together, Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell worked to undermine Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. On 6 January 2021, both Republican senators refused to take the path paved by their colleagues Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and object to results in key states. Cotton, from Arkansas, branded those who stormed the Capitol “insurrectionists” – a label he had used before, for those who rioted in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.Senator Tom Cotton brags about ignoring Trump impeachment evidenceRead moreUnlike Cruz, Cotton didn’t back down or simper before Tucker Carlson. In contrast to Hawley, he is southern but not neo-Confederate, more Andrew Jackson than John C Calhoun. Cotton’s new book, Only the Strong, name-checks Abraham Lincoln. He has previously opined on slavery, saying the founders viewed it as “the necessary evil upon which the union was built”, a remark that angered the left (most likely pleasing its author). More recently, Cotton condemned David DePape, the man who attacked Paul Pelosi. The US needs to “get tough on crime”, the senator said.Cotton’s consistency, however, is limited. He knows his party belongs to Trump. In his new book, he avoids mention of January 6.Cotton is happy of course to castigate Joe Biden on Ukraine, writing: “His weakness enticed Vladimir Putin to invade.” The senator is a decorated combat veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq (though not as an army ranger, as he has previously said). Against the backdrop of the botched US pullout from Afghanistan, his critique is comprehensible. Not surprisingly, though, Cotton is loth to criticize Trump, a Vietnam-era draft-dodger who in early 2022 lavished praise on his idol, Putin, and derided Nato as “not so smart”.“I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians,” the normally loquacious Cotton told ABC in response.There is also the fact Cotton received more than $40,000 in campaign donations from a commodities speculator who profiteered from Ukraine’s misfortune.The subtitle of Cotton’s book is “Reversing the Left’s Plot to Sabotage American Power”. He seeks to pin all that is wrong on the Democrats, their allies and their voters. He slams Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for their lack of military service – but again his gaze is selective. He omits George W Bush’s spotty time in the Texas air national guard, rather than go to Vietnam, and Trump’s “bone spurs” which kept him out of the same ghastly war.Practically speaking, Only the Strong is best viewed as an obligatory pre-presidential campaign book, penned to distinguish its author from the rest of the Republican field. Cotton pays lip service to Trump but his heart clearly belongs to Ronald Reagan, the last president to win in a landslide.Cotton approves of Reagan’s stance toward a Sandinista-run Nicaragua but is silent on Iran-Contra. He rightly praises Reagan’s arms treaty with the Soviets, but doubles down on his contention that Vietnam was a “noble cause”. Cotton has only scorn for Daniel Ellsberg, the source for the Pentagon Papers, which cast light on US handling of Vietnam. Cotton is unmoved by evidence the government was less than forthright.He avoids substantive criticism of the Iraq war. Bush should be faulted for failing to “dedicate enough troops during the early days”, Cotton writes, without elaboration. It’s a far cry from calling Bush a “stupid moron”, which Trump did in an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.Cotton would look foolish or worse if he tried. He is an unbowed war hawk. In 2013, he attended a campaign fundraiser hosted by Dan Senor, the Bush administration spokesman who once told reporters: “Well, off the record, Paris is burning. But on the record, security and stability are returning to Iraq.” Senor’s event netted more than $100,000. Donors included the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who memorably urged the US to bomb Iran.“You pick up your cellphone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go,’” Adelson said in 2013. “And so, there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes and scorpions, or whatever.”Predictably, Cotton goes full bore at Biden for, he claims, doing “next to nothing to protect America from our greatest threat, Communist China”. Biden’s efforts to restrict US companies and citizens from helping China make semiconductor chips seem to have escaped the senator’s notice.Likewise, Cotton supports arming Taiwan against China but fails to comment on Trump’s willingness to cut Taiwan loose. Trump once remarked that the island was “like two feet from China” and the US was “8,000 miles away”, chillingly adding that if the Chinese invade, “there isn’t a fucking thing we can do”.At a September rally, Trump contrasted Biden with Xi Jinping and Putin: “I’ve got to know a lot of the foreign leaders, and let me tell you, unlike our leader, they’re at the top of their game.”Pence blames Trump for events leading to January 6 in new memoirRead moreFrom Cotton? Nada. From the looks of things, he wishes to maintains his viability as a possible Republican nominee. At 45 he is decades younger than Trump and in far better condition than Cruz. He has plenty of time.But don’t expect Cotton to take on Trump in 2024, unless Trump is indicted. Cotton lacks Ron DeSantis’s war chest, and would probably get crushed. For what it’s worth, even DeSantis is suddenly reported to be suffering from cold feet. Beyond that, Sarah Sanders, once Trump’s press secretary, is a shoo-in to be the next governor of Arkansas. With her assistance, Trump would crush Cotton in his home state.On Friday, reports said Trump was set to announce his bid for re-election in a matter of days. Within the GOP, there shall be no god before Him, and Him does not include Cotton. His book’s shelf-life may be limited.
      Only the Strong: Reversing the Left’s Plot to Sabotage American Power is published in the US by Hachette
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      The results of the midterms may determine if American democracy endures | Robert Reich

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      The results of the midterms may determine if American democracy enduresRobert ReichRepublican ascendancy is always a possibility with US elections, but the perils this time are more extreme than ever Coming into the home stretch before the 2022 midterm elections, I feel different than I’ve felt in the days before every election I’ve witnessed or participated in over the last three-quarters of a century.In elections before this one, I’ve worried about Republicans taking over and implementing their policy preferences – against political rights in the dark days of Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt in the early 1950s, against civil rights in the late 1950s and early 1960s, against Medicare in the mid-1960s, for smaller government in the 1970s, for tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s, for a balanced budget in the early 1990s, against universal health care in the late 1990s and early 2000s, against LGBTQ rights in the 2010s.Michigan’s top election official: ‘Every tactic tried in 2020 will be tried again’Read moreToday I’m not particularly worried about Republicans’ policy preferences. Today I’m worried about the survival of our democracy.I’m worried that a majority of Republican candidates are telling voters, without any basis in fact, that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.I’m worried that if elected, many of these Republicans will make it harder to conduct elections in the future, allow or encourage endless audits of election results, and even refuse to sign off on them.I’m worried that Republicans have been spending millions to recruit partisan poll workers and watchers in the upcoming election, who could disrupt the counting process or raise false claims about it. (Michigan Republican secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo rose to prominence as a Detroit poll watcher who made false claims about election fraud.)I’m worried that thousands of Trump supporters have been calling their local election offices requesting all kinds of public records, often using suspiciously similar wording, leading officials to believe this is a coordinated effort to prevent them from holding an election.I’m worried that violent thugs are on the prowl, and that Republican leaders – starting with Trump – have been quietly encouraging them.Speaking on a conservative radio talkshow on Tuesday, Trump amplified a conspiracy theory about the grisly attack on US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, saying: “Weird things going on in that household in the last couple of weeks.”Other Republican candidates are joining in this cruel, baseless, disgusting taunt.Most of all, I’m worried that Americans are losing the trust that a democracy needs in order to function – trust that even though we may not like the outcomes of particular elections, we feel bound by them because we trust the democratic process.It is this trust that is the basis for all else. Without it, elections become free-for-alls in which voters’ preferences are subordinated to power plays.The biggest question hanging over the 2022 midterm election is not a policy. It’s not even an issue.The biggest question is analogous to the question we as a nation faced in 1860 as we slid into the tragic civil war.It is whether American democracy can endure.The extraordinary, abominable challenge we now face – one that I frankly never imagined we would face – is that the Republican party and its enablers in the media and among the moneyed interests appear not to want American democracy to endure.As Joe Biden said last week, “democracy itself” is at stake in the upcoming election, as the president appealed “to all Americans, regardless of party, to meet this moment of national and generational importance”.Indeed.I believe we owe it to generations before us who fought and died for democracy and the rule of law, and to generations after us who will live with the legacy we leave them, to vote out the traitors and liars, to renounce those who have forsaken the precious ideal of self-government and to vote in people who are dedicated to making American democracy stronger and better.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      ‘He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of Trump

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      ‘He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of TrumpPart Trump rally, part religious service, and much conspiracy theory thrown in – on the eve of the midterms, Ed Pilkington visits the ReAwaken America tour “There is a man by the name of Donald,” the voice on the recording says. “God said, ‘You have been determined through your prayers to influence this nation … I will open that door that you prayed about, and when it comes time for the election you will be elected.”Three thousand people are packed into an overflowing auditorium, many with arms raised and eyes closed in prayer. The recording to which they are listening is from April 2013 and of Kim Clement, a late South African preacher, as he prophesies the first coming of Donald Trump.In a clip from the following year, Clement again purports to channel the word of God: “Hear me, for I have found a man after my own heart and he is among you. He is one of the brothers, but singled out for presidency of the United States of America.”There is excitement in the theater, with talk of a “red wave” at Tuesday’s midterm elections that will set America back on a righteous path after two years in the progressive wilderness. There is also palpable expectation that victory next week will be followed soon after by Trump’s second coming.The audience erupts in a mighty cheer as Clement’s speaking as God is beamed down to them from large flat screens while he says: “Hear me today. I have the whole thing planned out. I have looked for a man who would restore the fortunes of Zion.”So begins the ReAwaken America tour, a Trump-adoring, rightwing road show that has come for its 17th and last pre-election stop to Branson, a deeply Christian, deeply conservative town in Missouri. Over the next two days the crowd, swathed in Stars and Stripes T-shirts and Make America Great Again (Maga) hats and paying up to $500 for a “VIP” ticket, will be treated to speeches from the far-right stormtroopers of the Trump revolution.They will hear the former president’s first national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is revered in this setting as “America’s general”, warning that a new world tyranny is approaching. They will listen as Mike Lindell, the so-called My Pillow Guy, launches an incoherent rant about how foreign forces are infiltrating voting machines and using them to subvert US elections.They will give a standing ovation to the beloved leader’s son, Eric Trump, who will fire them up almost to the point of ecstasy with talk of “doing it all again”. And at the end of the day more than 200 of them will line up by a swimming pool for a full-body immersive baptism in the name of the lord, spiritual and political.The show is part Trump Stop the Steal rally, part charismatic religious service, part QAnon and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory all rolled into one. It also subscribes heavily to the church of merchandising – there is a large vendors’ tent with several stalls devoted to the peddling of snake oil (“Redox Worx: patented cell-signalling technology. Improve health on a cellular level”).This heady brew is the creation of Clay Clark, a former wedding reception DJ from Oklahoma turned ThriveTimeShow podcaster who came to prominence protesting Covid lockdowns. Together with Flynn, he launched the ReAwaken America tour in April last year, just weeks after Trump supporters staged the January 6 attack on the US Capitol in a desperate yet unsuccessful attempt to keep Joe Biden out of the Oval Office.Since then the show has criss-crossed the country like a merry band of minstrels, honing the look, feel and message of Trump 2.0. There is less arch humour in the mix than there was when Trump descended the golden escalator in June 2015 – now it’s more resentment and menace.The speakers talk about a battle for America’s soul, literally, as though an aspiration that was floated at the start of the Trump experiment has gelled into something concrete. The regular tussle between Republicans and Democrats has distilled into a concoction that is far more potent: the fight of good versus evil.“We are ready to go to war with the enemy, to bring this country back,” Clark says as he orders the blowing of the shofar – horns seen as spiritual weapons that herald the unleashing of God’s power.“How many of you believe that Jesus is king, and that Donald Trump is the president?” he asks. Almost every hand in the house shoots up.There is more dystopian paranoia in the room, too. America’s general, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia but was pardoned by Trump, tells the rapt crowd that “these people” – unnamed but indicative of global elites – “have a plan to take this country over. They are moving to impose a new world order.”There are signs on the front of the theater pronouncing: “No guns”. Yet guns are plentiful inside the theatre as fashion appendages. One woman sitting on the stage as a “VIP” is wearing a T-shirt that says: “Guns don’t kill people. Biden does.”There is a pulsing sense inside the ReAwaken America arena that the world outside, the world surrounding them, is wholly against them. There is some reason to that.Last year the the Anti-Defamation League compiled a report on ReAwaken America that accused the tour of spreading disinformation. “This phenomenon underscores the extent to which the line separating the mainstream from the extreme has blurred,” it warned.Twice the event has been shut down or forced to relocate, in New York and Washington states. Now when you are sent your ticket it is labelled as a “Fresh-roasted coffee-fest and expo” to disguise the show’s real focus.Misinformation flows freely inside Trump 2.0. Lori Gregory, who produces films for Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced British doctor who was struck off from medical practice in 2010 for fear-mongering about links between the MMR vaccine and autism, tells the crowd that 10 years from now one in two children will be on the autistic spectrum as a result of vaccine injury.A later speaker, Sherri Tenpenny, says that Covid vaccines were turning people into “transhumanist cyborgs”. Covid shots have killed 20 million people around the world and caused 20 billion injuries, she says.Kash Patel is next up, fresh from the immunity deal he has cut with federal prosecutors that will see him testify about how Trump hoarded top-secret documents at Mar-a-Lago. Patel doesn’t want to talk about that.The Trump administration’s former chief of staff at the Department of Defense wants to empathise with his audience over how they are maligned by Biden and the media: “You guys have been labelled domestic violent terrorists because you dare to support the Maga movement.”He also wants to talk about the “two-tiered justice system” that has put many loyal Maga supporters behind bars without bail after the violent attack on the Capitol. He does not mention the more than 140 law enforcement officers who were injured on January 6 nor the seven people – at least – who died as a result of the attack.What Patel really wants to talk about is his latest children’s book that purports to enlighten school kids about how the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump and rigged in Biden’s favor. “King Donald had taken the lead, getting an unprecedented amount of votes,” as the story goes in The Plot Against the King: 2000 Mules. “Poor Joe was trailing so far behind that the result seemed to be obvious. The winner was …”Patel wants his book to be taught in schools, replacing the critical race theory and gender realignment that he laments is being forced down children’s throats. When he has finished speaking, he goes outside to sell signed copies of the 36-page book to a long line of attendees, at $60 each.People who had travelled from all over Missouri and beyond to attend the show expressed happiness that for once they were understood. “I feel encouragement, I feel truth. We don’t get much of that any more,” says Ruth Denham, who sits on the local Branson town council.Denham has stopped consuming mainstream media – she gets her news from Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, and from Kash’s Corner, Patel’s podcast. Nor does she call herself a Republican any longer, there are just too many Rinos, or “Republicans in name only”. She considers herself a “constitutional conservative”.Mark Trudo, who runs his own swimming pool construction company near St Louis, is more optimistic, saying: “Right now I’m hopeful, I think things are going to turn around, a great awakening is taking place.”Like most of his ReAwaken peers, he sees the current politics in apocalyptic terms: “The country is being taken away from us from within. This is good versus evil.”Actual evil? As in satanic evil?“Is God real, is Satan real? Yes, I believe they are,” he says.Is Biden satanic?“I don’t know he is actually satanic. He is compromised. He knows what the evil side, the satanic forces, that control him tell him to do.”And Trump?“As a believer, I believe God knows the future. Trump was chosen. Even though he didn’t look like a Christian figure – he was foul-mouthed and a playboy – it’s obvious God knew what he was doing and put him in.”And now God is potentially poised to put Trump in a second time. That’s a theme that Eric Trump picks up when he takes the stage.He talks about the 2016 election, how Hillary outspent his father five to one and yet Trump still won. “We had the best out of all, which was the guy up there,” he says, pointing a finger heaven-ward. “Believe me, there was divine intervention, there was somebody watching over him.”Then came the biggest cheer of the day: “That’s why we have to do it again. It’s why we have to do it again.”On Thursday night Trump addressed a rally of his supporters in Sioux City, Iowa, and said: “I will very, very, very probably do it again.” There is speculation he will announce another run for the White House on 14 November, the week after the elections.“Guys, we will never ever, ever stop fighting for this country,” Eric Trump says, prompting chants of “USA! USA! USA!”“It’s unthinkable what these people are doing to this nation,” he says. “This is cognitive war, and I don’t say that lightly – I’m not, like, a tin-hat wearing guy.”Eric Trump concludes by telling the reawakened crowd that he loves them, saying: “I know you guys have our back 100%, and we have yours. I promise you, we are going to go and get those bastards, I promise you we will.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Michigan’s top election official: ‘Every tactic tried in 2020 will be tried again’

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      InterviewMichigan’s top election official: ‘Every tactic tried in 2020 will be tried again’Sam Levine in New YorkUp for re-election as secretary of state herself, Jocelyn Benson expects more electoral interference in the looming midterms Jocelyn Benson can still rattle off all the important dates.There was 17 November 2020, when two canvassers in Michigan’s Wayne county nearly refused to certify the election results. There was 23 November, when the state board almost did the same thing. There was 5 December, when dozens of armed protesters gathered outside her home as she put up Christmas decorations with her family. And there was 6 January, when an armed mob laid siege to the US Capitol.The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itself | Jonathan FreedlandRead moreTwo years later, Benson, a Democrat, is overseeing another high-stakes election in her state, a key battleground in the US. She’s also running for a second term as Michigan’s top election official – secretary of state – facing off against Kristina Karamo, a Republican who gained national attention for seeding doubt about the results of the 2020 race. There’s little doubt in Benson’s mind that there will be another attempt to overturn the will of the voters in her state.“We expect that every lever that was pulled, and every tactic that was tried in 2020, will be tried again in ’22, and will be tried again in ’24,” she said in an interview with the Guardian. “And so we go into this election cycle not only with the knowledge of those tactics, but with the expectation in fact that there will be more people in positions of authority or willing to endorse those tactics than there were in 2020.”Looking back at the 2020 election, Benson now sees two things she wishes she had done differently. First, the pandemic restricted the amount of in-person interaction Benson could have with voters, limiting her ability to answer questions. Second, she said, her office didn’t plan enough for the possibility of attempts to interfere in the vote-counting process.“We thought at that point that the 2020 election, and our work in it, would be done. Because our work was to make sure that the process went well and everything else would play out the way it always has,” she said. “We drastically underestimated the post-election challenges that we endured for the months following November 2020. And we won’t make that mistake again.”Michigan was at the forefront of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Human error in a rural county helped feed conspiracy theories of a stolen vote. A chaotic scene at a central ballot-counting station in Detroit led to baseless allegations of malfeasance. All of that culminated in an enormous pressure campaign from Trump and his allies for local bipartisan boards of canvassers not to certify the election. Several reviews have affirmed Joe Biden’s victory in the state and there is no evidence of fraud.Republicans have spent the last two years focused on the state’s election infrastructure. Some officials on local canvassing boards who voted to certify the results of the 2020 election have been quietly replaced by Republicans. There has been a well-organized effort to recruit and train people who doubt the 2020 election results to work the polls, leading to increased concern about intimidation.That potential for violence on election day is one of the things that Benson is worried about as the midterms approach.“What January 6 taught us is that there is no bottom to how far someone will go, especially armed with misinformation to interfere with the fair and free elections of our country and of our state,” she said. “Because of that variable, because of that unknown and because of that potential, I am every day hopeful but concerned that people will show up to vote on election day and instead of finding a serene and even joyful experience, it will be a stressful one at best. Or that violence will erupt either during or after the election.”She’s also worried that some people, after a barrage of misinformation about election lies, may simply decide not to vote at all. “That breaks my heart,” she said. “I worry that the attacks that democracy has endured over these years, and the misinformation that has only escalated in toxicity, will ultimately lead many people to give up on politics altogether.”Even before she was a secretary of state, Benson recognized the enormous overlooked power these state officials have. She literally wrote a book on the topic: in 2010, long before secretaries of state were household names, she authored State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process. More than a decade later, there’s more attention on secretaries of state than ever after an election in which their power over election rules came into clear focus.“I’ve been really gratified that there is increased attention on these positions. And then also similarly really dismayed to see people seeking to fill these roles who have no interest in protecting or serving or expanding democracy,” she said. “I’m deeply concerned about the actual harm that election deniers can do through these offices. And I’m just as concerned about the misinformation that they may validate and spread about their colleagues, about their systems, through these positions. And how that cumulatively will dismantle potentially from within.“And then all of that is just metastasized when you have someone like that in a battleground state. Like in Michigan. Or in Georgia. Where they’re going to get extra pressure, as Brad Raffensperger did in Georgia. And you know, what if they say, ‘yes, I will find those 11,000 votes’ next time?” she added, alluding to an infamous Trump call during the 2020 election.When Benson meets people on the campaign trail who still doubt the results of the last presidential election, she listens and tries to narrow down what the specific questions they have are. “I want every voter to have rightly placed faith in the system. Because they should,” she said. “I welcome the questions. I welcome the scrutiny. Because I have so much faith in the security of the elections.”But Benson also recognizes that there are some instances when, despite her position, she might not be able to get through to someone. “There are some cases in which someone else answering them, like a Republican state senator, Ed McBroom, may be more effective. They may be more likely to hear the answer from someone else. So if that happens, then you adjust accordingly,” she said.“I think ultimately if people are willing to listen to each other, and if people are willing to listen to the facts, we can get to a place, even not all the time, but sometimes, where folks understand or are willing to entertain the possibility that they have been misled,” she said.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022MichiganUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsUS elections 2020interviewsReuse this content More