Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Victory for ‘true Maga warriors’ would tighten Trump grip on Republican party

      by

      Victory for ‘true Maga warriors’ would tighten Trump grip on Republican partyOpinion polls suggest late surge in support for Trump-endorsed nominees who have embraced his lie about election fraud The spectre of Donald Trump’s imminent declaration of a new White House run looms over races in several key states ahead of Tuesday’s US midterm elections, with the former president poised to seize on any success for ultra-conservative candidates as validation for his 2024 campaign.Biden fights to stop midterms defeat as Republicans poised for sweeping gainsRead moreOpinion polls appearing to reflect a last-minute surge of support for Trump-endorsed nominees in a number of crucial congressional and governors’ contests came as the former president appeared at a rally for the Republican senator Marco Rubio in Florida on Sunday.Heaping praise on “an incredible slate of true Maga warriors”, Trump cited his “Make America Great Again” political slogan.Some of his preferred extremists, including Kari Lake in Arizona, Herschel Walker in Georgia and JD Vance in Ohio, have erased Democratic leads to reach election day as favorites, according to the polling website FiveThirtyEight.Other Trumpist Republicans who once trailed by double digits, including the Senate candidates Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Blake Masters in Arizona, have closed to within touching distance, giving their party hope of recapturing the chamber and providing Trump a significant lift as he prepares to declare his third run for the Republican presidential nomination.“If this is a big night for Republicans, and they think it’s going to be, that will be a major, major victory for Donald Trump and his followers will be greatly energized,” David Gergen, a White House adviser to four presidents, told CNN.“If they come up with anything like that kind of victory, if they turn two or three of the seats in the Senate, they control the House, it’s going to be hard to stop Trump within the Republican party. He will be, in effect, the very likely nominee.”Most of the so-called Maga candidates have amplified Trump’s lie that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud. A Washington Post analysis last month found that 291 Republican nominees in Senate, House or statewide races, more than half of those running, have denied or questioned Trump’s defeat.Democrats fear that the tightening of races in which Trump-endorsed candidates are running will prompt them to follow the former president’s tactics and claim fraud if they lose.Biden expressed the worry at a rally in New York on Sunday in support of the Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, who is facing an unexpectedly tough battle with the Republican Lee Zeldin.“These deniers are not only trying to deny your right to vote, they’re trying to deny your right to have your vote counted,” the president said. “I’m not joking. For these election deniers there are only two outcomes for any election: either they win, or they were cheated.”Lake, who according to FiveThirtyEight holds a 2.5-point advantage over the Democrat, Katie Hobbs, in her race to become Arizona governor, is among the most vocal election deniers.Branded “a really dangerous candidate” by Alejandra Gomez, co-director of the progressive advocacy group Lucha, the former TV newsreader turned Maga extremist has refused to say she will accept the result if she loses.“I will accept the results of this election if we have a fair, honest and transparent election,” Lake told ABC last month.Vance, in Ohio, chipped away steadily at the Democrat Tim Ryan’s lead through the summer and holds an advantage of almost five points, FiveThirtyEight said.The author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy once asserted the 2020 election was stolen from Trump but has walked back that stance and focused instead on crime and the economy in a race that could prove pivotal for Senate control.The importance of victory in Ohio to Republicans, and for Trump’s rightwing messaging for a 2024 run, was reflected in the former president’s decision to rally for Vance on Monday night in his final public appearance before the midterms.Ryan has distanced himself from the economic policies of the Biden administration, in an attempt to attract working-class support. Yet Trump remains popular in Ohio, his 55% approval rating about 20 points higher than Biden’s.Two other key Senate races show momentum for Trump acolytes. The troubled Walker in Georgia is now eclipsing Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock by almost 1.5 points after trailing since June and Oz, who has mocked his Democratic opponent, John Fetterman, over his health, is nudging ahead in Pennsylvania.In Arizona, the Democratic senator Mark Kelly has seen Masters close to within two points after a rightwing political action committee spent $5m (£4.4m) to support him.“It’s because of Trump’s strength, and the fact he’s so defiant so often, that somehow he appeals to a segment of voters that many of us don’t know,” Gergen said. “It’s almost as if we’ll wake up Wednesday morning and wonder what country we’re looking at.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Whatever the outcome of midterms, don’t expect Republicans to return to ‘normal’ | Cas Mudde

      by

      Whatever the outcome of the midterms, don’t expect Republicans to return to ‘normal’Cas MuddeAnyone hoping a poor election showing might pull the party back from extremism doesn’t see the unfortunate truth: Trump and his radicals now represent Republican values In 2010, the then conservative Canadian-American commentator David Frum feared that the conservative Tea Party movement would radicalize the Republican party, which would bring it short-term gain but long-term loss. Two years later, after some unconventional Tea Party candidates had defeated establishment “Republicans in name only” in primaries to then lose in the general elections – like Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell in Delaware or Richard “God intended your rape child” Mourdock in Indiana – the Republican establishment successfully blamed the Tea Party movement for the party’s electoral defeats and regained control, albeit, as it turned out in 2015, for just a few years.Recently, some commentators have argued that radical outsiders once again endanger Republican success in the midterms. While this might be the case, don’t expect this to seriously change the far-right direction of the party.Trump 2024 campaign seeks to recruit man who smeared John Kerry – reportsRead moreMost of the media attention has gone to a group of radical outsiders, endorsed by Trump, who unexpectedly won their primaries but have struggled in the polls for the coming US Senate elections. The most important are former Georgia running back Herschel Walker, whose campaign consists of cosplaying as a law enforcement officer and dodging debates with his opponents; New Jersey resident and quack TV doctor Mehmet Oz, running for a seat in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, whose social media team seems to hate him so much that his opponent, John Fetterman, simply has to retweet his tweets; and “venture capitalist” JD Vance, in Ohio, whose campaign is as entertaining as the movie based on his autobiography and is barely kept afloat by the largesse of Silicon Valley’s resident Trumpist, Peter Thiel.To be fair, these three are just the tip of the iceberg. There are several extremists contending for governor races, such as former news anchor Kari Lake, in Arizona, a Sarah Palin 2.0, or Christian nationalist Doug Mastriano, in Pennsylvania, who cosplayed as a Confederate soldier and is surrounded by a team of antisemites and self-proclaimed prophets.This is to say nothing of the House races, in which a host of candidates are trying to make Marjorie “Jewish space lasers” Taylor Greene look normal. There is a host of conspiracy thinkers running, including a large number of QAnon supporters, such as Sam Peters in Nevada and Ron Watkins in Arizona. And I am not even touching on Republicans running for legislative positions at the state level.To be clear, it is not even certain that most of these people will actually lose their election. Many are polling close to or even ahead of their actually normal Democratic opponents. But even should they lose – preventing Republican control of the Senate, and losing the party some governorships – there is no indication that this will substantially change the direction of the party.The architect of the anti-Tea Party counter-coup, Karl Rove, is as irrelevant in today’s Republican party as James Carville is in the current Democratic party. And the main contenders, real or illusionary, to lead a “post-Trump” Republican party are almost as, or even more, Trumpian than the former president.Most notably, the only Republican to potentially challenge, and even match, Trump’s popularity among the base is the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. He tries to compensate for his lack of charisma with a relentless string of culture war attacks, which are not just red meat for the Republican base but also create liberal outrage, the lifeblood of the American far right.Some Republicans hope that the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, could help the party “shake off” Trump. True, there is bad blood between Trump and Kemp, and the latter handsomely defeated the former’s handpicked opponent, former Georgia senator David Perdue, but the problems between the two are personal rather than ideological. After all, Kemp won the governorship with a Trumpian campaign steeped in vote manipulation and has been as radical as Trump on abortion, guns and immigration. The only thing that sets him apart from Trump, really, is his acceptance of the 2020 election results (in Georgia).In the same article in which Frum expressed fear that Tea Party radicalization would marginalize the Republican party, more than a decade ago, he also argued that “a party must champion the values of the voters it already has”. He didn’t see what has by now become crystal clear: Trump and his radical outsiders do represent the values of Republican voters. In the end, the Tea Party has won after all.
      Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor in the school of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpQAnonTea Party movementcommentReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

      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

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans and Democrats make last arguments as midterms loom

      by

      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

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

      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

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Inside the unhinged midterm election conspiracy theories on Truth Social

      by

      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

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

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

      by

      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
      TopicsBooksPolitics booksUS politicsUS elections 2024RepublicansUS SenateUS CongressreviewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      The results of the midterms may determine if American democracy endures | Robert Reich

      by

      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
      TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionRepublicansUS politicscommentReuse this content More