Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 188 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view of Joe Biden: he needs to face opponents within – and without

      by

      The Guardian view of Joe Biden: he needs to face opponents within – and withoutEditorialIf the president can’t build better he won’t be back. Instead Donald Trump might return The US president, Joe Biden, suffered his worst day in office – so far – last Thursday. Mr Biden had begun that morning hoping to convince his party to support his push to change Senate rules to pass two voting rights bills. Even before he got a chance to make his case, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a rightwing Democrat, rejected the president’s plan. At a stroke, two key parts of Mr Biden’s agenda – racial justice and democracy – appear stalled. On the same day, the US supreme court struck down the Biden administration’s requirement for businesses to make employees either be vaccinated against Covid-19 or test weekly and wear a mask at work. The president’s pledge to lift the threat of the pandemic won’t be redeemed any time soon.Mr Biden’s opponents paint him as a leader of drift and dwindling energy. If this view settles, then it’ll be ​​an image hard to shift. There’s little room for reassessment in politics. That is why the president must change course and have a clear-eyed view of his opponents within and without. The “moderate” wing of the Democratic party has already gutted the president’s climate plans. These Democrats, like most Republicans, depend on a donor class which wants to ​​render legislation inert that would hit corporate profits.On the campaign trail Mr Biden said he would deal with the threat. In office he has not done so. The president faces a concerted campaign of leveraging money to protect money. Employers claimed that his “vaccine-or-test” mandate would cost billions of dollars to implement. A number of Republican-dominated states have fought its imposition. Covid-19 has killed almost a million Americans and hospitals are overwhelmed with unvaccinated patients. Conservative judges share an ideological aim with the Republican party to dismantle the system – at the cost of American lives during a pandemic – which permits the federal government to repeal unfair state laws.Mr Biden’s problem is that, on paper, the Democrats seem unassailable: controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency. But this is far from the case. Democrats were once something of a “party of state”. They controlled both the House and the Senate between 1933 and 1981, interrupted only by two brief Republican interludes. The Democrats won the presidency two-thirds of the time during this period. Today neither party perceives itself as a permanent majority or permanent minority. This helps to polarise politics as party differences cut against collaboration.Slim majorities now make radical change. Democrats demonstrated this with Obamacare. Republicans did the same with taxes in 2017. Bernie Sanders advises the Democrats to boil down their offer to its most popular elements and hold votes to extend child tax credits, cut drug prices and raise the federal hourly minimum wage to $15. This feels right and ought to appeal to Mr Biden: putting Democrats on the right side, and Republicans on the wrong side, of public opinion before November’s midterm elections. The stakes could not be higher. Maureen Dowd in the New York Times warned: “Joe Biden better Build Better or he won’t be Back”. That might open the door to Donald Trump – or someone worse.TopicsJoe BidenOpinionUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsUS supreme courtUS CongresseditorialsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack | Robert Reich

      by

      Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attackRobert ReichKyrsten Sinema receives millions from business and opposes progressive priorities. Republicans who voted to overturn an election still bag big bucks. Whose side are CEOs on? Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.The US supreme court to Americans: tough luck if you get Covid at work | Robert ReichRead moreThat’s why I took some comfort just after the attack on the Capitol when many big corporations solemnly pledged they’d no longer finance the campaigns of the 147 lawmakers who voted to overturn election results.Well, those days are over. Turns out they were over the moment the public stopped paying attention.A report published last week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows that over the past year, 717 companies and industry groups have donated more than $18m to 143 of those seditious lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations have given nearly $2.4m directly to their campaigns or political action committees (Pacs).But there’s a deeper issue here. The whole question of whether corporations do or don’t bankroll the seditionist caucus is a distraction from a much larger problem.The tsunami of money now flowing from corporations into the swamp of American politics is larger than ever. And this money – bankrolling almost all politicians and financing attacks on their opponents – is undermining American democracy as much as did the 147 seditionist members of Congress. Maybe more.The Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema – whose vocal opposition to any change in the filibuster is on the verge of dooming voting rights – received almost $2m in campaign donations in 2021 even though she is not up for re-election until 2024. Most of it came from corporate donors outside Arizona, some of which have a history of donating largely to Republicans.Has the money influenced Sinema? You decide. Besides sandbagging voting rights, she voted down the $15 minimum wage increase, opposed tax increases on corporations and the wealthy and stalled on drug price reform – policies supported by a majority of Democratic senators as well as a majority of Arizonans.Over the last four decades, corporate Pac spending on congressional elections has more than quadrupled, even adjusting for inflation.Labor unions no longer provide a counterweight. Forty years ago, union Pacs contributed about as much as corporate Pacs. Now, corporations are outspending labor by more than three to one.According to a landmark study published in 2014 by the Princeton professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern professor Benjamin Page, the preferences of the typical American have no influence at all on legislation emerging from Congress.Gilens and Page analyzed 1,799 policy issues in detail, determining the relative influence of economic elites, business groups, mass-based interest groups and average citizens. Their conclusion: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” Lawmakers mainly listen to the policy demands of big business and wealthy individuals – those with the most lobbying prowess and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views.It’s probably far worse now. Gilens and Page’s data came from the period 1981 to 2002: before the supreme court opened the floodgates to big money in the Citizens United case, before Super Pacs, before “dark money” and before the Wall Street bailout.The corporate return on this mountain of money has been significant. Over the last 40 years, corporate tax rates have plunged. Regulatory protections for consumers, workers and the environment have been defanged. Antitrust has become so ineffectual that many big corporations face little or no competition.Corporations have fought off safety nets and public investments that are common in other advanced nations (most recently, Build Back Better). They’ve attacked labor laws, reducing the portion of private-sector workers belonging to a union from a third 40 years ago to just over 6% now.They’ve collected hundreds of billions in federal subsidies, bailouts, loan guarantees and sole-source contracts. Corporate welfare for big pharma, big oil, big tech, big ag, the largest military contractors and biggest banks now dwarfs the amount of welfare for people.The profits of big corporations just reached a 70-year high, even during a pandemic. The ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to 320-to-1 now.Meanwhile, most Americans are going nowhere. The typical worker’s wage is only a bit higher today than it was 40 years ago, when adjusted for inflation.But the biggest casualty is public trust in democracy.In 1964, just 29% of voters believed government was “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”. By 2013, 79% of Americans believed it.Corporate donations to seditious lawmakers are nothing compared with this 40-year record of corporate sedition.A large portion of the American public has become so frustrated and cynical about democracy they are willing to believe blatant lies of a self-described strongman, and willing to support a political party that no longer believes in democracy.As I said at the outset, capitalism is compatible with democracy only if democracy is in the driver’s seat. But the absence of democracy doesn’t strengthen capitalism. It fuels despotism.The true meaning of 6 January: we must answer Trump’s neofascism with hope | Robert ReichRead moreDespotism is bad for capitalism. Despots don’t respect property rights. They don’t honor the rule of law. They are arbitrary and unpredictable. All of this harms the owners of capital. Despotism also invites civil strife and conflict, which destabilize a society and an economy.My message to every CEO in America: you need democracy, but you’re actively undermining it.It’s time for you to join the pro-democracy movement. Get solidly behind voting rights. Actively lobby for the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.Use your lopsidedly large power in American democracy to protect American democracy – and do it soon. Otherwise, we may lose what’s left of it.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at 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 politicsOpinionUS political financingRepublicansDemocratsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS SenatecommentReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican school bill mocked for claim Frederick Douglass debated Lincoln

      by

      Republican school bill mocked for claim Frederick Douglass debated LincolnVirginia bill banning teaching of ‘divisive concepts’ confused black civil rights campaigner with white senator Stephen Douglas A Republican bill to ban the teaching of “divisive concepts” in schools in Virginia ran into ridicule when among historical events deemed suitable for study, it described a nonexistent debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.David Blight on Frederick Douglass: ‘I call him beautifully human’Read moreLincoln did engage in a series of historic debates hinged on the issue of slavery, in the Illinois Senate campaign of 1858. But he did so against Stephen Douglas, a senator who had ties to slavery – not against Frederick Douglass, the great campaigner for the abolition of slavery who was once enslaved himself.The Virginia bill was sponsored by Wren Williams, a freshman Republican sent to the state capital, Richmond, in a tumultuous November election.Identifying “divisive concepts” including racism and sexism, the bill demanded the teaching of “the fundamental moral, political and intellectual foundations of the American experiment in self-government”.In part, this was to be achieved with a focus on “founding documents” including “the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, including Essays 10 and 51, excerpts from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and the writings of the Founding Fathers of the United States”.The teaching of history has become a divisive concept in states across the US, as rightwing activists have spread alarm about the teaching of race issues. In November, the winning candidate for governor in Virginia, the Republican Glenn Youngkin, made it a wedge issue in his win over the Democrat, Terry McAuliffe.Youngkin successfully seized upon critical race theory, an academic discipline that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society – but which is not taught in Virginia schools.Why Frederick Douglass’s struggle for justice is relevant in the Trump era | Ibram X KendiRead moreNor, it turned out, will Williams’s bill be enforced in Virginia courts. As the Washington Post reported, “by Friday morning, Frederick Douglass was trending on Twitter, and the bill had been withdrawn”.Online, ridicule was swift. “New rule,” wrote Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor. “If you don’t know the difference between Frederick Douglass and Stephen Douglas, you don’t get to tell anyone else what to teach.”Many were also happy to point out that Douglass has caused embarrassment for Republicans before. In 2017, Donald Trump at least gave the impression he thought the great campaigner was alive.“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognised more and more, I notice,” the former president said.On Friday, Sidney Blumenthal, a Guardian contributor and Lincoln biographer, said: “Lincoln did not debate Frederick Douglass. Historians may search for the video, but they will not find it.”Blumenthal also pointed out that Lincoln and Douglass did meet three times when Lincoln was president, from 1861 to 1865 and through a civil war that ended with slavery abolished.How did Republicans turn critical race theory into a winning electoral issue?Read moreTheir conversations included a discussion about inequality in pay between Black and white soldiers, upon which Lincoln ultimately acted, and Confederate abuse of Black prisoners. There was also a famous meeting after Lincoln’s second inauguration, in 1865, when Lincoln greeted Douglas at the White House as a friend.Blumenthal also offered a way in which students in Virginia and elsewhere might use Douglass’s life and work to examine divisions today.Speaking a day after two centrist Democratic senators sank Joe Biden’s push for voting rights reform, Blumenthal said: “Frederick Douglass’s great cause became that of voting rights.“If there is any debate that is going on now, it is not between Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is between Frederick Douglass and all the Republican senators who refuse to support voting rights – and Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema too.”TopicsBooksFrederick DouglassAbraham LincolnAmerican civil warHistory booksVirginiaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Is the United States heading for civil war? Politics Weekly Extra – podcast

      by

      Jonathan Freedland speaks to Barbara Walter, a former CIA adviser, about her new book about how civil wars start, and what politicians and the public should be doing to prevent another one in the US

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop them is available here Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican party signals plans to withdraw from US presidential debates

      by

      Republican party signals plans to withdraw from US presidential debatesMove comes after longstanding complaints from party that non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates favors Democrats

      US politics – live coverage
      The Republican party has signaled plans to withdraw from traditional US presidential debates, which it claims are biased against it.The New York Times first reported the move, citing a letter sent on Thursday by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD).The commission was set up in 1987, as a non-partisan body “to ensure, for the benefit of the American electorate, that general election debates between or among the leading candidates for the offices of president and vice-president … are a permanent part of the electoral process”.In the most recent election, in 2020, Donald Trump made headlines with an aggressive performance in the first debate, in Cleveland, Ohio.Make up with Trump or be a failure, Republican colleague warns McConnellRead moreThe second debate was cancelled after Trump was hospitalized with Covid-19 and the CPD sought to move the event online. Trump and Republicans protested that doing so would help Joe Biden.The final debate took place in Nashville, Tennessee as planned, with Biden widely adjudged the winner. A vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris also went ahead, in Salt Lake City.In December this year, the Guardian first revealed the stunning news that Trump tested positive for Covid before the first debate but concealed the result, potentially putting Biden’s life in danger.Trump said that was fake news. So did his former chief of staff Mark Meadows – who wrote the book which contained the bombshell.The Times said the Republican move against the CPD was born of longstanding complaints that it favors Democrats, “mirroring increasing rancor from conservatives toward Washington-based institutions”.Among Republican complaints in 2020 was that the first debate took place on 29 September, more than a month before election day but after nearly a million votes had been cast.Trump and Republicans also complained about supposed bias among debate moderators – even from Chris Wallace, then of the conservative Fox News network, in the first debate.Trump remains favorite to be the Republican nominee in 2024.The threatened withdrawal from CPD debates, the Times said, followed “months of discussions between the commission and party officials”.Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookRead moreDavid Bossie, a longtime rightwing operative with strong links to Trump, was reported to be leading the RNC on the issue, seeking among other aims to insert political representatives in meetings of the CPD board.Withdrawal will have to be approved at the RNC’s winter meetings in Utah in February, the Times said.In her letter, according to the Times, the RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, said: “So long as the CPD appears intent on stonewalling the meaningful reforms necessary to restore its credibility with the Republican party as a fair and nonpartisan actor, the RNC will take every step to ensure that future Republican presidential nominees are given that opportunity elsewhere.”In a statement, the CPD said it “deals directly with candidates for president and vice-president who qualify for participation”, and said “plans for 2024 will be based on fairness, neutrality and a firm commitment to help the American public learn about the candidates and the issues”.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Chuck Schumer outlines loophole to open debate on voting rights bill

      by

      Chuck Schumer outlines loophole to open debate on voting rights billA strategy involving a ‘shell’ bill would allow Democrats to evade an initial filibuster from Republicans seeking to block the debate Lacking the votes to change the filibuster rules that have stalled their sweeping voting rights legislation, Senate Democrats are pushing ahead with a new strategy that would utilize an unusual loophole maneuver to open debate on the bills.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer outlined the plan in a memo obtained by the Associated Press and others on Wednesday, on the eve of Joe Biden’s visit to meet privately with Senate Democrats about the path forward.Biden to meet Senate Democrats in bid to revive voting rights pushRead moreIn the memo, Schumer detailed a strategy wherein the House would amend an unrelated bill about Nasa to include provisions from two stalled voting reform bills: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. After passing that bill, which they are calling a “shell” bill, the Democrats would swiftly send it to the Senate, where Democrats could start debate on it with a simple majority.This strategy would allow Democrats to evade an initial filibuster from Republicans seeking to block debate on the bill. Senate filibuster rules currently require 60 votes to advance legislation in most cases.Schumer’s maneuvering wouldn’t ultimately resolve the fact in an evenly split Senate, Republicans could still use the filibuster to block a final vote on passing the legislation, nor does it resolve the fact that two key senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, remain opposed to amending the filibuster.But the latest tactic could create an off-ramp from their initial approach, which was to force a vote by Monday on Senate filibuster changes as a way to pressure Manchin and Sinema to go along with the changes.“We will finally have an opportunity to debate voting rights legislation, something that Republicans have thus far denied,” Schumer wrote in the memo to his Democratic colleagues. “Senators can finally make clear to the American people where they stand on protecting our democracy and preserving the right of every eligible American to cast a ballot.”By setting up a debate, Schumer will achieve the Democrats’ goal of shining a spotlight that spurs senators to say where they stand. The floor debate could stretch for days and carry echoes of civil rights battles a generation ago that led to some of the most famous filibusters in Senate history.“I wouldn’t want to delude anybody into thinking this is easy,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday. He called the push an “uphill fight”.The move comes amid a significant week for the party’s push for voting rights. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris traveled to Georgia this week to speak out in support of the legislation. In a fiery speech, Biden called for changes to the filibuster and told senators they would each be “judged by history” if they failed to act.For Democrats and Biden, the legislation is a political imperative. Failure to pass it would break a major campaign promise to Black voters, who helped hand Democrats control of the White House and Congress, and would come just before midterm elections when slim Democratic majorities will be on the line.Schumer had set the Martin Luther King Jr holiday, on 17 January, as a deadline to either pass the voting legislation or consider revising the filibuster rules. It’s unclear if a vote on rule changes will still happen.Possibilities include setting a requirement that 41 senators be present in the chamber to sustain a filibuster.Manchin threw cold water on the hopes Tuesday, saying he believes any changes should be made with substantial Republican buy-in. And there aren’t any Republican senators willing to sign on.TopicsUS voting rightsDemocratsRepublicansUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More