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      Seven ways Republicans are already undermining the 2024 election | David Daley

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      Seven ways Republicans are already undermining the 2024 electionDavid DaleyThe next attempted coup will not be a mob attack, but a carefully plotted and even technically legal one. Instead of costumed rioters, the insurrectionists are men in suits and ties American democracy suffered two brutal blows on 6 January.The first has been seared into the national psyche: costumed insurrectionists ransacking the US Capitol, attacking Capitol police, and interrupting the constitutionally mandated electoral college count. They got closer than anyone could imagine to Vice-President Mike Pence and other terrified leaders, some hidden behind makeshift office-furniture barricades.Then, with the marble corridors still stained with blood, 147 elected Republicans maneuvered across broken glass only to vote with the insurrectionists. Around 11pm, a majority of House Republicans voted to reject free and fair election results from Arizona; two hours later, as a weary nation slept, a similar number refused to accept results from Pennsylvania.One year later, it’s the second band of insurrectionists, the ones wearing suits and ties, that pose the most serious threat. The next attempted coup will not be a violent overthrow of the Capitol, but a carefully plotted and even technically legal one, subverting election machinery and exploiting various constitutional loopholes. It is well under way. Its plotters have learned important lessons from last year’s rushed and often-buffoonish dress rehearsal. New laws have been passed by state legislatures under the pretext of halting “election fraud” that will instead abet the next big lie. It’s frighteningly imaginable to see how it succeeds.These are the steps that Republicans are undertaking, now, to create a different outcome next time.1. Gerrymandering swing-state legislatures. It all begins here. Any effort to change election laws or to argue that legislatures have the power to appoint electors themselves requires Republican control of battleground state legislatures.2. Restricting access to the polls. In 2021, 19 states enacted 34 laws making it more difficult to cast a ballot. They included 2020’s fiercest battlegrounds, Arizona (decided in 2020 by just 10,457 votes) and Georgia.3. Capturing electoral administration. Republican legislatures in eight states, sometimes overriding the vetoes of Democratic governors, have claimed partisan control of crucial electoral responsibilities or shifted them away from elected secretaries of state. Georgia Republicans censured Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who refused to be cowed by Trump’s attacks on the electoral process, then removed him as chair of the state election board – and seized that power for the legislature itself. Another law gives this board the power to claim control of the vote-counting process in individual counties, such as heavily Democratic Fulton county, home to Atlanta. Arizona barred its secretary of state from representing the state in litigation defending its election code – that is, until 2 January 2023, when the Democrat who currently holds the position leaves office. Texas now requires the governor, lieutenant governor and the house speaker each to sign off on any grants over $1,000 to local election boards, grants having been a popular method of expanding voting access in cities and rural areas in 2020 when states cited financial reasons for shuttering precincts.4. Pressuring – and criminalizing – the work of election officials. Many new state laws don’t simply make it harder for citizens to vote, they make it tougher for non-partisan election workers to do their jobs. Georgia, Texas and Florida have created civil penalties and fines of up to $25,000 for minor, technical infractions – for the kind of help non-partisan officials offer when needed, or obstructing the view of partisan poll workers – and even opened them to criminal prosecution.According to a Brennan Center and Bipartisan Policy Center study, a third of election workers report feeling unsafe in their jobs. As many as 25% say the toxic, bullying climate could cause them to leave their jobs. Their replacements, in positions that had once been non-partisan, non-competitive and volunteer? The big lie’s truest believers, seeking the offices some believe stole the 2020 election from them. This is a “five-alarm fire”, the Michigan secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, told the New York Times.5. Targeting key elections in 2022. The only thing that has prevented Florida/Georgia/Texas-style omnibus voting restrictions in deeply gerrymandered Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are Democratic governors with veto power. Should Republicans claim those offices in 2022, anything is possible. Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have previously proposed allocating electoral college by congressional district rather than statewide, which would exacerbate the impact of partisan gerrymanders and probably benefit Republicans in otherwise Democratic-leaning states. Under the Wisconsin proposal, Trump would have won eight of 10 electors even though Biden received more votes.Trump has endorsed a former Fox anchor as the next governor of Arizona who he said “will fight to restore Election integrity (both past and future!)”. The two leading Republican candidates for Arizona’s secretary of state, meanwhile, are two state representatives, one of whom attended the 6 January Capitol riot. The other sponsored a bill that would have allowed the legislature to reject the certification of electors, potentially overturning free and fair results.Nationwide, of the top 15 candidates for secretary of state in five crucial battleground states, 10 question the results of the 2020 race.6. Convincing the base. According to a new NPR/Ipsos poll, two-thirds of Republicans believe that “voter fraud helped Biden win the 2020 election”. In a new University of Massachusetts poll, 71% of Republicans said Biden was not legitimately elected president. A third of Trump voters told NPR they believe the conspiracy theory that the 6 January attack was a false-flag operation by “opponents of Donald Trump, including antifa and government agents”.Trump couldn’t overturn the 2020 results, but he achieved something perhaps nearly as damaging: The “big lie” not only took hold, but it has become sacred to large majorities of angry Republicans convinced that Trump was cheated out of a second term. If this same fealty to phony fraud claims drives Republican elected officials in Congress and state legislatures in 2024, it’s disturbingly easy to imagine competing sets of electors emerging from states won by a Democratic candidate but controlled by a Republican legislature, forcing a constitutional showdown and testing the powers of state legislatures over electors.7. Ensuring that the courts won’t save us. Beware the Independent State Legislatures doctrine (ISL). ​​Once a stealth effort in Federalist Society legal circles, this extreme reading of the US constitution has as many as four supporters on a US supreme court packed with conservatives. It argues that the constitution gives state legislatures the sole authority to set all election rules – including the assigning of electoral college votes – independently, and immune from judicial review. Taken to its furthest edge, it effectively concludes that there can be no possible checks and balances on state legislatures’ authority when it comes to election law. It might sound bonkers. But in February last year, when the US supreme court dismissed as moot a challenge to Pennsylvania’s absentee ballot extension, three justices dissented and cited the ISL.If 2020 repeats itself in 2024 – a Democratic candidate with a 7 million-vote edge in the popular vote, the same slender margins in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, and embittered Republicans controlling gerrymandered legislatures – it’s hard to imagine the system holding quite the way it did, just barely, a year ago.Of course, Republicans could always win the 2024 election outright. But make no mistake: with preparations like this, they’re ready either way. They have almost three years to perfect this playbook. Those of us who believe in American democracy have much less time left to prevent it – and a much more complicated road.
      David Daley is the author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count and Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy. He is a senior fellow at FairVote
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      Congressman Jim Jordan refuses to cooperate with 6 January committee

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      Congressman Jim Jordan refuses to cooperate with 6 January committeeThe Ohio Republican, claiming an ‘outrageous abuse’ of authority, is the second member of Congress to resist the investigation

      Is the US really heading for a second civil war?
      The Ohio Republican Jim Jordan is the second sitting congressman to refuse a request for cooperation from the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.Capitol attack: Trump not immune from criminal referral, lawmakers insistRead moreIn a Sunday night letter to the committee chair, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Trump ally accused the panel of “an outrageous abuse” of its authority.He also claimed “an unprecedented and inappropriate demand to examine the basis for a colleague’s decision on a particular matter pending before the House of Representatives”.“This request is far outside the bounds of any legitimate inquiry,” he said, “violates core constitutional principles and would serve to further erode legislative norms.”Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who was also closely involved in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat, has also refused to cooperate.The former Trump strategist Steve Bannon has pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal contempt of Congress, for refusing cooperation. His trial is set for July.Mark Meadows, Trump’s final White House chief of staff and a former congressman, has also refused. The committee has recommended a criminal charge.Citing committee sources, the Guardian has reported that the panel is considering whether Trump himself might be charged with criminal conspiracy.But Thompson has suggested the panel may have few options to compel testimony from sitting members of Congress. An alternative path may be a series of primetime public hearings, seeking as wide an audience as possible.In columns for the Guardian, the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal has laid out Jordan’s extensive contacts with Trump before and on 6 January, throughout legalistic efforts to throw out results and the Capitol riot itself.Blumenthal has also suggested precedent exists for compelling Jordan to testify – in the investigation of John Brown’s anti-slavery raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in 1859.That event preceded the civil war, fought from 1861 to 1865. Many academics and observers have warned that Trump’s assault on democracy could stoke such conflict.Five people died and more than 140 police officers were injured around the attack on Congress, which failed to stop the certification of electoral college results. Trump was impeached, for inciting an insurrection, and acquitted.Jordan, a former wrestling coach and member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, is a leading Trump ally in Congress.Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, proposed Jordan as a member of the 6 January committee. Democrats blocked it. Only two Republicans sit on the panel: Trump critics Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from TrumpRead moreOn Sunday, Kinzinger asked on NBC: “What did the president know about 6 January leading up to 6 January?“It’s the difference between, was the president absolutely incompetent or a coward on 6 January when he didn’t do anything or did he know what was coming? That’s a difference between incompetence with your oath and possibly criminal.”On Sunday night, a spokesperson said the committee would respond to Jordan soon and “consider appropriate next steps”.“Mr Jordan has admitted that he spoke directly to President Trump on 6 January and is thus a material witness,” the spokesperson said. “Mr Jordan’s letter to the committee fails to address these facts.”TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Georgia Republican who resisted Trump insists he stands for ‘integrity and truth’

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      Georgia Republican who resisted Trump insists he stands for ‘integrity and truth’Brad Raffensperger says opponent for key post ‘should know better’ as pastor but dodges questions about election restrictions

      Is the US really heading for a second civil war?
      The Republican official who famously resisted Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn his election defeat in Georgia has said he will run for re-election on a platform of “integrity and truth”, against an opponent who as a churchman “should know better” than to advance the former president’s lies.Capitol attack: Trump not immune from criminal referral, lawmakers insistRead moreBrad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, became a household name after he turned down Trump’s demand that he “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have [to get]” in order to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the southern state. It was the first victory by a Democrat in a presidential race in Georgia since 1992.This year, Raffensperger will run for re-election against Jody Hice, a pastor, US congressman and Trump acolyte.“Congressman Hice, he’s been in Congress for several years,” Raffensperger said on Sunday, on CBS’s Face the Nation. “He’s never done a single piece of election reform legislation.“Then he certified his own race with those same machines, the same ballots [that were used for the presidential election]. And yet for President Trump, he said you couldn’t trust that.“That’s a double-minded person. And as a pastor, he should know better. So, I’m going to run on integrity and I’m going to run on the truth. I don’t know what he’s going to run on.”Hice played a key role in legal and political attempts to overturn the 2020 election result.Writing for the Guardian to mark the anniversary of the 6 January Capitol attack, in which Trump supporters failed to stop Congress certifying the election result, the former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal said that as the riot unfolded, Hice “raced by a Democratic colleague, who told me Hice was screaming into his phone: ‘You screwed it up, y’all screwed it all up!’”Hice, Blumenthal wrote, “was tasked to present a challenge to Georgia’s electors … as part of the far-rightwing Republican faction, the Freedom Caucus, directed by Congressman Jim Jordan, of Ohio, who was in constant touch that day with Mark Meadows, the Trump chief of staff and former Freedom Caucus member, and a watchful Trump himself.“Just as the violent insurrection launched, and paramilitary groups spearheaded medieval style hand-to-hand combat against the police and burst into the Capitol, Hice posted on Instagram a photo of himself headed into the House chamber with the caption, ‘This is our 1776 moment.’”Hice deleted that post and said he condemned the violence at the Capitol. But he formally objected to results in Arizona and Pennsylvania and voted against investigation of the attack. The select committee is reportedly interested in his own phone records as Hice remains a vocal proponent of the lie that Trump lost due to electoral fraud, a lie believed by clear majorities of Republicans.Hice announced his run to be secretary of state in Georgia, last March, later gaining Trump’s endorsement. Should he win, he will be in charge of state election counts.Many outside the Republican party fear the prospect of Trump allies filling such posts in battleground states, preparatory to another attempt to overturn a presidential election.“It’s certainly not by accident that we’re seeing individuals who don’t believe in democracy aspire to be our states’ chief election officers, particularly in the states that were under the greatest spotlight in 2020,” Jocelyn Benson, Michigan secretary of state, told the Guardian earlier this month.Raffensperger and Governor Brian Kemp, however, have placed Georgia among Republican-run states which have implemented election laws which critics say aim to restrict Democratic turnout.Democracy under attack: how Republicans led the effort to make it harder to voteRead moreAsked about visits to Georgia this week by Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, to promote federal voting rights protections, Raffensperger told CBS: “6 January was terrible, but the response doesn’t need to be eliminating photo ID and then having same-day registration.“If you don’t have the appropriate guardrails in place, then you’re not going to have voter confidence in the results.”Pressed on claims by figures including the Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams that state election law is skewed against people of colour, Raffensperger heralded provisions for early voting and said: “I think that we have shown that Georgia has fair and honest elections. We have record registrations. We have record turnout.”He also said he was confident Hice would not take over the elections process.“The results will be the results,” Raffensperger said, “and those will be the results that will be certified. You cannot overturn the will of the people and so that won’t matter.“But at the end of the day, I will be re-elected, and he will not be.”TopicsUS voting rightsUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024US politicsRepublicansGeorgianewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack: Trump not immune from criminal referral, lawmakers insist

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      Capitol attack: Trump not immune from criminal referral, lawmakers insistKinzinger asks if Trump ‘incompetent or a coward’ during 6 January riot while Raskin ponders 14th amendment to bar new run

      Is the US really heading for a second civil war?
      Donald Trump cannot hide behind immunity from criminal prosecution and faces the possibility of being debarred from running for public office over his role in the Capitol attack, several members of Congress said on Sunday.Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from TrumpRead moreDays after the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection that left five people dead and scores injured after Trump supporters attempted to scupper the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, the threat of possible criminal proceedings looms large over the former president.Lawmakers from both main parties, including moderate Republicans, warned on Sunday that Trump will not be spared criminal liability should evidence emerge that he actively coordinated the attack.A Republican senator, Mike Rounds from South Dakota, told ABC’s This Week that any immunity from prosecution that Trump enjoyed while in the White House evaporated on 20 January 2021, when he left office.“The shield of the presidency does not exist for someone who was a former president – everybody in this country is subject to the courts of this country,” Rounds said.Rounds added that it was up to the justice department, not Congress, to decide whether evidence existed of criminal wrongdoing by Trump.On Saturday, the Guardian revealed that the House select committee investigating 6 January is homing in on the question of whether Trump led a criminal conspiracy to try and block Biden’s certification as his successor in the White House.Depending on what they find, the committee has the power to refer the matter to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution.Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois who sits on the committee, underlined the laser-like focus of the investigation on Trump’s potential complicity.Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said the key question now was: “What did the president know about 6 January leading up to 6 January?”Kinzinger added that the panel wanted to know why Trump failed to take any action for almost three hours while the violence at the Capitol was unfolding on his TV screen. Was it a sign of weakness or complicity?“It’s the difference between, was the president absolutely incompetent or a coward on 6 January when he didn’t do anything or did he know what was coming? That’s a difference between incompetence with your oath and possibly criminal.”While the question of whether the former president broke the law is fast rising up the political agenda, Congress is also considering another potential route to hold Trump accountable for the violence of a year ago: action under the 14th amendment of the constitution.Section three of the amendment holds that nobody in elected federal office, including the president, should engage in “insurrection or rebellion” against the union.Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland who led the second impeachment of Trump for “incitement of insurrection”, told ABC the 14th amendment might yet be “a blockade for [Trump] ever being able to run for office again”.While the relatively tiny number of moderate Republicans who have been willing openly to criticize the former president were airing their views on Sunday, the opposing tack taken by most party leaders was also on display.Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist from South Carolina, told a New York radio channel the Capitol attack was a “dark day”, but went on to lambast Biden for marking the anniversary this week.“It was an effort on his part to create a brazen political moment to try to deflect from their failed presidency,” Graham said.A moment of silence staged at the House to mark the anniversary was attended by only two Republicans: the congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, the former vice-president Dick Cheney.Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight it | David BlightRead moreAfterwards, the older Cheney expressed his disappointment at the “failure of many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the 6 January attacks and the ongoing threat to our nation”.Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, attempted to defend congress members from his state, all of whom sat out the anniversary proceedings.“I don’t know that absolute attendance was the only way to show frustration with 6 January,” he told CNN’s State of the Union.But Hutchinson did say he regretted that large numbers of Republican candidates running for public office are openly embracing Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was rigged.“What worries me is that they are not demonstrating leadership,” he said.“We have to make clear that [6 January] was unacceptable, it was an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power and we have to make clear that President Trump had some responsibility for that.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS SenateDonald TrumpTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      Is the US really heading for a second civil war?

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      Is the US really heading for a second civil war? With the country polarised and Republicans embracing authoritarianism, some experts fear a Northern Ireland-style insurgency but others say armed conflict remains improbableJoe Biden had spent a year in the hope that America could go back to normal. But last Thursday, the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, the president finally recognised the full scale of the current threat to American democracy.“At this moment, we must decide,” Biden said in Statuary Hall, where rioters had swarmed a year earlier. “What kind of nation are we going to be? Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?”Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight it | David BlightRead moreIt is a question that many inside America and beyond are now asking. In a deeply divided society, where even a national tragedy such as 6 January only pushed people further apart, there is fear that that day was the just the beginning of a wave of unrest, conflict and domestic terrorism.A slew of recent opinion polls show a significant minority of Americans at ease with the idea of violence against the government. Even talk of a second American civil war has gone from fringe fantasy to media mainstream.“Is a Civil War ahead?” was the blunt headline of a New Yorker magazine article this week. “Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?” posed the headline of a column in Friday’s New York Times. Three retired US generals wrote a recent Washington Post column warning that another coup attempt “could lead to civil war”.The mere fact that such notions are entering the public domain shows the once unthinkable has become thinkable, even though some would argue it remains firmly improbable.The anxiety is fed by rancour in Washington, where Biden’s desire for bipartisanship has crashed into radicalized Republican opposition. The president’s remarks on Thursday – “I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy” – appeared to acknowledge that there can be no business as usual when one of America’s major parties has embraced authoritarianism.Illustrating the point, almost no Republicans attended the commemorations as the party seeks to rewrite history, recasting the mob who tried to overturn Trump’s election defeat as martyrs fighting for democracy. Tucker Carlson, the most watched host on the conservative Fox News network, refused to play any clips of Biden’s speech, arguing that 6 January 2021 “barely rates as a footnote” historically because “really not a lot happened that day”.With the cult of Trump more dominant in the Republican party than ever, and radical rightwing groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys on the march, some regard the threat to democracy as greater now than it was a year ago. Among those raising the alarm is Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, and author of a new book, How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them.Walter previously served on the political instability taskforce, an advisory panel to the CIA, which had a model to predict political violence in countries all over the world – except the US itself. Yet with the rise of Trump’s racist demagoguery, Walter, who has studied civil wars for 30 years, recognized telltale signs on her own doorstep.One was the emergence of a government that is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic – an “anocracy”. The other is a landscape devolving into identity politics where parties no longer organise around ideology or specific policies but along racial, ethnic or religious lines.Walter told the Observer: “By the 2020 elections, 90% of the Republican party was now white. On the taskforce, if we were to see that in another multiethnic, multi-religious country which is based on a two-party system, this is what we would call a super faction, and a super faction is particularly dangerous.”Not even the gloomiest pessimist is predicting a rerun of the 1861-65 civil war with a blue army and red army fighting pitched battles. “It would look more like Northern Ireland and what Britain experienced, where it’s more of an insurgency,” Walter continued. “It would probably be more decentralized than Northern Ireland because we have such a large country and there are so many militias all around the country.”“They would turn to unconventional tactics, in particular terrorism, maybe even a little bit of guerrilla warfare, where they would target federal buildings, synagogues, places with large crowds. The strategy would be one of intimidation and to scare the American public into believing that the federal government isn’t capable of taking care of them.”A 2020 plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, could be a sign of things to come. Walter suggests that opposition figures, moderate Republicans and judges deemed unsympathetic might all become potential assassination targets.“I could also imagine situations where militias, in conjunction with law enforcement in those areas, carve out little white ethnostates in areas where that’s possible because of the way power is divided here in the United States. It would certainly not look anything like the civil war that happened in the 1860s.”Walter notes that most people tend to assume civil wars are started by the poor or oppressed. Not so. In America’s case, it is a backlash from a white majority destined to become a minority by around 2045, an eclipse symbolized by Barack Obama’s election in 2008.The academic explained: “The groups that tend to start civil wars are the groups that were once dominant politically but are in decline. They’ve either lost political power or they’re losing political power and they truly believe that the country is theirs by right and they are justified in using force to regain control because the system no longer works for them.”A year after the 6 January insurrection, the atmosphere on Capitol Hill remains toxic amid a breakdown of civility, trust and shared norms. Several Republican members of Congress received menacing messages, including a death threat, after voting for an otherwise bipartisan infrastructure bill that Trump opposed.The two Republicans on the House of Representatives select committee investigating the 6 January attack, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, face calls to be banished from their party. Democrat Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali-born Muslim, has suffered Islamophobic abuse.Yet Trump’s supporters argue that they are the ones fighting to save democracy. Last year Congressman Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina said: “If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place and that’s bloodshed.”Last month Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has bemoaned the treatment of 6 January defendants jailed for their role in the attack, called for a “national divorce” between blue and red states. Democrat Ruben Gallego responded forcefully: “There is no ‘National Divorce’. Either you are for civil war or not. Just say it if you want a civil war and officially declare yourself a traitor.”There is also the prospect of Trump running for president again in 2024. Republican-led states are imposing voter restriction laws calculated to favour the party while Trump loyalists are seeking to take charge of running elections. A disputed White House race could make for an incendiary cocktail.James Hawdon, director of the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech university, said: “I don’t like to be an alarmist, but the country has been moving more and more toward violence, not away from it. Another contested election may have grim consequences.”Although most Americans have grown up taking its stable democracy for granted, this is also a society where violence is the norm, not the exception, from the genocide of Native Americans to slavery, from the civil war to four presidential assassinations, from gun violence that takes 40,000 lives a year to a military-industrial complex that has killed millions overseas.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “America is not unaccustomed to violence. It is a very violent society and what we’re talking about is violence being given an explicit political agenda. That’s a kind of terrifying new direction in America.”While he does not currently foresee political violence becoming endemic, Jacobs agrees that any such unravelling would also be most likely to resemble Northern Ireland’s Troubles.“We would see these episodic, scattered terrorist attacks,” he added. “The Northern Ireland model is the one that frankly most fear because it doesn’t take a huge number of people to do this and right now there are highly motivated, well-armed groups. The question is, has the FBI infiltrated them sufficiently to be able to knock them out before they they’ve launch a campaign of terror?”“Of course, it doesn’t help in America that guns are prevalent. Anyone can get a gun and you have ready access to explosives. All of this is kindling for the precarious position we now find ourselves in.”Nothing, though, is inevitable.Biden also used his speech to praise the 2020 election as the greatest demonstration of democracy in US history with a record 150 million-plus people voting despite a pandemic. Trump’s bogus challenges to the result were thrown out by what remains a robust court system and scrutinised by what remains a vibrant civil society and media.In a reality check, Josh Kertzer, a political scientist at Harvard University, tweeted: “I know a lot of civil war scholars, and … very few of them think the United States is on the precipice of a civil war.”And yet the assumption that “it can’t happen here,” is as old as politics itself. Walter has interviewed many survivors about the lead-up to civil wars. “What everybody said, whether they were in Baghdad or Sarajevo or Kiev, was we didn’t see it coming,” she recalled. “In fact, we weren’t willing to accept that anything was wrong until we heard machine gun fire in the hillside. And by that time, it was too late.”TopicsUS politicsThe ObserverRepublicansDemocratsAmerican civil warUS Capitol attackfeaturesReuse this content More

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      The Observer view on Joe Biden’s Capitol Hill anniversary speech | Observer editorial

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      The Observer view on Joe Biden’s Capitol Hill anniversary speechObserver editorialThe president is right to rage, but the only real antidote to Donald Trump’s dangerous lies is US law The 6 January insurrection, when supporters of former US president Donald Trump stormed Capitol Hill, is widely viewed as a seminal moment in the history of US democracy. Never before had the modern nation witnessed such an organised, violent attempt to overthrow the elected government. Never before, not even at the height of the Civil War, had the Confederate flag flown over the halls of Congress.Yet last week, as the US marked the first anniversary of the thwarted insurrection, another significant turning point was reached. President Joe Biden, the lawful winner of the 2020 election and Trump’s principal intended victim, dropped what some call his Mr Nice Guy act. With gloves off, Biden came out swinging. It was about time.Since taking office almost exactly one year ago, Biden has deliberately ignored Trump. He has rarely mentioned his predecessor by name. He has refused to engage with Trump’s insults, lies and unceasing propagation of the “big lie” – that Democrats stole the 2020 vote. Instead, Biden sought to reunite a divided, fractious nation, appealing to what he called our “better selves” and looking to the future, not the past.It didn’t work. That is not to say it was not worth trying, nor that the effort should be discontinued: it should not. But in the intervening 12 months, Trump, egged on by cynical, unprincipled Republicans such as House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and far-right disruptors such as Steve Bannon, has not only not faded from view but, rather, he has emerged, strengthened, as Republican king-maker and his party’s leading 2024 presidential contender.Trump’s bottomless mendacity, lacking any factual, legal or moral basis and flying in the face of numerous court judgments, vote recounts and electoral inquiries, has nevertheless persuaded a majority of Republican voters that Biden was not legitimately elected while seeding doubt in the minds of others. His poison corrodes America’s governing institutions and incites civil strife. Trump embodies a clear and present danger to US national security, stability and democracy. He must be stopped.Biden’s 6 January speech appeared to unleash a new strategy to do just that. Trump, he said, was “holding a dagger” at the throat of American democracy. His “web of lies” could no longer be tolerated. Trump “rallied the mob to attack”, then did nothing to stop the ensuing lethal violence, Biden fumed.The president’s sudden switch to direct confrontation entails obvious dangers. It plays to Trump’s agenda and ego, making him the centre of attention. The shift may also be indicative of political weakness. Biden’s approval ratings are low, his legislative agenda has stalled, the Democrats in Congress are split and the party is widely expected to lose Congress in November’s elections.Yet Biden really had no choice but to go on the offensive. Trump and Trumpism’s world of “alternative facts” has had a free run for too long. To be defeated and debunked, it must be publicly and robustly challenged at every turn. Legal remedies, soft-pedalled until now by the justice department, must be pursued with renewed vigour and determination.“The legal path to investigate the leaders of the coup attempt is clear. The criminal code prohibits inciting an insurrection or ‘giving aid or comfort’ to those who do, as well as conspiracy to forcibly ‘prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law’,” veteran Harvard constitutional law expert Laurence Tribe wrote recently. It’s a widely held opinion.The many documented actions of Trump and his circle in attempting to overturn the 2020 vote provide numerous grounds for criminal investigation and prosecution. Why is Merrick Garland, the attorney general, still dragging his feet? Biden can righteously rage. But the best antidote to toxic Trump’s dangerously lawless spree, and fears of civil war, is the law itself. Take him down – before it’s too late.TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsDonald TrumpJoe BidenSteve BannonRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

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      The epic struggle for America’s soul is just getting started

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      The epic struggle for America’s soul is just getting startedSimon TisdallA year after the Capitol insurrection, democracy is still under attack from Republicans in thrall to Trump’s lies. What is to be done to avoid a descent into violence? Is democracy in America really on the brink of collapse? A lot of serious people appear to think so. Last week’s first anniversary of the Capitol Hill insurrection, viewed by Democrats as a coup attempt incited by Donald Trump, has sparked a torrent of nervous speculation that it could happen again before, during or after the 2024 presidential election – and that next time, the coup may succeed.One unhappy fact underpins this alarming scenario: many, perhaps most, voters have lost trust in the democratic system that governs them. A majority of Republicans believe Trump’s “big lie” – that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. Democrats cite elections in 2000 and 2016 when Al Gore and Hillary Clinton respectively won the popular vote but were denied the presidency. Each side accuses the other of fraud and bad faith.A new USA Today/Suffolk University poll found eight in 10 Republicans, Democrats and independents are worried about the future of American democracy. But they disagree over the causes – and who’s to blame: 85% of Democrats call the Capitol Hill rioters “criminals”; two-thirds of Republicans believe “they went too far but had a point”.“Only free and fair elections in which the loser abides by the result stand between each of us and life at the mercy of a despotic regime,” warns Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. But increasingly, for today’s politicians, honourable defeat is a wholly foreign concept.This chronic loss of institutional trust and credibility, also tainting a politicised, conservative-dominated supreme court, reflects a society more openly riven by longstanding cultural, racial and religious animosities – and one in which income, wealth and health inequalities are growing. These divisions are in turn wilfully exacerbated by rightwing broadcast and online media, bloggers and internet trolls.A Republican party mostly in thrall to Trump’s lies, delusions and conspiracy theories is creating a world of “alternative facts”, says columnist Thomas Friedman. If they succeed in replacing truth, “America isn’t just in trouble. It is headed for what scientists call ‘an extinction-level event’”.Jedediah Britton-Purdy, a Columbia law professor, is similarly apocalyptic. “One thing Democrats and Republicans share is the belief that, to save the country, the other side must not be allowed to win … Every election is an existential crisis,” he wrote.“We should stop underestimating the threat facing the country,” a grim New York Times editorial thundered last week. “January 6 is not in the past; it is every day. It is regular citizens who threaten election officials, who ask ‘when can we use the guns?’, who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and subvert their will if they do. It is Trump who stokes the flames of conflict.” Democracy, it said, was in “grave danger”.Systemic violence that overwhelms conventional politics may be near at hand. “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,” says Barbara Walter, a California politics professor.No one is talking about a remake of the 1861-65 US civil war. Instead, as in Ukraine or Libya, an “open insurgency”, as defined by Walter, would probably involve (at least initially), disparate militias and their supporters pursuing forms of asymmetrical warfare – typically terrorist acts, bombings, assassinations, kidnappings. That said, worrying echoes of Confederate-era secessionism are once again heard in Texas and elsewhere. When the warlike rhetoric of Charlottesville-style paramilitary white supremacists, the high nationwide incidence of gun ownership and, for example, worries about far-right cells within the US military are factored in, civil war scenarios do not appear so implausible.“Only a spark is needed, one major domestic terrorist event that shifts the perception of the country,” analyst Stephen Marche wrote last week. Marche quotes a military history professor and Iraq war veteran, Col Peter Mansoor, who tells him: “It would not be like the first civil war, with armies manoeuvring on the battlefield. I think it would very much be a free-for-all, neighbour on neighbour, based on beliefs and skin colours and religion. And it would be horrific.”So what is to be done?Columbia’s Britton-Purdy says America’s democracy is failing because it is not democratic enough. Old saws about the “tyranny of the majority”, propagated by founding father James Madison, among others, are redundant. The electoral college, which can override the popular vote, should be abolished, the franchise widened, and constitutional amendments curbing money in politics, banning gerrymandering and enshrining abortion rights should be voted on by all, he argued.Cynthia Miller-Idriss, author of Hate in the Homeland, says a key problem is the “mainstreaming of far-right extremism” during Trump’s presidency. She advocates large-scale investment to strengthen communities and improve media literacy and civic education. Friedman wants corporate America to cut off funding to Trump and anti-democratic Republicans. “Civil war is bad for business,” he wrote. Just look at Lebanon.Senator Bernie Sanders says radical change is the only answer. “At a time when the demagogues want to divide us … we must build an unstoppable grassroots movement that helps create the kind of nation we know we can become,” he says. Yet many Americans, including moderate Democrats, find the progressive left’s “transformational” agenda deeply disturbing, exemplified by calls to defund the police.Harvard’s Laurence Tribe and fellow lawyers say that for democracy and the rule of law to survive, there must be accountability. That requires, in addition to the congressional inquiry, “a robust criminal investigation” into all those responsible for 6 January – including Trump. In a tougher than usual speech marking the anniversary, Biden condemned “the former president’s web of lies” – but gave no hint of legal or other action to punish or restrain him.The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he’s snapping at Biden’s heels | Jonathan FreedlandRead moreWhat would Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the famous study, Democracy in America, make of the present-day US? The French aristocrat and political scientist travelled the country in 1831-2, talking to ordinary people about governance and citizenship. He concluded, broadly, that democracy was an unstoppable, levelling historical trend that would eventually conquer the world.Until relatively recently, many in the west still held to that view. Now, with the rise of China and other powerful authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes, optimism is fading – and America, the global paradigm, is itself under the reactionary hammer. Has De Tocqueville’s dream been exploded?Not yet. The epic struggle for America’s democratic soul is just getting started. For a watching world, the stakes are sky-high, too. Where would Britain, Europe and all the globe’s democracies, actual and aspiring, be without the flawed but inspiring US example, without the “arsenal of democracy” to justify, validate and fortify their political universe?Best ask Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and other despots. They are betting the ranch on the failure of American democracy – and aim to profit greatly thereby.TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS Capitol attackJoe BidenDonald TrumpRepublicansXi JinpingVladimir PutincommentReuse this content More

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      ‘When QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby’: Ron Johnson will run again for US Senate

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      ‘When QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby’: Ron Johnson will run again for US SenateRepublican expected to announce run as soon as next week, delighting both his own party and Democrats seeking a win

      Can Democrats can salvage their midterm election hopes?
      The Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, a hardline Trump supporter once described as “what you get when QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby”, has reportedly decided to seek a third term, a step he once promised not to take.Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracyRead moreTwo Republicans confirmed Johnson’s plan to the Associated Press and said he could announce as soon as early next week. Johnson did not comment.Both parties are likely to welcome the news, given Johnson’s emergence as a leading promoter of both Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud and Covid-19 misinformation.In a Republican party dominated by Trump, who has endorsed Johnson, a third run would avoid a chaotic primary.Among Democrats, Johnson is seen as beatable in a November contest which will help decide control of a Senate split 50-50 and controlled via Vice-President Kamala Harris.With Republicans favoured to take back the House, Democrats are desperate to hold the Senate, not least to protect Joe Biden’s chances of naming at least one justice to a supreme court skewed 6-3 in favour of conservatives after Trump’s time in power.Earlier this month, Brandon Scholz, a Republican operative, told the Hill: “I think you will find almost every Republican in Wisconsin and outside of Wisconsin wanting Ron Johnson to run because of what’s at stake, and that’s the majority of the Senate for Republicans. If he doesn’t run, that makes it more difficult.”A Wisconsin Democrat, Ben Nuckels, said: “Ron Johnson is what you get when QAnon and the Tea Party have a baby. And I hope that he does run. His candidacy makes the race far more competitive for Democrats. If Republicans want to see him run, I’ll agree with them on that.”In 2016, Johnson pledged not to run a third time, a promise rescinded when Democrats took Congress and the White House.Wisconsin is a battleground state. Joe Biden won by fewer than 21,000 votes in 2020, after Trump won a similarly thin victory in 2016. In midterms, the party that does not hold the White House generally makes gains. For example, in 2010, under Barack Obama, Republicans picked up 63 House seats and six in the Senate.Johnson rose out of the Tea Party movement stoked that year by opposition to Obama’s healthcare reform and by rightwing donors. He defeated an incumbent Democrat, Russ Feingold, then beat him again in 2016.Johnson is now one of Trump’s loudest defenders, standing by him after the attack on the US Capitol last year. The senator has espoused conspiracy theories about electoral fraud and the Capitol attack. On the legalistic side of Trump’s attempt to remain in power, Johnson planned to object to results in Arizona but changed his mind after the events of 6 January.In a statement, however, he said he still refused “to dismiss the legitimate concerns of tens of millions of Americans who have lost faith in our institutions and the fairness of our electoral process”.Newspapers called for him to resign. The Wisconsin State Journal said: “Johnson’s last-minute change of heart may be viewed by some as proof of his conscience. Yet it is more accurate to view his flip-flopping … as a hit-and-run driver fleeing the scene of an accident because the driver hears sirens in the distance – only to come back to the scene and flick an insurance card out the window and keep on driving.”Referring to Johnson and Republicans who went through with objections to electoral college results, the paper said: “These men are cowards.”Johnson has also been a loud voice for unproven Covid treatments, accusing federal agencies of failing to promote drugs approved early in the pandemic and opposing public health measures including vaccine mandates.Earlier this week, Dr Rob Davidson, leader of the Committee to Protect Healthcare, an advocacy group, “begged” Twitter to “look at the last two weeks” of Johnson’s feed “and shut him down like you did Marjorie [Taylor] Greene”.Black candidates for US Senate smash fundraising records for 2022 midtermsRead moreGreene, an extremist congresswoman from Georgia, was removed from Twitter last week, for spreading Covid misinformation.Johnson “has at least five strikes of Covid mis/dis-information”, Davidson said, adding: “Feeds like his undermine our ability to save lives and end the pandemic.”Johnson has protested Twitter decisions concerning tweets about Covid.Democrats running to face Johnson include the lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes; Alex Lasry, an executive with the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team; and the state treasurer, Sarah Godlewski.On Friday, Barnes said: “Ron Johnson has been a failure and Wisconsin voters know it. The only people cheering Johnson’s decision are the wealthy special interests and big donors who have made a killing during his time in Washington.”Also on Saturday, John Thune, a member of Senate Republican leadership, said he would run for a fourth term. His state, South Dakota, is not remotely as competitive as Wisconsin.TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022WisconsinUS SenateUS CongressUS politicsTea Party movementnewsReuse this content More