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      Bannon and allies bid to expand pro-Trump influence in local US politics

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      Bannon and allies bid to expand pro-Trump influence in local US politicsGrowing drive by hardcore Trumpists spurs election watchdogs to voice alarm about threat to American democracy Key Donald Trump loyalists Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn are at the forefront of a drive to expand Trumpist influence at the local level of US politics while forging ahead with efforts aimed at promoting baseless claims that Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was fraudulent.Indictment of alleged Proud Boys leaders over US Capitol attack upheldRead moreThe growing drive by Trump’s hardcore allies has spurred election watchdog groups to voice alarm about the threat to democracy posed by Flynn and Bannon – and other Trump acolytes – as they combine debunked claims about election fraud and calls for further 2020 election audits with planning conservative takeovers of official positions that run US elections.The moves come a year after the attack on the Capitol in Washington when a pro-Trump mob invaded the building in an attempt to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.Flynn and Bannon, using varying paths, have focused new energy on increasing conservative influence by recruiting more allies for key posts at the local and precinct level with an eye on the 2022 and 2024 elections, and building more political alliances on issues such as vaccine requirements and mask mandates.The strategies Flynn and Bannon are deploying overlap those of other conservative outfits, such as the influential youth group Turning Point USA, to expand the pro-Trump base at the precinct level, and work to elect Trump-backed politicians to key posts such as secretary of state in Georgia, Arizona and other battleground states.Flynn and Bannon have separately relied on a mix of non-profit groups, including one backed by the multimillionaire Patrick Byrne, conservative social media outlets favored by the far right like Telegram, and events that convey evangelical Christian messages with political disinformation.Bannon, for instance, has used his War Room podcast to espouse plans for “taking over the Republican party through the precinct committee strategy” and invited would-be candidates to appear as guests. The podcast, which has tens of millions of downloads, has found a large and receptive conservative following.Flynn, meanwhile, touts the adage that “local action has national impact” and has been a star speaker in several key states at “ReAwaken America” events, which are dubbed “health and freedom” conferences and combine evangelical themes with misinformation about the 2020 election and vaccine skepticism.The conservative crusades by Flynn and Bannon come after Trump pardoned them post-election for lying to the FBI and fraud respectively. Bannon and Flynn also were central actors with other Trump loyalists in scheming about ways to block Congress from certifying Biden’s election, efforts that are under scrutiny as part of a House select committee investigation of the deadly Capitol attack by hundreds of Trump supporters.As they have carved out new roles in the conservative ecosystem, Flynn and Bannon still support Trump’s conspiratorial claims that he lost in 2020 due to massive cheating, a mantra that reinforces their drives to expand local and state electoral influence to give Republicans a better shot at recapturing Congress next year, and the White House in 2024.“We’re seeing a dangerous trend of election deniers lining up to fill election administration positions across the country,” Joanna Lydgate, chief executive of the States United Democracy Center, said in a statement to the Guardian. “And the efforts by Flynn, Bannon and other promoters of the big lie are all part of this playbook to hijack elections in 2022 and 2024 if their preferred candidate doesn’t win.”Likewise, as they have revved up political work on multiple fronts, the two ex-Trump advisers have taken more extremist stances sparking strong criticism.Flynn, a retired army lieutenant general, has been skewered for his authoritarian style advocacy of “one religion” for America, and for speaking at some events with heavy presences by adherents of QAnon conspiracy movement. Flynn’s call for “one religion” came during a talk to a conservative Christian audience in Texas on the ReAwaken America tour in November.“If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion,” Flynn said. “One nation under God and one religion under God, right? All of us, working together.”Flynn’s feature role at ReAwaken America meetings in several states such as Michigan and Florida is hardly an accident, according to Byrne, the multimillionaire founder of the America Project that counts Flynn as special adviser and spokesperson.Byrne, who has joined Flynn at some ReAwaken rallies, said in text messages that he and Flynn had a large hand in launching the ReAwaken tour during the spring by bankrolling the events with some “tens of thousands of dollars” from the America Project.Overall, Byrne said that the America Project has raised about $9.5m, of which he donated close to $7m. Byrne and the America Project poured over $3m into a months-long audit of Arizona’s largest county, which Trump was banking on to find major fraud, but which resulted in no significant changes to Biden’s win there or overall in the state, much to Trump’s dismay.Byrne said the project has helped promote audits in other states besides Arizona. Boasting a net worth pegged at about $75m, Byrne is the ex-chief executive of furniture retailer Overstock.Byrne texted that he didn’t vote for Trump, and deems himself a “rule of law” advocate who claims there’s still a “mountain of evidence” to support the widely debunked allegations of fraud.Byrne’s project has had no dearth of Trump links. The project’s president until late last month was Emily Newman, a former Trump aide. Newman, along with Byrne and Flynn, attended a meeting in December 2020 with Trump about ways to block Biden taking office where Flynn touted the option of declaring martial law and deploying the military to rerun the election in key states Trump lost, according to multiple reports.Flynn’s brother, Joe Flynn, has succeeded Newman as the project’s president, Byrne said.On top of his work with the America Project, Flynn’s focus on expanding the Maga base at the local level increased when he became chairman in May of another non-profit, America’s Future, which, in turn, has partnered with Turning Point USA and others to form a larger alliance dubbed County Citizens Defending Freedom USA.The county citizens group has sponsored an array of training programs, protests and candidate meetings with a focus on mask mandates, vaccine requirements and critical race theory, according to Florida lawyer Ron Filipkowski, a former prosecutor who authored a Washington Post article on the wave of local drives by Trump backers.For his part, Bannon’s heavy emphasis on a local “precinct strategy” to help Republican’s electoral fortunes combines conspiratorial and apocalyptic bravado.Bannon told CNN in December that his War Room podcast is an organizing tool to expand Trump’s base. “It’s about winning elections with the right people – Maga people,” Bannon said. “We will have our people in at every level.”“We’re taking over all the elections,” Bannon said in November on his War Room podcast.“We’re going to get to the bottom of [last year’s election] and we’re going to decertify the electors. And you’re going to have a constitutional crisis. But you know what? We’re a big and tough country, and we can handle that, we’ll be able to handle that. We’ll get through that.”Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University, told the Guardian that much of Bannon’s political messaging has relied on alternative social media channels such as Telegram that appeal to conservative and far right allies to spread pro Trump gospel and help broaden the Maga base at the local level.To Squire, Bannon’s rhetoric and large audience look increasingly dangerous.“After being de-platformed from mainstream social media over the past year, Bannon has been promoting ‘alternative’, permissive social media channels such as Telegram and Gettr. There his listeners are able to amplify and intensify Bannon’s messaging into a 24-hour-a-day echo chamber filled with disinformation, scams, and conspiracy theories.”For Lydgate, the chief executive of the States United Democracy Center, the multi-front drives by Bannon, Flynn and other key Trump loyalists pose serious risks for the integrity of future elections.“They want to sow doubt in our democracy and make it easier to undermine the will of American voters.”TopicsDonald TrumpSteve BannonMichael FlynnUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate run

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      Ex-NFL star Herschel Walker posts baffling video promoting US Senate runCritics seize on Build Back Better criticisms from controversial candidate nonetheless endorsed by Donald Trump Herschel Walker has Donald Trump’s endorsement in the race for US Senate in Georgia but the former NFL star may be struggling to counter fears from some Republicans that he could damage the party’s chances of taking back a seat lost in 2020, and with it the Senate itself.Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account Read moreIn December, the former University of Georgia and Dallas Cowboys running back admitted he does not have a college degree – having repeatedly said that he did.Then, as January began, Walker posted to social media a short but to some bafflingly phrased video.Under the message “a few things to think about as we start the New Year”, Walker attacked policy priorities championed by Democrats including Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator who will defend his seat in November.“Build Back Better,” he said, referring to Joe Biden’s domestic spending plan, which targets health and social care and the climate crisis.“You know I’m always thinking: if you want to build back better, first you probably want to control the border, because you want to know who you’re building it for and why. Then you probably want to protect your military, because they’re protecting you against people in other countries that don’t like you.”He then shifted to a broader goal, popular among progressives.“Defunding the police? Bad idea. You want to fund the police so that they have better training, better equipment to protect the law of the land, because you don’t want people doing whatever they want to do.”Then he shifted back again.“Build Back Better. You probably want to become energy independent. Otherwise you’re going to depend on other countries for your livelihood. Build Back Better. You probably want something written, like law of the land, stating that all men are to be treated equal. Oh! We have the constitution. So you probably want to put people in charge who’s going to fight for the constitution.“Just thinking. God bless you.”Burgess Owens, a Republican congressman from Utah who once played safety for the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders, said Walker “represents what the American dream is all about: hard work, strong character, and love for our great country. I am honored to endorse Herschel for Senate and look forward to working with him!”But critics said the video – and a similarly rambling Fox News appearance – was evidence of Walker’s unsuitability for office.To some, such evidence has piled up ever since Walker signaled a shift into politics. Last summer, the Associated Press said “hundreds of pages of public records tied to Walker’s business ventures and his divorce, including many not previously reported, shed new light on a turbulent personal history that could dog his Senate bid”.The documents, the AP said, “detail accusations that Walker repeatedly threatened his ex-wife’s life, exaggerated claims of financial success and alarmed business associates with unpredictable behavior”.The day Donald Trump’s narcissism killed the USFLRead moreThe AP also reported that Walker “has at times been open about his long struggle with mental illness, writing at length in a 2008 book about being diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, once known as multiple personality disorder”.The report also quoted the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, who said that while Walker “certainly could bring a lot of things to the table … as others have mentioned, there’s also a lot of questions out there”.In the matter of Walker touting a college degree he does not hold, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the false claim was made on a campaign website, “in an online biography advertising Walker’s book, at a campaign rally … and even during his introduction this year at a congressional hearing”.In a statement, Walker said: “I was majoring in criminal justice at UGA when I left to play in the USFL my junior year. After playing with the New Jersey Generals” – a team Trump owned – “I returned to Athens to complete my degree, but life and football got in the way.”TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022GeorgiaUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      US could be under rightwing dictator by 2030, Canadian professor warns

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      US could be under rightwing dictator by 2030, Canadian professor warnsCanadian political scientist warns in op ed of Trumpist threat to American democracy and possible effect on northern neighbor

      The Steal: stethoscope for a democracy near cardiac arrest
      The US could be under a rightwing dictatorship by 2030, a Canadian political science professor has warned, urging his country to protect itself against the “collapse of American democracy”.America is now in fascism’s legal phase | Jason StanleyRead more“We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,” Thomas Homer-Dixon, founding director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, wrote in the Globe and Mail.“In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.”Homer-Dixon’s message was blunt: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a rightwing dictatorship.”The author cited eventualities centered on a Trump return to the White House in 2024, possibly including Republican-held state legislatures refusing to accept a Democratic win.Trump, he warned, “will have only two objectives, vindication and vengeance” of the lie that his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.A “scholar of violent conflict” for more than four decades, Homer-Dixon said Canada must take heed of the “unfolding crisis”.“A terrible storm is coming from the south, and Canada is woefully unprepared. Over the past year we’ve turned our attention inward, distracted by the challenges of Covid-19, reconciliation and the accelerating effects of climate change.“But now we must focus on the urgent problem of what to do about the likely unraveling of democracy in the United States. We need to start by fully recognising the magnitude of the danger. If Mr Trump is re-elected, even under the more optimistic scenarios the economic and political risks to our country will be innumerable.”Homer-Dixon said he even saw a scenario in which a new Trump administration, having effectively nullified internal opposition, deliberately damaged its northern neighbor.“Under the less-optimistic scenarios, the risks to our country in their cumulative effect could easily be existential, far greater than any in our federation’s history. What happens, for instance, if high-profile political refugees fleeing persecution arrive in our country and the US regime demands them back. Do we comply?”One in three Americans say violence against government justified – pollRead moreTrump, he said, “and a host of acolytes and wannabes such as Fox [News]’s Tucker Carlson and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene”, had transformed the Republican party “into a near-fascist personality cult that’s a perfect instrument for wrecking democracy”.Worse, he said, Trump “may be just a warm-up act”.“Returning to office, he’ll be the wrecking ball that demolishes democracy but the process will produce a political and social shambles,” Homer-Dixon said.“Still, through targeted harassment and dismissal, he’ll be able to thin the ranks of his movement’s opponents within the state, the bureaucrats, officials and technocrats who oversee the non-partisan functioning of core institutions and abide by the rule of law.“Then the stage will be set for a more managerially competent ruler, after Mr Trump, to bring order to the chaos he’s created.”TopicsUS politicsDonald TrumpRepublicansUS elections 2024US foreign policyThe far rightCanadanewsReuse this content More

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      Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account

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      Twitter permanently suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account Georgia Republican’s Covid misinformation violation prompts move, after being issued a ‘fourth strike’ in August The personal Twitter account of the Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been permanently suspended, for violating policies on Covid misinformation.One in three Americans say violence against government justified – pollRead moreThe action against Greene on Sunday came under the “strike” system Twitter launched last March, which uses artificial intelligence to identify posts about the coronavirus misleading enough to cause harm.Two or three strikes earn a 12-hour account lock, four strikes prompt a weeklong suspension and five or more can get an account permanently removed. Twitter had previously suspended Greene’s account for periods ranging from 12 hours to a week. She was issued a “fourth strike” this summer, for saying vaccines were failing.“We’ve been clear that … we will permanently suspend accounts for repeated violations of the policy,” a Twitter spokeswoman said on Sunday. The congresswoman’s official account remains active.The Republican is a determined controversialist and extremist who courts controversy and confrontation.On social media, she has voiced support for racist views, QAnon conspiracy theories such as the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and calls for violence against Democrats including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.Last February, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, called Greene’s embrace of conspiracy theories and “loony lies” a “cancer for the Republican party”. The Democratic-led House ejected her from committee assignments.In July, Twitter suspended Greene for a week after Joe Biden urged tech companies to take stronger action against bogus vaccine claims that the president said were “killing people”. Twitter has said it has removed thousands of tweets and challenged millions of accounts.Greene has regularly been fined for refusing to follow Covid guidelines in Congress, including regarding mask-wearing on the House floor.In a statement on the Telegram app on Sunday, she called Twitter “an enemy to America” and said it could not “handle the truth”.She also accused Twitter of seeking “a communist revolution” and said: “Social media platforms can’t stop the truth from being spread far and wide. Big tech can’t stop the truth. Communist Democrats can’t stop the truth. I stand with the truth and the people. We will overcome.”Greene said her account was suspended after tweeting statistics from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a government database which includes raw data.Among Greene’s final tweets was one that falsely referenced “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths”, according to her Telegram account, which appears to mirror her now-banned Twitter feed.More than 825,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the US, out of a caseload of nearly 55m. Many states are experiencing a surge of cases and disruption to everyday life caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant.On Sunday, Biden’s top medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, said the US had been seeing almost a “vertical increase” of cases, now averaging 400,000 a day with hospitalisations up too.Resistance to vaccinations and other public health measures has fueled the pandemic and political tensions. Last week, Greene boasted on Twitter about talking to Donald Trump by phone. She said she had received the former president’s permission to clarify his stance that he is against vaccine mandates though he encourages people to get the shot and booster.Trump was booed by some audience members in Dallas on 19 December, when he said he had received a booster shot.TopicsRepublicansThe far rightUS politicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack: Cheney says Republicans must choose between Trump and truth

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      Capitol attack: Cheney says Republicans must choose between Trump and truthRepublican member of the House committee investigating the events of 6 January issues stark warning to her party

      The Steal: stethoscope for a democracy near cardiac arrest
      On a day of alarming polling about attitudes to political violence and fears for US democracy, and as the first anniversary of the Capitol attack approached, a Republican member of the House committee investigating the events of 6 January 2021 had a stark warning for her party.One in three Americans say violence against government justified – pollRead more“Our party has to choose,” Liz Cheney told CBS’s Face the Nation. “We can either be loyal to Donald Trump or we can be loyal to the constitution, but we cannot be both.”Trump supporters attacked Congress in an attempt to stop certification of his defeat by Joe Biden, which Trump maintains without evidence was the result of electoral fraud. Five people died around a riot in which a mob roamed the Capitol, searching for lawmakers to capture and possibly kill.On Sunday, Cheney and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the committee chairman, again discussed the possibility of a criminal referral for Trump over his failure to attempt to stop the riot or for his obstruction of the investigation.Speaking to ABC’s This Week, Cheney said there were “potential criminal statutes at issue here, but I think that there’s absolutely no question that it was a dereliction of duty. And I think one of the things the committee needs to look at is … a legislative purpose, is whether we need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty.”Thompson said subpoenas could be served on Republicans in Congress who refuse to comply with information requests of the kind which have led to a charge of criminal contempt of Congress for Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, and a recommendation of such a charge for Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff.The Democrat told NBC’s Meet the Press the committee was examining whether it could issue subpoenas to members of Congress, immediately Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.“I think there are some questions of whether we have the authority to do it,” Thompson said. “If the authorities are there, there’ll be no reluctance on our part.”Last month, the committee asked Jordan for testimony about conversations with Trump on 6 January. Jordan told Fox News he had “real concerns” about the credibility of the panel.Perry was asked for testimony about attempts to replace Jeffrey Rosen, acting head of the justice department, with Jeffrey Clark, an official who tried to help overturn Trump’s defeat.Perry called the committee “illegitimate, and not duly constituted”. A court has ruled that the panel is legitimate and entitled to see White House records Trump is trying to shield, an argument that has reached the supreme court.Sunday saw a rash of polls marking the anniversary of 6 January.CBS found that 68% of Americans saw the Capitol attack as a sign of increasing political violence, and that 66% thought democracy itself was threatened.When respondents were asked if violence would be justifiable to achieve various political ends, the poll returned an average of around 30%. A survey by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland said more than a third of Americans said violence against the government could be justified.ABC News and Ipsos found that 52% of Republicans said the Capitol rioters were trying to protect democracy.Other polling has shown clear majorities among Republicans in believing Trump’s lie about electoral fraud and distrust of federal elections.On CNN’s State of the Union, Larry Hogan, Maryland governor and a moderate Republican with an eye on the presidential nomination, said: “Frankly, it’s crazy that that many people believe things that simply aren’t true.“There’s been an amazing amount of disinformation that’s been spread over the past year. And many people are consuming that disinformation and believing it as if it’s fact. To think the violent protesters who attacked the Capitol, our seat of democracy, on 6 January was just tourists looking at statues? It’s insane that anyone could watch that on television and believe that’s what happened.”Cheney told CBS the blame lay squarely with her own party.“Far too many Republicans are trying to enable the former president, embrace the former president or look the other way and hope that the former president goes away, or trying to obstruct the activities of this committee, but we won’t be deterred. At the end of the day, the facts matter, the truth matters.”Her host, Margaret Brennan, pointed out that Republicans across the US, some in states where Trump’s attempt to steal the election was repulsed, are changing election laws to their advantage.“We’ve got to be grounded on the rule of law,” Cheney said. “We’ve got to be grounded on fidelity of the constitution … So I think for people all across the country, they need to recognise how important their vote is for their voices. They’ve got to elect serious people who are going to defend the constitution, not simply do the bidding of Donald Trump.”Trump acolytes vie for key election oversight posts in US midtermsRead moreCheney faces a primary challenger doing Trump’s bidding and enjoying his backing. The other Republican on the 6 January committee, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, will retire in November rather than fight such a battle of his own.Cheney said she was “confident people of Wyoming will not choose loyalty to one man as dangerous as Donald Trump”, and that she will secure re-election.She also notably did not say no when she was asked if she would run against Trump if he sought the nomination next time.On ABC, Cheney was asked if she agreed with Hillary Clinton, who has said a second Trump presidency could end US democracy.“I do,” Cheney said. “I think it is critically important, given everything we know about the lines that he was willing to cross.“… We entrust the survival of our republic into the hands of the chief executive, and when a president refuses to tell the mob to stop, when he refuses to defend any of the co-ordinate branches of government, he cannot be trusted.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      One in three Americans say violence against government justified – poll

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      One in three Americans say violence against government justified – pollWashington Post releases survey showing ‘considerably higher’ number saying it is sometimes right to take up arms

      The Steal: stethoscope for a democracy near cardiac arrest
      One in three Americans believe violence against the government is sometimes justified, according to a new Washington Post poll.Trump acolytes vie for key election oversight posts in US midtermsRead moreThe survey, with the University of Maryland, was released on New Year’s Day – five days short of a year since rioters attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat by Joe Biden.According to the authors of The Steal, a new book on Republican attempts to fulfill Trump’s aim through legal action in key states, the rioters of 6 January 2021 “had no more chance of overthrowing the US government than hippies in 1967 had trying to levitate the Pentagon”.But it was still by far the most serious attack on the seat of federal government since the British burned Washington in 1814 and the Post poll comes amid a sea of warnings of growing domestic strife, even of a second civil war.The Post reported: “The percentage of Americans who say violent action against the government is justified at times stands at 34%, which is considerably higher than in past polls by the Post or other major news organisations dating back more than two decades.“… The view is partisan: The new survey finds 40% of Republicans, 41% of independents and 23% of Democrats saying violence is sometimes justified.”Other polls have found that more than half of Republicans believe Trump’s lie that Biden won the White House thanks to electoral fraud, and do not trust elections.As pointed out by Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague, authors of new book The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and People Who Stopped It, Trump was ultimately stopped by “the integrity of hundreds of obscure Americans from every walk of life, state and local officials, judges and election workers. Many of them … Republicans, some … Trump supporters”.Nonetheless, at a rally near the White House on 6 January, Trump told such supporters to “fight like hell” in his cause.“And if you don’t fight like hell,” he said, “you’re not going to have a country anymore”.Five people died, including a rioter shot by law enforcement and a police officer.The Post poll found that 60% of Americans said Trump bore a “great deal” or a “good amount” of responsibility for the Capitol attack. However, 72% of Republicans and 83% of Trump voters said he bore “just some” responsibility or “none at all”.The Post reported: “A majority continue to say that violence against the government is never justified – but the 62% who hold that view is a new low point, and a stark difference from the 1990s, when as many as 90% said violence was never justified.”The paper interviewed some respondents.Phil Spampinato, 73, from Dover, Delaware, and a political independent, said he first “contemplated the question of whether violence against the government might be justified” as a way of “defending your way of life” after he saw Republicans changing state laws to restrict voting by Democrats and to make it easier to overturn results.US ‘closer to civil war’ than most would like to believe, new book saysRead more“Not too many years ago,” Spampinato said, “I would have said that those conditions are not possible, and that no such violence is really ever appropriate.”Anthea Ward, a Republican 32-year-old mother of two from Michigan, said: “The world we live in now is scary. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but sometimes it feels like a movie. It’s no longer a war against Democrats and Republicans. It’s a war between good and evil.”Ward said she did not approve of the Capitol attack. She also said she would not participate in violence over Covid-19 vaccine mandates – another social flashpoint.But, the Post reported, Ward did say other people could be justified in choosing to “express their second amendment right” if the government “infringe[d] their freedom of choice” over vaccines, “and nonviolent action such as protests were unsuccessful”.TopicsUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsDonald TrumpJoe BidenUS press and publishingnewsReuse this content More

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      The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrest

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      The Steal review: stethoscope for a democracy close to cardiac arrest Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague have produced an indispensable and alarming ground-level record of how Donald Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election played out in precincts and ballot-counting centers in key statesIn their terrific new book, the veteran reporters Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague argue that the mob that invaded the Capitol in Washington almost exactly a year ago “had no more chance of overthrowing the US government than hippies in 1967 had trying to levitate the Pentagon”.From Peril to Betrayal: the year in books about Trump and other political animalsRead moreThe “real insurrection” was the one “led by Trump and his coterie of sycophants” in Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona. It “was only slightly better organized than the mob but considerably more calculated and dangerous”.That real insurrection is the subject of this timely and important volume. The authors have used a stethoscope to examine the minutia of the American election process. The result is a thrilling and suspenseful celebration of the survival of democracy.The attempted coup was led by Donald Trump. Its intended denouement, in which the vice-president, Mike Pence, would ignore the votes of the six states above plus Washington DC in order to swing the election to Trump, was outlined in an insane memo written by the lawyer John Eastman, described here as “surely the most seditious document to emerge from the White House in American history”.That final act, of course, never happened. Not even Pence, the most sycophantic vice-president of modern times, could bring himself to violate the constitution so blatantly to keep his boss in the White House.But the genuine heroes, brought to life here, were the “hundreds of obscure Americans from every walk of life, state and local officials, judges and election workers. Many of them were Republicans, some were Trump supporters. They refused to accept his slander of themselves, their communities and their workers, and they refused to betray their sworn duty to their office and their country. They were the real patriots.”Bowden and Teague – the latter a Guardian contributor – take us through six battles that lasted from the night of the election, 3 November 2020, until Joe Biden’s election was finally certified by Congress early on 7 January last year.Their book performs a vital service, demonstrating just how well our tattered democracy managed to function despite vicious partisanship and all the new challenges created by the pandemic. For the first time, I understood how brilliantly new machines used to count the votes performed, the intricacies of opening outer and inner envelopes, capturing the images of both then preserving the vital paper ballots inside, making it possible to confirm electronic results with a hand count in case of any failure in technology.In Arizona, the elections department conducted “the mandatory hand count of election day ballots from 2% of the vote centers and 1% of the early ballots as required by Arizona law and it yielded a 100% match to the results produced by the tabulation equipment”.Scott Jarrett was co-director of elections in the populous Maricopa county, and he is one of the crucial bureaucrats celebrated here: “A pale slender young man … dressed in a plain gray suit, the very picture of an earnest functionary, a man happily engaged in the actual machinery of government and quietly proud of his own unheralded importance and competence.”In a public hearing crowded with crazed conspiracy theorists, Jarrett carefully explained how only one of the two “encrypted memory cards (both with tamper-proof evidence seals)” was transported from various polling centers to the main counting location, “so that the results on one card could be double-checked against the other as well as the precinct ballot report they had generated. Backing up that memory were, of course, the actual ballots that had been run through the machines. The memory cards and the ballots were sealed and delivered by “two members of different parties”, escorted by county sheriffs.Clint Hickman, chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors, noted that if the eyes of some in the audience were glazing over, he just wanted “people that are watching this” to understand “we don’t glaze over”.The authors point out that Hickman was touching on a fundamental feature of The Steal, the factitious narrative concocted by Trump and his cronies: conspiracy theorists depend on ignorance.“They begin with distrust: only a sucker believes the official story. They then replace the often tedious, mundane details of an intricate process … with a simpler narrative”: theft.They invent colorful stories about a “deal struck with a late Venezuelan dictator to deliver tainted election machines, or a plot to preprint fake ballots in the dead of night”. This creates what cognitive scientists call “a community of knowledge”.The big problem that didn’t exist even 30 years ago is the speed with which such idiotic stories are spread through the internet and by the Twitter feed of a malevolent president like Trump, exploding the reach of such stories and their power to undermine democratic norms.March of the Trump memoirs: Mark Meadows and other Republican readsRead moreThe book reminds us that democracy itself depends on a modicum of trust. That is why Trump’s ability to persuade so many Americans of the truth of so many lies has had such a disastrous effect on our body politic.Bowden and Teague have performed a singular service by revealing the details that disprove Republicans’ unceasing inventions about voter fraud.The problem is that so many Republicans will continue to ignore the lessons of this book. American democracy could still be destroyed by the torrent of voter suppression laws already passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures, spurred by lies invented by Trump and amplified by insidious “journalists” like Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, whose perfidy is brilliantly dissected in these pages.If democracy does prevail, it will survive because of the ability of authors like Teague and Bowden to make the truth even more compelling than Fox News fictions.
      The Steal is published in the US by Atlantic Monthly Press
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      Republicans aim to sow outrage, Trump-style, with an eye on 2022 midterms

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      Republicans aim to sow outrage, Trump-style, with an eye on 2022 midterms Republicans embrace the culture war battles Trump waged, as a strategy for winning back control of the House and SenateThe debate was ostensibly over a stop-gap spending bill that would avert a government shutdown. But Chip Roy, a Republican congressman from Texas, seized the opportunity to accuse Democrats of supporting “unconstitutional” vaccine mandates, critical race theory, “woke gender ideology” and open borders. A vote to fund the federal government, he warned, was a vote to allow “tyranny over the American citizen”.The speech infuriated Congressman Tim Ryan, a Democrat from Ohio.“Tyranny?” Ryan fumed on the House floor. “What are you people talking about? We’re talking about universal preschool, and they have it as a communist indoctrination of the American student. It’s insane.”Ryan’s frustration crystallized a dilemma for Democrats as they defend paper-thin majorities in Congress next year: how to talk about their legislative victories when Republicans are talking about everything else.Emboldened by a string of off-cycle electoral victories, Republicans are embracing the culture war battles that Donald Trump waged from the White House as a strategy for winning back control of the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.“Lean into the culture war,” was the title of a June memo from the leader of the House Republican Study Committee, Indiana congressman Jim Banks.The “culture war” offensive comes as Democrats, facing deep economic malaise and historical headwinds, race to deliver on the president’s domestic agenda, which includes an ambitious social policy package that faces serious legislative hurdles, hampered by Democratic holdout senator Joe Manchin.“We have a plan to give you a better country, and they have a ploy to win back power for themselves,” said New York congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “We are tackling the tough problems of the economy and the pandemic. They seek only to win power and will say or do anything to achieve that.”The party controlling the White House typically loses seats in the first midterm elections of a new presidency. With Biden’s plunging poll numbers, uncertainty over the centerpiece of his legislative agenda and Republicans’ redistricting edge, Democrats are increasingly dour about their chances. In the House, Democrats can only afford to lose a handful of seats; in the Senate they cannot afford to lose a single one.Maloney said selling their economic achievements – a popular, bipartisan infrastructure law and a poverty-reducing pandemic relief package – is critical for Democrats. But he said the party must also aggressively confront the Republican cultural assault. He urged Democrats to call out the opposition party’s embrace of “dangerous and reckless conduct”, which includes amplifying Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and downplaying the seriousness of the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.On social issues, he believes that Republicans have pushed too far, particularly on the issue of abortion. As the supreme court considers whether to weaken or overturn the landmark Roe v Wade precedent, Democrats are loudly trumpeting their support for women’s reproductive rights, as they try portray Republicans as an increasingly extreme party determined to ban abortion.“We’re dealing with a Republican party that wants to ban abortion in all 50 states, bring back mass incarceration and burn books,” he added. “We’re not just going to respond, we’re going to be on offense.”Grievance politics is not a new strategy for Republicans. In 1968, Richard Nixon employed the “Southern Strategy” to exploit white racial grievances coded in language such as “law and order” and “states’ rights”. But as partisanship grows and the parties become increasingly hostile to one another, so too has the potential political benefit of cultural warfare that inflames division and energizes their base.A recent report by the Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution, titled Competing Visions of America, found that 80% of Republicans believe that “America is in danger of losing its culture and identity”. By comparison, just 33% of Democrats agree. Meanwhile, 70% of Republicans say “American culture and way of life have changed for the worse since the 1950s” while more than six in 10 Democrats say it has changed for the better.As Democrats negotiate amongst themselves over how to pass Biden’s signature domestic policy bill, Republicans have been seeding outrage over – and fundraising off of – all manner of perceived injustices from cancel culture to Dr Seuss to the 1619 Project. They are hammering the administration over its handling of immigration at the southern border and Democrats over rising crime rates in cities. And Biden’s efforts to pursue racial equity as part of his governing agenda has drawn accusations of racism from conservatives who say the efforts discriminate against white people.Republicans are also leading the charge against the administration’s vaccine mandates for companies with more than 100 employees, which they say is an example of “radical” Democratic overreach.On that issue, Republicans are speaking to their base, which is disproportionately unvaccinated. An NPR analysis found that the stronger a county’s support for Trump in the 2020 election, the lower its Covid-19 vaccination rate. But Republicans are betting that opposition to vaccine mandates, terms of personal liberty, will resonate beyond their base.In legal challenges to the mandates, Republican leaders argue that the vaccine mandates will worsen the nation’s supply chain problems and exacerbate labor shortages that have arisen during the pandemic.But with the Omicron variant circulating, Democrats believe public sentiment is firmly behind them. Americans increasingly support vaccine mandates for workers, students, and in everyday public life, according to a recent CNN poll, which found 54% in favor of requiring vaccinations for employees returning to the office.The challenge for Republicans is to avoid alienating moderate voters in the suburbs with their efforts to energize their supporters who are deeply loyal to Trump and have come to expect their politicians to loudly voice their grievances.Republicans believe their unexpected success in Virginia, a state Biden won by 10 percentage points in 2020, provides a playbook.In November, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the race for Virginia governor after pledging to ban critical race theory from the state’s public schools. Democrats were surprised by the potency over culture war fight over education, allowing Youngkin to rev up the conservative base while appealing to suburban parents’ frustrations over Covid-19 school closures and masking protocols in classrooms.“It’s the oldest trick in the book,” said Anat Shenker-Osorio, a messaging expert and host of Words To Win By. “It’s creating some sort of an ‘other’ so that we don’t notice that they’re actually the cause of our problems.”In Virginia and elsewhere, she said Democrats were caught “flat-footed” by concerns over critical race theory, a concept that, until recently, few outside of academia had ever heard of. Instead of confronting it, she said Democrats’ instinct was to deny support and dismiss the charge as a right-wing talking point, neither of which satisfied voters.Democrats need “an explanation for the rightwing’s origin story of ‘this is why you’re suffering white man in the post-industrial midwest’,” Shenker-Osorio said. “Unless we can talk about race, about gender, about gender identity, our economic promise isn’t going to land.”Columnist Will Bunch, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, put it another way: “Once again, the Democrats showed up to a culture war gunfight brandishing a 2,000-page piece of legislation.”While Democrats agree they have a problem, they are at odds over how to fix it.Some argue that the party has moved too far left on cultural issues, a shift that has alienated non-college educated white voters and, increasingly, working-class Latino and Black Americans. Another cohort believes that instead of trying to recapture the voters who have abandoned the party, Democrats should find a message that appeals to a diversifying electorate.Proponents of this approach believe Democrats should respond to the right’s attacks by adopting what they call a “race-class narrative”, which Shenker-Osorio helped develop.The approach explicitly accuses Republicans of using racism or racial dog whistles as a divide-and-conquer tactic to sow distrust, undermine faith in government and protect the wealthy. When applied, the message not only defangs Republican attacks, it motivates and mobilizes voters of all races, its advocates argue.“Our task is to make the idea of joining together across our differences – the idea of multiracial solidarity, as a means to collectively get these shared values that we all want – sexier than the grievance politics that the right is selling,” said Jenifer Fernandez Ancona, the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Way to Win.In a recently published memo, advocated candidates use the “blows are landing because our agenda and accomplishments remain so far undefined in the minds of voters”.Among its messaging recommendations, the group urges Democrats to contrast the party’s economic vision with a “Republican party that is beholden to Maga extremism” while doing more to sell their legislative achievements and highlight the steps they’ve taken to combat Covid.“The good news is that these are not insurmountable challenges,” the memo states.An increasingly vocal coterie of liberal critics believe the outlook is grimmer: that Democrats are staring into the political wilderness unless they are able to win back some of the non-college educated voters who abandoned the party.Ruy Teixeira, a demographer and election analyst, believes Democrats have moved too far left on social issues like crime and immigration and is in need of a complete rebrand. He said Trump’s gains with non-college educated Hispanic voters was a “real wake-up call” that Democrats need to change course.“We need a durable majority,” he said. “You can’t build a durable majority by ignoring socio-cultural concerns and the values of these huge swaths of the population.”Where Democrats agree is that they must deliver on their promises while in power.“We’re really just at the beginning of what needs to be a substantial change in the way the American economic model works,” Teixeira said. “And to do that, it’s not enough to just win one election and pass some stuff. We need to win a number of elections and pass even more stuff … It’s not much more complicated than that.”TopicsUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More