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      Rahm Emanuel leads confirmed Biden nominees in late-night logjam break

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      Rahm Emanuel leads confirmed Biden nominees in late-night logjam breakEx-Obama chief of staff will go to Japan after deal for vote on Russia pipeline sanctions ends Republican Senate resistance The former Obama White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel was among more than 30 ambassadors and other Biden nominees confirmed by the Senate early on Saturday. Trump condemned by Anti-Defamation League chief for antisemitic tropesRead moreThe Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, broke a Republican-stoked logjam by agreeing to schedule a vote on sanctions on the company behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.With many senators anxious to go home for the holidays, Schumer threatened to keep the Senate in for as long as it took to break a logjam on a number of diplomatic and national security nominees.Emanuel was confirmed to serve as ambassador to Japan by a vote of 48-21. Nominees to be ambassadors to Spain, Vietnam and Somalia were among those confirmed by voice vote after an agreement was reached to vote on Nord Stream 2 sanctions before 14 January.The confirmation process has proved to be frustrating for new administrations regardless of party. While gridlock isn’t new, the struggle is getting worse.Democrats have voiced concerns about holds Republican senators placed on nominees in order to raise objections about foreign policy matters that had little to do with the nominees in question. Holds do not block confirmation but they do require the Senate to undertake hours of debate.Positions requiring confirmation can go unfilled for months even when the nominations are approved in committee with the support of both parties.Biden officials acknowledge the president will end his year with significantly more vacancies than recent predecessors and that the slowdown of ambassadorial and other national security picks has had an impact on relations overseas.Ted Cruz, of Texas, held up dozens of nominees at state and treasury, over objections to the waiving of sanctions targeting the Nord Stream AG firm overseeing the pipeline project. The administration said it opposed the project but viewed it is a fait accompli. It also said trying to stop it would harm relations with Germany.Critics on the both sides of the aisle have raised concerns that the pipeline will threaten European energy security by increasing reliance on Russian gas and allowing Russia to exert political pressure on vulnerable nations, particularly Ukraine.Earlier in the week, Schumer demanded that Cruz lift all of his holds on nominees at the two departments as well as the US Agency for International Development, as part of any agreement on a Nord Stream 2 sanctions. Cruz said he was willing to lift holds on 16. The two sides traded offers on Friday.“I think there ought to be a reasonable middle ground solution,” Cruz said.“Let’s face it. There is little to celebrate when it comes to nominations in the Senate,“ said Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the foreign relations committee.The New Jersey Democrat blamed Republicans for “straining the system to the breaking point” and depriving Biden of a full national security team, “leaving our nation weakened”.“Something’s going to happen in one of these places and we will not be there to ultimately have someone to promote our interests and to protect ourselves,” he said.Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said some of the gridlock stemmed back to four years ago when Democrats, under Schumer, tried to stop many of Donald Trump’s nominees being confirmed in a timely manner.“Senator Schumer doesn’t have anything close to clean hands here,” Blunt said.Emanuel, also a former member of the House, was backed for the post in Tokyo at a time when Washington is looking to Asian allies to help push back against China.Detractors said they would not back him because of the shooting when he was mayor of Chicago of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who died when a police officer, Jason Van Dyke, fired multiple times.Emanuel’s handling of the case was criticized, especially as video was not released for more than a year. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and jailed. Four officers were fired.Biden nominated Emanuel in August. At his confirmation hearing in October, Emanuel said he thought about McDonald every day and that, as mayor, he was responsible and accountable.Eight Republicans voted with a majority of Democrats to confirm Emanuel. Three Democrats voted no: Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.TopicsBiden administrationUS foreign policyUS national securityRahm EmanuelUS politicsAsia PacificJapannewsReuse this content More

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      Trump condemned by Anti-Defamation League chief for antisemitic tropes

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      Trump condemned by Anti-Defamation League chief for antisemitic tropesJonathan Greenblatt says that ‘insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic’ The chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League led condemnation of Donald Trump after the former president used antisemitic tropes in remarks about American Jews and Israel.Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it offRead more“Insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic, plain and simple,” Jonathan Greenblatt said. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time he has made these offensive remarks.”Trump was speaking to the journalist Barak Ravid, author of a book on Trump and the Middle East. Parts of the interview aired on Friday on a podcast, Unholy: Two Jews on the News.“It’s a very dangerous thing that’s happening,” Trump said. “There’s people in this country that are Jewish and no longer love Israel. I’ll tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country.”Trump also used a line he has delivered before – to a Jewish audience in 2019 – about Israel and Congress.“It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress,” he said, “and today I think it’s the exact opposite. And I think Obama and Biden did that. And yet in the election, they still get a lot of votes from the Jewish people. Which tells you that the Jewish people, and I’ve said this for a long time, the Jewish people in the United States either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel.”Trump also said “they’re Jewish people that run the New York Times” and claimed the newspaper “hates Israel”.On Twitter, Greenblatt said: “Once again, former President Trump has linked his lack of strong support among most US Jews to their feelings about Israel and used classic antisemitic stereotypes about Israeli and Jewish control of Congress and the press to bolster his argument.“It’s sad that once again we have to restate this point, but the vast majority of American Jews support and have some type of connection to Israel, regardless of which political candidate they vote for.“Let me be clear: insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic, plain and simple. Unfortunately, this is not the first time he has made these offensive remarks.”The American Jewish Committee said: “Why is Mr Trump once again fueling dangerous stereotypes about Jews? His past support for Israel doesn’t give him license to traffic in radioactive antisemitic tropes – or peddle unfounded conclusions about the unbreakable ties that bind American Jews to Israel. Enough!”Notably, Republicans who have condemned Democrats including the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar for allegedly using antisemitic tropes did not rush to respond to Trump’s remarks.Amid widespread anger, the former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes said: “If Ilhan Omar said the same things Trump did it would dominate politics and media for a week, statements issued from every organisation, (bipartisan) resolutions in Congress, etc. What bullshit.”Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat, said: “There can be no question that the words by Donald Trump are vile, despicable antisemitism … This level of hate is not just tolerated but invited by the modern GOP.”Ilhan Omar and the weaponisation of antisemitism | Joshua LeiferRead moreQasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer and radio host, said: “While American Jews represent only 2% of Americans, FBI data shows Jews suffer more than 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes.“Donald Trump’s reckless antisemitism further endangers Jewish Americans, and the GOP proudly standing by him makes them complicit. Unacceptable.”Like many other authors, Ravid interviewed Trump at Mar-a-Lago after his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election and his attempts to overturn that result including stoking the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.Ravid’s interview has already made news, after Trump reportedly said of the former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a key ally when in power: “Fuck him.”According to Axios, Trump said: “The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with … Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake.”TopicsDonald TrumpAntisemitismUS politicsUS CongressRepublicansIsraelnewsReuse this content More

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      From Peril to Betrayal: the year in books about Trump and other political animals

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      From Peril to Betrayal: the year in books about Trump and other political animals 2021 provided a glut of memoirs, deep dives and tell-alls about American politics in an age of Covid and attacks on democracy itself. Which were the best – and most alarming?If in recent years American politics books have been noted mainly for ephemera, in 2021 the winds of history began to blow open the doors – occasionally to devastating effect. The advent of a new administration loosened tongues and made documents more readily available as some sought redemption, justification or simply fame.March of the Trump memoirs: Mark Meadows and other Republican readsRead moreSuch books illustrate the truth that one cannot keep a thing hidden and generally share certain characteristics that convey the ring of truth. They report bitterly angry outbursts by Donald Trump, staff reeling from dysfunction, chaos and the pressures of a campaign in a pandemic. They frequently recount interviews with Trump himself. They contain sufficient profanity to make sailors blush.And, happily, this paper celebrated its bicentennial in part by scooping many of them, with real consequences in the case of Mark Meadows, who published The Chief’s Chief this month. Some – the former White House chief of staff in particular – may wish they had not written books. But some books are essential to understand the danger in which the country finds itself.The former FBI director James Comey opened the year with Saving Justice, a second book defending the rule of law. Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes followed with Lucky, a quick but full postmortem of the 2020 campaign, noting: “Luck, it has been said, is the residue of design. It was for Joe Biden, and for the republic.”The heart of the year was a series of blockbusters from prominent reporters, each containing significant new information on aspects of the chaos that was 2020. Michael Bender led off with Frankly, We Did Win This Election, in which Trump’s words, on the record, are unsurprising but nonetheless shocking.In Landslide, Michael Wolff completed his Trump trilogy with a focus on the campaign – including Chris Christie, in debate preparation (as a result of which he tested positive for Covid), earning Trump’s ire for asking hard but predictable questions on Covid response and family scandals – and on a post-election dominated by Trump’s anger as the levers of power, including the supreme court of which he chose three members, failed to overturn his defeat.Wolff is keenly analytic: as he writes, Trump “knew nothing of government, [his supporters] knew nothing about government, so the context of government itself became beside the point”. Instead, Trump was “the star – never forget that – and the base was his audience”. This self-referential and adulatory mode of governing failed in a divided country facing a pandemic and rising international challenges. Landslide is a fine book, though as new evidence from the 6 January committee emerges, Wolff’s conclusion limiting Trump’s own knowledge of and responsibility for the events of that day may come to seem premature.Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker followed with I Alone Can Fix It, in which Gen Mark Milley said the US was in a “Reichstag moment” on 2 January, four days before the insurrection, and referred to “the gospel of the Führer” poisoning American democracy. Trump’s anger at his pollster, Tony Fabrizio, for being the bearer of bad news on Covid and the electorate is telling too: “They’re tired? They’re fatigued?” Politics as empathy was not the campaign’s theme.Bob Woodward, writing with Robert Costa, likewise completed his Trump series with Peril, whose title sums up its conclusion. The book, notable for revealing Gen Milley’s attempts to reassure the Chinese military in the waning days of the presidency, quotes Trump’s apparent view that “real power [is] fear” and asks, “Were there any limits to what he and his supporters might do to put him back in power?”Adam Schiff’s Midnight in Washington brings a former prosecutor’s eye and perspective of a House intelligence committee chairman to issues surrounding Trump and Russia. His book is both history and warning.Among Trump loyalists, former trade czar Peter Navarro released In Trump Time, in which he criticized Meadows and anyone else he deemed insufficiently loyal. The book’s most memorable line calls Vice-President Mike Pence “Brutus” to Trump’s “American Caesar” – all without irony or, one hopes, knowledge of Roman history.Not all notable books were tell-alls. Some contained real policy insights. Josh Rogin’s Chaos Under Heaven looks at US-China relations from a strategic as well as pandemic perspective, noting US conflicts of both interest and policy as well as Trump’s inability to develop a workable strategy. Rival books on antitrust policy by two very different senators, Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley, illustrate Congress’ increased focus on large technology companies. Evan Osnos’ Wildland chronicles the lives and fortunes of billionaires and the growth of the Washington machine – and the effects, including rightward political shifts, on those at the bottom. On a related theme, in Misfire Tim Mak delivers a shocking history of the National Rifle Association and its former leaders.Several books will serve as first drafts of history. Madam Speaker, Susan Page’s biography of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, describes how she “took on the boys club and won” through mastery of legislation and her caucus. Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue compiles the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinions, speeches and other documents, with Amanda Tyler as co-author.Uncontrolled Spread review: Trump’s first FDA chief on the Covid disasterRead moreUnsurprisingly in the second year of a pandemic, healthcare featured prominently. In The Ten-Year War, Jonathan Cohn recounts the 10-year history of Obamacare. Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain tells the sad and painful story of the promotion of opioids in America. On the pandemic, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta in Nightmare Scenario focus on the Trump administration’s response. Leaving responsibility mostly to the states had deleterious consequences, as did chaos, turf wars and giving priority to “the demands of Trump and his base” as he sought reelection rather than an effective response.Scott Gottlieb, a well-regarded former FDA commissioner, takes a broader, more philosophical view in Uncontrolled Spread. Absence of leadership and a “sizeable enterprise devoted to manufacturing skepticism” about the virus and public health solutions meant the US failed the bar of “delay[ing] its onset and reduc[ing] its scope and severity”. But the Operation Warp Speed vaccine effort “proved what government could accomplish when it functions well” and makes one keenly regret the absence of leadership elsewhere as confirmed US deaths, so many among the unvaccinated, surpass 800,000.The pandemic’s broader impact is equally profound. In Gottlieb’s words, “Covid normalized the breakdowns in a global order that it was presumed, perhaps naively, would protect us, just as Covid pierced our own perception of domestic resiliency, cooperation, and fortitude.” Vaccine hesitancy in the face of clear science is only one pandemic effect.‘Pence was disloyal at exactly the right time’: author Jonathan Karl on the Capitol attackRead moreWith honorable mentions for Wolff, Leonnig and Rucker, Woodward and Costa, and Gottlieb, ABC’s Jonathan Karl produced arguably the year’s most significant book in Betrayal, in which Trump cabinet members “paint a portrait of a wrath-filled president, untethered from reality, bent on revenge”. The attorney general, Bill Barr, decries election-related conspiracies; the acting defense secretary, Chris Miller, seeks to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran by taking (and faking) an extreme position in favour:
      Oftentimes, with provocative people, if you get more provocative than them, they then have to dial it down.
      Such was government in the Trump era.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in his Nobel Lecture that “one word of truth shall outweigh the whole world”. The amount of newly uncovered truth is already outweighing a fair number of the more than 4,000 exoplanets Nasa has recorded.Yet the vital question remains: what will Americans, in particular Republican officials and independent voters, do with this information? As Karl wrote, “The continued survival of our republic may depend, in part, on the willingness of those who promoted Trump’s lies and those who remained silent to acknowledge they were wrong.”Is it to be Solzhenitsyn’s hope – or his fear that “when we are told again the old truth, we shall not even remember that we once possessed it”?TopicsBooksUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationBiden administrationJoe BidenRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Republicans are plotting to destroy democracy from within | Lawrence Douglas

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      Republicans are plotting to destroy democracy from withinLawrence DouglasOpportunism and cowardice has more than sufficed to make Republicans espouse a noxious falsehood as an axiomatic truth At hand is a plot to destroy American democracy from within. Its organizers have infiltrated the highest echelons of state and federal government, and have instigated and condoned acts of violence directed against our elected officials. This might sound far-fetched. But the threat is real and the seditious group is none other than the Republican party. Its target is the 2024 presidential election.Less than a year ago, Donald Trump limped from the White House a badly discredited figure, roundly condemned for having instigated a shocking attack against a coordinate branch of government. The 6 January insurrection seemed like a wake-up call to Republican lawmakers. No longer could they indulge the self-serving story that Trump was simply an uncouth, untraditional president. The reality was stark and undeniable. The president was at heart a petty autocrat, willing to torch democracy to cling to power.The wake-up call went unheeded. The critical inflection point came during the second impeachment trial, when Republican senators had the opportunity to join Democrats in condemning Trump. And while seven Republican senators voted along with all 50 Democrats to convict, this still left the Senate 10 votes short of the 67 needed to hold Trump to account.Emblematic of the Republican refusal to reckon was the stance adopted by Mitch McConnell, who only weeks before had lost his position as Senate majority leader. On the floor of the Senate, McConnell delivered a powerful condemnation of Trump – only then to vote to acquit. Insisting that an ex-president was “constitutionally not eligible for conviction”, McConnell cynically overlooked the fact that the purpose of the trial was not to remove Trump from office but to bar him from ever running again. And while McConnell presumably was hoping to mollify the Republican base while keeping Trump himself sidelined, that strategy backfired grandly.The acquittal served as the first step to Trump’s rapid rehabilitation and the further radicalization of the Republican party. Ten months ago, McConnell castigated Trump for spinning “increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup”. Now these same myths have been elevated to first principles of the Republican party, as the party has come to effectively close its doors to those unwilling to lie about the 2020 election. In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith had to be tortured into declaring that 2+2=5. In the case of today’s Republicans, no torture has been necessary. Opportunism and cowardice has more than sufficed to make Republicans across the land espouse a noxious falsehood as an axiomatic truth.No less ominous has been the whitewashing of the insurrection itself. Ten months ago, McConnell declared the “mob … assault[ed] the Capitol in [Trump’s] name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.” Hardly a day passes without fresh revelations from the House select committee, documenting the shocking steps Trump contemplated in his effort to remain in the White House. Yet despite the intrepid work of Liz Cheney, the larger Republican response has been to distort and suppress the committee’s findings. Paul Gosar, the Arizona congressman who recently posted an animated video that depicted him slashing to death his House colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has recast the insurrectionists as patriots. Others, including Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, have insisted the attack was a false-flag operation, a conspiracy theory given traction by Tucker Carlson’s three-party series.Republican state lawmakers have in turn weaponized the lies about the 2020 election and the 6 January insurrection to gain control over the local administration of elections. Bad enough are the 33 laws that have been passed in 19 states designed to make it harder for persons of color to vote. But more disturbing still are the Republican party’s radical efforts to purge officials who resisted Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 results and replace them with loyalists who have bought into the big lie. Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin are seeking to eliminate the state’s bipartisan elections commission altogether and to install themselves as the sole arbiter of state election results. And more than a dozen other red states have similarly enacted laws to transform the counting and review of ballots cast into a carefully monitored partisan exercise.By the time insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on 6 January, the 2020 election was a fait accompli. True, Trump tried desperately to forestall Congress from counting and accepting the duly certified state electoral certificates attesting to Biden’s victory. What ultimately frustrated Trump’s putsch attempt was the fact that election officials in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania had already accurately and honestly reported the results. Many of these officials were Republicans. They acted in simple defense of democracy and were rewarded with death threats, ostracism and now ouster.Come 2024 these quiet custodians of democracy will have been replaced with loyalists and hacks ready to muddy the waters or supply the votes to secure a Trump win. The 2024 election will not witness a repeat of the events of 6 January. By the time Congress tallies the electoral votes on 6 January 2025, the putsch could be complete. And if it is, it will have been staged in the small offices of the election officials in the key swing states. And it’s all being scripted now.
      Lawrence Douglas is the author, most recently, of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. He is a contributing opinion writer for the Guardian US and teaches at Amherst College
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionRepublicansUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      What should we expect from Washington in 2022? Politics Weekly Extra

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      Jonathan Freedland and Joan Greve look back on a chaotic year in US politics and attempt to offer some predictions of might be coming down the tracks in 2022

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      You can donate to the Guardian and Observer’s annual charity appeal here. The Guardian will also be holding its annual charity appeal telethon. For the chance to speak to your favourite Guardian journalist and donate, phone 0203 353 4368 on 18 December between 10am and 4pm. Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More

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      Congressman Jim Jordan sent plans for Capitol attack to Mark Meadows

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      Congressman Jim Jordan sent plans for Capitol attack to Mark MeadowsJordan forwarded a text to Meadows on 5 January, one of the congressman’s aides has confirmed, containing details of the plot The Ohio congressman Jim Jordan has been identified as the Republican who sent a message to Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows the day before the deadly 6 January US Capitol riots outlining a plan to stop Joe Biden – the legitimate winner of the presidential election – from reaching the White House.The House select committee investigating the insurrection has been looking at numerous messages sent to Meadows on and around that day, many of which were from Trump supporters urging the then-president to call off a mob of his supporters as they ransacked the Capitol building.Meadows, whose role in events has become a central plank of the investigation, and who provided many of the messages to the committee, is facing possible contempt of Congress charges for withdrawing his cooperation.Jordan, a staunch Trump ally whom Republicans originally wanted to sit on the committee, forwarded a text message to Meadows on 5 January, one of the congressman’s aides has confirmed, containing details of the plot to block Biden.The message was sent to Jordan by Joseph Schmitz, a former US defense department inspector general who outlined a “draft proposal” to pressure vice-president Mike Pence to refuse to certify audited election returns on 6 January.A portion of the message was shown by Democratic committee member Adam Schiff on Tuesday. It read: “On January 6, 2021, Vice-President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.”The plotters falsely believed Pence had the constitutional authority to reject the election results and allow rival slates of electors from Republicans in states that Biden won to decide the outcome. Pence refused to do so, and has since been castigated by Trump and his allies.Jordan was one of five Republicans rejected from serving on the committee by Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker who instead appointed Trump critics Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Some commentators say the move “saved” the committee’s integrity.The panel has accelerated its inquiries in recent days and weeks, issuing dozens of subpoenas, interviewing more than 300 witnesses and reviewing more than 30,000 documents as it attempts to tie Trump to the events of 6 January.A clearer picture has emerged of the involvement of Trump loyalists, including senior Republican party officials such as Jordan, in the coup attempt, with questions swirling this week particularly over the role of Meadows.Trump’s former chief of staff is revealed to have received numerous messages on the day of the riot from Republican politicians, Fox News television personalities such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and the president’s son Donald Trump Jr.The text from Trump Jr was succinct. “We need an Oval address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand. He’s got to condemn this shit asap.”Meadows replied: “I’m pushing it hard. I agree.”Schiff, a California Democrat who led the prosecution in the Senate at Trump’s second impeachment in January, has argued that Meadows was at the heart of the pressure campaign on Pence, and voted for him to face contempt charges for his refusal to explain it.“You can see why this is so critical to ask Mr Meadows about,” Schiff said during the committee’s presentation on Tuesday.“About a lawmaker suggesting that the former vice-president simply throw out votes that he unilaterally deems unconstitutional in order to overturn a presidential election and subvert the will of the American people.”TopicsUS Capitol attackMark MeadowsOhioHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDonald TrumpUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Unlike anything we’ve seen’: the unprecedented risks facing US democracy

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      ‘Unlike anything we’ve seen’: the unprecedented risks facing US democracyFrom attacks on election officials to politicizing election boards, threats to the voting system are deeply worrying Get the latest updates on voting rights in the Guardian’s Fight to vote newsletterHello, and Happy Thursday,For some year-end reporting, I’ve been talking with folks about how 2021 exploded as the year American democracy came under siege. “It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” David Becker, an election administration expert and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told me.For our last Fight to Vote newsletter of the year (don’t worry – we’ll be back in January), I wanted to highlight the most dangerous threats to America’s electoral system.Efforts to inject partisanship into under-the-radar election jobsEach state in the US oversees its own elections. And within each state different counties, and in some places even smaller townships and municipalities, are responsible for running those elections. At each level, there are under-the-radar officials, appointed in some cases and elected in others, who are responsible for enforcing the rules.These are positions that many people have never heard of – their job isn’t to be political, but rather to ensure that the person with the most votes is seated as the winner of the election. Over the last year, however, there’s been an effort to weaponize these offices.One of the first signs came a few months ago in Michigan. The Detroit News reported Republican officials there were nominating people who embraced the idea that the 2020 election was stolen to positions on local boards of canvassers, which play a central role in certifying election results.In Georgia, Republicans have quietly exerted more influence over local election boards across the state, removing Black Democrats from their roles. In addition to certifying election results, those local boards approve polling place locations and consider challenges to voter eligibility.And in Pennsylvania, there’s concern that election deniers are seeking positions as judges of elections. These officials are essentially in charge of the polling place in their precinct.Attacks on election officialsOver the last year, there’s been a surge in harassment against election officials, and many of them have left their jobs. Perhaps the most alarming example of this is happening in Wisconsin, where Republicans are launching an aggressive effort to oust Meagan Wolfe, the non-partisan administrator of the bipartisan body that oversees election in the state, from her role.Observers are deeply concerned. Running an election is an enormously complicated enterprise. Having deeply experienced people leave the field creates an opening for inexperienced, and potentially more partisan people, to fill that void.“Intimidating the professionals who run elections, saying elections are rigged orfraudulent, altering state laws to allow partisans, as opposed to professionals, the final say in who wins elections, will be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Ben Ginsberg, a longtime prominent GOP elections lawyer, said this week. “No one will have faith in elections.”Campaigns for secretary of stateAt the top of the election bureaucracy in most states is a secretary of state, the chief election official. These secretaries can act alone to automatically mail out absentee ballot applications, for instance, or implement rules around ballot drop boxes. Overlooked for years, these officials wield an enormous amount of unilateral power.“There is no one person who has as much authority [in] protecting the will of the people as the secretary of state,” Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, told me in an interview. “They can do enormous damage but they can also do enormous good.”Trump has endorsed candidates running for secretary of state in almost every swing state, including Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. All the candidates he has endorsed have supported the idea that the election was stolen.Last year, secretaries of state stood as bulwarks against Trump’s efforts to undermine the election. Officials like Benson debunked some of Trump’s wildest claims. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, refused to go along with Trump’s request to “find” more than 11,000 votes in Georgia and overturn the results.Lingering distrust in electionsThere is still a staggering number of people who remain unconvinced of the 2020 election results. A September CNN poll found 78% of Republicans do not believe Biden won.Trump’s baseless claims about the election have had an impact. And that’s deeply alarming – a functioning democracy depends on all voters, regardless of whether their candidate won or lost, accepting the results.Also worth watching …
      The Atlantic profiled Crystal Mason, the Texas woman sentenced to five years in prison for using a provisional ballot in 2016. Mason’s case, the profile points out, shows the devastating consequences of unfounded claims about fraud.
      BuzzFeed News has a great look at how election deniers are going door to door in some places across the country.
      Texas restarted an effort to remove non-citizens from its voting rolls, sparking concerns officials may be targeting eligible voters.
      TopicsRepublicansFight to voteUS politicsUS voting rightsfeaturesReuse this content More