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      ‘Florida’s Trump’: DeSantis focusing on nonexistent issues as election looms, critics say

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      ‘Florida’s Trump’: DeSantis focusing on nonexistent issues as election looms, critics sayOpponents say the governor leans on ‘wokeness’ and culture war issues that are irrelevant to the real needs of Floridians There are still almost 10 months until Florida’s voters elect their next governor, but the campaign of the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, appears well under way.In a red-meat-for-the-base address at the opening of Florida’s legislature last week, themed around the concept of “freedom” but described by critics as a fanfare of authoritarianism, DeSantis gave a clear indication of the issues he believes are on voters’ minds. They include fighting the White House over Covid-19, ballot box fraud, critical race theory in schools and defunding law enforcement.Yet to opponents of the Donald Trump protege, who is tipped for his own presidential run in 2024, DeSantis has chosen to focus on problems that don’t exist in Florida, either to distract from real priorities or to bolster the Trumpist base and improve on his narrow victory over the Democrat Andrew Gillum in 2018.“We have real issues that need to be addressed, and the governor is chasing boogeymen,” said Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democratic state representative and frequent DeSantis critic.“We have an affordable housing crisis with exorbitant rent hikes of up to 30% that people can’t afford. We have surging property insurance rates. We have a healthcare crisis with 22,000 Floridians with disabilities who are on waitlist to get the services that they deserve.“And Governor DeSantis is focused on fighting ‘wokeness’ in the 2022 legislative session, with the Stop Woke Act. He wants to focus on fighting critical race theories in our schools. That does not exist. It’s not even a thing.”A wave of criticism followed DeSantis’s speech, which came at the start of a 60-day legislative session in Tallahassee during which Republicans will also pursue a Mississippi-style 15-week abortion ban under the guise of “reducing fetal and infant mortality”.DeSantis has said the proposal, which has no exception for rape or incest, is “very reasonable”.But it is his anti-mask approach to Covid-19, and his constant feuding with Joe Biden and Anthony Fauci, of which DeSantis appears most proud, lauding Florida as “the freest state” for his outlawing of “authoritarian, arbitrary and seemingly never-ending mandates”.“While so many around the country have consigned the people’s rights to the graveyard, Florida has stood as freedom’s vanguard,” DeSantis insisted. On Thursday, Florida’s death toll from Covid-19 surpassed 63,000.“Floridians are exhausted by the politicization of Covid-19,” Smith said. “They’re tired of fighting about masks, they’re tired of fighting about vaccines. And they’re tired of the governor continuing to focus on these culture wars that do nothing to promote the prosperity of our state.”It was the Omicron-fuelled surge pushing the state’s coronavirus numbers up by almost 950% that caused more controversy over the recent holidays, when critics accused DeSantis of being missing in action.The governor’s press team inadvertently added to the “Where’s Ron?” confusion by posting on social media two-week-old pictures of him at a bagel store, insisted it was his prerogative to take a few days off if he wanted, then regrouped to attack anybody who suggested he was taking a vacation.DeSantis reappeared after a 13-day absence to say he had been attending chemotherapy sessions with his wife, Casey, who has breast cancer.The first weeks of the new year, in which he will seek his second term, possibly as a springboard to a likely 2024 presidential run, were also bumpy. Nikki Fried, the Democratic Florida agriculture commissioner and potential opponent in November, accused the DeSantis administration of stockpiling about 1m Covid-19 tests in a warehouse as they expired, which state officials later admitted was true after earlier denials.And a planned press briefing in Jacksonville was abruptly postponed after the unseemly spectacle of a peaceful, disabled Black community activist led away in handcuffs and cited for trespass after asking to speak with DeSantis about his coronavirus policies.“No, this isn’t from 1955. This is from an hour ago. At the Governor’s press conference,” Democratic state congresswoman Michele Rayner tweeted, noting that Ben Frazier, founder of Jacksonville’s Northside Coalition, was also denied use of his electric scooter.“A Black man dared to refuse to leave until he met with the governor. From my understanding he wasn’t disrespectful. But you know Ronnie can’t handle criticism of any kind.”Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’s spokesperson, said in a statement that Frazier had a history of “disruptive behavior” and was trespassing “in a secured facility”, even though the meeting took place in a public building.Critics say that while DeSantis has been promoting the rights of citizens to make their own decisions, he has become increasingly authoritarian. He stripped local authorities of powers to instigate coronavirus mitigation efforts and banned school districts from imposing mask mandates.In south Florida in particular, schools say they are “struggling to cope” with staff shortages and student absences.A self-professed law-and-order governor, DeSantis has also offered unvaccinated cops a $5,000 bounty to relocate to Florida, and plans a state paramilitary force outside federal control. The former Florida governor Charlie Crist, another possible opponent in November, accused DeSantis of wanting his own “handpicked secret police”.Democrats, however, concede they face challenges in unseating DeSantis, a strong favorite for re-election in polls taken last year. Florida’s new restrictive voting rights law limits drop boxes and mail-in ballots, and Democrats have recently been overtaken by registered Republican voters for the first time.Analysts say DeSantis also has the advantage of a strong state economy, alongside his pugnacious style of leadership.“DeSantis is, to many Republicans, Florida’s incarnation of Donald Trump, his successor, his alter ego, his clone, whatever you want to call it,” said Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of government at the University of South Florida.“He’s certainly run very much in the style of Trump, this in-your-face, critical stance he has taken on a lot of issues, which have ingrained him with Republicans. But the GOP in Florida makes up a little less than 40% of the electorate, so to win a statewide race you need to appeal to the no-party-affiliated, independent voters.“How do you appeal to those when you run a campaign trying to bash other people in the face, so to speak? That can play well with your base but not so well especially with independents.”Paulson, however, sees an uphill battle for Democrats. “Every election cycle you’re really appealing to a completely new electorate. When you add in the elderly factor in Florida, people dying off and replaced by newcomers in the state and younger people, it’s hard to project how they’re going to align themselves,” he said.“Right now, the advantage is clearly Republican. But all sorts of things could quickly change. It could be a policy issue that emerges, or a politician that emerges, the two most important things to affect Florida politics.”TopicsRon DeSantisRepublicansUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      Attack, attack, attack: Republicans drive to make Biden the bogeyman

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      Attack, attack, attack: Republicans drive to make Biden the bogeyman The president has had to withstand a barrage from rightwingers – and for Republicans the formula might be workingIt seemed that Joe Biden would be bad for business in “Make America great again” world.In theory, the US president, a white man with working-class roots and moderate policy positions, was a more elusive target for Donald Trump’s increasingly extreme support base than other prominent Democrats.But after his first year in office, it transpires that Biden is not too boring to be a rightwing boogeyman after all.“He’s our best salesperson,” said Ronald Solomon, a merchandiser who sells a $21.99 T-shirt depicting the president with an Adolf Hitler-style mustache and the slogan “Not My Dictator”. “Sales for Trump stuff and anti-Biden merchandise is the highest it’s been except for the three months leading up to the 2020 election.”The demonization of Biden as a Hitler, Stalin or anti-white racist bears no relation to reality. But for many Republican voters it appears to stick, the product of relentless conservative media attacks, the president’s own missteps, and seething frustration during a seemingly never-ending pandemic.At first Biden did excite less animus than Barack Obama, the first Black president who was subjected to conspiracy theories about his birthplace and the rise of the populist Tea Party movement. Biden never had to go through the misogyny endured by Hillary Clinton.His policy record was also non-incendiary. When Trump supporters gathered at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference under the banner “America vs socialism”, the biggest hate figures were Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a liberal Latina from New York.Since moving into the White House, however, Biden has granted Sanders a prominent voice in shaping his policy agenda. The unexpected scale of the president’s ambition to spend trillions of dollars on coronavirus relief, the social safety net and the climate crisis has fed into a Republican narrative that he is a puppet of the radical left.And although Biden’s identity as a white man neutralised other “isms”, he cannot escape ageism. At 79, he is the oldest American president in history, his every verbal slip seized upon as cause to doubt his mental fitness. Last May, Fox News host Sean Hannity displayed a sippy cup with the presidential seal on it, floating the nickname “Sippy Cup Joe”.In August, Tucker Carlson told viewers of the same network: “Maybe the most important thing we’ve learned is that Joe Biden is not capable of running the country. Joe Biden is senile.” (Such commentators rarely note that Mitch McConnell, Republican minority leader in the Senate, is also 79.)Another popular line of attack is to compare Biden to Jimmy Carter, whose presidency in the 1970s ended in failure after one term. “Joe Biden Is Jimmy Carter 2.0,” said one such press release from the Republican National Committee. “On Joe Biden’s watch, America is grappling with a gas crisis, record-breaking inflation, weak leadership abroad, and Americans trapped behind enemy lines, all reminiscent of the Jimmy Carter years.”But there is no greater symbol of anti-Biden sentiment than “Let’s go Brandon”, a phrase that originated at a Nascar race in Alabama in October. Brandon Brown, a 28-year-old driver, had won his first Xfinity Series and was being interviewed by an NBC Sports reporter.The crowd behind him was chanting something that at first was hard to hear. The reporter suggested they were saying “Let’s go, Brandon!” to support the driver. But it became increasingly clear they were chanting, “Fuck Joe Biden!” So it was that “Let’s go, Brandon” became conservative code for insulting the president and went viral.On a Southwest flight from Houston to Albuquerque, the pilot signed off his greeting over the public address system with the phrase, leaving some passengers aghast. On Christmas Eve, when Biden fielded a few phone calls to the Norad Santa Tracker, Jared Schmeck, a Trump supporter from Oregon, said: “Merry Christmas and let’s go, Brandon!”Speaking from Las Vegas, Solomon, president of the Maga Mall, said he has a line of “Let’s go, Brandon” merchandise including banners, buttons, T-shirts for men and women and hats in four different colors. “One, it’s an attack on the mainstream media: this gal from NBC Sports immediately tried to make it like they were saying something that they weren’t,” he explained.“Two, it’s a way for Republicans that don’t want to use a four-letter word to have a chance to say something that attacks the president of the United States, who they can’t stand any more.”In a nod to the Trump base, Republican senator Ted Cruz posed with a “Let’s go, Brandon” sign at baseball’s World Series. McConnell’s press secretary retweeted a photo of the phrase on a construction sign in Virginia. Congressman Jeff Duncan of South Carolina wore a “Let’s go, Brandon” face mask at the US Capitol. Jim Lamon, a Senate candidate from Arizona, used the slogan a TV campaign ad.Critics point out that goading, provoking and outraging their opponents, known as “owning the libs”, has become the defining principle of a Republican party that lacks a coherent ideology of its own. McConnell reportedly told donors last month that he would not be putting forward a legislative agenda for November’s midterm elections because he was content to merely hammer away at Democrats.But with Biden’s approval rating hovering in the low 40s, and his Build Back Better agenda stalled in Congress, the Republican formula might be working.John Zogby, a pollster and author, said: “They have made significant inroads into demonizing him. In the beginning, of course, it was hard. He was a softer target, he was Uncle Joe, he had a high favorability rating and he’d been around a long time.“But definitely in the second half of this first year, the almost-mantras of the Republican party have gained hold: he’s too old, he’s a socialist, and then this whole ‘Let’s go, Brandon’ thing. Plus the fact that they’ve been able to successfully block the bigger initiatives so not only a socialist, but a socialist who can’t succeed, is the message.”Barbs and brickbats aimed at a Democratic president are hardly new. Before Obama there was Bill Clinton, who drew his share of rancor, vitriol and baseless conspiracy theories. In today’s hyper-polarized Washington, inflamed by social media, the incumbent can expect to have everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them.Allan Lichtman, a distinguished history professor at American University in Washington, said: “As long as you have the capital D as your political designation, you are a target for the Republicans. It doesn’t matter if you are a leftwing or moderate Democrat – it makes absolutely no difference.“Bill Clinton was a centrist. He was the head of the Democratic Leadership Council, dedicated to moving the Democrats to the centre, and yet they relentlessly attacked him, even impeached him. Republicans will oppose essentially anything that a Democratic president proposes and relentlessly attack them.”Others argue that Biden has done Republicans’ work for them with a botched Afghanistan withdrawal, a crisis at the southern border, the highest inflation for 40 years and an inability to curb the pandemic. The president’s newly aggressive stance on voting rights and safeguarding democracy has also rallied Republicans against him.Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and strategist, said: “Incredibly, Joe Biden has a worse approval rating at this point than Donald Trump did and it’s not because of Republican critiques. It’s because of Biden’s failures.“He’s failed to communicate effectively. He’s failed to try to bridge the gap; in fact, he’s been promoting greater division. He’s promised too much on Covid and hasn’t delivered. And nothing bothers people more than rising prices because that affects everyone, whether you are working class, middle class or somewhat affluent.”TopicsUS newsRepublicansUS politicsJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Glenn Youngkin attempts to ban critical race theory on day one as Virginia governor

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      Glenn Youngkin attempts to ban critical race theory on day one as Virginia governorNewly elected Republican unveils sweeping conservative orders, including loosening public health mandates during the pandemic Virginia’s newly elected Republican governor has immediately passed a swath of conservative orders – ranging from attempts to alter local school curriculums to loosening public health mandates during the pandemic – after being sworn into office on Saturday.Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity CEO who has never served in public office before, became the state’s first Republican governor since 2010 after a closely watched gubernatorial election last year.The 55 year-old placed the issue of critical race theory (CRT) at the centre of his campaign, capitalizing on a conservative backlash against the discipline and pledging to ban teaching of it in Virginia’s schools. Critical race theory is an academic practice that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society.The fight to whitewash US history: ‘A drop of poison is all you need’ Read moreOn Saturday, after taking the oath of office, Youngkin unveiled a list of nine executive orders and two executive directives, with the first on the list described as a directive to “restore excellence in education by ending the use of divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory, in public education”.The order lists 13 instructions, many directed to the state’s school superintendent, who has been tasked with reviewing the state’s curriculum and policies within the department of education, to identify “inherently divisive concepts”. The order also bans an executive employee from “directing or otherwise compelling students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere to inherently divisive concepts”.The order does not define “divisive concepts” but cites critical race theory as an example.At least 22 other states have moved towards imposing limits on the teaching of critical race theory in recent months, as rightwing media in the US continues to fuel disinformation about the teaching of the previously little-known discipline.Despite the sweeping and ambiguous language, the governor’s power to intervene in local school districts is limited. And although Virginia’s general assembly has the power to compel school boards to adopt specific policy via legislation, state Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, meaning new laws are unlikely.From viral videos to Fox News: how rightwing media fueled the critical race theory panicRead moreOn Saturday, senior state Democrats told local media they planned to block much of the new governor’s agenda.The sweeping executive orders also included loosening of public health mandates, aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19 during the coronavirus pandemic. Youngkin’s second order eliminated mask ordinances for pupils in the state’s schools, while his last executive directive abolished vaccine mandates for state employees.Like many other areas of the US, Virginia continues to see a surge in Covid cases as the omicron variant rips through the country. Cases are up 288% in comparison to last winter’s surge, according to the New York Times. The current seven day positivity rate sits at over 35%, according to the state health department.15,803 have died in the state from the virus since the pandemic began.TopicsVirginiaRepublicansUS politicsCoronavirusUS educationnewsReuse this content More

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

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

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

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

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      Republican school bill mocked for claim Frederick Douglass debated Lincoln

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

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

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

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

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