Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Obama and Trump wade into key battle over Virginia’s governor seat

      by

      VirginiaObama and Trump wade into key battle over Virginia’s governor seat The race is unpredictable and tight, with former governor Terry McAuliffe up against Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin Edward HelmoreSat 16 Oct 2021 15.41 EDTLast modified on Sat 16 Oct 2021 15.43 EDTJoe Biden faces a key test of public standing in a tight and closely watched campaign for governor in Virginia next month. So important has the fight now become in being seen as a bellwether for the 2022 midterm elections, that two ex-presidents are weighing in on the battle.For Biden and the Democrats winning Virginia would hold out the prospect of keeping a grip on congress next year and avoiding being seen as a lame duck administration. For Republicans, a win could pre-sage a major comeback in 2022 and a return to electoral strength of a party still dominated by Donald Trump.The stakes are so high that both Trump and Barack Obama are intervening in the race.Why Virginia holds the key to the 2022 US midterms: Politics Weekly Extra podcastRead moreLast week, Trump called in to a gathering of Virginia supporters, urging them to vote for the Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, and calling him “a great gentleman”. Meanwhile, Obama will later this month arrive in the state to boost turnout among Black voters. “The stakes could not be greater,” Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe said, as he announced Obama’s campaign support on MSNBC last week.The proxies in the contest, McAuliffe, a former governor running for the job he held from 2014-18, and first-time Republican challenger Youngkin, are currently polling relatively closely at 48.5% and 46.4%, according FiveThirtyEight – making the race unpredictable and tight.The men are running to replace the state’s Democratic governor Ralph Northam who has been in the party’s political doghouse since 2019 when it was revealed his 1984 medical school yearbook page contained a photo of one person dressed as a member of the KKK and another in blackface impersonating an African American.The Virginia race comes against a backdrop of bad news for Biden, who has seen his popularity fall in the aftermath of the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and legislative gridlock on the main plans of his domestic agenda and growing uncertainty of post-pandemic economic recovery. His approval rating has sunk from 55% in March to about 44% now.But so, too, does the contest present a test for Trump, who lost Virginia by 10% in 2020, but is increasingly seen to be gauging his hold on the Republican party and its voters ahead of the midterms, which could then swing his decision to run for re-election in 2024.Nor is Trump’s intervention in the race a win-win for Youngkin. The two men are not likely to campaign in person as Youngkin must simultaneously appeal to pro-Trump rural voters, but not telegraph any association so blatantly that he turns off moderate Republican voters in Virginia’s Washington-centric northern suburbs where elections in the state are often decided.Bob Holsworth, a longtime political analyst in the state, told the Washington Post that if Trump were to hold a rally in the state, it would be a “disaster” for Youngkin. “The more he shows up and he more he participates, the worse off it is for Youngkin,” he added.But Trump countered that political wisdom with some of his own: “The only guys that win are the guys that embrace the Maga movement,” Trump said in an interview with conservative talkshow host John Fredericks. Instead of overtly embracing Trump, Youngkin has campaigned with Texas senator Ted Cruz and with former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. But he steered clear of an event hosted by Trump strategist Steve Bannon who may face contempt charges on Tuesday for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the 6 January Capitol riot. Youngkin was also careful to criticize the Bannon event’s use of a flag that had reportedly been flown at the 6 January insurrection.Youngkin’s hands-off, hands-on approach is also designed to not raise the hackles of relatively unengaged democratic support for McAuliffe, who has his own endorsement issues to deal with. For his part, Virginia’s former governor comes with the baggage of close ties to the Clintons, whose popularity among independents and left-wing Democrats is far from assured. Last month, Hillary Clinton, whose first, failed presidential nomination campaign was co-chaired by McAuliffe sent out a fundraising email. That was followed by a fundraising event hosted by Bill Clinton.But other Democratic heavy-weights are traveling to Virginia to soothe Democratic anxiety and try to propel McAuliffe’s campaign toward the decisive victory they need. Georgia Democratic star Stacey Abrams and Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and first lady Jill Biden are also expected in the state’s northern suburbs, while House speaker Nancy Pelosi plans a fundraiser.But Biden himself has and will likely remain absent from Virginia. Mirroring Youngkin’s relationship to Trump, McAuliffe and his aides have expressed fears over associating with Biden. McAuliffe recently described the president as “unpopular” in Virginia.McAuliffe has also indicated that legislative impasse in Washington is damaging to Democrats in the country at large. “Democrats have got to quit talking, and they’ve got to get something done,” McAuliffe told The Washington Post. “You got elected to get things done. We have the House, Senate and White House.”Hanging over Democratic heads are the memories of losing the midterm elections in 2010, a crushing defeat for Obama that was predicted when Democrats lost a Senate seat in Massachusetts while trying to push through a controversial healthcare reform bill. TopicsVirginiaUS politicsJoe BidenRepublicansDemocratsBarack ObamaDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

    • 213 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Surprised to see US Republicans cozying up to the European far right? Don’t be | Cas Mudde

      by

      OpinionUS politicsSurprised to see US Republicans cozying up to the European far right? Don’t beCas MuddeBefore Trump, only relatively fringe American conservatives had open connections to the international far right. Today, the ties have mainstreamed Fri 15 Oct 2021 06.15 EDTLast modified on Fri 15 Oct 2021 07.12 EDTThis weekend Texas senator Ted Cruz spoke about how “we all face the same challenges, including a bold and global left, that seeks to tear down cherished national and religious institutions”. Nothing to see here, you might think – except that he was not addressing a local branch of the Republican party in Texas, or a conservative US media outlet. He was speaking on screen to an audience of thousands in Madrid, at a meeting of the Spanish far-right party Vox. It was one of many recent outreaches to the global far right by US rightwing figures, which seem to have increased since the ouster of Donald Trump.Is the so-called “Populist International”, so often foretold but never realized, finally taking shape? And will the US conservative movement play a leading role in it? Or is this more about domestic politics than global domination?Unsurprisingly, given that the US conservative movement, like the Republican Party, covers a broad range of different shades of often far-right ideology, different people have spoken to different types of far-right groups. There are at least four major strands of far-right international networks in which US “conservatives” of all levels participate.The first and most important is the global Christian right. The US Christian right has long been a global player and has been particularly active in post-communist Europe – as is captured well in the Netflix series The Family. They have found influential supporters in Russian president Vladimir Putin and, more recently, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. It was at the latter’s invitation, at the bi-annual Budapest Demographic Summit in Budapest, that Mike Pence recently spoke, together with a broad variety of academics, church leaders and politicians from around the globe, including the French far-right maybe-presidential candidate Éric Zemmour.Budapest has also been the new promised land for the second strand, the so-called “national conservativism” movement – the brainchild of the Israeli think-tanker Yoram Hazony. National conservatism is a kind of far right for people who read, to put it dismissively – an attempt to merge the already ever-overlapping conservative and far-right ideologies and create a far-right movement fit for the cultural, economic and political elite. Tucker Carlson gave a keynote at a national conservatism summit in Washington DC in 2019 and recently took his Fox News show to Budapest, where he raved about Orbán and his regime. And the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is said to be hosting its 2022 meeting in Budapest too.The third strand is the long-standing connections between some far-right Republicans and the usual suspects of the European far right, like the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) or French National Rally (RN), which are built on a shared ideological core of nativism, authoritarianism and populism. Connections between the European far right and Republican members of Congress go back decades; think of people like Steve King, the Iowa Republican, and Dana Rohrabacher, the California Republican. They were fairly marginalized within the party – and both have, ironically, lost their seats in the Trump era. It was largely with these groups that Steve Bannon created “the Movement”, which never moved beyond media hype.And, finally, we have the party that Cruz sent a supportive video message to, Vox in Spain. Almost completely under the radar, Vox has been building a conservative-far right network in the Spanish-speaking world, partly facilitated by the party’s Dineso foundation. Focused mostly on Latin America – and piggybacking on the Latin American right’s long-standing fight against “communism” and for conservative Christianity – the foundation has published a “Charter of Madrid” signed by more than 100 politicians and political activists from Europe and the Americas, including US conservative activist Daniel Pipes (anti-Islam) and Grover Norquist (anti-tax), as well as a host of Latin American MPs. The particular meeting Cruz spoke to was attended by various European far-right leaders, including Giorgia Meloni of Brothers of Italy (FdI), currently the biggest party in the polls, and André Ventura of Chega in Portugal.Obviously, these international networks overlap on many issues, most notably in their common opposition to the “global left” but also, in different gradations, to immigration, Islam and “gender ideology”. But they also disagree on central issues, from the importance of religious doctrine to the role of Russia, and consequently have very different and shifting memberships. And they differ in the role of the US conservative movement within the network.With the exception of the Christian right, which has long dominated the global movement, the US does not play a leading role in these networks. Even the “national conservatism” network is run by an Israeli and increasingly funded by Hungarians. Moreover, the various US Republicans who have recently participated in these meetings seem to use their international connections more for domestic gains – most notably in the fight for the Republican nomination (should Donald Trump not run) – than for the sake of building a Populist International.This is not to say there is nothing new to recent developments. In the pre-Trump era, only relatively marginal rightwing conservatives and Republicans had open connections to the international far right. Today, the ties between the broader US conservative movement and the global far right have become mainstreamed, from the Republican party to National Review, with fewer and fewer dissenting voices. Still, steeped in US exceptionalism, the US conservative movement remains mostly inward-looking, using international connections and events primarily for national political struggles. And the Populist International is still more media hype than political reality.
      Cas Mudde is Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, the author of The Far Right Today (2019), and host of the podcast Radikaal. He is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionThe far rightRepublicansTed CruzcommentReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Why Virginia holds the key to the 2022 US midterms: Politics Weekly Extra podcast

      by

      This week Jonathan Freedland speaks to Jessica Taylor, of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. The pair discuss what the off-year gubernatorial elections coming up in a few weeks might tell us about Democrat and Republican chances in next year’s midterm elections

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: ABC News, Fox Business, NBC Washington, CNN Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The Senate’s findings on the last days of Trump’s presidency are grim. Will it matter?

      by

      OpinionTrump administrationThe Senate’s findings on the last days of Trump’s presidency are grim. Will it matter?Lloyd GreenDon’t expect the report to change minds: for Republicans, fealty to Trump is the acid test Tue 12 Oct 2021 06.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 12 Oct 2021 08.51 EDTLast week, the Senate’s judiciary committee released its staff report on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and bend the justice department to his will. Subverting Justice: How the Former President and his Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election lays out in grim detail the ex-reality show host’s concerted effort to weaponize the government’s legal machinery in his desperate bid to cling to power.One conclusion reads: “President Trump repeatedly asked DOJ leadership to endorse his false claims that the election was stolen and to assist his efforts to overturn the election results.” Another informs us that “Trump allies with links to the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement and the January 6 insurrection participated in the pressure campaign against DOJ.”As if we didn’t already know. Don’t expect the report to change hearts or minds.On a Saturday night visit to Iowa, Trump told the crowd that he had not conceded defeat. Indeed, one day later, Steve Scalise, the No 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, refused to say that the election wasn’t stolen. Trump has the Republicans in a hammerlock. The impact of the Senate report is likely to be negligible.Since Trump’s backers pillaged Congress back in January, the Republican party has selectively forgiven and forgotten. By the numbers, 57% of Republicans now believe “too much attention” has been paid to the 6 January riot. Only roughly a third of Republicans concede that storming the Capitol was about overturning the election. Too many Republicans still blame it on antifa.The new normal is neither particularly normal nor new. As America’s cold civil war continues, hyper-partisanship is the rule, not the exception. And among Republicans, fealty to Trump is the acid test.Look at Mike Pence, Trump’s hapless vice-president and an aspiring 2024 presidential nominee. Even after having been kicked to the curb by his former boss and targeted for hanging by Capitol rioters, Pence continues to play political lapdog.He is all too aware that Trump remains the Republican party’s boss and that his future rests in Trump’s hands. “I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administration’s failed agenda by focusing on one day in January,” Pence told Fox News.“One day in January” – really?Apparently, signs that screamed “Hang Mike Pence” were an illusion, as were the gallows near the Capitol. Then again, Pence’s brother Greg, a congressman from Indiana, voted against certifying the election despite his having seen first-hand what his sibling had endured.Although the report will not change the political landscape, it is likely to have real consequences for Jeffrey Clark, a former assistant attorney general and the most senior justice department official to plot with Trump. The report recommends that the DC bar’s disciplinary counsel “evaluate Clark’s conduct to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted”.Republicans overplayed their hand in California – and Democrats are laughing | Lloyd GreenRead moreIn plain English, the Senate’s Democrats are inviting the DC bar to strip Clark of his law license. Working for Trump frequently comes with a downside.Tellingly, the committee’s Republicans do not offer a particularly full-throated defense of Clark. Instead, Senator Charles Grassley, the committee’s ranking Republican, intimated that Clark had failed to receive sufficient due process. “Committee Democrats opted to release their report having not yet received requested government documents and having not yet heard from Jeffrey Clark,” Grassley said.Substantively, the Republican party appears ready to sacrifice Clark to spare Trump. The president “listened to all data points”, they wrote in a competing report, and the path advocated by Clark “would be rejected”. In all fairness, he wouldn’t be the first person to thrown in a front of the proverbial bus for the sake of a sitting president.Not surprisingly, where there’s a raging dumpster fire, Rudy Giuliani is close by.According to the committee, Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, asked the justice department to investigate a theory pushed by Giuliani known as “Italygate”, which “held that the Central Intelligence Agency and an Italian IT contractor used military satellites to manipulate voting machines and change Trump votes to Biden votes”.Let that sink in.As the Senate report recedes from the voters’ consciousness, expect the House’s investigation to emerge as a focal point for all things Trump, with the ex-president seeking to block the cooperation and testimony of his former aides, including Meadows, all in the run-up to the midterms.Beyond that, Trump is also invoking “executive privilege” to keep Steve Bannon, his 2016 campaign chairman, from testifying. To be sure, Bannon was not a member of the administration when 2021 rolled around. He had left the White House in the summer of 2017.Instead, Bannon was goading Trump, telling him, according to Peril, the latest Bob Woodward book, co-authored with Bob Costa: “People are going to go, What the fuck is going on here? We’re going to bury Biden on January 6th, fucking bury him … We’re going to kill it in the crib, kill the Biden presidency in the crib.”For the record, Bannon had previously suggested that Anthony Fauci’s head be severed from its body. Whether Bannon is found to be in criminal contempt for refusing to testify before Liz Cheney and others is a live question.The bottom line remains that Trump was never going quietly into the political night. Short of his own re-election, he viewed the process as “rigged” and “corrupt”.How the House and the courts handle all this remains to be seen. Right now, the broader public is far from riveted, and the Republicans are either on board with Trump or simply cowed.TopicsTrump administrationOpinionRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS SenatecommentReuse this content More