Republicans

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      ‘I need a drink’ after Republican talks, says officer beaten in Capitol attack

      by

      A Washington police officer who suffered a heart attack and a brain injury after being beaten by Trump supporters during the deadly Capitol attack emerged from meeting House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy on Friday to tell reporters: “I need a drink.”“This experience for me is not something that I enjoy doing,” Michael Fanone said. “I don’t want to be up here on Capitol Hill. I want to be with my daughters.”Ten Republicans in the House voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the attack on 6 January. But Trump was acquitted in the Senate and under McCarthy the House caucus has remained in line behind the former president and his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.Fanone, of the Washington Metropolitan police, rushed to the Capitol when the mob attacked. Beaten and hit with a stun gun, he has since become a leading voice seeking accountability.He visited McCarthy on Friday with Harry Dunn, a member of the US Capitol police, and Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Brian Sicknick, a Capitol police officer who died after the attack.Fanone said he asked the minority leader to “denounce the 21 House Republicans that voted against the gold medal bill”, a move by Congress to recognise the bravery of those who fought to defend it.He also said he asked McCarthy to publicly disavow a comment by Andrew Clyde, a congressman from Georgia who claimed the mob were as well-behaved as tourists.“I found those remarks to be disgusting,” said Fanone, who said earlier this month Clyde refused to talk to him when confronted on Capitol Hill.“I also asked [McCarthy] to publicly denounce the baseless theory that the FBI was behind the 6 January insurrection,” Fanone said.Tucker Carlson, a primetime Fox News host, is among those who have spread that conspiracy theory.McCarthy “said he would address it at a personal level, with some of those members,” Fanone said. “I think that as the leader of the House Republican party, it’s important to hear those denouncements publicly.”McCarthy did not comment. Earlier in the week, the minority leader said Fanone had not attempted to schedule a meeting. Fanone said that was “bullshit”.Some rioters sought lawmakers, including then Vice-President Mike Pence, to capture or kill. Some brought weapons and explosives to Washington. This week the attorney general, Merrick Garland, said 500 people have been arrested. Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said there are “hundreds more investigations still ongoing”.Nonetheless, last month Senate Republicans blocked the formation of an independent, 9/11-style investigatory commission. On Thursday Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker, said she would form a select committee.Dunn told reporters McCarthy “did commit to taking [the committee] serious, once he heard from the speaker about it”.Fanone said he saw his efforts “as an extension of my service on 6 January”. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Kamala Harris takes heat from both sides in daunting border visit

      by

      The sun beat down on the 30ft border fence that separates El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as temperatures headed towards 100F on the southern border that stands as a symbol for so much in American politics.The heat was also on for Vice-President Kamala Harris, who was making her first trip to the border since being tasked with immigration policy by Joe Biden more than three months ago.It is not an easy job. She was handed one of the toughest issues in American politics and one that has plagued successive American presidents for several decades, no matter what political party was occupying the White House.Criticism for Harris came from both sides of the political aisle for the length of time it took her to make the trip on Friday. More attacks came from Donald Trump, who had accepted an offer from Texas’ rightwing governor Greg Abbott to tour the border ahead of an attempt by Republican-run Texas to fund the completion of a border wall. “If Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!” Trump said.But Trump’s criticism of Harris was hardly the only voice raised against her as she seeks to come to grips with immigration and border security. She was also criticized by immigration activists and many on the left of the Democratic party for the message she delivered during an early June visit to Guatemala.“Do not come. Do not come,” she said. “I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back.”The blunt message was ill-received by those who pointed out that Harris’ parents were also immigrants.“[Her comments] reinforced the years of attacks on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers by the previous administration,” said Dylan Corbett, the director of a local non-profit organization that focuses on immigration policies and aiding migrants in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. “The message should be: ‘How can we, together, build a future where your children don’t have to migrate?’”After touring a border patrol facility to kick off her visit, Harris made an unannounced stop at the Paso Del Norte port of entry, a busy international bridge that connects the downtown centers of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.While there, she met with five girls detained at the bridge’s processing center, aged between nine and 16 and all from Central America. The meeting was closed to the press, but her office described the meeting as positive, with the girls calling Harris an inspiration and drawing photos for her.Approximately 1,600 children just like those girls are being housed in shelters at the US army’s Fort Bliss in El Paso, according to US media, where there are lengthy stays, poor conditions and infrequent meetings with lawyers.But a visit to the controversial shelter on Fort Bliss was not part of the vice-president’s visit, despite the announcement of an investigation of the housing for migrant children.Across the street from her meeting with the girls, a small group of immigration advocates chanted from the corner, “Si, se puede!” after Harris left. She headed back to the airport, where she met with the leaders of immigrants rights organizations. The focus of their discussion was reported as the root causes and drivers of immigration to the United States.Behind the talk, though, is a brutal reality.The trip from Central America for many immigrants is long and potentially lethal, especially for children. There are deaths from heat stroke as migrants trek through triple-digit desert heat, or fall from the 30ft high border wall already in place in high-traffic areas along the international line.Migrants who survive that fall are just a few of the people who are taken to a local non-profit organization, Annunciation House, which operates as a network of shelters, helping to connect migrants with family in the States and legal representation for asylum cases.The injuries range from fractured ankles to head injuries that have left a woman quadriplegic, according to the director of Annunciation House, Ruben Garcia.“We have such little appreciation for what they’re risking to be safe, to put food on the table,” Garcia said. “These people aren’t coming here because they want to put jacuzzis in their houses.”Nor is getting to the border, or even across it, the end of the story. Should migrants survive the trip from their home countries, through Mexico and across the border into the US, in most cases, they are not currently allowed to stay in the US, even when seeking asylum.Nearly 100,000 migrants have been expelled from El Paso, Texas, into Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, since October, according to data provided by the border patrol. The expulsions are still taking place under a policy known as Title 42, implemented by the Trump administration. Thus far, Title 42 has been kept in place by the Biden administration despite outcry from immigration organizations.“The expulsions under Title 42 are still rampant,” Garcia said.The policy falls under the umbrella of public health and was implemented as a response to Covid-19. “We all know it had nothing to do with the pandemic, it had to do with immigration control,” Garcia said. “I tell people: Donald Trump did get his wall. It’s called Title 42.”There was little sign Harris planned to end that. Nor is there much doubt that the debate over immigration and the border in the US will remain toxic after a Trump era when many Republicans – including the former president – made openly racist statements about immigrants.“In the United States, there is an incredibly significant population that doesn’t want you, they speak extremely derogatorily about you,” said Garcia. “They wouldn’t care if you die on the way, they wouldn’t care if you fell off the wall and broke your back.”Harris sought to draw a little of that poison on her trip. “Let’s not lose sight that we’re talking about human beings,” she said.After meeting with Harris, Linda Rivas, the executive director of Las Americas, a non-profit organization that provides legal representation during immigration processes, said she was grateful to share the stories of her clients with the vice-president but also called for more action. “The Biden-Harris administration must improve the asylum process and end the cruel border policies that ripped families apart,” Rivas said.But as the policy debate continues and Harris mulls her next steps, the heat is unlikely to relent – either in US politics or at the sweltering border itself.In a statement last week, US Customs and Border Protection described crossing the border in the desert in the summer. “The terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving,” it said.At the moment, not much looks likely to change that. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      How Mitch McConnell has unified Republicans as a red wall against Biden’s agenda

      by

      It was a glimpse of Washington past. Beneath the vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows of the national cathedral, Joe Biden greeted Mitch McConnell and other senators in the pews, then offered a hymn to bipartisanship.“Empathy is the fuel of democracy,” the US president told mourners on Wednesday at the funeral of John Warner, a Republican senator he praised for working across the aisle. “The willingness to see each other as opponents, not as enemies. Above all, to see each other as fellow Americans even when we disagree.”It was a reminder on a grand stage of Biden’s strength as a consoler and uniter but left questions about his stomach as a fighter unanswered. Less than 24 hours earlier, McConnell had proved the nemesis of the president’s agenda by scuttling one of his top priorities.Fifty Republicans united to use a Senate procedure known as the filibuster to prevent debate on Democratic legislation to protect voting rights and safeguard American democracy. Biden, so compassionate from the pulpit, was accused by progressives of failing to use his bully pulpit, allowing McConnell to declare a cynical victory.The Senate minority leader had previously marshaled his red wall to halt a measure addressing the pay gap between men and women and stop a bipartisan effort to create a commission to investigate the deadly insurrection by Donald Trump supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January. He further warned that he would block a Biden supreme court nominee if a vacancy opened in 2024 – and perhaps even in 2023. Indeed, McConnell, 79, is offering a masterclass in the intransigence, wiliness and brutal obstructionism that he perfected in opposing the Barack Obama administration, earning nicknames such as “Dr No” and “Grim Reaper”.Ed Rogers, a political consultant who has known the Kentucky senator for 30 years, said: “Mitch McConnell is one of the few people in Washington that always has a plan. He isn’t making it up as he goes along.”For the obstructionist strategy to work, McConnell must keep in line a Senate caucus that ranges from moderate to far right and bitterly disagrees on some topics. Seven voted with Democrats to convict Trump at his impeachment trial in February; most remained fiercely loyal to the former president.McConnell himself observed recently: “100% of my focus is on standing up to this administration. What we have in the United States Senate is total unity from Susan Collins to Ted Cruz in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country.”Republican infighting will not end any time soon, but McConnell will have welcomed a recent shift in media attention to Biden’s own unwieldy coalition, which spans progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders and conservatives such as Senator Joe Manchin.Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said: “Right now I think the Republicans are definitely the more united of the two parties and the Democrats at a certain point are going to boil over because while the first big bill [coronavirus relief] went fine, everything since has not.”In a Senate evenly divided between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, McConnell’s best friend is the filibuster, which can block bills that fail to muster 60 voters. He effectively has veto power over any Biden legislation that falls outside budget reconciliation, including gun control, police reform, voting rights and sex discrimination.Sabato added: “As long as they keep the filibuster, he’s guaranteed to succeed. I can’t find 10 Republicans who will break with McConnell on anything. They wouldn’t break with him on a weather report.”McConnell, whose memoir is titled The Long Game, has led his party in the Senate since 2007, sometimes leading the majority, at other times the minority. It might be argued that the latter role, blocking rather than building, finds him truly in his element.Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “McConnell has always been superb at marshaling unanimity and he’s always been superb at what I analogise to playing black in chess: he’s very good at blocking initiative.”McConnell had to contend with the restive tea party during the Obama era. Now there is an even bigger challenge after his very public falling out with Trump, whom he said was “practically and morally responsible” for the mob violence on 6 January. The ex-president, who continues to dominate and and disrupt the party, restarts campaign rallies on Saturday.But Olsen, author of The Working Class Republican, suggests that the Grim Reaper and loose cannon of Trump can coexist. “It would be one thing if Trump were trying to actively provide guidance on issues in Congress but when Trump bothers to talk about anything other than his cauldron of grievances, he’s in line with what McConnell wants to do, which is oppose the Democrats’ agenda,” he explained.“So there’s no conflict. Trump is interested in politics and attention but not in policy. That gives McConnell a very free hand and, when Trump bothers to talk about policy at all, he’s not saying anything that other Republicans don’t agree with.”Biden claimed a bipartisan win on Thursday when a group of 10 senators reached agreement on a $1.2tn framework to invest in the country’s bridges, roads and other physical infrastructure. But McConnell again rained on the parade, warning that Democrats must guarantee not to unwind Republicans’ 2017 tax bill to pay for it. “That’s our one red line,” he told Fox News.His defenders point to bipartisan cooperation ranging from more than $3tn in pandemic relief last year to investments in science and technology for competition with China to the creation of a public holiday for Juneteenth. Yet his maneuvering to rally Senate Republicans to thwart the White House could prove more decisive in next year’s midterm elections.Antonia Ferrier, who was a spokesperson for McConnell from 2015 to 2019, said: “He’s very clear eyed in his understanding where things are going to go. People are lucky if they can see one step ahead. He has a tendency to be able to see five, six, seven steps ahead and I think that’s why he doesn’t have to exert undue pressure on his colleagues.”McConnell poses less of a roadblock to the Biden agenda than his own side, argues Ferrier, who now works in strategic communications.“When you have a 50-50 Senate with the vice president casting a tie breaking vote and you have the smallest House majority since before world war two, you’re in a situation where Democrats are going to be the biggest challenge to the Biden agenda.”“You’ve got moderate Democrats from swing districts to hard core progressives to senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. It’s going to be more of a challenge for Democrats themselves than anything else and I think they’re grappling with that right now. If you happen to be a Republican, why get in the way when Democrats are going to be their own worst enemies on this?”Some commentators, however, point out that even as McConnell strives to restore respectability to Republicans, this is still Trump’s party, its brand tarnished by racial divisiveness, voter suppression and baseless conspiracy theories.Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: “McConnell is trying to get the business community and business owners back in their camp in terms of contributions and money and support. He’s trying to rebuild that more traditional Republican base, particularly with money, going into 2022.“The problem for him is that they don’t want anything to do with Trump or QAnon or white supremacists and I don’t think the Republicans have succeeded yet in separating. The Achilles heel of the Republican party right now is the same thing that gives them some popular momentum. They’re going into a midterm where suburban voters, who are so key, have rejected Donald Trump and want nothing to do with him.” More

    • 213 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22 and a half years for murder of George Floyd – latest news

      by

      Key events

      Show

      3.55pm EDT
      15:55

      Chauvin given 22 and a half years for George Floyd murder

      1.42pm EDT
      13:42

      Health secretary ordered to investigate Fort Bliss migrant children complaints

      1.28pm EDT
      13:28

      Charges possible in Trump Organization investigation – report

      12.50pm EDT
      12:50

      Republican congressman compares Democrats to Nazis

      12.17pm EDT
      12:17

      DoJ sues over Georgia voting rights measure – full report

      12.05pm EDT
      12:05

      Georgia governor slams DoJ voting rights lawsuit

      11.10am EDT
      11:10

      Justice Department sues Georgia over voting law

      Live feed

      Show

      5.43pm EDT
      17:43

      Gabrielle Canon here, taking over from the west coast for the evening.
      Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has tweeted his reaction to the Chavin sentence it “historic” but agreeing with others that more needs to be done.
      “This is a positive step toward justice, but our work is not done. We’ve known all along that accountability in the courtroom is not enough,” he says.

      Governor Tim Walz
      (@GovTimWalz)
      Today, Judge Cahill gave Derek Chauvin a historic sentence. This is a positive step toward justice, but our work is not done. We’ve known all along that accountability in the courtroom is not enough. https://t.co/mlLijFciIf

      June 25, 2021

      “The statements today from George Floyd’s family and members of the community were painful but powerful,” he continues. “Now, as Derek Chauvin faces years behind bars, we must come together around our common humanity and continue on towards justice for all”.
      The stataement echoed the statement the governor issued on April 20, when Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, when he said that systemic change was needed to prevent this from happening again.
      Here is more from his statement in April:

      “Too many Black people have lost—and continue to lose—their lives at the hands of law enforcement in our state.”
      “Our communities of color cannot go on like this. Our police officers cannot go on like this. Our state simply cannot go on like this. And the only way it will change is through systemic reform.”
      “We must rebuild, restore, and reimagine the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve. We must tackle racial inequities in every corner of society—from health to home ownership to education. We must come together around our common humanity.”
      “Let us continue on this march towards justice.”

      Updated
      at 5.47pm EDT

      5.27pm EDT
      17:27

      Evening summary

      That’s it for me. Here’s a recap of what happened today:

      Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the death of George Floyd.
      Here’s Joe Biden responding to the ruling.
      The UFO report is out.
      Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida addressed the building collapse and efforts by rescue workers there.
      The Manhattan district attorney informed attorneys for Donald Trump that criminal charges could be filed against the family business.

      5.13pm EDT
      17:13

      Here’s Al Sharpton reacting to the ruling. Like Ellison, he said the ruling was not enough. Sharpton noted that the ruling is “longest sentence they’ve ever given but it is not justice. Justice is George Floyd would be alive.”

      ABC News
      (@ABC)
      Rev. Al Sharpton on Derek Chauvin 22.5-year sentence: “Had they done sentences like this before, maybe Chauvin would not have thought he would have gotten away with it.” https://t.co/IuuRKnTv3s pic.twitter.com/vw7mGKzXvh

      June 25, 2021

      5.06pm EDT
      17:06

      Some reaction from various corners of Twitter to the Chauvin ruling:

      Jemele Hill
      (@jemelehill)
      If you’re wondering if Derek Chauvin’s sentence is fair, Chauvin will be 60 years old when he’s released from prison after serving 15 years of his 22 1/2-year sentence. George Floyd was murdered by Chauvin when he was 46. Floyd can never resume his life. Chauvin can.

      June 25, 2021

      Meena Harris
      (@meena)
      Just a reminder that Chauvin being sentenced to 22 years in prison is not justice. George Floyd being alive today — along with countless other black people murdered by the police — is justice. There’s no achieving justice from a system that is fundamentally unjust.

      June 25, 2021

      W. Kamau Bell
      (@wkamaubell)
      White people, do not celebrate Derek Chauvin’s sentence. Figure out how you can put the same attention & activism on all police murders of Black people that you put on George Floyd. Your work is not done.

      June 25, 2021

      Harry Litman
      (@harrylitman)
      Presumptive sentence for the crime for a person of Chauvin’s criminal history is 12.5 years. So in effect Judge Cahill imposed an additional 10 years for the aggravating factors. Remember, Chauvin waived his right for a jury to determine & probably jury would have found even more

      June 25, 2021

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      My colleague Adam Gabbatt had a long dispatch about the UFO report:

      The mystery of UFOs seen in American skies is likely to continue following the release of the US government’s highly anticipated UFO report.
      The report released Friday afternoon made clear that while American intelligence officials do not believe aliens are behind the UFOs – or what scientists prefer to call unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) – that were observed by Navy pilots, they cannot explain what the flying objects are.
      The report confirms that the observed phenomena are not part of any US military operations.
      The Pentagon studied over 140 incidents reported by Navy pilots of UFOs seen over the last two decades for the report, many of which were seen during the summer of 2014 into the spring of 2015.
      The release of the report caps a six-month wait, since a group of elected officials succeeded in including the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021 in a $2.3tn coronavirus relief bill signed by Donald Trump last December.
      The act ordered government agencies to provide a declassified “detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data and intelligence” and “a detailed description of an interagency process” for reporting UFOs.
      The discussion of UFOs – at government level or outside it – has been stigmatized for decades. While some have used the UAP materials as fodder for theories on alien life, officials have pointed to the possible threat of the UAPs being from an adversary using technology unknown to the US.

      4.50pm EDT
      16:50

      The much-awaited (at least to me) Director of National Intelligence report on UFOs is here. Read it.

      4.41pm EDT
      16:41

      Joe Biden was asked about his reaction to the Chauvin ruling. Here’s the pool report:

      Question: Do you have a reaction to Derek Chauvin being sentenced to 22.5 years in prison?
      Biden: “I don’t know all the circumstances that were considered but it seems to me, under the guidelines, that seems to be appropriate.”
      Thanks to the AP’s Darlene Superville for lending a good recording of the quote.
      More quotes coming.

      The Recount
      (@therecount)
      President Biden reacts to Derek Chauvin sentence of 22.5 years, saying “that seems to be appropriate.” pic.twitter.com/hNGv84W1LY

      June 25, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.51pm EDT

      4.32pm EDT
      16:32

      Oliver Laughland

      Just before sentencing Derek Chauvin to 22 and a half years, judge Cahill, known as a forthright and relatively brusque jurist, stated he had written a lengthy, 26 page sentencing memo to explain his thinking on the sentence, which is 10 years above the state guidance for second degree murder. “What the sentence is not based on is emotion or sympathy, but at the same time I want to acknowledge the deep and tremendous pain families are feeling, especially the Floyd family,” Cahill told the court.
      The document itself is filled with a lot legal reasoning, but the conclusion is worth reporting here as it’s a neat summary of Cahill’s thinking.
      He writes: “Part of the mission of the Minneapolis police department is to give citizens ‘voice and respect’. Here, Mr Chauvin, rather than pursuing the MPD mission, treated Mr Floyd without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings and which he certainly would have extended to a friend or neighbor. In the court’s view, 270 months, which amounts to an additional 10 years over the presumptive 150 month sentence, is the appropriate sentence.”

      Updated
      at 4.36pm EDT

      4.17pm EDT
      16:17

      Here is the sentencing order on the Chauvin ruling in the Floyd case.

      4.16pm EDT
      16:16

      Attorney Ben Crump has also responded to the ruling.

      Ben Crump
      (@AttorneyCrump)
      22.5 YEARS! This historic sentence brings the Floyd family and our nation one step closer to healing by delivering closure and accountability.

      June 25, 2021

      4.15pm EDT
      16:15

      Ellison continues: “My hope for Derek Chauvin is that he uses his long sentence to reflect on the choices he made … my hope is that he takes the time to learn something about the man whose life he took.”
      Ellison is going on to say the sentencing “is not enough”.

      Updated
      at 4.19pm EDT

      4.14pm EDT
      16:14

      Ellison is now speaking.
      “The sentence that the court just imposed on Derek Chauvin … is one of the longest a former police officer has ever received for an unlawful use of deadly force,” Ellison said. “Today’s sentencing is not justice but it’s another moment of real accountability on the road to justice.”

      Updated
      at 4.19pm EDT

      4.12pm EDT
      16:12

      Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota is about to speak about the ruling and Derek Chauvin’s sentencing. More

    • 225 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Critical race theory’ is the right’s new bogeyman. The left must not fall for it | Cas Mudde

      by

      There is a specter haunting America – the specter of critical race theory. That, at least, is the impression you would get from rightwing media. Fox News has mentioned the term close to 1,300 times since March – including almost 250 times last week alone.If you don’t know, critical race theory (CRT) is a school of legal thought that argues that racism is not only a problem of prejudices held by individual human beings, but a structural problem that can be embedded in ostensibly neutral laws and government institutions. Thanks in part to efforts by conservative activists to turn this previously esoteric academic idea into a catch-all phrase for the excesses of anti-racist politics, critical race theory has become an overnight bogeyman of the right. Conservative politicians in at least 20 states are pushing legislation to ban its teaching in schools.Rather than critically engaging with critical race theory, rightwing politicians and media outlets prefer to attack a carefully constructed straw man version – transforming “the academic study of structural racism into a vague grab-bag of villainy”, in the words of the New Republic’s Alex Shepard. Just as conservatives attacked anything to the left of the far right as “communist” during the red scare of the 1960s, reactionaries today denounce anything with a whiff of anti-racism as “critical race theory” or “wokeness” run amok.It makes sense that a conservative movement that has connected its fate to Donald Trump and a white supremacist agenda would see anything that criticizes the racist structures of the country as a major threat. What is more puzzling, at least at first glance, is the ire that critical race theory has also drawn from some leftwing and liberal camps. Some liberal media outlets seem almost as obsessed as conservatives are with critical race theory, “cancel culture”, “identity politics” and the like – phenomena which they treat as interchangeable symptoms of the same political malaise. Just look at the onslaught of critical pieces about identity politics and “wokeness” in the opinion pages of the New York Times over the past several years.In the eyes of some liberals and leftists, perhaps most famously personified by the academic Mark Lilla, emphasizing race and racism distracts from the real progressive struggle between labor and capital. Across the western world, mostly old white men are lining up to warn us that the “working class” (read: nativist white workers) feels betrayed by center-left parties that cater to “cosmopolitans” or “urbanites” with “symbolic” politics about issues such as gender-neutral bathrooms, rather than offer real material remedies on traditional bread-and-butter issues.Unfortunately, some younger liberals share the older left’s reflexive hostility to racial and sexual politicsWhat they do not see – or do not want to see – is that economic issues and cultural issues are not neatly separated; if anything, they are intimately intertwined, and always have been. Nostalgia for the golden age of progressivism (the early 20th century in the US, and the 1960s and 1970s in western Europe) ignores that the social democratic welfare state was built on heteronormativity, patriarchy and white supremacy. Many state provisions were provided on the basis of a “traditional” family model, in which the man was the main or sole breadwinner and the woman took care of the kids. And white workers were able to achieve upward mobility in part because immigrants replaced them in less desirable, lower-paid jobs.Unfortunately, some younger liberals, often self-described centrists or classical liberals, share the older left’s reflexive hostility to racial and sexual politics and what they view as excessive radicalism. Take Persuasion, a relatively new online publication created by Yascha Mounk, who made his name as a fervent critic of rightwing populism and Donald Trump. In many ways, the publication is a typical product of the Trump era, set up to “defend the values of a free society” against Trump. But from the beginning the bulk of Persuasion’s articles have focused on criticizing the left, whether in the forms of unduly “woke” Americans or the nominally socialist authoritarian regime of Venezuela. The far right, including the Trumpist Republican party, increasingly seems like an afterthought.Anti-identity-politics leftists and liberals must stop acting as the useful idiots of the far right by advancing its pet issues and terminology. These campaigns against anti-racism might look ridiculous on Fox News, but they have real consequences in legislatures and statehouses across the country, where Republican politicians are using the bogeyman of critical race theory and identity politics to ram reactionary rhetoric into law. Coast to coast, Republican lawmakers have unleashed the most profound attack on democracy that this country has seen in decades. Leftists and liberals must recognize that the true enemy of both the working class and free society is on the right, and that its threat is still at least as serious as it was in 2016.
      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 More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden reaches bipartisan infrastructure deal after meeting with senators

      by

      Joe Biden announced on Thursday that “we have a deal”, signaling a bipartisan agreement on a $953bn infrastructure plan that would achieve his top legislative priority and validate his efforts to reach across the political aisle.Biden made a surprise appearance in front of the cameras with members of the group of senators, Republicans and Democrats, after an agreement was reached on Thursday. Details of the deal were scarce to start, but the pared-down plan, with $559bn in new spending, has rare bipartisan backing and could open the door to the president’s more sweeping $4tn proposals later on.The president said not everyone got what they wanted and that other White House priorities would be done separately in a congressional budget process known as reconciliation.“We’ve struck a deal,” Biden then tweeted. “A group of senators – five Democrats and five Republicans – has come together and forged an infrastructure agreement that will create millions of American jobs.”The senators have struggled over how to pay for the new spending but left for the White House with a sense of confidence that funding issues had been addressed.Biden’s top aides had met with senators for back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill and later huddled with the House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer.The agreement comes with a complex legislative push. Pelosi on Thursday welcomed the bipartisan package, but she warned that it must be paired with the president’s bigger goals now being prepared by Congress under a separate so-called the budget reconciliation process.“This is important,” Pelosi said. “There ain’t going to be a bipartisan bill without a reconciliation bill.” The Democratic leader vowed the House would not vote on it until the Senate had dealt with both packages.The major hurdle for a bipartisan agreement has been financing. Biden demanded no new taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, while Republican lawmakers were unwilling to raise taxes beyond such steps as indexing the gasoline tax to inflation. Biden has sought $1.7tn in his American Jobs Plan, part of nearly $4tn in broad infrastructure spending on roads, bridges and broadband internet but also including the so-called care economy of child care centers, hospitals and elder care.With Republicans opposed to Biden’s proposed corporate tax rate increase, from 21% to 28%, the group has looked at other ways to raise revenue. Biden rejected their idea to allow gas taxes paid at the pump to rise with inflation, viewing it as a financial burden on American drivers.The broad reconciliation bill would likely include tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, so a tension still exists over funding for some Republicans and business groups.According to a White House readout of the Wednesday meeting with Schumer and Pelosi, the leaders talked with acting budget director Shalanda Young, National Economic Council director Brian Deese and Domestic Policy Council director Susan Rice, and they discussed the two-track approach – the smaller bipartisan deal now emerging and the more sweeping plan of Democratic priorities.Schumer said the leaders “support the concepts” they have heard from the bipartisan negotiations.The Democratic leaders also insisted on the two-part process ahead, starting with initial votes in July to consider the bipartisan deal and to launch the lengthy procedure for the Democrats’ proposal, now drafted at nearly $6tn t.The Democrats’ bigger proposal would run through the budget reconciliation process, which would allow passage of Biden’s priorities by majority vote, without the need for support from Republicans to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. It would require multiple rounds of voting that are likely to extend into fall.Like Pelosi, Schumer said, “One can’t be done without the other.” More