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      Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight it | David Blight

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      Trump has birthed a dangerous new ‘Lost Cause’ myth. We must fight itDavid BlightThe lie that the election was ‘stolen’ from Trump is building its monuments in ludicrous stories, and codifying them in laws to make the next elections easier to pilfer American democracy is in peril and nearly everyone paying attention is trying to find the best way to say so. Should we in the intellectual classes position our warnings in satire, in jeremiads, in social scientific data, in historical analogy, in philosophical wisdom we glean from so many who have instructed us about the violence and authoritarianism of the 20th century? Or should we just scream after our holiday naps?Some of us pick up our pens and do what we can. We quote wise scribes such as George Orwell on how there may be a latent fascist waiting to emerge in all humans, or Hannah Arendt on how democracies are inherently unstable and susceptible to ruin by aggressive, skilled demagogues. We turn to Alexis de Tocqueville for his stunning insights into American individualism while we love to believe his claims that democracy would create greater equality. And oh! how we love Walt Whitman’s fabulously open, infinite democratic spirit. We inhale Whitman’s verses and are captured by the hypnotic power of democracy. “O Democracy, for you, for you I am trilling these songs,” wrote our most exuberant democrat.Read enough of the right Whitman and you can believe again that American democracy may yet be “the continent indissoluble … with the life-long love of comrades”. But just now we cannot rely on the genius alone of our wise forbears. We have to face our own mess, engage the fight before us, and prepare for the worst.Our democracy allows a twice-impeached, criminally inclined ex-president, who publicly fomented an attempted coup against his own government, and still operates as a gangster leader of his political party, to peacefully reside in our midst while under investigation for his misdeeds. We believe in rule of law, and therefore await verdicts of our judicial system and legislative inquiry.Yet Trumpism unleashed on 6 January, and every day before and since over a five-year period, a crusade to slowly poison the American democratic experiment with a movement to overturn decades of pluralism, increased racial and gender equality, and scientific knowledge. To what end? Establishing a hopeless white utopia for the rich and the aggrieved.On this 6 January anniversary is it time to sing anew with Whitmanesque fervor, or is the only rational response to scream? First the scream.On 6 January 2021, an American mob, orchestrated by the most powerful man in the land, along with many congressional and media allies, nearly destroyed our indirect electoral democracy. To this day, only Trump’s laziness and incompetence may explain why he did not fire Vice-President Mike Pence in the two months before the coup, install a genuine lackey like Mark Meadows, and set up the formal disruption of the count of electoral votes. The real coup needed guns, and military brass thankfully made clear they would oppose any attempt at imposing martial law. But the coup endures by failing; it now takes the form of voter suppression laws, virulent states’ rights doctrine applied to all manner of legislative action installing Republican loyalists in the electoral system, and a propaganda machine capable of popularizing lies big and small.The lies have now crept into a Trumpian Lost Cause ideology, building its monuments in ludicrous stories that millions believe, and codifying them in laws to make the next elections easier to pilfer. If you repeat the terms “voter fraud” and “election integrity” enough times on the right networks you have a movement. And “replacement theory” works well alongside a thousand repetitions of “critical race theory”, both disembodied of definition or meaning, but both scary. Liberals sometimes invite scorn with their devotion to diversity training and insistence on fighting over words rather than genuine inequality. But it is time to see the real enemy – a long-brewing American-style neo-fascist authoritarianism, beguilingly useful to the grievances of the disaffected, and threatening to steal our microphones midway through our odes to joy.Yes, disinformation has to be fought with good information. But it must also be fought with fierce politics, with organization, and if necessary with bodies, non-violently. We have an increasingly dangerous population on the right. Who do you know who really wants to compromise with their ideas? Who on the left will volunteer to be part of a delegation to go discuss the fate of democracy with Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy or the foghorns of Fox News? Who on the right will come to a symposium with 10 of the finest writers on democracy, its history and its philosophy, and help create a blueprint for American renewal? As a culture we are not in the mood for such reason and comity; we are in a fight, and it needs to happen in politics. Otherwise it may be 1861 again in some very new form. Unfortunately it is likely to take events even more shocking than 6 January to move our political culture through and beyond our current crisis.And if and when it is 1861 again, the new secessionists, namely the Republican party, will have a dysfunctional constitution to exploit. The ridiculously undemocratic US Senate, now 50/50 between the two parties, but where Democrats represent 56.5% of the population and Republicans 43.5%, augurs well for those determined to thwart majoritarian democracy. And, of course, the electoral college – an institution more than two centuries out of date, and which even our first demagogue president, Andrew Jackson, advocated abolishing – offers perennial hope to Republicans who may continue to lose popular votes but win the presidency, as they have in two of the last six elections. Democracy?And now the song? Well, keep reading. Of all the books on democracy in recent years one of the best is James Miller’s Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World. A political philosopher and historian, Miller provides an intelligent journey through the turbulent past of this great human experiment in whether we can actually govern themselves. He demonstrates how thin the lines are between success and disaster for democracies, how big wins turn into reactions and big losses, and how the dynamics of even democratic societies can be utterly amoral. Intolerant new ruling classes sometimes replace the tyrants they overthrow.“Democratic revolts, like democratic elections,” Miller writes, “can produce perverse outcomes.” History is still waiting for us. But in the end, via examples like Václav Havel in the Czech Republic, Miller reminds us that the “ideal survives”. Democracy does require the “best laws”, Havel intoned, but it must also manifest as “humane, moral, intellectual and spiritual, and cultural”. Miller does the history to show that democracy is almost always a “riddle, not a recipe”. Democracy is much harder than autocracy to sustain. But renew it we must.Or simply pick up Whitman’s Song of Myself, all 51 pages, from the opening line, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,” to his musings on the luck of merely being alive. Keep going to a few pages later when a “runaway slave” enters Whitman’s home and the poet gazes into his “revolving eyes”, and nurses “the galls of his neck and ankles”, and then to his embrace of “primeval”, complete democracy midway in the song, where he accepts “nothing which all cannot have”. Finally read to the ending, where the poet finds blissful oblivion, bequeathing himself “to the dirt to grow from the grass I love”. Whitman’s “sign of democracy” is everywhere and in everything. The democratic and the authoritarian instinct are both deep within us, forever at war.After 6 January, it’s time to prepare thee to sing, to scream, and to fight.
      David W Blight is sterling professor of American History at Yale and author of the Pulitzer-prize winning Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
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      Strategy shift: Biden confronts Trump head on after year of silent treatment

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      Strategy shift: Biden confronts Trump head on after year of silent treatmentPresident strikes different tone in tacit admission that ignoring the most powerful force in the Republican party is risky In the first moments of his presidency, Joe Biden called on Americans to set aside their deep divisions inflamed by a predecessor he intentionally ignored. He emphasized national unity and appealed to Americans to come together to “end this uncivil war”.The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he’s snapping at Biden’s heels | Jonathan FreedlandRead moreNearly a year later, as a divided nation reflects on the first anniversary of the 6 January assault on the US Capitol, the uncivil war he sought to extinguish rages on, stronger than ever. In a searing speech on Thursday, Biden struck a different tone.He said he was “crystal clear” about the dangers facing the nation, and accused Donald Trump and his political allies of holding a “dagger at the throat of America, at American democracy”. In the course of the 21-minute speech, delivered from the US Capitol, Biden offered himself as a defender of democracy in the “battle for the soul of America”.“I will stand in this breach,” he promised. “I will defend this nation.”That moment of visceral speech-making marked a shift in strategy for how Biden has chosen to engage Trump – whose name he never uttered but instead taunted as the “defeated former president”.The decision to break his silence about Trump comes at a challenging moment in Biden’s presidency, with his Build Back Better agenda stalled, the Covid-19 pandemic resurgent and economic malaise widespread. It also reflected the reality that, far from being shunned, Trump remains the most powerful force in the Republican party and a potential rival to Biden in 2024.Confronting Trump was a calculated risk. Trump seized the opportunity to hurl all manner of insults and accusations at his successor, whose remarks he said were “very hurtful to many people”.But Biden’s speech was an acknowledgment that there were dangers in continuing to ignore Trump and what Biden called his “web of lies”. Recent polling suggests the vast majority of Republicans believe Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about the election fraud while a growing percentage of Americans are willing to tolerate political violence in some instances.Republican-controlled states are pursuing a raft of new voting restrictions, motivated in part by the doubts they sowed about the 2020 election results. At the same time, Republicans are passing laws that inject partisanship into the administration of elections and vote-counting while stripping power from and driving power from election officials who resisted pressure to throw out votes or overturn the elections in their state.“It was essential to be specific about the problem, and the source of the crisis,” said Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University. “Otherwise the vague rhetoric, without agency, that we hear about polarization misses the way in which Trump and the GOP are the source of so much instability.”But he warned that a speech can only do so much. “Without holding people accountable for January 6 and the campaign against the 2020 election, and without real legislation to protecting voting rights and the electoral process, the ‘dagger at the throat of democracy’ won’t go away.”In his remarks, Biden argued that protecting voting rights was paramount to safeguarding American democracy. He sought to connect the dots between Trump’s promotion that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud and Republicans’ coordinated effort to “subvert” and undermine the electoral process in states where they control the levers of power.“Right now, in state after state, new laws are being written – not to protect the vote, but to deny it; not only to suppress the vote, but to subvert it; not to strengthen or protect our democracy, but because the former president lost,” he said.Biden will follow up on the theme on Tuesday when he delivers another consequential speech on voting rights. In Atlanta, Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris will call for the passage of two voting rights bills that face daunting odds in the US Senate: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.The issue of voting rights has taken center stage after hopes of passing Biden’s sweeping domestic policy agenda were dashed by the opposition of Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia. So far Republican opposition has blocked passage of the legislation in the evenly divided chamber, where Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.Manchin again holds the keys on voting rights legislation, which he broadly supports. But his opposition to eliminating the filibuster has forced Democrats to pursue other avenues such as creating an exception in the rules for certain legislation. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said he would schedule a vote on easing the filibuster rules not later than 17 January, which is Martin Luther King Day.Biden has faced immense pressure from civil rights leaders and voting rights advocates frustrated with his handling of the issue, seen as critical to the president’s legacy. Indeed, a coalition of Georgia-based voting rights groups warned Biden and Harris not to bother coming to the state unless they delivered a concrete plan to move forward, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters this week that Biden planned to stress the “urgent need to pass legislation to protect the constitutional right to vote and the integrity of our elections”.Spencer Overton, an election law expert and the president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, hopes Biden will use his bully pulpit to explain why passing federal voting rights legislation is so essential to combatting the lies and conspiracies undermining faith in the nation’s system of government.“Those lies have real consequences,” said. “Sometimes they’re graphic, as we saw a year ago on 6 January, but sometimes they silently erode democracy by preventing average citizens from participating in our democracy, and exercising their freedom to vote.”“This is the most important legislation in Congress now,” he added. “There’s just no benefit in waiting. The moment is now.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracy

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      Capitol attack panel investigates Trump over potential criminal conspiracyMessages between Mark Meadows and others suggest the Trump White House coordinated efforts to stop Joe Biden’s certification The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is examining whether Donald Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy on 6 January that connected the White House’s scheme to stop Joe Biden’s certification with the insurrection, say two senior sources familiar with the matter.Biden condemns Trump’s ‘web of lies’ a year on from deadly Capitol assaultRead moreThe committee’s new focus on the potential for a conspiracy marks an aggressive escalation in its inquiry as it confronts evidence that suggests the former president potentially engaged in criminal conduct egregious enough to warrant a referral to the justice department.House investigators are interested in whether Trump oversaw a criminal conspiracy after communications turned over by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others suggested the White House coordinated efforts to stop Biden’s certification, the sources said.The select committee has several thousand messages, among which include some that suggest the Trump White House briefed a number of House Republicans on its plan for then-vice president Mike Pence to abuse his ceremonial role and not certify Biden’s win, the sources said.The fact that the select committee has messages suggesting the Trump White House directed Republican members of Congress to execute a scheme to stop Biden’s certification is significant as it could give rise to the panel considering referrals for potential crimes, the sources said.Members and counsel on the select committee are examining in the first instance whether in seeking to stop the certification, Trump and his aides violated the federal law that prohibits obstruction of a congressional proceeding – the joint session on 6 January – the sources said.The select committee believes, the sources said, that Trump may be culpable for an obstruction charge given he failed for hours to intervene to stop the violence at the Capitol perpetrated by his supporters in his name.But the select committee is also looking at whether Trump oversaw an unlawful conspiracy that involved coordination between the “political elements” of the White House plan communicated to Republican lawmakers and extremist groups that stormed the Capitol, the sources said.That would probably be the most serious charge for which the select committee might consider a referral, as it considers a range of other criminal conduct that has emerged in recent weeks from obstruction to potential wire fraud by the GOP.The vice-chair of the select committee, the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, referenced the obstruction charge when she read from the criminal code before members voted unanimously last November to recommend Meadows in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify.The Guardian previously reported that Trump personally directed lawyers and political operatives working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC to find ways to stop Biden’s certification from happening at all on 6 January just hours before the Capitol attack.But House investigators are yet to find evidence tying Trump personally to the Capitol attack, the sources said, and may ultimately only recommend referrals for the straight obstruction charge, which has already been brought against around 275 rioters, rather than for conspiracy.The justice department could yet charge Trump and aides separate to the select committee investigation, but one of sources said the panel – as of mid-December – had no idea whether the agency is actively examining potential criminality by the former president.A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment on details about the investigation. A spokesperson for the justice department declined to comment whether the agency had opened a criminal inquiry for Trump or his closest allies over 6 January.Still, the select committee appears to be moving towards making at least some referrals – or alternatively recommendations in its final report – that an aggressive prosecutor at the justice department could use to pursue a criminal inquiry, the sources said.US Capitol attack: Liz Cheney says Mike Pence ‘was a hero’ on 6 JanuaryRead moreThe select committee is examining the evidence principally to identify legislative reforms to prevent a repeat of Trump’s plan to subvert the election, but members say if they find Trump violated federal law, they have an obligation to refer that to the justice department.Sending a criminal referral to the justice department – essentially a recommendation for prosecution – carries no formal legal weight since Congress lacks the authority to force it to open a case, and House investigators have no authority to charge witnesses with a crime.But a credible criminal referral from the select committee could have a substantial political effect given the importance of the 6 January inquiry, and place pressure on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to initiate an investigation, or explain why he might not do so.​​Internal discussions about criminal referrals intensified after communications turned over by Meadows revealed alarming lines of communication between the Trump White House and Republican lawmakers over 6 January, the sources said.In one exchange released by the select committee, one Republican lawmaker texted Meadows an apology for not pulling off what might have amounted to a coup, saying 6 January was a “terrible day” not because of the attack, but because they were unable to stop Biden’s certification.The select committee believes messages such as that text – as well as remarks from a Republican on the House floor as the Capitol came under attack – might represent one part of a conspiracy by the White House to obstruct the joint session, the sources said.In referencing objections to six states, the text also appears to comport with a memo authored by the Trump lawyer John Eastman that suggested lodging objections to six states – raising the specter the White House distributed the plan more widely than previously known.Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee, added on ABC last week that the investigation had found evidence to suggest the events of 6 January “appeared to be a coordinated effort on the part of a number of people to undermine the election”.Counsel for the select committee indicated in their contempt of Congress report for Meadows that they intended to ask Trump’s former chief of staff about those communications he turned over voluntarily, before he broke off a cooperation deal and refused to testify.Thompson has also suggested to reporters that he believes Meadows stopped cooperating with the inquiry in part because of pressure from Trump, but the select committee has not opened a separate witness intimidation investigation into the former president, one of the sources said.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS politicsMark MeadowsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he's snapping at Biden’s heels | Jonathan Freedland

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      The Trump menace is darker than ever – and he’s snapping at Biden’s heels Jonathan FreedlandThe Republicans who once denounced him are beginning to accept Trump’s election lies. But where will voters go in the midterms? The problem with coverage of this week’s anniversary of the events of 6 January 2021 is that too much of it was written in the past tense. True, the attempted insurrection that saw a violent mob storm Capitol Hill in order to overturn a democratic election was a year ago, but the danger it poses is clear and present – and looms over the future. For the grim truth is that while Donald Trump is the last US president, he may also be the next. What’s more, the menace of Trumpism is darker now than it ever was before.This grim prognosis rests on two premises: the current weakness of Joe Biden and the current strength of his predecessor. Start with the latter, evidence of which comes from the contrast in how Trump’s fellow Republican politicians talked about 6 January at the time and how they talk – or don’t talk – about it now.At the time, they were clear that the outgoing president had crossed a line, that he was “practically and morally responsible” for the rioters who had marched on Congress and built gallows for those politicians who stood in their way. Many of those Republicans had pleaded with Trump, sending text messages begging him to call off the mob. Now, though, they either say nothing – refusing even to show up for a moment’s silence in memory of those killed on 6 January – or they rush to apologise for having, rightly, branded that day a “violent terrorist attack”.That’s because they fear Trump and they fear his supporters. In order not to rouse their fury, they have to mouth the new shibboleths: they have to accept the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and accept that political violence is not to be condemned but indulged when it comes from your own side.It means that Trump’s tactics, his authoritarianism, have not shamed or repelled Republicans – as some hoped might be the result of 6 January – but infected them. What was once the eccentric stance of the lunatic fringe – that Trump won an election that more than 60 different court judgments ruled he had lost – has become the required credo of one of America’s two governing parties, believed by two-thirds of Republican voters.More alarming still, surveys show 30% of Republicans say that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Word the question slightly differently, and that figure rises to 40%. Not for nothing did the editor of the New Yorker this week ask if a second American civil war is coming.You might imagine that all this should secure Biden’s position. Surely the majority of the US electorate will rally to the message he set out so trenchantly in a speech on Thursday taking direct aim at Trump and the “web of lies” he had spread to soothe his own “bruised ego”. Surely they will recoil from a Republican party that is breaking from the fundamentals of democracy. Surely they’ll turn away from the party of Trump and flock to the Democrats as the only reliable democrats. But that is not how it’s playing out.Biden has the lowest approval rating of any US president at this stage of his term, barring Trump himself. He is trailing especially badly with the independent voters who decide elections. Polls suggest that Democrats will lose seats in November’s midterm contests, thereby losing control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate too. That will leave Biden paralysed, unable to pass any legislation at all without Republican approval.Which is why 2022 is the make-or-break year for the Biden presidency. If it breaks, the ground will be laid for the return of Trump in 2024. Except this will be a Trump with fewer restraints than held him back before, one who now openly espouses the autocrat’s creed that elections are illegitimate unless he wins them, that he alone should hold office and that violence is justified to maintain his power.Republicans are working hard to unlevel the playing field in Trump’s favour. Republican-run states are rewriting electoral law to make it harder to vote – curbing the early or postal balloting often used by low-income and minority voters – and handing Republican-controlled state legislatures extra powers over the running of elections. They want to remove one of the safety mechanisms that ensured the integrity of the 2020 contest: fair-minded election officials. To that end, they are setting about filling those all-important positions with Trump loyalists. Put simply, they want fewer people voting and their people counting.Current Republican strength is a combination, then, of both the resilience of public support, despite the party’s submission to Trumpism, and its ability to game the system in its favour. But it is also a function of Biden’s weakness. It’s worth recalling here how shaky the president’s position was from the start, seeking to govern with a diminished, razor-thin Democratic majority in the House and a 50-50 deadlocked Senate. Despite that, he has passed some major bills and made some big, even transformative moves. As the former speechwriter to George W Bush David Frum puts it: “In 11 months, Biden has done more with 50 Democratic senators than Barack Obama did with 57.”And yet, it’s not enough. Biden passed a vital infrastructure bill, but his larger package of social spending and action on the climate crisis is stalled. His poll ratings took a hit with the speed of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan after August’s chaotic US withdrawal. And his 4 July declaration that America could celebrate its “independence from Covid-19” now looks horribly premature.You can make a strong case that none of these things is Biden’s fault. His spending bill is stalled thanks to two Democratic senators who simply refuse to get on board. (Given their politics, Biden probably deserves credit for getting them to back him as often as they have.) The withdrawal from Afghanistan was under a deal agreed by Trump; indeed, Trump’s exit would have come earlier. As for Covid, what could any president do when more than a quarter of the country – overwhelmingly Trump supporters – refuse to get vaccinated?But politics is an unforgiving business. Voters are used to blaming the man in the White House, especially when they face rising bills and daily costs as they do now. To turn things around, Biden can start with passing that key spending bill, even if it means stripping it of some cherished, and necessary, programmes. Voting rights legislation, to block those continuing Republican efforts to load the dice yet further in their own favour, is also a must. One way or another, Democrats have to go into the autumn midterms with a record to run on. Defeat would not guarantee the return of Trump two years later, but it would make it much more likely. That is a prospect to chill the blood of all those who care about America – and democracy.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsDonald TrumpJoe BidencommentReuse this content More

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      Andres Serrano on his Capitol attack film: ‘I like that word, excruciating’

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      InterviewAndres Serrano on his Capitol attack film: ‘I like that word, excruciating’Janelle ZaraThe provocative artist has made a shocking new ‘immersive experience’ for the one year anniversary of the 6 January attack Andres Serrano is not known as an especially political artist. The 71-year-old’s photographs are more accurately described as transgressive, perennially summed up with a singular point of reference: Piss Christ, his 1987 photo of a crucifix submerged in his own orange-tinted urine, which has over the years sparked multiple instances of national outrage. In the photographic series that followed, including The Klan (1990), The Morgue (1992), Shit (2007), and Nudes (2009), Serrano’s work has remained as provocative as it is aptly named.“I like to make the kind of pictures where you don’t need much more than the title to tell you what you’re looking at,” the artist said over the phone. As for his perpetual association with a single, 34-year-old work of art, he doesn’t mind: “Piss Christ is a good soundbite – easy to remember and repeat.”‘I was there’: Democrat recalls horror and fury on day of Capitol attackRead moreSerrano’s latest work, Insurrection (2022), takes a decidedly more political tone, having debuted in CulturalDC’s Source Theatre in Washington this week, the one-year anniversary of the Capitol attack. As the artist’s first-ever film, Insurrection offers a grim portrait of the United States, stitched together from found footage of the 6 January riot. True to the transgressive nature of Serrano’s practice, it zooms well past the point where ordinary news media would cut away: we get extended cuts of the sheer spectacle of violence, the smashing of windows, the prolonged attempt of one adrenalized horde of men to force its way past another. The frenzy climaxes with an uncut, closeup sequence of Ashli Babbitt’s death, and her subsequent martyrdom in a eulogy by the former president. Much of Insurrection is nothing short of excruciating to watch.“I like that word, excruciating,” Serrano says. “What I intended to make was an immersive experience that takes you to Washington DC on January 6 in real time.”In close collaboration with the London-based organization a/political, Serrano began working on the film in April, feeling compelled to respond to the day’s events on multiple levels. He was appalled by the racial dynamics that played out on the Capitol steps, as white rioters who had broken into a federal building were gently escorted out: “Black people get killed for a lot less than storming the Capitol, and these white people got treated with kid gloves.”To him, the Capitol insurrection was also an extension of Donald Trump’s legacy of divisiveness and fraud, a subject the artist had begun to explore in his 2018 installation The Game: All Things Trump. The former president’s widely accepted version of events – that these were righteous citizens protesting a rigged election – represented not only a triumph of fake news, but his continued hold over the Republican party.“This guy has to be commended for having the charisma that Hitler had with the German people; there are Americans who don’t believe it really happened, and Republicans who say let’s forget about it and move on,” Serrano says. “I wanted to make a film that anyone would have a difficult time walking away from saying ‘We should forget about it.’”Spanning 75 minutes, Insurrection comprises news clips and smartphone footage culled from around the internet, alongside archival imagery dating back to the riots of the Great Depression. The score is a mix of American ballads that range from Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere to a children’s rendition of the historic civil war song, Battle Hymn of the Republic. As rioters march toward the Capitol steps, the incessant repetition of “glory, glory hallelujah” emphasizes the role that Christianity, a recurring theme in Serrano’s practice, plays in validating violence in American mythology. “There are groups of people who believe they have the right interpretations of Christ, not only in how they should live their lives, but how the rest of us should live ours,” he says. “They’re going into battle like Crusaders in their holy war.”The musical interludes and title cards interspersed throughout – “D.J. Trump Presents Insurrection”; “The Killing of Ashli Babbitt” – were inspired by Birth of a Nation, a 1915 silent civil war film condemned for its heroic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan. The inclusion of these historical references is a reminder, according to Serrano, that “history repeats itself in specific ways.” The insurrection was not a novel event, but another instance of division within a nation that never recovered from civil war, he adds, citing the widespread refusal to accept Biden’s presidency as a resonant parallel. “There are also a lot of people who’ll never accept that the north won, and who’d love to go back to the good ol’ days. Donald Trump was there to tell those people what they wanted to hear.”Despite the symbolic criticism embedded throughout the insurrection, Serrano is actually reluctant to speak poorly of Trump, whom he photographed in 2004 for his America series. “This guy is a massive showman; he’s incredible at it, and I could see why he’s gone this far in life. He did not wreak damage on America – America was damaged already.” As for the Capitol rioters, he refuses to condemn anyone, nor say that they belong in jail: “I tried to humanize this crowd, to show their faces and hear what they’re saying. That’s what gives a work of art power: when you let people speak for themselves.”Serrano makes an important distinction in his practice: while provocation is essential to bringing art to life, he is not in the business of political messaging, telling his viewers what or how to think: “A lot of times I look at work, particularly paintings or pictures on the wall, and I’m not particularly moved,” he says. “The one thing I always try to do, whether it’s photographs or with this film, is to give you something to react to. I’m not concerned too much about how you’re going to feel about it, good or bad, but the important thing is that you’re not indifferent. You can’t walk away from it, and say, ‘I didn’t feel nothing.’”TopicsFilmArtUS Capitol attackUS politicsinterviewsReuse this content More

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      Fox News goes through the looking-glass on US Capitol attack anniversary

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      Fox News goes through the looking-glass on US Capitol attack anniversaryRightwing network presented a carnival of conspiracy theories casting blame anywhere other than on Trump and his supporters Joe Biden marked the first anniversary of 6 January with a powerful, ideological speech about the choice between democracy and autocracy. It began a day of reflection in which Democratic Congress members and police officers spoke of the fear they felt for their lives.Every major news network opted for somber programming and roundtable discussions about the fragile nature of American democracy.Except for one.The people who turned in their parents for their role in the Capitol attackRead moreFox News’s primetime lineup of rightwing hosts used rock guitar licks to introduce a different narrative: one of hysterical Democrats “jilling up noise” and crying “crocodile tears”. Hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham pushed conspiracy theories that undercover FBI agents or Capitol police were responsible for the breach of the Capitol and spent most of the night claiming Congress should be focused on investigating the “real rioters”, Black Lives Matter protesters.Carlson began his show in incendiary style. While Biden and the press agreed 6 January was one of the most significant dates in recent history, Carlson said it “barely rates as a footnote”, arguing that because “not a single elected official was killed” and “none of the insurrectionists had guns” that the effort to overthrow the government was “embarrassingly tepid”.“Not a lot happened that day,” he said in an almost disappointed tone. He said he accepted it was a riot, “but really only just a riot, maybe just barely”.In a night of endless false equivalencies, Carlson got his in early. Was what happened on 6 January a greater risk to America than inflation? Why were the protesters rotting in jail while the Sacklers walk free? Why were “unarmed protesters” being demonized?If he had watched the day’s coverage on any other channel, Carlson would have seen that investigations and video evidence have proven that the Capitol mob was incredibly violent. Objects used to attack police officers included bricks, pepper spray, pipes, bats and Tasers. Prosecutors have charged 187 of the rioters with violent acts. Michael Fanone, a Metropolitan police department officer who voted for Trump in 2016, was shocked on his neck with a Taser several times, which led to a heart attack. Rioters threatened to take his weapon and shoot him with it, shouting, “Kill him with his own gun!”Threats to life were not mentioned by the three hosts. Instead Carlson quickly moved on to conspiracy theories, in particular his baseless claim that riots were stoked by Ray Epps, a Trump supporter from Arizona whom Carlson falsely believes is an undercover FBI agent. He showed clips from his documentary series Patriot Purge which led to the resignation of two Fox News contributors who said the documentary was “incoherent conspiracy-mongering”.But his biggest strut was to invite Senator Ted Cruz on the program, who on Wednesday had accurately described 6 January as “a violent terrorist attack”. Carlson was appalled at this language and demanded that Cruz explain himself.Cruz first attempted to wheedle his way out, calling his choice of words “sloppy and dumb” but Carlson continued to berate him, making him walk back and continually apologize for his language. Carlson was dishing out a humiliation, reminding Cruz of his status as a Republican kingmaker.As a final punishment Carlson asked Cruz what he thought about Ray Epps, pushing him to join him in a nonsense conspiracy theory, which Cruz did for the first time, saying “for [Epps] to appear on the FBI’s most wanted list and come off it certainly suggests he was working for the FBI. That’s not conclusive, but that’s the obvious implication.”Later in the evening, Sean Hannity took the baton, railing against the “rank hypocrisy”, “lying” and “grandstanding” by the Democrats – ignoring the hypocrisy that his on-screen opinions are entirely opposed to the feelings he shared with the Trump administration as the attack was taking place.Hannity called Biden a liar, playing a clip from his speech in which he says that Donald Trump did nothing during the attack but watch TV. But Hannity’s own texts, revealed by the congressional committee investigating the attack, show he was perturbed by the former president’s lack of action on that day.Hannity’s texts at the time show he was “very worried about the next 48 hours”, that he begged the chief of staff to persuade Trump to “make a statement” and “ask people to leave the Capitol” and that Trump “can’t mention the election again. Ever.” Hannity has repeated Trump’s lie that the election was rigged almost daily since November.Instead of a mea culpa, Hannity claimed Trump had wanted to send 10,000 national guard troops to protect the Capitol and was blocked from getting them by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. This has been disproven. He made no direct order and was not concerned about securing the Capitol.The night finished with Ingraham returning to the network’s central theme, that Black Lives Matter protesters were to blame for the real violence.“If the Democrats were truly worried about political violence, they would have condemned it in summer of 2020,” she told her viewers. Ingraham’s own texts, also revealed by the committee, show she too was deeply worried about political violence on 6 January. She texted the White House chief of staff saying, “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol this is hurting all of us – he is destroying his legacy”.TopicsFox NewsUS Capitol attackUS politicsSean HannityanalysisReuse this content More

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      Many are disillusioned with American democracy. Can Joe Biden win them over? | Francine Prose

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      Many are disillusioned with American democracy. Can Joe Biden win them over?Francine ProseIt’s not enough to excoriate Trump and his supporters. We must seek out and eradicate the roots of the alienation and resentment that so deeply divide us There’s something exhilarating about hearing someone tell the truth, especially now when so many people seem to believe that the difference between facts and falsehood is a matter of political affiliation or personal opinion. Watching Kamala Harris and Joe Biden speak in the Capitol Rotunda on the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection, hearing the president blame the brutal riot directly on Donald Trump and his supporters – it felt almost like exhaling, after holding your breath for too long. Yes, it’s a lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Yes, it’s a lie that the rioters swarming the Capitol building were genuine American patriots. Those are facts that can’t be stressed enough, that need to be said and repeated by the powerful and the widely respected.Historians mark 6 January with urgent warning on threats to US democracyRead moreOver the past few days, I’ve watched deeply moving interviews with the Capitol police officers who lived through the riot. Especially affecting was the PBS conversation with Sandra Garza, whose partner, Brian Sicknick, defended the Capitol against attackers and died the next day of a stroke; in Garza’s view, Donald Trump “needs to be in prison”. When I register my own jarringly adrenalized response to even the briefest film clip of the surging crowd calling out for blood, I know that I cannot begin to imagine what those who survived it – and their loved ones – continue to suffer.So it came as a relief to hear Biden emphasize the gravity and the dangers of political violence, as well as the urgent necessity of defending and upholding the constitution. It seemed vitally important to hear him say that January 6 needs to be remembered; that forgetting the past and moving on (as many Republican senators urge us to do) could conceivably pave the way for a second – and perhaps more catastrophic – assault on our government.Yet – like many listeners, I imagine – I couldn’t help wondering how many people were being convinced, how many minds were being changed by the reasonableness, the maturity and clarity of the president’s address. It’s not just that, as we keep hearing, Americans now inhabit two entirely alternate realities: one in which the Covid vaccine staves off disease, another in which inoculation causes infertility and ALS. Among the obstacles that stand in the way of changing hearts and minds is that our problems, as a nation, are older, deeper and more severe than Donald Trump’s megalomania.So even as it was satisfying to hear Biden hold Trump directly accountable for ramping up his base’s bloodlust, for watching the mayhem on TV and making no attempt to stop it, I kept recalling something I remember people saying in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election: that the malevolent genie that Trump had unleashed from the bottle was unlikely to go back in. Five years later than seems truer than ever: My sense is that Trump could completely retire from public life tomorrow and the support for him and his ideas would remain undiminished. A half-dozen Capitol rioters were elected to office in November, and two dozen more plan to run in upcoming elections.What I wished that Biden had acknowledged was the fact that the raging, disruptive genie had inhabited the bottle long before “the defeated former president” ever popped the cork. I wished Biden had followed up his gratifying excoriation of Trump and his supporters with a commitment to seeking out and eradicating the roots of the alienation, resentment and fury that so deeply divide our country.Why – aside from the lying claims of a stolen election – had the rioters armed and armored themselves and traveled all the way to Washington? It struck me that many of Trump’s supporters may not be entirely anti-democratic so much as acutely (or unconsciously) aware of our democracy’s imperfections: its oligarchic edge. Biden may have reminded us that each of our votes matters equally. But the one thing I may possibly share in common with the thugs who invaded the Capitol is the pained awareness that my voice is not nearly as audible in Washington as the voices of the chief executives of Pfizer, Delta and Target.I thought of how, during the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt toured the country, asking beleaguered Americans about their hardships and needs. How little of that seems to be happening now, when the consensus appears to be that our wounds can be healed remotely, by cajoling recalcitrant lawmakers into passing legislation with potential benefits that have so far eluded many Americans’ understanding.Of all the horrific things that occurred on 6 January, among the most disturbing to me was Trump’s parting speech to the rioters when at long last he advised them to go home. “You’re very special,” he said. “We love you.”Like any cult of personality, Trump’s impassioned support more closely resembles an (admittedly one-sided) affair of the heart than a reasoned political choice. And, in my experience, few lovers have fallen out of love after being informed that the beloved is an egomaniac and a liar.Of course the best known cure for love is to find someone else, but what’s more useful, in the long run, is to understand why one became embroiled in a deceptive and unbalanced relationship, and to find a way of designing and inhabiting a brighter future. What I wished I’d heard in Biden’s speech was a persuasive vision of the more fulfilled and less tormented life that, we can only hope, awaits us in the event that the poisonous romance with violence and hatred sputters out – and is finally over.
      Francine Prose is a novelist. Her latest book, The Vixen, was published in June
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationDonald TrumpTrump administrationcommentReuse this content More

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      US Capitol attack: is the government’s expanded online surveillance effective?

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      US Capitol attack: is the government’s expanded online surveillance effective?The Brennan Center for Justice explains how the US government monitors social media – and how ‘counter-terrorism’ efforts can threaten civil rights and privacy In the year since the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, federal authorities have faced intense scrutiny for failing to detect warning signs on social media.After the 6 January insurrection, the US agency tasked with combatting terrorism and extremism, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has expanded its monitoring of online activity, with officials touting a new domestic terrorism intelligence branch focused on tracking online threats and sharing information about possible attacks. A senior DHS official told the Guardian this week the department aims to track “narratives known to provoke violence” and platforms that have been linked to threats. The primary goal, the official said, was to warn potential targets when they should enhance security.In the days leading up to the anniversary of the riot, for example, the agency saw an uptick in activity on platforms tied to white supremacists and neo-Nazis and warned law enforcement partners when appropriate, the official said. This monitoring relies on DHS analysts, not artificial intelligence, and doesn’t target “ideologies”, the official added, but rather “calls for violence”.The Guardian spoke with Harsha Panduranga, counsel with the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a not-for-profit organization that has tracked police and government entities’ online surveillance programs, about the US government’s monitoring of social media in the wake of 6 January.Although DHS says its online efforts are consistent with privacy protections, civil rights and civil liberties, the expansion of social media monitoring still raised concerns, Panduranga argued. Without proper safeguards, a new report from the center warns, the expanded social media surveillance could be both ineffective at preventing attacks and harmful to marginalized groups that end up targeted and criminalized by “counter-terrorism” efforts.The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Which US government agencies monitor online activity?Many federal agencies monitor social media, including DHS, the FBI, the state department, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the US Postal Service, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the US Marshals Service and the Social Security Administration (SSA). Our work has primarily focused on DHS, FBI and the state department, which make extensive use of social media for monitoring, targeting and information collection.Revealed: LAPD used ‘strategic communications’ firm to track ‘defund the police’ onlineRead moreWhy do these agencies monitor civilians’ social media?The FBI and DHS use social media monitoring to assist with investigations and to detect potential threats. Some of those investigations do not require a showing of criminal activity. For example, FBI agents can open an “assessment” [the lowest-level investigative stage] simply on the basis of preventing crime or terrorism, and without a factual basis. During assessments, FBI agents can search publicly available online information.Subsequent investigative stages, which require some factual basis, open the door for more invasive surveillance, such as the recording of private online communications. The FBI also awarded a contract to a firm in December 2020 to scour social media and proactively identify “national security and public safety-related events” not yet reported to law enforcement.DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division says it relies on social media when investigating matters ranging from civil immigration violations to terrorism. Government entities also monitor social media for “situational awareness” to coordinate a response to breaking events.How broad is this surveillance?Some DHS divisions, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the National Operations Center (NOC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), keep tabs on a broad list of websites and keywords being discussed on social media platforms. The agencies’ “privacy impact assessments” suggest there are few limits on the content that can be reviewed. Some assessments list a sweeping range of keywords that are monitored, including “attack”, “public health”, “power outage”, and “jihad”. Immigration authorities also use social media to screen travelers and immigrants coming into the US and even to monitor them while they live here. People applying for a range of immigration benefits also undergo social media checks to verify information in their application and determine whether they pose a security risk. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents can also look at publicly available social media content for a range of investigations, including probing “potential criminal activity” and are authorized to operate undercover online and monitor private communications.How has this surveillance expanded in the wake of the insurrection?The main new DHS effort we’re aware of is an initiative monitoring social media to try to identify “narratives” giving rise to violence. DHS says they’ll use social media to pinpoint tips, leads and trends. In September, for example, DHS warned there could be another attack on the Capitol in connection with a Justice for J6 rally. But reports showed that law enforcement personnel [and journalists] outnumbered the protesters, and there was no indication of violence at the protest. This shows how difficult it is to predict violence relying on social media chatter.How concerned are you about the potential for civil rights violations in the wake of 6 January?January 6 seems to be accelerating this emphasis on social media monitoring without sufficient safeguards. And the monitoring to identify “narratives” that may lead to violence is broad enough to sweep in constitutionally protected speech and political discussion on various issues. We’ve long seen that government monitoring of social media harms people in a number of ways, including wrongly implicating an individual or group in criminal behavior based on their online activity; misinterpreting the meaning of social media activity, sometimes with severe consequences; suppressing people’s willingness to talk or connect openly online; and invading individuals’ privacy. Authorities have characterized ordinary activity, like wearing a particular sneaker brand or making common hand signs, or social media connections, as evidence of criminal or threatening behavior. This kind of assumption can have high-stakes consequences.Can you share some specific examples that illustrate these consequences?In 2020, DHS and the FBI disseminated reports to law enforcement in Maine warning of potential violence at anti-police brutality demonstrations based on fake social media posts by rightwing provocateurs. Police in Kansas arrested a teenager in 2020 on suspicion of inciting a riot reportedly based on a mistaken interpretation of his Snapchat post, in which he was actually denouncing violence. In 2019, DHS officials barred a Palestinian student arriving to study at Harvard from entering the country allegedly based on the content of his friends’ social media posts. The student said he had neither written nor engaged with the posts, which were critical of the US government. In another case of guilt by association, the NYPD was accused of wrongly arresting a 19-year-old for attempted murder in 2012 in part because prosecutors argued his “likes” and photos on social media proved he was a member of a violent gang. That same year, British travelers were interrogated at Los Angeles international airport and sent back to the UK reportedly due to a border agent’s misinterpretation of a joking tweet.Is social media surveillance effective at identifying legitimate threats?Broad social media monitoring for threat detection purposes generates reams of useless information, crowding out information on real public safety concerns. Government officials and assessments have repeatedly recognized that this dynamic makes it difficult to distinguish a sliver of genuine threats from the millions of everyday communications that do not warrant law enforcement attention. The former acting chief of DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) said last year, “Actual intent to carry out violence can be difficult to discern from the angry, hyperbolic – and constitutionally protected – speech and information commonly found on social media.” And a 2021 internal review of I&A reported that searching “for true threats of violence before they happen is a difficult task filled with ambiguity”. The review observed that personnel collected information on a “broad range of general threats” that provided “information of limited value”, including “memes, hyperbole, statements on political organizations and other protected first amendment speech”. Similar concerns cropped up with the DHS’s pilot programs to use social media to vet refugees.US citizens v FBI: Will the government face charges for illegal surveillance?Read moreWhat groups are most impacted by this kind of surveillance?Black, brown and Muslim people, as well as activists and dissenters more generally, are especially vulnerable to being falsely labeled as threats based on social media activity. Both the FBI and DHS have monitored Black Lives Matter activists. In 2017, the FBI created a specious terrorism threat category called “Black Identity Extremism” , which can be read to include protests against police violence. This category has been used to rationalize continued surveillance of Black activists, including monitoring of social media activity. In 2020, DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis used social media and other tools to target and monitor racial justice protestors in Portland, Oregon, justifying this surveillance by pointing to the threat of vandalism to Confederate monuments. DHS then disseminated intelligence reports on journalists reporting on this overreach. Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities have often been particular targets of the US government’s discriminatory travel and immigration screening practices, including social media screening.How do you think the government should be responding to the intelligence failures of 6 January?A Senate committee report from last year found that DHS failed to produce a specific warning connected to what would happen on 6 January. An FBI field office had circulated a warning about an online threat with a specific call for violence, but it didn’t convince officials to better prepare for the attack. I think one takeaway from these failures is that broadly monitoring social media for scary things people are saying, without any further reason to suspect wrongdoing, tends to flood warning systems with useless information. This makes it harder to pick out what matters and sweeps in thousands of people who haven’t or wouldn’t do anything violent. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies already have ample and potent tools to investigate far-right violence without relying on indiscriminate social media monitoring, but they are not using these tools as effectively as they should. Instigators of the 6 January riot, for example, were members of groups that were already known to law enforcement. Some of them had previously participated in organized far-right violence, yet authorities did not bring charges or fully investigate the criminal activities of these organizations. So more indiscriminate surveillance isn’t the answer – in fact, such measures are much more likely to harm the very communities that are already at greater risk.TopicsUS Capitol attackSurveillanceUS politicsProtestActivismRacefeaturesReuse this content More