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      Now what does Giuliani's Four Seasons Total Landscaping farce remind me of? | Marina Hyde

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      We begin in many people’s happy place, at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. As you may know, Donald Trump’s losing presidential campaign held a press conference that has passed immediately into the annals of political comedy. And also the annals of horticultural business marketing. Consider this Philadelphia gardening establishment the world’s leading purveyor of seasonal colour.If you somehow missed the Four Seasons Total Landscaping story, it was truly the quattro stagioni of political events. Each time it seemed it couldn’t get any better, there turned out to be some new quarter of it to enjoy. But let me briefly summarise. On Saturday, the current US president tweeted that a “big press conference” would be held that morning at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, his account offered clarification – that wasn’t the hotel, but somewhere called Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Double-taking at their satnavs, reporters scrambled to this prestige location in a suburban business park, where Trump branding had been hastily affixed to the roller door of a single-storey building. Then again, the backdrop was really the best of it. Pan out, and the venue lay next door to a sex shop and a crematorium.Clearly this was … unconventional. Yet amazingly, the world’s media would indeed end up being addressed there. Not by Trump, but by his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Dead people were always voting in Philadelphia, Rudy claimed. Joe Frazier, and Will Smith’s dad (twice).And as he said all this, he was flanked by a long line of unsmiling campaign guys trying to look like nothing could be more normal than standing in a forgotten corner of suburbia in front of some garden hoses. There are millions of potential captions to the picture. Let’s go with something befitting the tragedy: They Were Four Years In Power.Perhaps the biggest question to come out of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference is: why did they carry on with it? Some sort of mistake had clearly been made, so why did they persist and pretend it hadn’t? Many speculate it was down to fear of not obeying the will of the White House idiot, however lunatic the reality of it may appear. Others simply think that by the time the campaign staff stopped screaming, they felt they were in too deep to turn around.Either way, the upshot is the same: no matter the absurdity of any situation, no matter how ridiculous it looks when you get there, there will ALWAYS be a line of guys ready to butch it out like it was their plan along. There will ALWAYS be a line of guys who feel that it is somehow less ridiculous to look completely ridiculous than it is to simply say: “Oh wait, we made a mistake – give us half an hour and we’ll tell you the new venue.” There will ALWAYS be a line of guys who, even if they walked over a cliff, would leave very specific last words echoing behind them. “I meant to do that.”It was at this point, about three days into the story, that I suddenly stopped, mid-laugh. Like a flash, it had dawned on me. Oh I SEE, I thought. How very “United Kingdom”. These days, our country is that press conference. Whether it be butching out the warnings of 7,000-long lorry queues, or pissing off a new US president who already thinks our government is a nasty basket case, Boris Johnson & Co are very much one of those lines of guys. Source of escalating international bemusement or amusement? Yeah, we meant to do that.This morning, it was claimed that Johnson’s congratulatory tweet to Biden was a hastily doctored congratulatory message to Trump – with the remains of the Trump message still slightly visible. Think of it as the Turin shroud of digital incompetence – and accept that some hyper-defensive Whitehall source will turn up to say “actually we meant to do that”.Meanwhile, the government’s insistence on the international law-breaking clauses in its internal markets bill could easily leave the UK with no meaningful EU or US trade deal. On Monday night, John Major warned that the plan “is unprecedented in all our history – and for good reason. It has damaged our reputation around the world.” Still, we meant to do that. “Because of our bombast, our blustering, our threats and our inflexibility,” continued Major, “our trade will be less profitable, our Treasury poorer, our jobs fewer, and our future less prosperous.” I guess we meant to do that.A month and a half from the end of transition, the guys who promised people the sunlit uplands are now building giant car parks like it’s a positive thing. Or to put it another way, they are telling you that the Four Seasons – an international standard of luxury and service – is actually less good than Four Seasons Total Landscaping. We still plan to exit transition in midwinter in a deadly pandemic we’ve known about almost the whole year. They are butching it out.This is statecraft by Clouseau. There’s a bit in The Pink Panther Strikes Again where the inspector finds himself in a home gym and is trying to show off his familiarity with the parallel bars. He take a couple of swings, then loses control in the dismount and contrives not just to be thrown off the bars, but all the way down a long nearby staircase, right into the middle of a genteel drawing room scene. Noting the gaze of the room’s inhabitants, Clouseau picks himself up and declares: “Well, that felt good!”This, but with a trade policy on which our national and international future hinges. Perhaps, like Clouseau, we will agonisingly pratfall our way to eventual Brexit triumph, and not have senselessly angered the new US administration along the way. However, real life not being a carefully plotted movie farce, we might have to accept that the chances are we won’t. Still, you can be sure that whatever happens, some guys will be claiming they meant to do it all.• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist More

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      What is the future for Latino voters in the US? Five experts weigh in | Chuck Rocha, Cristina Beltrán, Danielle Pilar Clealand, Arlene Dávila, Sonja Diaz

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      Why did Democrats leave Latino organizations scrambling for resources?
      Everyone is talking about Miami-Dade, Florida, where Joe Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton by a large margin. Let’s be clear, however: even if Biden won the county by the same margin as Clinton, he still would have lost the state by over 170,000 votes. Democrats mostly won Latinos in Florida; the demographic we lost was white voters.
      The most devastating problem made evident in this election was Democrats’ lack of outreach for races beside the presidential one. Poor and limited outreach around down-ballot campaigns cost us a majority in the Senate and numerous congressional seats. We assumed that the presidential race would draw Latino voters to the polls, but Biden’s campaign couldn’t pull it off on their own. In the final months before the election, Biden spent more money on bilingual communications than any presidential candidate in history. The problem was the disbursement of money from outside organizations: most of it seemed to go to predominantly white-led Super Pacs which focused on turning out what they viewed as persuadable white voters. Latino organizations were left scrambling for resources.
      The story of the Latino vote in 2020 isn’t over. We have a lot of data to use in future operations and in efforts to keep pushing Latino turnout up. To take on the disaster in Florida, we need to invest in intentional organizing and outreach by Latino-led firms and organizations. We must build a political infrastructure for the community, by the community.
      Chuck Rocha is the president of Solidarity Strategies and the founder of Nuestro Pac. He was a senior adviser to the Bernie Sanders campaign
      Politically, there is no ‘Latino community’
      This election revealed, yet again, that Latinos are a diverse population – not just demographically, but ideologically. When it comes to politics, there is no “Latino community”. And while Latinos are a disproportionately Democratic electorate, 2020 reminds us is that there is no single story here. Latino voters helped turn Nevada and Arizona blue – yet Latino Trump supporters in Florida and Texas help keep those states red.
      Going forward, the Democratic party needs to put much more energy into partnering with and listening to local Latino candidates and grassroots organizers on the ground. Democrats need to get their act together when it comes to developing mobilization strategies that take into account differences of age, gender, class, race, region, sexuality, education, occupation, national origin, and generation within Latino communities.
      In our eagerness to analyze Latino voting patterns, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Trump almost won re-election because the majority of white voters in the United States continued to support him. The only reason Trump lost is because a minority of white voters came together with the majority of Black, Latino, Asian American and Native voters. A multiracial coalition saved our democracy to fight another day.
      Cristina Beltrán is an associate professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University. She is author of The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity and Cruelty as Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy
      Anti-communism – and veiled racism – drove many Latino voters in Florida
      A large portion of Latino voters in Florida are conservatives for whom the legacy of the Cuban Revolution – and, more recently, Venezuela’s move to the left – are central to their voting decisions. To that end, Republicans worked overtime this election to paint Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as socialists, despite the candidates’ moderate positions within the Democratic party.
      But that’s not the entire story. The narrative about socialism was bolstered by conservatives’ labeling of Black Lives Matter supporters as Marxists and communists. Support for Trump among certain Latino populations in south Florida must be seen within the context of anti-Blackness, heightened by the Black Lives Matter protests and a Black woman as the vice-presidential candidate. Mislabeling Black Lives Matter as “communist” was a way to repackage racism among white Cubans and other white-identifying Latinos and make that racism politically palatable.
      Danielle Pilar Clealand is an associate professor of Mexican American and Latino studies at the University of Texas at Austin
      Stop obsessing over Miami-Dade
      A lot of media attention has focused on conservative Cuban voters in the Miami area, yet Miami-Dade county accounts for only 3.1% of the national Latinx vote. Most Latinx in the US voted for Biden, as did most people of color generally. We need to turn our attention to young Latinx voters, including those who flipped Arizona to the Democrats, as well as those who seek progressive alternatives beyond the limits of institutional politics.
      Unfortunately, both political parties still consistently ignore Latinx people, and popular knowledge about Latinx communities remains stereotypical and rudimentary. People still marvel at discovering we’re not a monolith and don’t fit into a neat demographic.
      Arlene Dávila is professor of anthropology and American studies at NYU and the founding director of the Latinx Project
      The US political machine must invest in reaching Latino voters
      The 2020 election has seen historic levels of turnout, including Latinos and young voters. Amid a global pandemic, however, voters badly needed alternatives to traditional campaign tactics and election administration. They also deserved a more adequate response to widespread misinformation and voter suppression.
      Within this context, neither party or campaign expended the necessary resources to fully engage Latinos. Democrats and Republicans invested large sums in persuading white voters, while neglecting the Latinos and young voters of color who have proved critical to Democratic support in Arizona. UCLA research shows Latinos overwhelmingly supported Biden in Maricopa, Pima and Yuma counties, driving Biden toward victory there.
      This was made possible by civil society organizations consistently engaging Latinos – not over months, but over years. And Florida’s exit polls show Latino voters overall preferred Biden by 21 points. Yet we keep hearing tired tropes about conservative Cuban American voters – a narrative which ignores the surge of white women and seniors who ultimately clinched Florida for Trump.
      Sonja Diaz is the founding director of the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative More

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      'The most misunderstood state': why California's not as liberal as you think

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      It took mere minutes after California polls closed on election night for networks to call the state for Joe Biden. Millions of votes in America’s most populous state were still to be counted, but Biden’s wide victory in California was guaranteed – the state is, after all, seen as a liberal bastion.But zoom in on its sprawling 58 counties, and the solid-blue picture of California is blurred. Even with a rousing race for the White House luring new voters to the ballot box this year, congressional conservatives held on to their seats and Republicans are poised to pick up more in close races they lost in the last cycle. Californians sided with corporations on the future of gig work, decided against affirmative action, and nixed both stronger rent control and a new business tax that benefits schools and local governments. “California is the most misunderstood state in the country,” said the political scientist Bruce Cain, who teaches on the American west at Stanford University. “It has always been that way.”California continues to produce some of the most influential and oppositional politicians on both sides. The Golden state is home to some of the most prominent conservative voices, including the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the Trump-allied congressman Devin Nunes. It is also home to the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff – all of whom secured new terms this election.It still has large swaths of red territory hidden behind a Democratic super-majority in the state house. Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris, who hails from the Bay Area, is the only California Democrat who has made it to the White House. Before the 1990s, a largely Republican-held California sent Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to the national stage.That’s why, Cain said, it shouldn’t be surprising to see some hard-fought congressional seats slipping from Democrats this year. “These were in many instances Republican seats that were held for a decade or two, sometimes longer,” he said. “It didn’t take much to tip it away – those seats were really on loan.”The sharp ideological divide, embodied by the big battle at the top of the ticket, also encouraged Californians across the political spectrum to weigh in. They said they saw this election as the most consequential of their lifetime and, according to surveys done by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), roughly three-quarters of respondents said they were more enthusiastic about voting than ever before. They were not just Democrats.“The enthusiasm about voting was similar among Democrats and Republicans,” said Mark Baldassare, PPIC’s President. “We are a blue state, but it meant that Republicans were going to turn out in California even if the presidential election was a foregone conclusion.” The election brought roughly 22 million people to the polls, according to statistics from the California secretary of state – the most in the state’s history – and roughly 88% of eligible residents were registered.“In what everybody was expecting was going to be a blue wave election, it looks like a few of the seats will turn Republican again,” Baldassare said, adding that focus on the presidential election and representatives also could have clouded concentration and understanding of California’s complicated 12 state propositions. More

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      'Whoa': Fox News cuts off Kayleigh McEnany for 'illegal votes' spiel – video

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      Fox News has cut away from a briefing held by the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, during which she repeated Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat in the presidential election and doubled down on allegations of voter fraud, for which there is scant if any evidence.
      Speaking to media on Monday night in a ‘personal capacity’ during what she said was a campaign event at the Republican National Committee headquarters, McEnany said Republicans want ‘every legal vote to be counted, and every illegal vote to be discarded’, prompting the conservative Fox News network to stop broadcasting the briefing.
      The Trump campaign and Republicans have brought numerous lawsuits alleging election irregularities. Judges have already tossed out cases in Georgia and Michigan
      How Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the fight for America’s soul – video  More

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      How senior Republicans have reacted to Trump's refusal to concede election – video report

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      Along with the president himself, the vast majority of Republican politicians have refused to accept Trump’s election loss. 
      The former president George W Bush was among a handful of Republicans who have congratulated the Biden-Harris team, while the senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said Trump was ‘100% within his rights’ to question election results. 
      The US attorney general, William Barr, has authorised federal prosecutors to begin investigating ‘substantial allegations’ of voter irregularities
      Barr tells prosecutors to investigate ‘vote irregularities’ despite lack of evidence
      Donald Trump has no intention of conceding, campaign insists
      Will Trump accept defeat and leave the White House? Yes, experts say More

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      Soul of the nation: how Joe Biden's faith will shape his presidency

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      He carries a rosary in his pocket, one that belonged to his dead son, Beau. On election day last Tuesday, he went to mass, as he does every Sunday.
      In his victory speech on Saturday night, he quoted from Ecclesiastes: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season – a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.”
      For only the second time in US history, a Catholic will occupy the White House when Joe Biden is sworn in as the country’s 46th president. A man of profound faith, he has pledged to restore the “soul of the nation” after four years of rancour.
      At his side will be a vice-president who, as well as being the first woman of colour to hold the position, comes from a family that has embraced the Baptist church, Hinduism and Judaism.
      Catholic bishops in the US were quick to congratulate the president-elect, acknowledging that he will be only the second president to be a Catholic, John F Kennedy being the first.
      “At this moment in American history, Catholics have a special duty to be peacemakers, to promote fraternity and mutual trust, and to pray for a renewed spirit of true patriotism in our country,” said José Gomez, archbishop of Los Angeles and president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
      Biden’s Catholicism is at the core of his life and is likely to shape the way he governs as president.
      “I’m as much a cultural Catholic as I am a theological Catholic,” he wrote in his book, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics. “My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world comes straight from my religion. It’s not so much the Bible, the beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, the sacraments, or the prayers I learned. It’s the culture.”
      Less than two weeks ago, in an article for the Christian Post, Biden wrote: “My Catholic faith drilled into me a core truth – that every person on earth is equal in rights and dignity, because we are all beloved children of God.”
      As president, he added: “These are the principles that will shape all that I do, and my faith will continue to serve as my anchor, as it has my entire life.”
      Several of Biden’s campaign ads featured footage of his meetings with Pope Francis. In a 2015 interview, Biden said Francis was “the embodiment of Catholic social doctrine that I was raised with. The idea that everyone’s entitled to dignity, that the poor should be given special preference, that you have an obligation to reach out and be inclusive.” More

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      The tasks Joe Biden faces: from racial justice to restoring faith in science

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      The coronavirus pandemic and healthcareAs the coronavirus pandemic tore through the US, Joe Biden’s most important promise to the American people was a policy platform taken for granted prior the Trump presidency: believe science.America was already falling behind other developed nations on a panoply of key health metrics when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the worst of the pandemic is likely to bear down just as the Biden-Harris administration takes office.After Donald Trump chose to downplay the threat of the virus and spread conspiracy theories, the US led the world in Covid infections and deaths.Currently, more than 100,000 people per day are being diagnosed with the coronavirus. Experts predict as many as 200,000 Americans per day could receive Covid-19 diagnoses by Thanksgiving. More than 237,000 Americans have already been killed by Covid-19.Some analyses suggest more than 90,000 Americans have died unnecessarily – and these figures probably underrepresent the problem.Biden has pledged, “disciplined, trustworthy leadership grounded in science”, including another stimulus package, robust and free testing and treatment, investment in pandemic planning, and more support for underfunded public health authorities. A coronavirus taskforce is already being formed.At the same time, Biden will have to wrestle with the fallout from the Trump administration, most notably, a supreme court case that could overturn the signature achievement of the Obama-Biden administration, the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.Should the ACA be overturned, 20 million Americans could lose insurance during a pandemic, joining the ranks of 12 million who lost employer-sponsored coverage amid pandemic-induced layoffs, and the 27 million who lacked insurance at the beginning of the pandemic. This would make the uninsured crisis worse than that which drove the law’s passage.It could also have unintended consequences. Biden will need to reckon with an insurgent left animated by a desire for single-payer healthcare called Medicare for All. This group is likely to be unsatisfied by incremental reform.Restoring trust in science will not be simple after four years of lies, half-truths, misdirections and conspiracy theories. Jessica GlenzaThe economyWhen Biden enters the White House on 20 January many epidemiologists are hoping that the US will be pulling through the worst phase of the coronavirus pandemic. Where the economy is heading is less certain.Covid-19 and the global economy are now so intertwined that there seems no certain hope of economic recovery until the virus is under control.The pandemic triggered a wave of shutdowns and record levels of unemployment and temporary layoffs. Some 20 million people lost their jobs in April as the unemployment rate hit 14.7%, the highest on record. Unemployment fell sharply to 6.9% in October but weekly claims for unemployment insurance remain historically high and the number of longterm unemployed is rising. The economic impact on the poor, women, people of color and the young has been dire.Biden has pledged to use his presidential powers to force businesses to take the pandemic head on and increase testing and tracing, as well as manufacturing more personal protection equipment and ventilators.He has said he would also issue new stimulus cheques to hard-hit Americans and increase payments to the unemployed that were cut by the Trump administration. Some of the cash would come from rolling back Trump’s biggest achievement – his $1.5tn tax cuts.Expect Republicans to try to block or curtail new spending bills. Having run up a record $3.1tn budget deficit – the gap between what the US spends and what it earns through tax receipts and other revenue – Republicans are talking about the need to balance the books. The path for Biden’s recovery plan will be long and hard fought. Dominic Rushe More

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      Why Republican control of US Senate would kneecap climate action

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      Climate advocates rejoicing at Joe Biden’s presidential victory are also quietly absorbing the blow of Republicans possibly keeping control of the US Senate – which would kneecap significant efforts to fight globe-heating pollution.
      If Joe Biden is president and Congress is still divided, there will probably still be large-scale spending on green infrastructure, like renewable power, electric vehicles and transit. But any hopes for climate requirements for businesses, like a clean energy standard, would feel much farther off.
      Publicly, environmental groups have claimed success, saying this election was the most focused on climate of any in history and that Biden’s plan is solid. Privately, they know that much hinges on the two undecided Senate seats in Georgia, which will decide whether Republicans or Democrats have a majority.
      “Even though there might be obstructionism coming from Republican leadership in the Senate, we think that there will be many opportunities for Democrats and Republicans to come together to pass strong legislation,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.
      “Everything doesn’t start and stop with the US Congress. In order to win on climate change we will need to continue to see leadership everywhere across society, in our schools, in our private sector, in our states across the country,” he added.
      If Biden could convince Congress to spend $1.7tn on a green recovery, that would reduce US emissions in the next 30 years by about 75 gigatonnes, avoiding a temperature rise of 0.1C by 2100, according to the Climate Action Tracker. That may seem small, but it could significantly lessen the harms of the climate crisis and also encourage pollution reductions in other nations. Already the world is more than 1C hotter than before industrialization. International agreements aim to keep that to 1.5C to 2C.
      Outside of Congress, Biden could pursue climate progress with agency regulations – stopping new oil and gas drilling on public lands, tightening air pollution rules that will also help with climate change and backing out of Donald Trump’s fight with California over standards for cars.
      But those measures are likely to be challenged by industry and could ultimately make their way to a final decision by the conservative supreme court, which Trump and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, were able to lock in weeks before the election. Plus, the new president could for some time have his hands full just reversing Trump’s cuts to environmental protection.
      Pushing for emissions reductions through executive authority could also make moderate Republicans less likely to support bipartisan efforts.
      Even some Democrats could be hesitant to significantly increase the federal deficit for the purpose of climate stimulus spending, said Ben Pendergrass, senior director of government affairs for Citizens Climate Lobby.
      While a progressive Green New Deal is not in the cards, inaction also won’t be tolerable for most lawmakers, Pendergrass said. He believes people who care about climate change “should view this as an opportunity”.
      Under a moderate president who is concerned about climate change, Republicans could have more space to support the expansion of renewable energy and green infrastructure, even if they won’t vote to penalize fossil fuels.
      “We really need bipartisan dialogue and cooperation on climate to create lasting solutions,” Pendergrass said.
      Biden’s first climate work will be through stimulus funds aimed at lifting the economy out of the pandemic downturn. Climate change is one of four crises spotlighted on his government transition website, along with the pandemic, the economic recovery and racial equity. The focus of the Biden climate plan is to “create union jobs by tackling the climate crisis,” the website says.
      Rhiana Gunn-Wright, climate policy director at the liberal thinktank the Roosevelt Institute, said every dollar of stimulus funding will either help or hurt climate action.
      “Even things that are very good for people are not necessarily carbon neutral because they’re going to spend that money on gasoline, on power that’s coal-fired and natural-gas-fired. And that’s not their fault,” Gunn-Wright said.
      Fossil fuel companies have sought and claimed about $5.8bn in pandemic assistance, according to her group. Easy-to-fund, shovel-ready projects like expanding highways threaten to lock in emissions.
      Wright said although a stimulus package will not include big decarbonization measures, like additional legal authorities for agencies, it will be a significant start.
      “There are a number of big new laws we’re going to need,” she said.
      Kate Larsen, a director at the economic research firm Rhodium Group, said a Democratic majority in the Senate would be critical to getting a good portion of the way toward the goals the US agreed to in the international Paris climate agreement, but without that majority, stimulus spending is the “fastest way a Biden administration can jumpstart clean energy efforts”.
      The firm found the US spent just 1.1% of its stimulus dollars on green measures. The EU and its member countries, by comparison, spent 18.8% on pro-environment efforts.
      Many states and businesses too will be trying to reduce their climate footprints, although some are clinging to a fossil-fuel based economy. Democrats saw losses in state legislatures that will probably hamper climate efforts.
      A Biden administration could aim to help states cut emissions, but the pandemic has critically injured already weak state budgets and resources.
      A group representing state clean air officials in October stressed the importance of getting “significant increases in federal grant funding” to protect public health. The National Association of Clean Air Agencies represents the state departments that regulate the pollution that makes people sick and also causes climate change.
      Paula DiPerna, a special adviser to CDP (the Carbon Disclosure Project), said businesses are more likely to be on board with climate action because they have suffered from the lack of regulatory continuity and certainty that comes from the pendulum swing of American elections.
      “If you marry the climate change challenge with the infrastructure improvement, I think you have a trigger for economic recovery. That’s Biden’s strength,” DiPerna said. More