US elections 2020

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      Israeli zeal for second Trump term matched by Palestinian enmity

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      Anyone in any doubt about Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred candidate in the US presidential election need only visit his personal Twitter account.Right at the top, behind the headshot of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a banner photo of him with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, their eyes fixed on each other.“You have been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu told his ally during a Washington visit this year. “Frankly, though we’ve had some great, outstanding friends in these halls, it’s not even close.”That list includes Barack Obama, whose famously icy relationship with Netanyahu extends by proxy to his vice-president and Trump’s 2020 rival, Joe Biden.Palestinians see the prospect of a second Trump term as disastrous. “If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world,” the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said this month.Trump has arguably been the US president with most impact on the Israeli-Palestinian issue as he has sought to appeal to his pro-Israel base, including evangelical Christians. During the past four years, the US leader has ticked off much on Netanyahu’s hardline nationalist wishlist that was previously considered taboo.He has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, declared the divided city of Jerusalem Israel’s capital, shut down Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington and devised a “peace plan” that affords Israel’s government the vast majority of its demands.Led by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the Trump administration has also persuaded the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel despite the ongoing occupation. It has also imposed further sanctions on Iran, a policy Israel has been advocating against its arch-enemy for years.“For Netanyahu personally, obviously he has a preference,” said Yohanan Plesner, a former Israeli politician and president of the Israel Democracy Institute. “One of the assets that Mr Netanyahu sells to the Israeli public is his close intimate relationship with Mr Trump.”Four more years of Trump could be hugely advantageous for the Israeli leader, particularly if Washington can convince more Arab states to establish open ties with Israel with few or no concessions to the Palestinians.A further softening of Washington’s stance on illegal settlements in Palestinian territories, or even recognising annexation moves, could also be on the table. Trump’s US ambassador to Israel and former bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, is vocal in his support for Jewish settlements.Trump’s image and that of his country may have plummeted worldwide, but many Israelis adore him. According to a survey conducted for the i24News channel, 63% would prefer him to win the election, compared with less than 19% who would prefer Biden.Plesner, however, says that does not mean Israelis are overly concerned about a Biden presidency. “Mr Biden’s track record is well established. There is no cause for any worry among Israelis,” he said. “Both candidates are considered pro-Israel.”Biden was often used as an emissary to Israel during this vice-presidency and has previously described Netanyahu as a friend. This year, however, he said the Israel leader had drifted “so, so far to the right”.Salem Barahmeh, the executive director of the Ramallah-based Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, said Trump had been “extremely dangerous for the entire world, especially for Palestine and our struggle for freedom and rights”.He added, however, that Trump had merely accelerated long-standing US policy from both Republican and Democrat administrations that allowed Israel to continue the occupation with few significant consequences.“The Obama administration and Biden were part of that trajectory,” he said. A Biden win may even be counterproductive for the Palestinian rights movement, he added, arguing that Trump exposed US policy in the region for the facade that it was.“Trump is a polarising figure, he mobilises a lot of resistance,” he said. “With Biden, it would be going back to that normal, but that normal was never good for Palestine and the Palestinians.” More

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      Ice Cube and 50 Cent highlight conservative faction among Black, male voters

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      After Ice Cube garnered headlines for his tweets announcing a collaboration with the Trump administration on what was called a Platinum Plan for Black America, the hip-hop mogul faced immediate backlash for supposed hypocrisy and misogyny.
      “Black men are breaking my heart with this caping for [Ice Cube and the president]. Apparently y’all want to be to 2020 what White women were to 2016,” tweeted scholar Brittney Cooper.
      Political analysts also chided the rapper for failing to admit that he declined invitations to meet with both the Joe Biden campaign and Kamala Harris.
      The Los Angeles-based rapper neither disavowed working with nor endorsed the president, but the illusion of aligning with Trump allowed campaign officials to signal Ice Cube was proof of “Blaxit” – an initiative calling for the exodus of Black Americans from the Democratic party.
      50 Cent encouraged followers to “vote for Trump” after posting that Biden’s proposed tax plan only amplified criticism. He’s since dialed back his support. The sometime rapper faced a mountain of criticism for claiming he doesn’t “care Trump doesn’t like Black people” in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election.
      Rosa Clemente, an activist and former Green party vice-presidential nominee, argued that these celebrity interventions run counter to existing, youth- and women-led initiatives fighting for institutional change.
      “They’re right to critique the Democratic party, where they’re wrong is to act like there aren’t already movements out here,” she said. “We don’t need another Black agenda. Yet here come these rappers over the age of 50 who’ve publicly decided to align with a white supremacist”.
      While polls show Trump trailing his Democratic rival, his campaign launched a late bid for Black voters by touting the administration’s record on criminal justice reform, funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and declines in Black unemployment – and even pledging to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
      The South Carolina senator Tim Scott has been one of the president’s most loyal supporters in the administration’s push to attract Black men. Ahead of the state’s February primary, the former Republican congressional candidate Brad Mole, of Charleston, told the Guardian that outreach is resonating in places like the more traditional south. “At some point Black conservatives decide they’re ‘not voting for this person or this ticket just because [their] grandma or parents did,’” he said.
      Terrance Woodbury, founding partner of the marketing research firm HIT Strategies, argues the conservative political leanings of public figures like 50 Cent or Ice Cube speak to a faction of the Black male electorate underrepresented in political conversations.
      “These trends did not start this cycle and there are generational differences. Black men in general are more socially conservative but Black men under 50 are positioned very differently than their elders,” he said.
      “Beyond generation, there’s both a turnout and performance problem that Democrats have experienced with Black male engagement,” he added.
      “Trump’s support among Black Americans is underwater, yet consistent over time with Black support for GOP presidential candidates,” Sam Fulwood III, a fellow with American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies (CCPS), wrote for the Hill.
      Before dying of the coronavirus, the Republican entrepreneur and Trump campaign surrogate Herman Cain advocated for “Blaxit”, (a Black exit from the Democratic party) by telling Fox Business that Black Americans have “been brainwashed” into hating Trump, but many aren’t “buying the perception”.
      But in decades since white southerners flocked to the Republican party in response to the civil rights movement, Black voters have still maintained close ties with Democrats.
      Pew analyzed 2017 data and found that although African American voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic, support “has declined modestly”. About two-thirds of African Americans identified as Democrats, down from the first half of Barack Obama’s presidency.
      Back then, about 75% of Black Americans affiliated as Democrats. Just 8% identified as Republican, the same percentage as voted for Trump in 2016.
      Young Black voters, both men and women, are defecting most. Fulwood noted CCPS’s latest survey found “young Black Americans tend to view Democrats much less favorably – and Republicans more favorably – than their older peers.”
      But while the survey found 79% thought Trump is racist, 74% said he’s “incompetent” and 73% disagree with his policies, men more often “admired how the president shows strength and defies the establishment”.
      “Young Black men are rationally responding to their experience within an American political system that for all of their lives has been either hostile or indifferent to their concerns that the political deck is stacked against them and that politicians – Democratic or Republican – just don’t care about them,” he said.
      However, that strongman persona – defined by bully-like attacks, sexism and a refusal to apologize – could seal the deal for conservative, Black men disillusioned with the Democrats, and some critics contend that endangers Black women.
      “It’s internalized racism and misogyny that would allow anyone to align with a party so against your basic humanity while a majority of Black women fight them,” Clemente said, noting Black men, like most men overall, least supported a Black vice-president candidate.
      “We’re leaders in this movement and we will not be erased.”
      A fight for the next generation
      Woodbury noted that young men in HIT’s focus groups have been “extremely anxious about race, and cynical toward an entire political system that they feel like has not produced anything for them”.
      Across the country progressive leaders and activists are also working to attract young, Black voters who say Democrats no longer speak for them. Clemente argued “Democrats are dropping the ball” in reaching Black men.
      “They’re voting for their lives,” she said, adding Black people can be critical of Democrats without being contrary to the movements that advocate for them.
      “Young people keep hearing ‘we’re against ending fracking,’ ‘we’re against defunding police,’ ‘we’re against forgiving students loans,’” Clemente said. “They hear a party so against their values they want to know what the fuck are you even for?
      By stepping into the fray so late in the game, she said, conservative celebrities silence the communities who will still support them long after election day ushers in a president working against them. More

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      'I can have a voice': Latino voters set for decisive role in key Arizona county

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      Even before she could vote, Imelda Quiroz Beltran had a goal for this election: to register as many Latino voters in Maricopa county as possible – and make sure they cast their ballots.
      Every day for months, she has gone door to door with the non-profit Mi Familia Vota, undeterred by the searing desert sun – zipping across Phoenix’s sprawling concrete-paved neighborhoods in search of eligible voters.
      And then the day came when Beltran registered herself – after she became a naturalized citizen this year.
      “Finally, I can have a voice,” she said. “And this year, it is so important that we all have a voice.”
      Maricopa – which includes Phoenix – is the fastest-growing county in the US. Of its nearly 4.5 million residents, one-third identify as Latino, according to census data.
      While Arizona has voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election but one since 1952, this year, political strategists and pollsters are predicting that Latino voters in Maricopa could play a decisive role in electing Joe Biden to the White House and Democrats up and down the ballot.
      “Whoever wins the Latino vote, is going to win Maricopa county. And whoever wins Maricopa county is going to win Arizona,” said Joseph Garcia, director of Chicanos Por La Causa Action Fund, a non-profit based in Phoenix. “And whoever wins Arizona is likely to win the White House.” More

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      The Black electorate could decide the 2020 election. Here's why

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      Black Americans could decide the 2020 presidential election, particularly in key battleground states like Wisconsin and Florida. The battle for the White House approaches as Black Americans face the brunt of an unprecedented national crisis – one in 1,000 have died of the virus and African Americans are twice as likely to have lost a job.
      Joe Biden’s road to the White House could hang on Democrats’ ability to turn out their most loyal bloc.
      Although they have maintained a sizable advantage among African Americans over Republicans counterparts for decades, support for Democrats has slowly declined since the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency. That complicates Democratic efforts to court these 30 million eligible voters ahead of 3 November.

      African Americans are often depicted as a single, unified bloc, and many analysts warn Democrats that therein lies the problem. As experts debunk the myth of the Black voter monolith, the path to victory may be dependent on Democrats’ ability to speak to Black voters’ diversity.
      Here are factors that will shape Black voting turnout on election day, and their political power well beyond.
      Migration puts more states in play
      Since the 1970s, the US has experienced a reverse migration in which Black Americans move from northern cities back to the south. Most often, it’s to communities where they were born or where their families were rooted before the Great Migration – an era between 1916 and 1970 when 6 million African Americans escaped segregation and discrimination in the south, to pursue jobs up north.
      That makes states like Texas, South Carolina and Georgia more competitive.
      “There’s a clear understanding that a growing, energized bloc of African American voters can be a tipping point for any electorate,” Bill Frey, a senior fellow and demographer with the Brookings Institution, told the Guardian.
      “It’s an example of what we can see moving forward where many thought, and still think, that Georgia will eventually turn blue,” he added.
      Along with Georgia, the top states for Black population gains include Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia – all swing or battleground states where the vice-president ramped up campaign efforts in the weeks leading up to 3 November. According to Pew, more than one-third of Black voters live in nine of the most competitive states.
      The Brookings Institution also noted that while progressive attitudes are most often held by younger, college-educated blacks, the influence of retirees and older Americans from more liberal cities can also skew voting blocs left.
      But that’s also creating a generational divide between more radical youth and their pragmatic elders. More

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      Could the 2020 US election really be decided by the supreme court?

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      Like Babe Ruth pointing a bat over a fence, Donald Trump last month called his shot.
      “I think this will end up in the supreme court,” Trump told reporters, referring to the election. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices. I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation.”
      Earlier this week, Trump got his ninth justice, with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the seat vacated by the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
      But is the 2020 presidential election really headed for the supreme court? Here’s a look at the situation:
      Can Barrett hand Trump the election?
      Probably not. The most likely scenario is that American voters alone will decide the election.
      For all its flaws and added complications this year from the coronavirus pandemic, the US elections system has basic features to ensure a high correlation between the vote that is cast and the result that is announced.
      It is highly decentralized, with thousands of jurisdictions staffed by members of each major party, all using different technologies and independently reporting results, which can be reviewed or recounted, with both sides and the media watching out for irregularities before, during and after election day. It might take awhile, and the tragic story of disenfranchisement in the United States continues, but elections officials have vowed to deliver an accurate count.
      Sometimes, however, US elections are very close, and in an era of nihilistic partisanship, court fights during elections are becoming increasingly common. Such disputes might land with increasing frequency before the supreme court.
      It is extremely rare for a presidential election to land before the supreme court. In 1876, five justices sat on a commission that decided the 1876 race for Rutherford B Hayes over Samuel Tilden.
      In the modern era, it has happened just once, in 2000, after the Florida state supreme court ordered a recount in a razor-thin race that the Republican secretary of state said George W Bush had won. Republicans challenged the recount order and the case went to the supreme court, which sustained the challenge and stopped the recount.
      How might a 2020 election-supreme court scenario unfold?
      The supreme court has already issued two significant rulings in the election, one that allowed ballots received in Pennsylvania up to three days after election day to be counted, and a second blocking ballots received in Wisconsin after election day from being counted. Lower courts have issued numerous decisions on issues around voting and counting.
      Republicans in Pennsylvania have vowed to renew their challenge to ballots received after election day, and if they can push the case back to the supreme court, they might find victory this time with Barrett making a majority.
      But if the supreme court ends up getting involved in a major way in the presidential election, it would likely be to weigh in on a question that is not yet clear because we don’t know what legal conflicts will play out in which states.
      In Bush v Gore (2000), lawyers on the Republican side argued that the state supreme court had usurped the legislature’s authority by ordering a recount. The supreme court stopped the recount, not by relying on the argument about the court bigfooting the legislature, but by finding that different standards for vote-counting in different counties violated the equal protection clause.
      Is there a chance Barrett would recuse herself from any case involving a president who appointed her so recently?
      At her confirmation hearing, Barrett dodged just this question. “I commit to you to fully and faithfully applying the law of recusal,” she said. “And part of the law is to consider any appearance questions. And I will apply the factors that other justices have before me in determining whether the circumstances require my recusal or not. But I can’t offer a legal conclusion right now about the outcome of the decision I would reach.” More

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      'We couldn't stand it any more': why disaffection with Devin Nunes is growing among his constituents

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      Paul Buxman remembers how excited he was to meet his new congressman, Devin Nunes, when Nunes showed up at his organic fruit farm in California’s central valley in the early 2000s.
      Buxman assumed that Nunes, who comes from Portuguese dairy farming stock, was actually interested in sustainable land use. Maybe they’d talk about pesticides, or water, or farm labor issues in one of the world’s largest food producing regions. Maybe Nunes would ask Buxman to address the crowd he’d brought along.
      None of it happened. “I thought, this is the first farmer we’ve had as a congressman who’s come out to visit a farm,” Buxman. “But all it was was a photo op.”
      Buxman never was able to arrange a meeting with Nunes, despite making multiple overtures. Pretty soon, he stopped voting for him. Then, after Donald Trump became president and Nunes, as chair of the House intelligence committee until 2019 emerged as one of Trump’s staunchest defenders, Buxman started leaving messages with the congressman’s staffers. “You have to remember, you don’t only represent people who you agree with. At least, sit quietly and put up with us,” he’d tell them.
      Nunes paid no attention until Buxman signed a petition demanding that Nunes stop describing himself as a farmer on the electoral ballot. Nunes’s parents had long ago moved the family dairy farm to Iowa and Nunes himself had no apparent farming connection left other than a small investment in a friend’s Napa valley winery, the petition argued.
      Now, Nunes did respond – with a lawsuit, accusing Buxman of being part of a dark-money plot that threatened his good name and the integrity of the electoral process. It was one of a flurry of suits the congressman filed against critics and media organizations after facing heavy criticism for his role in Trump’s various Russia scandals.
      Lashing out at his critics in this way has not been without a political cost. Two years ago, after 16 years in Congress, Nunes faced his first significant re-election battle when a local prosecutor, Andrew Janz, came within five percentage points of unseating him. This year, small business owner and civic activist Phil Arballo could come closer still with a campaign that has focused predominantly on the local issues that many constituents accuse Nunes of ignoring. More