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      Barr: it would be ‘big mistake’ for Republicans to nominate Trump in 2024

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      Barr: it would be ‘big mistake’ for Republicans to nominate Trump in 2024‘I don’t think he should be our nominee,’ ex-president’s attorney general tells Newsmax William Barr, Donald Trump’s former attorney general, said in an interview on Thursday that it would be a “big mistake” for the Republican party to nominate Trump for president in 2024.Appearing on the Newsmax television channel, Barr said Trump, who has hinted that he will run again, would not be a sound choice.Capitol attack panel set to issue letters to Kevin McCarthy and other key RepublicansRead more“I don’t think he should be our nominee – the Republican party nominee,” Barr said.“And I think Republicans have a big opportunity – it would be a big mistake to put him forward.”In a poll in January 57% of Republican voters said they would choose Trump in 2024. Trump also won the less scientific Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, in February, by a large margin.Trump, who was impeached twice during his four years in the White House, has repeatedly teased his supporters with suggestions he will run again.“We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” Trump told a crowd at the CPAC convention – claiming again that he won the 2020 election.“We’re going to be doing it again a third time.”Still, Barr’s remarks will be sure to anger Trump, who has repeatedly clashed with his former attorney general since losing the 2020 election.In Barr’s book, One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, he wrote that Trump had “shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed”.Trump, Barr said, has surrounded himself with “sycophants” and “whack jobs from outside the government, who fed him a steady diet of comforting but unsupported conspiracy theories”.Trump responded by calling Barr “slow” and “lethargic”.“When the Radical Left Democrats threatened to Hold him in contempt and even worse, Impeach him, he became virtually worthless to Law and Order and Election Integrity. They broke him just like a trainer breaks a horse.”Trump had previously called Barr a “swamp creature” and a “Rino [Republican in Name Only] … afraid, weak and frankly … pathetic”.TopicsWilliam BarrDonald TrumpRepublicansUS elections 2024US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      McConnell was ‘exhilarated’ by Trump’s apparent January 6 downfall, book says

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      McConnell was ‘exhilarated’ by Trump’s apparent January 6 downfall, book saysNew York Times reporters show how Senate leader’s opposition to Trump dwindled in face of hard political reality Hours after the deadly Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, told a reporter he was “exhilarated” because he thought Donald Trump had finally lost his grip on the party.Biden finds Murdoch ‘most dangerous man in the world’, new book saysRead moreClose to a year and a half later, however, with midterm elections looming, Trump retains control over the GOP and is set to be its presidential candidate in 2024.What’s more, McConnell has said he will support Trump if so.McConnell’s short-lived glee over Trump’s apparent downfall is described in This Will Not Pass, an explosive new book by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns of the New York Times which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.The two authors describe a meeting between one of them and McConnell at the Capitol early on 7 January 2021. The day before, a mob Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his lie about electoral fraud attempted to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory by forcing its way into the Capitol.A bipartisan Senate committee connected seven deaths to the attack. In the aftermath, 147 Republicans in the House and Senate nonetheless lodged objections to electoral results.According to Martin and Burns, McConnell told staffers Trump was a “despicable human being” he would now fight politically. Then, on his way out of the Capitol, the authors say, McConnell met one of them and “made clear he wanted a word”.“What do you hear about the 25th amendment?” they say McConnell asked, “eager for intelligence about whether his fellow Republicans were discussing removing Trump from office” via the constitutional process for removing a president incapable of the office.Burns and Martin say McConnell “seemed almost buoyant”, telling them Trump was now “pretty thoroughly discredited”.“He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” McConnell is quoted as saying. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”The authors say McConnell indicated he believed he would regain control of his party, alluding to a previous confrontation with the far right and saying: “We crushed the sons of bitches and that’s what we’re going to do in the primary in ’22.”McConnell also said: “I feel exhilarated by the fact that [Trump] finally, totally discredited himself.”McConnell’s words ring hollow, in fact, as the 2022 midterms approach. Trump endorsements are highly prized and Republicans who voted for impeachment are either retiring or facing Trump-backed challengers.Trump was impeached for a second time over the Capitol attack but as Burns and Martin describe, McConnell swiftly realised that most Republican voters still supported the former president – many believing his lie about electoral fraud – and that most Republicans in Congress were going to stay in line.Burns and Martin describe how in Trump’s Senate trial, Democratic House managers sought to convince McConnell of their case, knowing his loathing for Trump and hoping he would bring enough Republicans with him to convict.But McConnell, grasping a legal argument that said Congress could not impeach a former president, did not join the seven Republicans who did find Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection.After voting to acquit, McConnell excoriated Trump, saying he was “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol attack.That did not change the fact that thanks in large part to McConnell, Trump remains free to run for office again.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden told Barack Obama he will run again in 2024 – report

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      Joe Biden told Barack Obama he will run again in 2024 – reportPresident ‘thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump’, source tells the Hill, as Trump is readying his own third run Joe Biden has told Barack Obama he will run for re-election in 2024, according to a Washington website, the Hill.Attempt to bar Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress can proceed, judge saysRead moreThe site cited two anonymous sources. One was quoted as saying Biden “wants to run and he’s clearly letting everyone know”.It was not clear when Biden told Obama his plans. But Obama visited the White House earlier this month, to celebrate the Affordable Care Act.Introducing his host, Obama called him “Vice-President Biden”.“That was a joke,” he said, to laughter.Biden was vice-president to Obama from 2009 to 2017. He won the presidency on his own third attempt in 2020 (after short-lived campaigns in 1988 and 2008), beating Donald Trump.00:55At 78, Biden was the oldest president ever inaugurated. If he won again he would be 82 at the start of his second term.Amid competing crises, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the coronavirus and rampant inflation at home, Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted. Most observers expect Republicans to retake Congress in November. But the president has dropped plenty of hints that he does plan to run again.In September, it was widely reported that Biden and aides had told allies he planned to run again. In December, Biden said he would run if he stayed in good health. He has also said Kamala Harris, his vice-president, would be on the ticket again.In his December interview with ABC News, Biden said another Trump candidacy would “increase the prospect of running”.In Brussels in March, Biden referred to Trump again when he said: “In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.”Trump, 75, is readying his own third run for the presidency.One of the sources who spoke to the Hill said Biden “thinks he’s the only one who can beat Trump. I don’t think he thinks there’s anyone in the Democratic party who can beat Trump and that’s the biggest factor.”In 2020, Biden surged to victory in the Democratic primary on the back of support from Black voters – and a quickly gathering sense that he was indeed the party’s best hope of beating Trump.According to books and reportage about the 2020 campaign, Obama doubted whether Biden could win.Edward-Isaac Dovere, author of Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump, reports: “Obama was doubtful about [Biden’s] prospects. He didn’t think Biden could be a disciplined enough candidate.”Dovere also says Obama doubted Biden’s stamina for the race, was not sure he had the requisite “swagger” for an American president, and worried his vice-president had “trouble … connecting with crowds”.But Dovere also quotes Jen Psaki, now Biden’s White House press secretary, as saying Obama “undervalued Biden’s political abilities because they had such different styles”.TopicsUS elections 2024Joe BidenDonald TrumpBarack ObamaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      What does Republicans’ break from the presidential debate commission mean?

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      What does Republicans’ break from the presidential debate commission mean?The US presidential debate has been thrown into doubt – and the move is proof of the RNC’s eagerness to do Trump’s bidding One of the marquee moments of any US presidential election – the televised debate – has been thrown into doubt by the Republican party’s decision on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates.The Republican National Committee (RNC) grumbled that the group that has run the debates since 1988 is biased and refuses to enact reforms. It promised to “find newer, better debate platforms” in future.The long-threatened move was proof of the RNC’s continued eagerness to do the bidding of former president Donald Trump, who has endlessly complained about the timing and formats of debates and the choice of moderators.But in a week that also saw the Democratic National Committee resolve that Iowa and New Hampshire are no longer guaranteed to go first in the party’s presidential nominating process, it was also a reminder that seemingly immutable traditions are fragile.The Commission on Presidential Debates was founded in 1987 as a non-profit sponsored by both Democrats and Republicans to codify debates as a permanent part of presidential elections.But it has faced criticism from various quarters. Republicans in particular have complained that it favours Democrats since the Barack Obama v Mitt Romney debates of a decade ago.Trump, as ever, took the grievance to a new level and refused to take part in what was meant to be the second of three debates with Joe Biden in 2020 after the commission made it virtual in the wake of the then president’s coronavirus infection.“He’s got a long-running dispute with the commission,” said Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan. “He thinks the composition is a bunch of Never Trumpers and the deck has been stacked against him and they haven’t given him a fair shake.“In some ways it’s a negotiating ploy if this particular commission’s not involved. I think there’s still likely to be some debates but there’s going to be negotiation for timing and location and who the moderator is. So, if he’s the candidate again, it may give him more leverage.”The RNC is chaired by Ronna McDaniel, a Trump loyalist who has proven determined to enforce his will. Earlier this year the RNC censured Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, two Republicans who broke with Trump to sit on the House of Representatives select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.Should Trump be the party’s nominee in the 2024 presidential election, McDaniel would no doubt push hard for debates that suit his whims – a potentially tough and complicated negotiation with TV networks, social media companies, thinktanks or other entities.Kall continued: “The Commission on Presidential Debates have been doing it for the last several decades but they weren’t the first one; they won’t be the last one. I don’t think anyone will shed a tear if whatever debates we have in the next cycle are not sponsored by the commission.“But it’ll be kind of the wild west and everyone will want to be involved in a debate. They get tens of millions of viewers. There’s very few events these days, given how bifurcated we are, that command the respect of debates. We have basically the Super Bowl, presidential debates, the inaugural address, the State of the Union – it’s very rare.”The value of debates has been questioned in this highly partisan, fragmented media age. This month Republican Herschel Walker and Democrat John Fetterman skipped primary debates in Georgia and Pennsylvania, respectively.Now the Commission on Presidential Debates may have passed its sell-by date. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, said: “I’m only surprised it took this long. It’s all about Trump, really, but there’s another segment of people who’ve looked at that and the whole system is stale and it’s run by the same people that have been running it for decades.“That’s what I’m kind of torn about. I certainly don’t agree with Trump’s reasoning for doing it but I do think the system needs shaking up. This won’t do it because they’re just trying to avoid tough questions and they won’t want neutral anchors and reporters asking questions. They’re going to want partisans. They want the hosts of Fox’s morning show.”Presidential debates were first made famous by John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960 but were then not held again until 1976. Sabato added: “We actually had 16 years there with no presidential debates until they were restarted because both candidates needed them in 1976.“We thought for a while that it was so well established that candidates couldn’t avoid debates; they’d have to participate. Well, just goes to show, nothing’s permanent. It doesn’t hurt anybody to say no. All they have to do is tell their partisans, ‘This thing is stacked against us. You know how those awful media people are.’”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024Donald TrumpanalysisReuse this content More

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      Republican party withdraws from US Commission on Presidential Debates

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      Republican party withdraws from US Commission on Presidential DebatesRepublican National Committee accuses organization that has run electoral debates since 1987 of bias The Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, saying the group that has run the debates for decades was biased and refused to enact reforms.“We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people,” the committee’s chairperson, Ronna McDaniel, said in a statement.Republican party signals plans to withdraw from US presidential debatesRead moreThe RNC’s action requires Republican candidates to agree in writing to appear only in primary and general election debates sanctioned by the committee.The non-profit commission, founded in 1987 to codify the debates as a permanent part of presidential elections, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Democratic National Committee, the RNC’s counterpart for the party of President Joe Biden, was also not immediately available.It was unclear what format future RNC-backed debates would take or whether they would take place as often as in recent decades.The move, which followed months of wrangling between the RNC and the commission, will potentially deprive voters of seeing Republican and Democratic candidates on the same stage.Millions of Americans usually watch the presidential debates and many viewers say they help them to make up their minds about whom to vote for, according to research by Pew Research Center.The RNC’s decision follows grievances aired by former president Donald Trump and other Republicans about the timing of debates, debate formats and the selection of moderators.Defenders of the debates say they are an important element of the democratic process, but critics say they have become television spectacles in which viewers learn little about the candidates’ policies.Trump refused to participate in what was supposed to be the second of three debates with Biden in 2020, after the commission switched it to a virtual contest following Trump’s Covid-19 infection.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Trump ‘very intent on bringing my brother down’, Joe Biden’s sister says

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      Trump ‘very intent on bringing my brother down’, Joe Biden’s sister saysValerie Biden Owens, who has worked on all her brother’s campaigns, also says ‘no there there’ on her nephew Hunter Donald Trump is “very intent on bringing my brother down”, Joe Biden’s sister said.The Republican judge blocking her party from rigging electoral districtsRead more“The only race I wasn’t enthusiastic about Joe getting involved in was the 2020 presidency,” Valerie Biden Owens told CBS News.“Because I expected, and was not disappointed, that it would be ugly and mean, and it would be an attack on my brother, Joe, personally and professionally, because the former president is very intent on bringing my brother down.”A year and a half into his presidency, Biden is battling crises at home including inflation and the coronavirus pandemic and abroad, over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Trump dominates the Republican party, propagating the “big lie” about voter fraud in his defeat by Biden which fueled the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, continuing to attack Biden as incapable of the demands of office, flirting with a third White House run and dispensing endorsements to candidates in the midterm elections.On Sunday, the Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, claimed Republicans would not swiftly impeach Biden “for political purposes”, should as expected the party take the House in November.Biden Owens helped raise her brother’s children after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash and has worked on all his campaigns. She has written a book called Growing Up Biden: A Memoir.“I assumed from the beginning that the former president and his entourage would attack my brother by going and attacking my family,” she said.Trump has focused on Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who has written his own book about his struggle with addiction and whose business affairs are the subject of scrutiny.Hunter Biden was one subject of Trump’s attempt to withhold military aid from Ukraine in exchange for political dirt, an attempt that led to Trump’s first impeachment. To Republicans, Hunter Biden remains a tempting target. Federal investigators are known to be looking at his financial affairs.His aunt told CBS: “There hasn’t been a there, there since it was mentioned in 2019 or whenever it was.”‘TV is like a poll’: Trump endorses Dr Oz for Pennsylvania Senate nominationRead moreShe also said: “Hunter has written in exquisite detail about his struggle with addiction, his walk through hell, and I am so grateful he has been able to walk out of hell, but I don’t think there’s a family in this country who hasn’t tasted it.”Trump’s destructive power remains widely feared. Pundits and rivals are watching his endorsements closely, among them a choice to back Mehmet Oz, a TV doctor, for the Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, a pick many Republicans opposed.On Monday, a possible rival to Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, Ron DeSantis, was offered a warning that might have sounded familiar to Valerie Biden Owens.Nikki Fried, a Democrat running to oppose DeSantis for governor in Florida, told Business Insider that if Trump runs again and gets back on Twitter – from which he has been banned since the Capitol attack – “I say one tweet created [DeSantis] and one tweet can destroy him”.TopicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpHunter BidenUS politicsUS elections 2024US elections 2020DemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Barr: Trump should not be president but ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to US left

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      Barr: Trump should not be president but ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to US leftEx-attorney general excoriates old boss in book but refuses to budge from vow to vote for him if he is Republican nominee again

      ‘Would-be tyrant’: Republican hits back at Trump
      Doubling down on his vow to vote for Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee in 2024 despite writing in his new book that Trump is dangerously unsuited for the job, William Barr said: “Elections are binary choice, and unfortunately sometimes it’s choosing the lesser of two evils.”One Damn Thing After Another review: Bill Barr’s self-serving screedRead moreSpeaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump’s second attorney general added: “I believe that the progressive wing of the Democratic party is dangerous for the United States.”Barr also repeated that he would support another Republican if Trump does run in the primary again.In office, Barr was widely seen as too close to his hardline rightwing president, in particular over the Mueller report on Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Differences over Trump’s lies about electoral fraud prompted Barr’s resignation, but not before he had used the Department of Justice to investigate such claims, a highly controversial move.In his new memoir, One Damned Thing After Another, Barr defends his record in office and some of Trump’s, on traditional conservative issues like crime and immigration.He told NBC: “I give him a lot of credit for identifying the key issues and having the gumption to press forward and accomplish a lot of good things … his combativeness worked for him in 2016 and partly while he was in office, breaking through the smothering hostility of the media.“But I tried to be balanced. I pointed out what I thought were his failings, and the fact that he went off the rails at the end.”Barr left office before, on 6 January 2021, supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” in support of his lies stormed the US Capitol. A bipartisan Senate report said seven deaths were connected to the riot.On NBC, Barr was asked if he “really think[s] the left in this country is somehow more dangerous than some issues around the world”?“No,” he said. “I just said in terms of the leadership of the country, I think they would be a dangerous choice for the United States.”He also said: “I think there are a lot of American people right now that might prefer having [Trump] back in office than what we see under Biden.”William Barr’s Trump book: self-serving narratives and tricky truths ignoredRead moreTrump is in legal jeopardy for his attempted electoral subversion as well as his business affairs but at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday night he hinted yet again at another White House run.Barr said he told Trump before his defeat by Biden that “his personal behavior, his obnoxious behavior” was turning voters off.“I felt for a long time that he was going to lose the election,” Barr said. “I went in in April and told him that I thought he was going to lose the election. On election night, I felt he was going to lose. And I was actually surprised it was as close as it was.”Biden beat Trump by more than 7m ballots in the popular vote and by 306-232 in the electoral college – a margin Trump called a landslide when it was in his favour over Hillary Clinton in 2016.TopicsWilliam BarrUS politicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024RepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Donald Trump’s power is fading: Trumpism is the clear and present danger now | Rebecca Solnit

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      Donald Trump’s power is fading: Trumpism is the clear and present danger nowRebecca SolnitWhile the ex-president is beset by legal and financial troubles, his awful doctrine remains a malign and vigorous force in US politics Proclaiming what’s going to happen is a popular way to shrug off taking responsibility for helping to determine what’s going to happen. And it’s something we’ve seen a lot with doomspreading prophecies that Donald Trump is going to run for president or even win in 2024.One of the assumptions is that Trump will still be alive and competent to run, but the health of this sedentary shouter in his mid-70s, including the after-effects of the Covid-19 he was hospitalised for in 2020, could change.Look to external issues too, for whatever the condition of his own health, his financial health is under attack, with businesses losing money and some banks refusing to lend to him after the storming of the Capitol.It’s also worth remembering that he lost the popular vote by millions in 2016 and by more millions in 2020; he never had a mandate. The Republicans are clearly gearing up to try to steal an election again, but their chances of winning one with Trump as candidate seem slim. Currently, he is creating conflict within the Republican party with his insistence on controlling it for his own agenda and punishing dissenters.Another assumption we make when we assess Trump’s prospects is that he won’t be locked up in 2024, or that his reputation, such as it is, won’t be severely damaged even in the eyes of some who voted for him before. Even in the past couple of weeks his standing has shifted significantly. Former attorney general Bill Barr is now speaking up – to promote his book – about how Trump was clearly advised that his claims of election theft had no basis and that his strategies to overturn the results were illegal. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has woken up people around the world (or at least those who were dozing) to Vladimir Putin’s malevolence and reminded Americans of how eagerly Trump allied himself with the Russian dictator, personally and politically. Suddenly a lot of Republicans are trying to scurry away from their own pro-Putin record, which may mean distancing themselves from Trump as well. His 2019 withholding of military aid to Ukraine to try to pressure Ukrainian president Zelenskiy into supporting his lies is also being re-examined under the harsh light of this war.Additionally, Trump is facing many criminal charges, from allegations of financial dirty dealing by the Trump Organization in New York (Trump has called the various probes into the business “politically motivated”), to an investigation into whether Trump and his allies subverted election results in Georgia, where Trump claims election fraud took place. Just last week, the January 6 committee laid out a series of potential charges against the ex-president, including conspiracy to defraud the American people and obstructing an official proceeding of Congress. Trump’s domestic status seems to be shifting rapidly. He is also facing so many lawsuits that both CNN and NBC published indexes of the cases. Last month news broke that Trump had left the White House with classified documents, which he claimed he had a right to take to his home. That could be a felony, though how much appetite the Biden administration has for jailing a former president remains to be seen.Among the large array of civil charges Trump faces are E Jean Carroll’s allegations of defamation over his insult-laden denial that he raped her (he has responded that he was simply responding in the line of “official duties”) and former consigliere Michael Cohen’s case that his return to prison was triggered by Trump after Cohen released a revealing memoir. There are also suits holding Trump responsible for the January 6 insurrection both from members of Congress, and two policemen injured in the mayhem. In February the courts ruled that these civil suits can go forward, and Trump lacks the immunity that would protect him from them. Trump has initiated lawsuits of his own, but a great many have been dismissed, although he is still suing his niece, Mary Trump, for disclosing tax information about him. She in turn is suing him and two of his siblings, alleging that they defrauded her out of much of her inheritance (which they deny).Though the 14th amendment of the US constitution should ban all insurrectionists from running for elected office, it seems unlikely to be applied to 21st-century candidates the way it was to former Confederates. But still, the Georgia and New York charges are serious. All of which is to say that the road from early 2022 to late 2024 is bumpy for Trump. Popular opinion is fickle; George W Bush is Trump’s age and clearly a permanent has-been. Even Barack Obama, at 60, has strolled offstage.But even if Trump is not indisputably in the running, Trumpism is running rampant, and it’s a force to contend with in political races across the US. Trump was a super-spreader of his brand of amoral self-interest that tramples fact, truth, law and rights. The man himself is sulking in his private club in Florida – enduring effectual exile from New York, Washington – and Twitter – but to a degree, his work is done. He has got an already corrupt political party to embrace his tactics and values. The brazen lies of prominent figures in the party show that they’ve abandoned all ethics and standards, and will happily violate the oaths they took to uphold the constitution. Viral Trumpism has already merged with conspiracy theories such as QAnon, with anti-vaccine cults, with white supremacists and neo-fascists, and with the gun-fetishising groups that continue to have an ominous presence in public life.I sometimes think of the American right as a pot on the boil; what’s inside is concentrating as it shrinks. The Republican party has been losing membership for years: a Gallup poll earlier this month reports that 24% of eligible voters are registered Republican, a steady decline over the past 15 years.That’s a reminder that news stories revealing that a majority of Republicans believe something could actually mean that only a small minority of Americans do.There have been high-profile defections and general atrophy in the age of Trump. That’s the shrinking. But then there’s the concentration that renders those who remain more furious, more closed-minded, more ready to jump on any bandwagon that looks as if it leads to power, and even more rigidly committed to an increasingly rightwing agenda, even though – or maybe because – that means minority rule.For progressives, Republican desperation is a good sign, in its way. A popular party doesn’t have to suppress votes and steal elections. A party aligned with the will of the people doesn’t need to lie and cheat. Trumpism seems like a last gasp, a desperate last chance to hang on to what’s slipping away. The old Soviet-satellite aphorism “You can cut down the flowers but you can’t stop the spring” applies nicely.The future of this country is white-minority. Yet the Republican party has done its best to alienate everybody else, while the rising majority of Americans support reproductive rights, climate action and many economic justice measures. The long-term progressive future of the United States seems almost inevitable. But with Trumpism still a force, the short-term future is alarming and unpredictable, and the damage may be lasting; whether it’s the prevention of climate action or the infliction of literal and financial violence on poor and marginalised people.Enemies of authoritarianism and white supremacy have their work cut out, but the task is clear and straightforward: to protect the democratic process, upholding voting rights and free and fair elections, to try to win those elections for progressive candidates, and to articulate and defend the values behind those objectives.Trump is treading water, but this is how resistance to Trumpism works, and how it can prevail if enough people work at it hard enough.
      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionUS politicsUS elections 2024RepublicanscommentReuse this content More