US elections 2024

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Real v fake: how the Harris-Trump debate laid out different takes on AI

      by

      In their first, and likely only debate, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump argued about artificial intelligence. They spoke of China, chips and “domestic innovation”. The country learned how Harris, Trump and their allies would – or intentionally wouldn’t – use artificial intelligence for their own ends.But the real lessons were in the aftermath. The online furor over the IRL confrontation revealed that Republicans use AI to illustrate their political points. Democrats do not.View image in fullscreenThe RepublicansRepublicans’ excitement over AI focused on a debunked claim by their nominee. During the debate, Trump said that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the dogs – the people that came in, they’re eating the cats”. The statement was not true. ABC’s moderators fact-checked him in real time with information from the city’s animal control commissioner, who has not received any calls about such grisly crimes. Immigrants in the city are now facing real violence over the false statement.Absent real images of such bestial violence, Trump and company have turned to images created by artificial intelligence. Before the debate had even begun, Donald Trump Jr tweeted images of his father astride a giant cat and holding a gun. The ex-president’s son wrote: “Save our pets!!!” A post made by Trump Jr during the debate reads: “They know who they’re rooting for tonight” and shows three cats and a duck or a goose watching the candidates face off on TV.The images bear the hallmark sheen of AI-generated material, a sign Republicans may be using Elon Musk’s AI image generator Grok. Midjourney and OpenAI’s Dall-E have advanced beyond that telltale uncanny lighting, but both also limit the manipulation of public figures’ images to tamp down misinformation. Grok has few such safeguards.Two days after the debate, Trump jumped on the same train as his son. The former president posted an image of himself on a plane surrounded by cats and geese, a picture of a cat holding a sign reading “Kamala hates me” and a depiction of him speaking at a “Cats for Trump” rally, all on Truth Social and Facebook, where AI-generated images are extremely popular.The Republican members of the House judiciary committee have tweeted an image of Trump cuddling animals in water captioned: “Protect our ducks and kittens in Ohio!” One bizarre image posted by the committee stitches ducks and cats together into hybrid beasts as they float on a pond under a red, white and blue flag that might fly over the island of Dr Moreau. “Save them!” the committee cries. Elon Musk joined in by tweeting screenshots of Trump’s posts on Truth Social accompanied by a crying-laughing emoji, the billionaire’s favorite. The CEO of X has endorsed Trump for president and hosted an online event with him.The DemocratsIn the hours after the debate ended, it was not Kamala Harris who struck back at the Republicans’ use of AI; it was the most famous woman on the planet. Taylor Swift endorsed Harris and took explicit aim at AI-made images of her boosting Trump. Swift wrote on Instagram: “Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter.”Swift has been the victim of sexualized deepfakes of her that have been seen by millions. In response, US lawmakers have proposed new legislation that would empower people who have their own likenesses weaponized against them.Trump has posted faked images of Swift’s endorsement on “his site”, Truth Social. He disclaimed responsibility for what may have been an enormous political mistake: “I don’t know anything about them, other than somebody else generated them. I didn’t generate them.” The images originated from a small Texas foundation that aims to bankroll rightwing tweeters.Harris herself has not posted any images made by AI, debate-related or otherwise. Instead, in the days following the debate, her campaign has posted childhood photos of her visiting her grandparents in India and happily posing on a stoop. The choice is notable because AI has difficulty replicating the balance between fuzziness and detail that imbues old photos with authenticity and charm. Harris’s images stand in deliberate contrast with the synthetic glow of Trump’s.Harris boasts extensive familial and professional ties to Silicon Valley from her time as a senator and the state’s attorney general, but as a candidate, she projects an image of low tech. One of the most famous videos of her – “We did it, Joe” – shows her talking to the president via wired Apple headphones. She has been seen using them many times since. She believes Bluetooth to be a security risk. (Trump, by contrast, uses an Android device that experts have deemed extremely vulnerable to foreign incursion.)Her campaign may boast about its TikTok operation staffed by extremely online members of gen Z, but the technology she carries on her person connotes an attitude of wait and see, not early adoption. She loves to be filmed making calls with the phone to her ear, the original use of the device. During her vice-presidency, Harris didn’t spend much time showcasing who she was. The choices she’s made in the crafting of her image as a candidate demonstrate an emphasis on realness.Trump has made himself into the candidate of generative artificial intelligence. Whether he is allied with AI companies is a separate question. He has adopted the aesthetic of AI as his own, perhaps because he has seen how popular AI-generated images are on Facebook, where older people hang out online. Harris has eschewed AI image generation, and by doing so made a powerful ally in Taylor Swift.She wants voters to see her as authentic, so she’s making all her images the old-fashioned way. More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump ‘likelier winner’ unless Harris tackles two failings, says ex-ambassador

      by

      Donald Trump will remain the “likelier winner” of the US presidential election on 5 November unless the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, addresses key failings in her campaign, a former British ambassador to Washington says on Sunday.Kim Darroch says that despite clearly getting the better of Trump in last week’s televised head-to-head debate, Harris risks making two crucial mistakes in the final weeks of campaigning, which mean the former Republican president is still the favourite.View image in fullscreenWith a Trump return to the White House on the cards, Lord Darroch says it is important that the prime minister, Keir Starmer, who met US president Joe Biden and other leading Democrats in Washington on Thursday, should also now be seeking a meeting with Trump and his team before polling day, so he has built links with both sides.“It is important that if Starmer meets one, he meets both,” Darroch says in an article for the Observer. “It will be noticed and resented by the Trump team if he doesn’t.”Darroch was UK ambassador to the US from 2016 to 2019, when he resigned in a row over leaked confidential emails in which he criticised Trump’s administration as “clumsy and inept”. Darroch’s position became untenable after Boris Johnson, then involved in the Tory leadership contest to succeed Theresa May, failed to give the ambassador his unequivocal backing.Darroch, who remains a respected figure in diplomatic circles on both sides of the Atlantic, says Trump is now “a less formidable campaigner” than in 2016, “down on energy, more liable to become confused, with a mind cluttered with grievances. And he remains a policy-free zone.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“But,” he adds, “he is still capable of connecting with the ‘left behind’ to a level few others can match, a talent which ensures a devoted and enduring support base in a country where one in three workers say they live paycheck to paycheck.”Darroch argues that the Democratic campaign is at risk of making two hugely important errors. Urging Harris to be “laser-focused” on voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin won by Biden in 2020, Darroch warns that they may drift back to Trump unless Harris is able to offer “some crisply worded, specific, targeted policies to bring jobs and hope back to these blighted neighbourhoods”.The second error is that Harris appears to be hiding from the media, repeating a mistake made by Hillary Clinton. “Back in 2016, Trump was ever-present. He would accept any and every invitation. He would even, unbidden, phone the morning news shows to offer his views on the day’s issues. By contrast, Hillary Clinton locked the media out – and lost.”Harris, he claims “seems to have adopted the Clinton playbook”.View image in fullscreenDarroch says the UK embassy in Washington will no doubt be advising Starmer to try to meet Trump, perhaps taking time out from a meeting of the UN general assembly this week to do so.“There is a lot to discuss with him, starting with his views on Ukraine. And however badly Trump performed in the debate, however visible his personal decline, he remains for many of us the likelier winner.” Last week, Starmer’s former pollster Deborah Mattinson met Harris’s campaign team in Washington to share details of how Labour pulled off its stunning election win by targeting key groups of “squeezed working-class voters who wanted change”, further strengthening contacts with the Democratic side. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden, Harris address Congressional Black Caucus: ‘The baton is in our hands’

      by

      President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris spoke on Saturday at the Congressional Black Caucus’s Phoenix Awards dinner, bringing a message that its members were in a “battle for the soul of the nation”.Biden highlighted his relationship with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Black voters.“In 2020, I ran for president to redeem the soul of America, to restore decency and dignity to the office of the president,” he said. “I ran to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. And I ran to unite the country and remind ourselves when we’re together there’s not a damn thing we can’t do.”The spectre of Trump, Maga Republicans and the threat Democrats say they pose to the country loomed over Biden’s remarks, and his call to action for those CBC members gathered.“The old ghosts in new garments [are] trying to seize your power and extremists coming for your freedom making it harder for you to vote and have your vote counted, closing doors of opportunity, attacking affirmative action,” he said. “My predecessor calls the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 ‘patriots’, but when peaceful protesters marched for justice for George Floyd, Trump wanted to send in the military, but they wouldn’t go.”Biden continued by pointing to the juxtaposition between his and Harris’s tenure in the White House and that of their predecessor’s. On the theme of unity, Biden once again condemned Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who, in recent weeks, has led a rallying cry of baseless, racist accusations toward Haitian-American immigrants in Ohio.“It’s wrong. It’s got to stop,” he said. “Any president should reject hate in America and not incite it. Folks, to win this battle for the soul of the nation, we have to preserve our democracy and speak out against lies and hate.”Towards the end of his remarks, Biden spoke about his time in Congress, during which he served with Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president.CBC attenders were jubilant when Harris, also the Democratic candidate for president, walked on to the stage to Beyoncé’s Freedom after the president introduced her as “Kamala Harris, for the people”.Members of Harris’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha gleefully greeted her with their trademarked “Skee-Wee” call.Harris began by highlighting the importance of the caucus. For a November win, she said, the support of the CBC was necessary.“The Congressional Black Caucus has served as the conscience of the Congress and of our nation, and as a proud former CBC member, I know first-hand America relies on the leaders in this room, not only for a conscience, but for a vision,” Harris said.Harris said the CBC’s vision for the future was under “profound threat” and went on to point out the differences between her and Trump while also reiterating her platform, including reproductive rights, building an “opportunity economy”, healthcare and “not going back”.“We actually have a plan for healthcare, not just ‘concepts of a plan,’” she said, referencing Trump’s comments during Tuesday night’s debate.Towards the end of her speech, Harris returned to “joy” and hard work, two of her campaign themes.“Now the baton is in our hands,” she said. “I truly believe that America is ready to turn the page on the politics of division and hate, and to do it, our nation is counting on the leadership in this room.”Harris called on and thanked members of the CBC for their work registering voters and mobilising people to vote. She and Biden spoke during the 53rd Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) or, “CBC week” in Washington, during which Black political and social leaders convene on public policy. The Harris campaign has been working to increase the enthusiasm of Black voters, particularly in key battleground states.“We know what we stand for, and that’s why we know what we fight for,” Harris said. “And when the CBC fights, we win.” More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      More bomb threats hit Springfield, Ohio, after Trump elevates false claims about Haitians

      by

      Two hospitals in Springfield, Ohio, were sent into lockdown after bomb threats, police said Saturday, marking the fourth such case in as many days that appears linked to false claims circulating among the far right that Haitian immigrants there are eating domestic pets and wildlife.Saturday’s threats came even after the woman who started the rumors acknowledged to NBC News that they were unfounded and publicly apologized.Kettering Health Springfield was one of the medical facilities targeted, with officials later saying they found nothing suspicious during a search. Another hospital, Mercy Health’s Springfield regional medical center, received a similar threat.A spokesperson with Mercy Health said the hospital has continued to operate and thanked Springfield police as well as hospital staff “for their swift, efficient and caring response”.The bomb threats Saturday came after others had been called in to government buildings Thursday, forcing their closure and causing local schools to be evacuated.“We recognize that the past few days have been particularly challenging for everyone in our community,” Springfield police said in a statement. Police added “we remain fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of each and every person”.On Friday, a Springfield woman, Erika Lee, apologized for rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets that resulted from a post she wrote on Facebook claiming that the friend of a neighbor’s daughter lost her cat – and then found the animal strung up outside the home of a Haitian family.Lee now says she had no firsthand knowledge of the claim. The neighbor referenced in the post, Kimberly Newton, revealed that she also had heard the story from an acquaintance and not her daughter.Lee said she was filled with regret and insists she never intended to put a target on the backs of the Haitian community.“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Leetold NBC News on Friday.Local authorities in Springfield had already debunked the lies even before Donald Trump made the allegation that Haitian immigrants were eating pets during the debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday. Lee told the outlet she never imagined her social media post would become fodder for conspiracy theories and hate aimed at the Haitian community in Springfield.“I’m not a racist,” Lee said, adding that her daughter is half-Black and she herself is mixed race as well as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. “Everybody seems to be turning it into that – and that was not my intent.”The city of Springfield believes the rumors may also have arisen from a case in Canton, Ohio, where an American with no known connection to Haiti was arrested in August for allegedly stomping a cat to death and eating the animal.Separately, an explanation for a viral photo of a man carrying two geese in Columbus, Ohio, has been made, although it also helped set off the now-discredited rumors about pet-eating in nearby Springfield.The Ohio state division of wildlife told TMZ that the man had been picking up the two geese that had been hit by a car. The agency also reported that there is no evidence that the man is Haitian, an immigrant or that he intended to eat the geese.About 15,000 Haitian immigrants began trickling into Springfield – a city of 60,000 – to work in local produce packaging and machining factories in 2017. They have been in demand at Springfield’s Dole Fresh Vegetables and at automotive machining plants whose owners grappled with a labor shortage in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump ally Laura Loomer called herself ‘white advocate’, audio reveals

      by

      Close Donald Trump ally Laura Loomer told a white nationalist conference in 2022 that she considered herself a “white advocate”, according to a recording of the speech obtained by the Guardian.Loomer has come under scrutiny in recent days after being seen accompanying Trump on a flight to the presidential debate on Tuesday, and a subsequent string of racist tweets aimed at Kamala Harris.That caused a political firestorm after Trump’s disastrous debate performance, with Harris emerging the clear winner. In particular, Trump’s raising of false claims around Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets triggered outrage and mockery of him.Some observers have placed the blame on Trump’s performance partly due to his recent closeness to Loomer, including being pictured standing with him in his entourage at this week’s 9/11 commemorations.The revelation of Loomer’s comments about being an advocate for white people is likely to further fuel the controversy around Trump’s relationship with Loomer, not least because they are just the latest in a long line of extremist remarks by the podcaster and self-described journalist.Her attendance at the American Renaissance conference was reported at the time by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), but the contents of her speech have not been scrutinized until now.The American Renaissance conference, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a venue where “racist ‘intellectuals’ rub shoulders with Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists”.Loomer spoke to the conference in November 2022, after losing a Republican primary in Florida’s conservative 11th district that August. To the applause of the audience, Loomer said: “I consider myself to be a white advocate and I openly campaigned for the United States Congress as a white advocate.”Apart from her claim to be a “white advocate”, Loomer’s speech was focused on her grievances with traditional and social media companies and the Republican party, all of whom she blamed for her loss.She claimed that during her campaign, “local TV stations would actually not allow me to have a congressional debate even though every other congressional candidate was able to have a televised debate in their district, because they called me a white supremacist”.Loomer continued: “And they said that I was, you know, too much of a nationalist and too far right, because I openly ran my campaign to the right of the GOP.”She said: “I have been a Republican my entire life, but unfortunately we live in a two-party system, which really just feels like a uniparty, but I’m here to tell you today that the Republican party is no longer rightwing enough for me.”She then struck a hopeful note about a third party. “So perhaps they’re going to be an alternative in the future some day.”Loomer then turned her sights on “Kevin McCarthy and the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Republican party”, saying they had “made such an effort this year to spend hundreds of millions of dollars … to get the Hispanic vote pushing to get the Black vote” while they also “used millions of dollars, by their own admission, to campaign against America First nationalist candidates”.Loomer told the gathered white nationalists that “the top three issues I focused on in my campaign were election integrity, combating big tech social media censorship and election interference, and a 10-year minimum immigration moratorium”.She said: “I was one of the first candidates to campaign in favor of mass deportations in an immigration moratorium and I was the first candidate to campaign on breaking up big tech.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLoomer’s anti-immigrant rhetoric to the conference echoes Trump’s policy positions. In recent days the former president has repeated his promises to carry out mass deportations, and during the debate he falsely accused Haitian immigrants of eating pets.Loomer told the conference crowd that her positions had “demonized – as I mentioned – as an extremist by even my own Republican party”.But the remarks at the conference hardly stand alone.Weeks earlier, in a podcast recording before the conference, Loomer thanked Jared Taylor, the podcast’s host and conference organizer, for his “white advocacy and being a white advocate and pioneering the intellectual discussion, right around race and demographics in this country”.In March, in her podcast appearance before the primary, Loomer told Taylor that “my district is also the whitest district in the entire state of Florida”, and that she was pursuing “issues of [critical race theory] and anti-white racism and anti-white hatred”, and opposing the “anti-white Christian mentality the Democrats are pushing”.Loomer asserted to Taylor that Democrats were “trying to persecute white people. They’re trying to persecute Christians, the most persecuted people in the world.”Loomer added: “I look forward to being their advocate when I win my race and, you know, get elected as their next congresswoman.”Loomer subsequently lost to Congressman Daniel Webster.Loomer emerged as an anti-Muslim, pro-Trump activist during Trump’s first run at the White House in 2016. She has a long history of controversies, including protesting against a performance of Julius Caesar she saw as anti-Trump, handcuffing herself to Twitter’s headquarters to protest her deplatforming there, and now attacking migrants and Kamala Harris in the wake of Trump’s debate performance, which has been widely portrayed as disastrous for his campaign.The Guardian has contacted Loomer for comment. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      What debate? Harris and Trump back to brutal grind of swing state campaigns

      by

      Even as gleeful Democrats spent days circulating video clips and memes of Kamala Harris ridiculing and riling Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential debate, the candidates themselves got back to the brutal grind of winning over the tiny proportion of voters who will decide November’s election in a clutch of swing states.Harris is on a “New Way Forward” tour of pivotal areas this weekend to exploit the momentum from her humiliation of Trump. On Friday, she was in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most crucial of crunch states, to push the themes she hit hard in the debate in painting the former president as a threat to democracy, women’s rights and the US’s international standing.Trump is in Arizona on Saturday and then headed to Michigan, both states he narrowly won in 2016 and then lost four years later, as he attempts to recover from what was widely recognised to be a damaging performance.The contest for the White House remains on a knife edge.Before the debate, Harris’s narrow lead in the polls was being chipped away by a Trump campaign trying to claw its way back from the shock of Joe Biden exiting the contest. After Trump’s poor debate showing, Harris appears to be edging up again. But neither campaign is taking anything for granted and both are returning to the daily fight.A CNN poll showed that 63% of debate watchers thought Harris won as Trump made outlandish claims about immigrants eating family pets and Democrats wanting to kill newborn babies. A focus group of undecided swing state voters put together by the Washington Post overwhelmingly said Harris came out on top.Even Fox News conceded the defeat. Its political analyst, Brit Hume, said Trump spent too much time airing old grievances that do nothing to win votes.“Let’s make no mistake, Trump had a bad night,” he said.Still, more cautious Democrats recognised that one bad night for the former president is far from a knockout blow and that their candidate remains particularly vulnerable on the economy, the top issue for large numbers of voters hit by surging inflation.The CNN poll showed that confidence in Harris to handle the economy fell by two points to 35% because of the debate after she failed to address inflation, or even acknowledge the hardship it has caused, while trust in Trump on the issue rose by two points to 55%.And while the latest YouGov poll gives Harris a nine-point advantage over Trump in favourability ratings, the presidential race is still neck-and-neck with each candidate claiming the support of 45% of the electorate.Charles Franklin, director of the respected Marquette Law School polling of voters in the swing state Wisconsin, where only about 20,000 votes separated Trump and his opponent in the last two presidential elections, said that while it was clear Harris won the debate, he doubted the outcome would shift the dial very much in those states where the election will be decided.“The question is, how much does it move the electorate in Wisconsin? Our electorate is pretty highly polarised even by national standards and so moving it much seems a little far-fetched,” he said.“The trouble is that voters always go to debates looking at it through their partisan glasses. If their candidate is clearly doing poorly, they come up with reasons why that is that still doesn’t lead them to reconsider their support for that candidate.”Swathes of Trump supporters lamented his performance but then shifted the blame to the debate moderators by accusing them of picking on the former president while giving Harris an easy ride.Polling says that about one in 20 voters in swing states have yet to make up their minds about who to vote for. But political analysts are sceptical that so many people are really undecided when Trump is such a known and divisive candidate.Nicholas Valentino, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, said that even though Harris’s positions are not particularly well-known, few people can be in doubt about the differences between the contenders on key issues from abortion to immigration and healthcare.“There are very few undecided voters left in the electorate at this point in the campaign. When those undecided voters say we need more substance from either of the candidates, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t know the differences or that they’re really waiting for some key piece of information that will tip the scales. That’s ambivalence. It’s not ignorance about where the candidates stand,” he said.Franklin said his polling showed that when uncommitted voters in Wisconsin are pressed about the reasons for their indecision, it often has less to do with policies or individual candidates than how they feel about politics in general.“The fact that they are negative towards politics, though, also sounds like many of Trump’s supporters, and that is one argument to think that Trump might have an advantage winning over those folks who are undecided but very negative about politics,” he said.Nonetheless, the YouGov poll shows Harris has the opportunity to make headway with voters who say they favour a candidate but are open to changing their minds. Four per cent of Trump supporters would consider voting for Harris while just 1% of Democrats are prepared to contemplate switching. But many of those Trump supporters see the economy as the most important issue. A majority of voters continue to view the former president’s tenure in the White House as a time of greater prosperity and have much more confidence in him to improve their finances.For all that, Harris’s combative approach to the debate was informed by the recognition in both campaigns that the key to victory almost certainly lies in turnout and generating enthusiasm among ambivalent supporters.In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania by fewer than 45,000 votes out of nearly 6m cast. Four years later, Trump increased his vote in the state by more than 400,000 ballots. But he still lost Pennsylvania in 2020 because Biden was able to boost the Democratic turnout by 530,000 votes.That was a pattern repeated across swing states that delivered a Biden victory and that Harris must now almost certainly win. Probably no state is more pivotal than Pennsylvania.“It’s mostly now about the turnout game,” said Valentino. “It’s very likely that this election in Pennsylvania will be decided by fewer than 100,000 votes, just like it has been in the last two elections. There are many, many voters in Pennsylvania – white, less-than-college-educated men, women in the suburbs around the big cities – that each respective camp is going to be trying to turn out.”Polling shows that enthusiasm for the election among Democrats shot up after Biden dropped out of the race in July. Franklin saw it in Wisconsin.“Democrats are now running about nine points ahead of Republicans in enthusiasm, which certainly seems to point to another very high-turnout election,” he said.The YouGov poll shows that, nationally, 72% of Harris supporters say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting. Only 67% of Trump supporters say the same. But enthusiasm is significantly lower among younger people, whom the Democrats need. Only 78% of under-30s say they are likely to vote, compared with 95% of over-45s, who lean toward Trump.Harris continues to alienate some Democrats who outright refused to vote for Biden, calling him “Genocide Joe” over US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians. Harris sought to defuse the issue during the debate by saying that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed”, but that prompted critics to ask: how many innocent deaths is too many?The Democrats were particularly worried about the impact of Gaza policy on the significant Arab American vote in swing state Michigan, but Valentino thinks it has lost some of its sting, particularly among younger voters now focused on concerns about Trump returning to power.After the debate, Harris faced criticism for spending her time taunting Trump instead of detailing economic policy and a political vision. But Democratic strategists are only too aware that the surge in turnout for Biden in 2020 was less about support for the candidate than to get Trump out of the White House.Valentino said Harris’s approach may have served her well in that regard.“Her campaign strategy in this debate was clearly to allow Trump to display this kind of intense anger and goad him into making highly questionable arguments that they would cause moderates, and maybe even some moderate Republicans, to either become disillusioned with Trump and stay home from voting,” he said.“The other reason she was doing this is to mobilise her own base. Young people are worried about the future of democracy. I have data that shows the issue of protecting electoral institutions and elections is a very mobilising issue for Democrats, especially young Democrats. They know that they’re going to have to live and vote in this country for a lot longer than older folks and they are really worried about democratic institutions. That’s an issue that’s very potent for the Democratic party and for Harris, and she’s trying to make the most of it.” More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Haitian immigrants helped revive a struggling Ohio town. Then neo-Nazis turned up

      by

      While Donald Trump made baseless, dangerous claims that immigrants in Ohio were eating people’s pets in front of millions of viewers at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Johnson Salomon, a Haitian man who moved to Springfield in 2020, was watching cartoons with his kids before putting them to bed.He got a text from a friend telling him to turn on the debate. When he saw the headlines about what the former president and Republican nominee in November’s election had said, he was in total shock.“This was a false claim. I couldn’t believe that such a high official could make such a claim,” Salomon said.Trump’s running mate JD Vance, Elon Musk and prominent Ohio Republicans had already spread the false rumors, lying about how Haitian immigrants had been killing and eating people’s pets in Springfield, a blue-collar town of 60,000 people in western Ohio. But the rumors, leaving Salomon and other Haitians in fear of being targeted for violence and discrimination, didn’t start with them.They were initially spread online in August on social platforms used by far-right extremists and by Blood Tribe, a neo-Nazi hate group.Springfield officials and police say they have received no credible reports of pets being harmed by members of the immigrant community, instead suggesting the story may have originated in Canton, Ohio, where an American woman with no known connection to Haiti was arrested in August for allegedly stomping a cat to death and eating the animal.View image in fullscreenBut that hasn’t prevented Republican party politicians from scapegoating Springfield’s 15,000 Haitian immigrants as Trump and others attempt to propel immigration to the center of their fall political campaigns. In addition to Tuesday’s debate, Trump held a news conference Friday in which he rambled without evidence about how Haitians had descended on Springfield “and destroyed the place”.When Haitian immigrants began trickling into Springfield to work in local produce packaging and machining factories in 2017, some thought the new residents could help the city regain its former vigor as a once-thriving manufacturing hub. Once home to major agricultural machinery companies in the mid-20th century, Springfield has lost a quarter of its population since the 1960s.“They came to us for one reason: they were looking for ways to find out how to work,” Casey Rollins, executive director of the St Vincent de Paul Society’s Springfield chapter, said of those who came to the Ohio city from Haiti.“So we got together immigration lawyers and interpreters to figure out how to help them work. We are getting them online and getting them to apply [for work permits]. We wanted workers here [in Springfield] – they want to work.”View image in fullscreenHaitians and immigrants from Central American countries have been in high demand at Springfield’s Dole Fresh Vegetables – where they’ve been hired to clean and package produce – and at automotive machining plants whose owners were desperate for workers due to a labor shortage in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.New Caribbean restaurants and food trucks have opened across south Springfield where once abandoned neighborhoods are now bustling with residents. A popular Haitian radio station has been broadcasting for several years. And every May, thousands turn out for Haitian Flag Day that’s celebrated at a local park.But the glut of new arrivals has also stretched hospitals and schools in the area, angering many locals who resented their presence. The outrage reached a crescendo last August, when an 11-year-old boy was thrown from a school bus and killed after its driver swerved to avoid an oncoming car driven by a Haitian immigrant who didn’t have an Ohio driver’s license.The child’s death fueled anger and racism on Facebook and at Springfield city commission meetings, where public comments about immigration have often run for more than an hour. Locals upset by the growing immigrant community wondered if they were being taken over – if Springfield had become ground zero for the baseless “great replacement theory”.Soon, rightwing extremists seized on Springfield’s unrest.Armed neo-Nazi members of Blood Tribe – a hardcore white supremacist group, according to the Anti-Defamation League – flew flags bearing swastikas and marched through a prominent downtown street while a jazz and blues festival was taking place nearby in August.One witness to the march, who declined to be interviewed by the Guardian due to fearing for their family’s safety after being doxed by rightwing extremists online, reported that members of the group pointed guns at cars and told people to “go the fuck back to Africa”.A Springfield police representative, however, appeared to downplay the scene, telling local media that the hate group’s march was “just a little peaceful protest”.Several days later, a leading member of Blood Tribe who identified himself as Nathaniel Higgers, but whose real name is Drake Berentz, spoke at a Springfield city commission meeting.“I’ve come to bring a word of warning. Stop what you’re doing before it’s too late,” Berentz told Springfield’s mayor, Rob Rue. “Crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you bring in.”Berentz was promptly kicked out for espousing threatening language. Nonetheless, on Thursday morning, a bomb threat prompted Springfield’s city hall, a school and other government offices to be evacuated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe same group has marched in South Dakota and Tennessee this year.Last year, having turned up to protest a drag story time event in Wadsworth, Ohio, where white supremacists gave Nazi salutes and shouted “Sieg heil”, the organization allegedly set up a chapter in the state. Last year, Blood Tribe members were driven out of Maine having attempted to set up a compound and Nazi training camp in the rural north-eastern part of the state.View image in fullscreen“Blood Tribe celebrated Donald Trump bringing up the [immigrants killing cats] lie during the debate,” said Maria Bruno of Ohioans Against Extremism, a non-profit founded last month in part due to a rising presence of extremists in Ohio. “They are thrilled that there are politicians willing to echo their talking points.”JD Vance has regularly claimed that “illegal immigrants” are “generally causing chaos all across Springfield” on the campaign trail in recent weeks. Ohio’s Republican attorney general, Dave Yost, said he plans to direct his office to “research legal avenues to stop the federal government from sending an unlimited number of migrants to Ohio communities”.However, the vast majority of Haitians in Springfield are in the US legally through a temporary protected status (TPS) that’s been allocated to them due to the violence and unrest in their home country. Citizens of 16 countries, including Afghanistan and Myanmar, are eligible for TPS. It is not a pathway to US citizenship and is valid for only 18 months, at which point it must be renewed by the federal homeland security department for a status holder to remain in the country legally.“They are entrepreneurs, they want to innovate,” Rollins said of Haitian people in Springfield. “They just work excessively once they are eligible.”But many Haitians have been targeted in Springfield.View image in fullscreenIn December, a Springfield man was sentenced to 20 years in federal jail for hate crimes after attacking eight Haitians earlier in 2023. Last year, the local Haitian church was broken into and damaged twice. Longtime Black residents of Springfield have reported being verbally abused when walking on the city’s streets, having been confused with members of the Haitian community.The effect is plainly obvious.“Normally, when I drive through south Springfield, where a lot of Haitians live, you see people walking on the streets, at the Haitian markets and restaurants,” Salomon said.“For the past few days, I have seen far fewer people.”Rollins said she has received threats that the St Vincent de Paul branch would be destroyed for its support of Haitians.“People are messaging me, telling me that I’ve destroyed Springfield,” she said. “We’re just trying to help people.” More

    • 213 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      The polling is in and Harris won the debate. But Democrats shouldn’t get cocky | John Zogby

      by

      A total of 67 million Americans watched the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Tuesday, and the first polls taken after the event all show the vice-president gaining a little ground over the former president.Harris’s lead ranges from three to five points, depending on the poll, but we need to be careful about drawing any exaggerated conclusions. One poll by Reuters has Harris leading by five points, but she had been leading by four in their previous poll published on 21 August. Another by Morning Consult also revealed similar results, but her lead had been three points the day before the debate and four the day of the debate.All polls agree that Harris won by a large margin and that favorable ratings rose by as many as nine points. She is seen as better for protecting democracy by nine points and on abortion by 21 points.But the new polls also make clear that Trump’s numbers really did not change much. According to interviews conducted by CNN before and after the debate, he is still given higher marks for handling the economy and immigration, the two top issues in the campaign.A CNN flash poll found that debate viewers felt, by a margin of 63% to 37%, that Harris turned in a better performance onstage in Philadelphia – with 96% of her supporters saying that she had done a better job, while a smaller 69% majority of Trump’s supporters credited Trump with having a better night.Similarly, in the eyes of most pundits, Harris came across as confident and did not lose her cool. She framed her performance around the idea that she represents a new generation that will not dwell on the past. She also laid out her plan for an “Opportunity Economy” with tax credits for small businesses and expansions of affordable housing and the Affordable Care Act, among other things.She did a good job of contrasting her positive approach with Trump’s negativity. She linked him with tax cuts for billionaires, raised tariffs on China that were tantamount to a “20% sales tax” on consumers, an expansion of the powers of an unchecked presidency and the massive defunding of federal agencies and bureaucrats in the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.For his part, Trump chose a scowling face, perhaps to demonstrate that he is very serious. There was very little attempt at humor during the debate. He certainly came out swinging at Harris’s claim of millions of new jobs by claiming they were “bounce back jobs” that had been lost during the Covid epidemic. He roundly attacked her (and, of course the president Joe Biden’s) record on immigration and for the badly managed and deadly exit of American troops from Afghanistan. He also attacked the Biden administration for being unwilling to fire poorly performing government staff. He focused on her early opposition to fracking, a major issue in the battleground Pennsylvania, which also happened to be the location of the debate. He predicted that her election would mean the end of Israel, while she called for a two-state solution and a ceasefire.Harris touted her background as a prosecutor and bragged of shutting down drug lords. She chided Trump for talking tough on crime while he has been indicted and convicted numerous times. Perhaps her best moment was when she drew a sharp distinction on reproductive rights. Women have been hurt by the striking down of Roe v Wade by the US supreme court, an issue that has drawn otherwise disengaged women voters to the polls and given Democrats victories in state and local elections.She put Trump on the defensive for his changing positions, something which has hurt him also with Christian conservatives. He resorted to accusing the Democrats of supporting the possible execution of newborn infants. He was immediately fact-checked by the moderators on that one – and lost. Harris, he said, was “all talk” on abortion and relief on student loans because she knows that Congress will never pass anything nor will federal courts allow it.Trump resorted to the bizarre at times. The small city of Springfield, Ohio, has seen entry of about 15,000 Haitian immigrants in recent months and he raised an unsubstantiated far-right claim that Haitian immigrants have been caught eating longtime residents’ pets. David Muir, chief anchor for ABC News and one of the moderators, immediately jumped in to say there was no evidence found of that, citing a statement from the local mayor.Trump also claimed a huge rise in violent crimes under the Biden-Harris administration while the most recent report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation actually notes that violent crime is in dramatic decline. And, of course, he still claims that he won the 2020 election because the Democrats defrauded the system by allowing undocumented immigrants to vote. Again, the moderators stepped in.Harris did have some weak moments. When asked if Americans were “better off” financially under the current administration, she completely ignored the question and talked instead about her vision of an “Opportunity Economy”. There are times when talking about the future is just not good enough. The economy is the elephant in the room and she is simply going to have to do better. Trump will be sure to remind her of that.Similarly, the Israel-Gaza war is a major issue for younger voters and Democratic progressives. Her attempt at a middle ground may not be reassuring to those who believe a genocide is being conducted with American weapons.At times, Trump was simply ridiculous. But he did not receive a knockout blow. “We have a nation in decline and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris know it.” While Harris hit him hard without appearing to bully him and turn him into a victim, he nonetheless had one of the most memorable lines of the evening: Harris “has been in for three and a half years, so why hasn’t she done” all the things she is promising? A good question that she will have to answer.Harris won on points. She may have regained the momentum she had most of August, but the race is still at equilibrium.Do these debates matter? They certainly have in the past. We all saw the strengths and weaknesses of both campaigners and now we have a clearer sense of what to watch from here.

      John Zogby is senior partner at the polling firm of John Zogby Strategies and is author of Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read the Polls and Why We Should More