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      This presidential race will be fought over competing understandings of ‘freedom’ | Eric Foner

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      The recently concluded Democratic national convention marked a sharp turn in US political rhetoric. “Freedom, where are you?” Beyoncé sang in the video that opened the gathering. Her song proved to be a fitting introduction to the days that followed. Joe Biden had made saving democracy from the threat of Maga authoritarianism the centerpiece of his ill-fated campaign for re-election. The keynote of Kamala Harris’s convention, invoked by nearly every speaker, was “freedom”.Nearly a century ago, in the wake of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt linked freedom to economic security for ordinary Americans – “freedom from want” was one of the four freedoms summarizing the country’s aims in the second world war. This definition of freedom, a product of the New Deal, assumed an active role for the federal government. But since the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan in effect redefined freedom as limited government, low taxes and unregulated economic enterprise, Democrats have pretty much ceded the word to their opponents. Now they want it back.Of course freedom – along with liberty, generally used as an equivalent – has been a US preoccupation ever since the American revolution gave birth to a nation that identified itself, in Thomas Jefferson’s words, as an “empire of liberty”, a unique embodiment of freedom in a world overrun by oppression. The declaration of independence includes liberty among mankind’s unalienable rights; the constitution announces at the outset its aim of securing the “blessings of liberty”. As a result, freedom has long been a powerful rhetorical weapon. As the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche wrote in 1940: “Every man in the street, white, black, red or yellow, knows that this is ‘The land of the free’ … [and] the ‘cradle of liberty’.”Yet freedom is neither a fixed idea nor an evolutionary progress toward a predetermined goal. The history of US freedom is a tale of debates and struggles. Often, battles for control of the idea illustrate the contrast between “negative” and “positive” meanings of freedom, a dichotomy elaborated by Sir Isaiah Berlin in an influential essay in 1958. Negative liberty defines freedom as the absence of outside restraints on individual action. Positive liberty is a form of empowerment – the ability to set and fulfill one’s goals. As the contrast between FDR and Reagan illustrates, the first sees government as a threat to freedom and the second as removing barriers to its enjoyment, often by government intervention.The Democratic convention built upon this history. Positive and negative freedom co-existed and reinforced one another. The frequent calls for “reproductive freedom” – the right to make intimate decisions free of governmental interference (or as vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz put it, the principle of “mind your own damn business”) – embraced and expanded the idea of negative freedom. Never before has the 60s slogan “the personal is political” found such powerful expression at a party convention.Positive freedom also made its appearance, notably in Bernie Sanders’ litany of future government action against the likes of big oil and big pharma in the name of combating economic inequality and “corporate greed”. Walz, echoing FDR, commented that people who lack access to affordable housing and healthcare are not truly free.There is another crucial element to the ongoing debate about freedom: who is entitled to enjoy it. When the constitution was ratified, the United States was home to half a million enslaved African Americans. The first laws defining how immigrants could become citizens, enacted in the 1790s, limited the process to “white” persons. It took more than half a century for slavery to be eradicated and for Black persons, for a brief period during the era of Reconstruction that followed the civil war, to be incorporated into the body politic.This history exemplifies what the historian Tyler Stovall, in a recent book, calls “White Freedom”. Fast forward to the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. With its freedom rides, freedom songs and insistent cry “freedom now”, that revolution linked freedom with equality regardless of race or national origin. What is now remembered simply as “the movement” did more to redefine the meaning of freedom than any other development of the last century. Its fruits were visible every night in the Democratic convention’s remarkably diverse composition.Throughout our history, freedom has been defined, in large measure, by its limits. This is how the Confederacy was able to claim to be fighting for liberty. The historian Jefferson Cowie, whose book Freedom’s Dominion won the Pulitzer prize for history in 2023, argues that negative freedom, expressed as opposition to federal intervention in local affairs, has often boiled down to little more than the determination of local elites to exercise political and economic power over subordinate groups without outside interference. Civil rights were condemned as a threat to white people’s liberty (the freedom, for example, to choose who is allowed to live in one’s neighborhood). The vaunted independence of men depended on limiting the freedom of women.With the party conventions over, the campaign now becomes, in part, a contest to define the meaning of freedom. Historical precedents exist for such a battle. In 1936, the New York Times observed that the fight for possession of “the ideal of freedom” was the central issue of that year’s presidential campaign. Three decades later, the journalist Theodore White noted that freedom was the “dominant word” of both civil rights demonstrators and supporters of the conservative Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, but they meant entirely different things by it. The United States, he concluded, sorely needed “a commonly-agreed-on concept of freedom”.Freedom is often used to mobilize support in wartime. No recent president employed it for this purpose more egregiously than George W Bush, who made freedom an all-purpose justification for the invasion of Iraq. In his first inaugural address, Bush used the words “freedom”, “free” or “liberty” seven times. In his second, a 10-minute speech delivered after the invasion, they appeared no fewer than 49 times.Bush’s egregious distortion of the ideal of freedom seemed to discourage his successors from using the word at all. Barack Obama preferred the language of community and personal responsibility. Nor has freedom been a major theme of Donald Trump, who prefers to speak of raw military and economic power. But Trump’s long campaign to deny that Obama is a US citizen, and his calls for the immense deportation of undocumented immigrants, resonate with those who seek to redraw freedom’s boundaries along racial and nativist lines.The Democratic convention appears to have guaranteed that the 2024 election will be a contest over the meaning of freedom. Whatever the result, it will likely define American freedom for years to come.

      Eric Foner’s many books on American history include The Story of American Freedom More

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      Trump staffers reported over altercation at Arlington cemetery during photo op

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      Officials at Arlington national cemetery have filed a report over the behavior of members of Donald Trump’s campaign staff who reportedly shoved and verbally abused an employee during a “crass” photo opportunity for the Republican presidential candidate.The officials confirmed that a confrontation took place at the Virginia cemetery on Monday after the former president participated in a wreath-laying ceremony for 13 US servicemen and -women killed in a 2021 suicide bomb attack outside Kabul airport in Afghanistan.In a statement, Arlington acknowledged one of its representatives became involved in the altercation with two Trump staffers, telling them that only cemetery representatives were allowed to take video and photographs in Section 60, an area where recent US casualties, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan, are buried.“Federal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, to include photographers, content creators or any other persons attending for purposes, or in direct support of a partisan political candidate’s campaign,” the statement said, adding that “a report was filed” over the incident.“Arlington National Cemetery reinforced and widely shared this law and its prohibitions with all participants,” the statement said.The staffers “verbally abused and pushed the official aside” as the person attempted to prevent them from accompanying Trump into the section, according to NPR, which first published the allegation on Tuesday night.JD Vance later on Wednesday dismissed the row as media exaggeration over “a little disagreement”. But Trump’s running mate also laid into Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival for the White House in November and the US vice-president, for the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying Harris could “go to hell”.At an event in Wisconsin later on Wednesday, Vance was asked by a journalist whether or not someone who wants to be president should have to abide by the law outlined by Arlington.In response, he accused the media of “acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a gravesite”.Following the wreath-laying, photographs from his visit showed Trump grinning and flashing a thumbs-up sign as he stood at the graves of several of the fallen military members, imagery that drew swift rebuke.The family of Master Sgt Andrew Marckesano, who is buried in Arlington, issued a statement on Wednesday saying that they had not given Trump’s staff permission to film at Marckesano’s gravesite, though another family, that of Sgt Darin Taylor Hoover, also buried there, had given permission, the New York Times reported.In a statement shared with the New York Times, Marckesano’s sister Michelle said: “According to our conversation with Arlington National Cemetery, the Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit to Staff Sergeant Hoover’s gravesite in Section 60, which lays directly next to my brother’s grave.”She continued: “We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected accordingly.”View image in fullscreenTrump was reported in 2018 to have canceled a visit to an American military cemetery outside Paris because he thought the dead soldiers were “suckers” and “losers”, and because he did not want the rain to mess up his hair.Instead of an apology, the Trump campaign attempted to turn around the narrative of the Arlington incident, with senior officials separately branding the cemetery’s representative “a despicable individual” who was experiencing “a mental health episode”.“There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made,” the campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, said in a statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”The senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, meanwhile, posted a video to X of Trump placing flowers on a grave, and launched a tirade against the Arlington staff member, saying they were “spreading lies”.“For a despicable individual to physically prevent President Trump’s team from accompanying him to this solemn event is a disgrace and does not deserve to represent the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery,” LaCivita, a former marine, said in a statement reported by NBC.Mark Esper, a former defense secretary under Donald Trump, told CNN on Wednesday morning that he hoped the reported altercation would be investigated, adding that the grounds should never be used for “partisan political purposes”.Members of some of the service members’ families also issued a statement, supporting Trump and thanking him for his visit, which he posted to his Truth Social network.Vance was speaking during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, when he said of the US military deaths: “Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened. She wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can go to hell!”Trump has previously attempted to gain political capital from the haphazard 2021 US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he signed off on during his single term of office and which took place during the first year of Joe Biden’s administration.“Caused by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world,” Trump claimed on Monday in a speech at the National Guard Association conference in Michigan commemorating the third anniversary of the Kabul airport attack.A scathing state department report published earlier this year criticized both Biden and Trump for decisions they made leading to the chaotic evacuation, and the bombing at the airport gate that killed 150 Afghans alongside the 13 Americans.A group called Veterans for Responsible Leadership posted on X, at the top of a thread going into the cemetery rules: “Trump not only violated the sanctity of Arlington, but he violated the official cemetery conduct.”Hellen Sullivan, Chris Stein and Maya Yang contributed reporting More

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      Vance says Harris can ‘go to hell’ in critical remarks on Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal – live

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      JD Vance said at a rally that Kamala Harris can “go to hell” as he heavily criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.The Republican vice-presidential candidate was speaking at a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania. Republicans have long sought to use the Afghanistan pullout to attack Joe Biden and are now using the same line of criticism against Harris in hopes of defeating the Democrat in November.Sarah Palin won a new trial in her libel lawsuit against the New York Times.A jury in 2022 rejected the former Alaska governor’s claims of defamation. Palin had argued that the newspaper damaged her reputation by linking her campaign rhetoric to the 2011 Arizona shooting that wounded US representative Gabby Giffords and left six others dead.On Wednesday, a federal appeals court ruled that she should receive a new trial, and found that the judge in the original proceedings made several errors, including wrongly excluding evidence.A spokesperson for the Times called Wednesday’s decision “disappointing” while Palin’s lawyer said it was “a significant step forward”.Mike Waltz, a Republican congressman, shared a statement from the families of US soldiers killed and injured during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, who said they approved of Donald Trump’s campaign staff taking photos and videos during his visit to Arlington national cemetery on Monday:However, according to NPR, an Arlington official got into an altercation with Trump’s campaign staff because the former president’s entourage had been visiting a section of the grounds where only cemetery employees can take photos.It’s unclear whether Trump having the permission of some of the families of those buried there is relevant to the cemetery’s policies.Speaking of Donald Trump, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that the former president is gearing up to continue his legal challenge against special counsel Jack Smith, who yesterday unveiled a new indictment against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election:Donald Trump is expected to​ continue to battle against criminal charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election by challenging further parts of the revised indictment that removed allegations​ the US supreme court found were subject to immunity​.The superseding indictment ​filed on Tuesday by special counsel prosecutors mainly removed allegations about Trump’s efforts to use the​ justice department to ​obstruct the peaceful transfer of power and reframed the narrative to say Trump was being charged in his capacity as a candidate​.The document retains the same four criminal ​conspiracy statutes against Trump that were originally filed last summer. But portions of the new indictment have been rewritten to emphasize that Trump was not acting in his official capacity during his efforts to try​ to overturn the election.Trump’s lawyers see the changes as minimal and will seek to pare back the charges further, ​according to people familiar with the matter, because they consider large parts of what remains in the updated indictment to be presumptively immune conduct that the judge needs to resolve​.In that sense, there are no immediate consequences of the ​special ​counsel Jack Smith getting a superseding indictment in the case. Trump still ​plans to initiate new litigation, ​which will be appealed to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit​, and any trial would not happen before the November election.JD Vance said the Trump campaign was given permission to have a photographer present during his visit this week to a section of Arlington national cemetery where photography is not allowed.“There is verifiable evidence that the campaign was allowed to have a photographer there … they were invited to have a photographer there,” Vance said during a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania.NPR has reported that two Trump campaign staffers got in an altercation with a Arlington official for filming and taking pictures in a section of the cemetery reserved for recent US military casualties, and where only staff members are allowed to use cameras.Addressing reports of a scuffle, Vance said: “The altercation at Arlington cemetery is the media creating a story where I really don’t think that there is one,” and, “Apparently somebody at Arlington cemetery, some staff member, had a little disagreement with somebody, and they have turned the media has turned this into a national news story.”During an appearance in Erie, Pennsylvania, this afternoon, JD Vance trotted out a new attack line against Kamala Harris, accusing her of running a “copycat campaign”.The Ohio senator, who Donald Trump selected as his running mate last month, said, without offering evidence, that the Democratic nominee had adopted the same policies as his campaign.“If you look at her campaign the past week and a half, she pretends that she agrees with Donald J Trump on every issue. She is running a copycat campaign,” Vance said.There are wide differences between the two campaigns – something Vance well knows, considering that he spent much of his speech attacking Harris for her support of efforts to encourage electric vehicle usage.The “copycat campaign” line may be a reference to one of the few areas where the two candidates align, which is on taxing tips. Trump has said he’d like to remove taxes on gratuities, and Harris recently said she would support that as well. The policy is generally seen as a way to woo votes in Nevada, a swing states with a large number of workers dependent on tips:The US supreme court has declined a request from the Biden administration to allow a plan that would lower or pause federal student debt payments for borrowers to take effect, the Associated Press reports.Joe Biden proposed the plan, known as Save, after a previous attempt to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans was blocked by the supreme court’s conservative majority. Republican-led states sued over the Save plan, and have won rulings against it at the appeals level.Today’s decision from the nation’s highest court will allow those rulings to stand while litigation plays out.Here’s more, from the AP:
      The justices rejected an administration request to put most of it back into effect. It was blocked by 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
      In an unsigned order, the court said it expects the appeals court to issue a fuller decision on the plan “with appropriate dispatch.”
      The Education Department is seeking to provide a faster path to loan cancellation, and reduce monthly income-based repayments from 10% to 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income. The plan also wouldn’t require borrowers to make payments if they earn less than 225% of the federal poverty line — $32,800 a year for a single person.
      Last year, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected an earlier plan that would have wiped away more than $400 billion in student loan debt.
      Cost estimates of the new SAVE plan vary. The Republican-led states challenging the plan peg the cost at $475 billion over 10 years. The administration cites a Congressional Budget Office estimate of $276 billion.
      Two separate legal challenges to the SAVE plan have been making their way through federal courts. In June, judges in Kansas and Missouri issued separate rulings that blocked much of the administration’s plan. Debt that already had been forgiven under the plan was unaffected.
      The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that allowed the department to proceed with a provision allowing for lower monthly payments. Republican-led states had asked the high court to undo that ruling.
      But after the 8th Circuit blocked the entire plan, the states had no need for the Supreme Court to intervene, the justices noted in a separate order issued Wednesday.
      The gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, viewed the event as a “target of opportunity”, the FBI revealed today, according to the Associated Press.The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office, Kevin Rojek, told reporters that Thomas Crooks, who opened fire on Trump, searched on the internet for: “Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show?” “Butler Farm Show podium” and “Butler Farm Show photos” ahead of the former president’s rally in July.However, Rojek said that Crooks’s motive remains a mystery: “We have a clear idea of mindset, but we are not ready to make any conclusive statements regarding motive at this time.”The gunman who tried to assassinate former president Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania in July searched more than 60 times for information about Trump and Joe Biden, before registering for the Trump rally, according to a new Reuters report that cites FBI officials.Reuters also reported that Kevin Rojek, the FBI’s top official in western Pennsylvania, said that the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Crooks, mounted a “sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some events, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets”.Crooks then became “hyper focused” on the Trump rally after it was announced, Rojek said.According to USA Today, Rojek said that Crooks researched the Trump and Biden campaigns between April and July 2024.A new poll released today by ActiVote shows the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and the former president Donald Trump “essentially tied” in the battleground state of Michigan, with Harris leading Trump by just 0.2%.The new Michigan presidential poll was conducted between 28 July and 28 August and was among 400 likely voters. The poll has an “average expected error of 4.9%”, the company said.According to the data, Harris leads among such as urban voters, women, low income voters, young voters in Michigan, where Trump leads among rural and suburban voters, men, and those 50 to 64 years old, ActiVote wrote.A new survey released by Gallup suggests that a majority of Americans continue to approve of labor unions.According to the survey, 70% of respondents said that they approve of labor unions, up from 67% last year. This year’s approval rating is the second highest recorded by Gallup since 1965, per the data, with the 2022 being the highest with 71% approval rating of labor unions.The recent survey, which was conducted in August of this year, also states that 23% of respondents said that they disapproved of labor unions and 7% had no opinion.The new data comes as Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate and governor of Minnesota, spoke to unionized firefighters this morning at the International Association of Fire Fighters convention in Boston.Controversy brews over a report that campaign staffers for Donald Trump were involved in a physical altercation with an official from Arlington national cemetery, which he visited earlier this week. Trump’s former defense secretary Mark Esper told CNN he was waiting to hear the outcome of an investigation into the scuffle, while saying the cemetery should never be used for “partisan political purposes”. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s communications director indicated that her campaign and Trump’s were still not on the same page about the rules for their 10 September debate, with the sticking point being whether the candidates’ microphones would be live when it was not their turn to talk. Trump seems to want them switched off, while Harris’s people want them on.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who is Harris’s running mate, invited unionized firefighters to tune into the debate, saying: “It’s going to be good.”

      Clips of JD Vance attacking people who do not have children keep emerging.

      Trump continued to rail against the gag order imposed on him in his hush money case, saying it is preventing him from talking about the “most important and corrupt aspects” of his prosecution.
      Donald Trump’s legal troubles are clearly on his mind today, if his recent Truth Social posts are any indication.The special counsel Jack Smith yesterday unveiled a new indictment of the former president for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. While it does not dramatically alter the facts of the case, and appears mostly a response to the supreme court’s immunity decision handed down last month, the Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis reports in our Trump on Trial newsletter that it may be a sign the former president’s luck in the courts has run out:Donald Trump is meanwhile busy on Truth Social, posting about various things on his mind, including the gag order he remains under in his New York hush-money case.The order prevents him from making statements about prosecutors, court staff and their families, at least until his 18 September sentencing date. That’s a fairly small group of people, but Trump is nonetheless very upset about it, as he wrote:
      When asked about the lawless Manhattan D.A. Hoax, I am not allowed to talk about the most important and corrupt aspects of it, because of the completely unConstitutional Gag Order. I am the first Candidate in American History who is not allowed to freely speak about a major Witch Hunt being perpetrated against him. I must be immediately released from the Gag Order, so I can continue to expose the Weaponization of our Justice System by the Radical Democrats. The GOOD NEWS is that the American People see through these Witch Hunts, and will bring us a dominant Victory on November 5th. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
      Donald Trump yesterday said he had agreed on the rules for his 10 September debate with Kamala Harris, but a spokesman for the vice-president indicates they still are not on the same page over whether the microphones will be on or off when it is not a candidate’s turn to speak.Trump yesterday said he had agreed to the same rules that governed his June debate with Joe Biden. In that case, microphones were muted when it was not time for him or the president to talk.In an interview with CNN today, the Harris campaign’s communications director Michael Tyler implied that Trump had agreed that microphones would be on throughout – something the former president has not explicitly said.“We’re going to have a 90-minute debate. Both candidates have said that they are comfortable with live, unmuted microphones for the duration of the debate that allows for the free flow and exchange of ideas between the two candidates. I understand that Donald Trump’s team of handlers is now attempting to overrule him. But as insofar as the candidates themselves, we’re in total alignment that this should be a 90-minute debate with live microphones. And so that’s what we look forward to,” Tyler said.Asked if Harris would attend the debate, hosted by ABC News, if microphones are not always on, Tyler replied:
      We fully intend to debate. We’re going to be there. The question is, will Donald Trump commit to the terms that he’s publicly agreed to? Or will he let his team overrule him? So I guess we’ll see if when he shows up on September 10, which decision he has made. More

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      Who is running for president in 2024? Harris, Trump and the full list of candidates

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      The 2024 election season is well under way.The campaign was marked by a consequential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, followed by weeks of pressure on Biden following his debate performance, culminating in his announcement that he would drop out of the race.As Biden reconsidered his re-election, there was an attempted assassination against Trump, followed by the naming of the Ohio senator JD Vance as the Republican vice-presidential pick.After Biden’s surprise announcement, he backed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, as his choice to replace him on the party’s ticket. Harris quickly secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic pick. She tapped the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate, and both were confirmed as their party’s nominees at the Democratic convention in August.Also in August, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent candidate with no shortage of wild stories, suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Trump.Here is the full list of candidates as of 27 August, including some long-shots who hope to challenge the major party candidates in November..gu-candidate-container.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{cursor:pointer;display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;justify-content:center;width:80px}.gu-candidate-container.true.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{width:70px}.gu-candidate-container.true.svelte-yah0vs img.svelte-yah0vs{filter:grayscale(.8) opacity(.3) contrast(1.8);width:50px}.gu-candidate-container.true.svelte-yah0vs p.svelte-yah0vs{color:#707070}img.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{border-radius:100%;width:100%}p.svelte-yah0vs.svelte-yah0vs{color:#121212;font-family:Guardian Text Sans Web,Helvetica 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      The remaining candidatesView image in fullscreenDonald TrumpFormer president of the United States. Running mate: JD VanceDonald Trump accepted the Republican party’s nomination for president for the third consecutive time. At the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, the former president formally accepted the nomination on a night that was supposed to be filled with calls for unity but instead was marked by alarmist language and false claims.Trump announced Vance – once a vocal “never Trumper” – as his pick for the nomination for vice-president at the Republican convention.View image in fullscreenKamala HarrisVice-president of the United States. Running-mate: Tim WalzHarris officially accepted the Democratic party’s presidential nomination at the Democratic convention in August in Chicago, after a whirlwind tour of battleground states alongside her running mate, Walz.Harris’s campaign came after weeks of pressure following Biden’s disastrous June debate, and after Biden announced he would not accept his party’s nomination and endorsed her to replace him on the Democratic ticket.Immediately following Biden’s decision, Harris confirmed her intention to “earn and win this nomination” as a flood of Democrats endorsed her campaign, heading off a competitive race for the Democratic ticket.Harris made her first official campaign stop in Delaware on 22 July and has crisscrosed the country, stopping in swing state after swing state, since.View image in fullscreenJill SteinDoctor and activist. Running mate: Butch WareLeftwing environmentalist Jill Stein formally launched her third presidential bid in an online conversation in November 2023. Stein also stood as the Green party’s candidate in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. Her candidacy follows the decision by Cornel West, the party’s original likely nominee, to leave the Green party and run as an independent.View image in fullscreenCornel WestProfessor and progressive activist. Running mate: Melina AbdullahThe progressive activist Cornel West announced in a video posted to Twitter that he was running for president as a member of the People’s party, a third party headed by a former campaign staffer for Bernie Sanders. West is currently a professor of philosophy at Union Theological Seminary and previously worked at Harvard but resigned, saying the school had an “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths”.Dropped outView image in fullscreenJoe BidenPresident of the United States, dropped out 21 July 2024Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election, winning all the party’s primary contests. However, following a disastrous debate performance in June against Trump, and weeks of pressure, Biden announced on 21 July that he would not accept the party’s nomination. Biden endorsed Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the Democratic ticket. Biden served in politics for more than five decades, culminating in his 2020 victory over Donald Trump.Ryan BinkleyBusinessman and pastor, dropped out 27 February 2024Binkley, a Texas businessman, was a long-shot candidate who is also a pastor at Create church. The self-proclaimed far-right fiscal conservative criticized both Democrats and Republicans for not being able to balance the federal budget, and said he would focus on health costs, immigration reform and a national volunteer movement.View image in fullscreenDoug BurgumGovernor of North Dakota, dropped out 4 December 2023Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, announced his campaign in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal on 6 June 2023. Viewed as a surprise, long-shot candidate, he touted his experience as a career businessman and leaned on his small-town roots in an announcement video titled Change. As governor, Burgum signed into law a near-total abortion ban, which makes the procedure illegal after six weeks, and only permissible in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency up to that point. He supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 and in 2020.View image in fullscreenChris ChristieFormer governor of New Jersey, dropped out 10 January 2024The former New Jersey governor has emerged as one of the harshest Republican critics of Donald Trump, whom he endorsed for president in 2016 after dropping out of that race. Christie says he broke ties with the former president after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, claiming that he hadn’t spoken to Trump since then. Christie, a lawyer and a lobbyist who served as a US attorney appointed by George W Bush, announced he was running for president a second time on 6 June 2023 in New Hampshire during a town hall.View image in fullscreenRon DeSantisGovernor of Florida, dropped out 21 January 2024Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida was predicted to be the strongest contender for the GOP nomination against Donald Trump, consistently polling second among Republican primary voters. He made his formal announcement on Twitter, during a Spaces event attended by roughly 300,000 users that was riddled with technological glitches, on 24 May 2023. DeSantis, who has served as Florida’s governor since 2019 and handily defeated the Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, in 2022, previously represented Florida’s sixth congressional district as a member of the US House from 2012 to 2018. As governor, DeSantis has signed a slate of laws banning minors from receiving gender-affirming care and restricting education on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, and he has become an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist party.Larry ElderConservative radio host, dropped out 26 October 2023The rightwing political commentator and radio talkshow host announced his run for president on Fox News as a guest on the now-canceled Tucker Carlson Tonight on 20 April 2023. In 2021, Elder joined a list of Republicans seeking to replace Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, in a failed recall. The Los Angeles resident was an outspoken critic of the state’s mask mandates, calling them “a joke”.View image in fullscreenNikki HaleyFormer ambassador to the United Nations, dropped out 6 March 2024Haley, who got her start in politics as a member of South Carolina’s general assembly, was governor of the state from 2011 to 2017. She ended her second term early to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump before announcing her resignation in 2018. She became the first Republican to announce a run against Donald Trump, even though she previously said she would not run against him. Haley vowed to “fix” the US immigration system by “stopping illegal immigration” and described herself as pro-life, but said a federal abortion ban was unrealistic. Haley, who is the daughter of Indian immigrants, would have been the first US president of Asian descent, as well as the first woman.Will HurdFormer congressman from Texas, dropped out 10 October 2023Former US Representative Will Hurd, of Texas, entered the crowded primary field as a moderate and critic of Donald Trump. Hurd announced his campaign in an interview on CBS. He followed that with a video posted online in which he called Trump a “lawless, selfish, failed politician” and laid out an agenda to curb “illegal immigration”, inflation, crime and homelessness. Hurd, who worked for nearly a decade in the CIA, served three terms in the House, from 2015 to 2021. He left office as the only Black Republican in the chamber.View image in fullscreenAsa HutchinsonFormer governor of Arkansas, dropped out 16 January 2024Hutchinson is the former governor of Arkansas, a post he held from 2015 to 2023. The relatively unknown politician announced his candidacy in an interview on ABC days after Trump was indicted in a Manhattan court, saying the ex-president should drop out of the race. Hutchinson is a businessman and lawyer who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to serve as a US attorney. He also served a stint in the US House of Representatives, winning a congressional seat in 1996 when he replaced his brother, Tim, who ran for Senate.View image in fullscreenPerry JohnsonBusinessman, dropped out 20 October 2023Johnson is a businessman who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan in 2022 after providing fraudulent nominating signatures for that campaign. Originally from Illinois, Johnson founded dozens of companies, and lives in Michigan with his family. He has billed himself as Donald Trump “without the baggage” and has taken similar policy positions on curbing US debt and cracking down on the FBI.Robert F Kennedy JrLawyer and author, dropped out 23 August 2024Robert F Kennedy Jr, known for his work as an environmental lawyer and his anti-vaccine views, said he was running for president to end the “chronic disease epidemic”. Kennedy, who compared vaccine mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic to “Hitler’s Germany”, has promoted other baseless conspiracy theories such as telecom networks being used to control people. He is the nephew of John F Kennedy, the former Democratic president, who was assassinated in office, and is the son of 1968 Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy, who was assassinated on the campaign trail. He suspended his campaign on 23 August and endorsed Trump.View image in fullscreenMike PenceFormer vice-president of the United States, dropped out 28 October 2023Mike Pence officially launched his campaign for president on 7 June 2023, in a rare instance of a former vice-president challenging the president with whom he shared a ticket a few years ago. Pence joined a crowded Republican field in which he has consistently polled third, even before he officially announced his candidacy, though he trails far behind DeSantis and Trump. Pence was angling for a wide base among evangelical Christians and had vowed to ban abortion if he were elected. He denounced the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and had used it as a talking point against Trump, who turned against him after he publicly refused supporters’ calls to overturn the results of the election.View image in fullscreenDean PhillipsRepresentative from Minnesota, dropped out 6 March 2024Dean Phillips, a three-term Democratic congressman from Minnesota, challenged Biden, saying the next generation should have the opportunity to lead the country. Phillips is the heir to a distilling company and once co-owned a gelato company. He entered public office spurred by fighting back against Trump.Vivek RamaswamyEntrepreneur and author, dropped out 16 January 2024The biotech entrepreneur and political newcomer announced his campaign in a video describing attacks on the “culture of free speech in America” and again on Fox News in an interview with now-fired Tucker Carlson. He is the author of Woke, Inc, a book that lobbies against “ESG” – a framework of corporate governance that encourages companies to consider the environment and social justice issues. Ramaswamy, who was the youngest candidate vying for the Republican nomination, had lobbied in favor of raising the national voting age to 25. Ramaswamy would have been the first president of Asian and Indian descent. He had also vowed to pardon federally indicted Donald Trump.Francis SuarezMayor of Miami, dropped out 29 August 2023Suarez, the mayor of Miami, was the first major Hispanic candidate seeking the Republican party nomination this election cycle. The son of Miami’s first Cuban-born mayor, Suarez had said he would broaden support for Republicans among Latino voters. He was the third candidate from Florida to join the crowded primary field, alongside frontrunners Trump and DeSantis. Suarez, who was first elected in 2017, filed paperwork to run the day after Trump appeared in a Miami court over federal charges and made his formal announcement on Good Morning America the day after that.View image in fullscreenTim ScottSenator from South Carolina, dropped out 13 November 2023In May, Scott became the second politician from South Carolina to run for the Republican nomination. He has served as a senator from South Carolina since 2013, when he was appointed by Republican challenger Nikki Haley to fill a vacancy. Scott, who is one of three Black members of the Senate and is the only Black Republican senator, said in his announcement speech that “America is not a racist country”. Scott joined fellow Republicans in opposing the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022. Scott served as a member of the House from 2011 to 2013 and before that spent stints in South Carolina’s general assembly and Charleston’s county council. During his 2010 campaign for the House of Representatives, Scott told Newsweek that homosexuality was a morally wrong choice.View image in fullscreenMarianne WilliamsonAuthorFailed 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, who also unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2014, became the first Democratic candidate to announce she is running for president as a challenge to Joe Biden. Williamson, an author of self-help books, launched her long-shot bid with campaign promises to address climate change and student loan debt. She previously worked as “spiritual leader” of a Michigan Unity church. She originally ended her campaign on 7 February 2024 but announced on 28 February she was “un-suspending”. More

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      RFK Jr is now political roadkill – what does it mean for Harris and Trump?

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      Hello, good day,First, an apology. We missed some big election news in July, when the town of Omena, in northern Michigan, elected a horse called Lucky to be mayor. Lucky becomes the first horse to hold the position – the largely ceremonial role was previously held by Rosie, who is a dog. We wish the 16-year-old stallion all the best for his time in office.One mammal who will not be becoming an elected leader, however, is Robert F Kennedy Jr. The bear-cub-vanquishing, non-dog-eating, brain-worm-surviving presidential candidate dropped out of the race, sort of, last week and endorsed Donald Trump. Kennedy was seen as a threat by both the Trump and Harris campaigns, and we’ll take a look at what his election exit could mean for both after some headlines.Here’s what you need to knowView image in fullscreen1.More legal trouble for TrumpThe justice department filed a new indictment on Tuesday against Donald Trump, over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump had already been charged in the case, but the new indictment aims to work around a supreme court decision in July which ruled that former presidents have complete immunity for official acts. Trump is charged with four federal crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the US, but the case is unlikely to go to trial before November.2. To mute or not to mute?The Trump and Harris campaigns are engaged in back and forth over the scheduled 10 September debate, with negotiations seeming to hinge on one issue: whether candidates’ microphones will be turned off when it is not their turn to speak. “Muted microphones” were used in the Trump-Biden debate in July, but the Harris team would like to keep the mics switched on the whole time – presumably with the hope that the notoriously undisciplined Trump will embarrass himself on live TV. Trump has said he wants open mics, too, but his team would rather they be turned off. “Our understanding is that Trump’s handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don’t think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own,” a Harris spokesman told NBC. The saga continues.3. More than 200 Republican staffers endorse HarrisA group of 238 people who worked for former president George HW Bush, former president George W Bush, former Arizona senator John McCain and Utah senator Mitt Romney have come out in support of Kamala Harris, warning that a Trump second term “will hurt real, everyday people”. In an open letter published this week the Republican staffers wrote: “Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice-President Harris and Governor Walz … That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.”The bear-conquerer is gone … what does it mean for Harris and Trump?View image in fullscreenWell, there goes that dream. We all knew Robert F Kennedy Jr would not be the next president of the United States, and it only took 18 months for him to figure it out too. The scion of the storied Kennedy Democratic family, who was running as an independent, brought an end to his campaign last week, and endorsed Donald Trump.While Kennedy’s campaign ultimately descended into a laughingstock – one highlight was when he was forced to reveal he had staged the death of a bear cub, another when he had to deny that he had eaten a dog – he was less of a joke to Democratic and Republican strategists.The election is likely to be decided by tens of thousands of votes in a handful of states, so if Kennedy had managed to persuade just a few people to vote for him over Harris or Trump, it could have tipped the scales of the election.In endorsing Trump, Kennedy claimed the former president had invited him to form a “unity government” – although Kennedy also admitted that Trump had given him no commitments about any actual government position. On Tuesday Trump appointed Kennedy to his transition team, giving him some influence in the policies a Trump administration would pursue, but does any of this mean that those Kennedy voters, whoever they are, will flock to Trump? And is Trump now a shoo-in for the White House?The answer seems to be: probably not.The polling boffins at 538 reckon the Kennedy exit and Trump endorsement will have “minimal impact on the race”. Ruth Igielnik, a poll expert at the New York Times, says it is “unlikely to change the nature of the race”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to 538’s analysis of polling, if Kennedy hadn’t been in the race, his supporters would have been equally likely to vote for Trump or Harris, while polling shows that Kennedy’s supporters were less likely than Harris or Trump supporters to say they will definitely vote in November. So even if all Kennedy’s voters follow him to the Trump camp, they might not show up at the polls.That’s not to say it couldn’t have an impact.Biden won Wisconsin by just 20,682 votes in 2020. If Kennedy managed to win over 10,342 of those Democratic voters, and those people now vote for Trump, then assuming everyone else who voted in Wisconsin in 2020 a) votes in November, and b) votes the same way, then Trump would win the key swing state.But the truth is that Kennedy’s star had been on the wane for a while. Kennedy was polling at 10% nationally before Joe Biden dropped out: that has since dropped to 5%. Kennedy was also running out of money: at the end of July his campaign, which ended up being managed by his daughter-in-law, had $3.9m cash on hand, but was $3.5m in debt.In the end, Kennedy couldn’t even drop out properly. He’s withdrawing from the ballot in 10 states, including some of the states expected to be particularly close in November, but will remain on the ballot in 30 states. Oh, and some of the states he plans to drop out of have already started printing their voting papers, so Kennedy’s name could appear on the ballot anyway.While Kennedy says he endorsed Trump because they share some of the same priorities – ending the war in Ukraine, taking on big pharma, and sorting out the climate (lol!) – it’s telling that Kennedy also asked the Harris campaign for a job before deciding to back Trump.For now, Trump has received Kennedy warmly. On Tuesday it emerged that Trump had appointed Kennedy to his transition team, and while the addition of a man who looks like a melted GI Joe figurine and who says a worm ate part of his brain is unlikely to quell the accusations that Republicans are “weird”, it at least gives Kennedy something to do.Who had the worst weekView image in fullscreen
      Spare a thought for Steve Bannon, the rightwing media guru who helped mastermind Trump’s 2016 election win but is now, apparently, being “tortured” in prison.That’s what Rudy Giuliani – the occasional lawyer, regular Trump supporter and near-constant raiser of eyebrows – claimed in a recent interview.According to Giuliani, Bannon is being tortured by not being able to watch television while in prison, where he is serving a four-month sentence for defying multiple subpoenas. More

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      The revised indictment against Donald Trump is the last thing he needs right now | Lloyd Green

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      On Tuesday, Jack Smith, the special counsel, delivered a revised 36-page indictment, again charging Donald Trump with conspiring to subvert the final outcome of the 2020 election. How the courts treat the latest indictment remains to be seen. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito may again race to Trump’s rescue. But two weeks before the scheduled 10 September presidential debate, the American electorate and Donald Trump are again reminded that the Republican nominee stands in legal jeopardy. Then again, winning on 5 November may be the simplest way for him to avoid jail time.Already trailing in the polls, this is not good news for Trump, a candidate who has twice lost the popular vote. Without Joe Biden as a foil, his decline and age visibly grow. At 59, Kamala Harris is almost 20 years younger. All too often, Trump, 78, slurs his words and rambles. His dance moves remind folks of their elderly uncle.Trump already labors under a state court felony conviction in New York and a nine-figure pile of civil judgments. His personal liquidity and the future of his family business are in doubt. He must again deflect renewed allegations that he sought to thwart the will of the people and obstruct the outcome of a valid election. That costs more time and money.“Despite having lost, the Defendant – who was also the incumbent President – was determined to remain in power,” the indictment reads.“For more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”For a guy who yammers about law and order, it’s a lousy look – as is his campaign’s physical altercation at Arlington national cemetery over its use as a prop in which Trump flashes a thumbs-up.Since Harris emerged as the Democrats’ standard-bearer, Trump is on the short end of a nine-point shift in the polls. This latest legal development will likely hinder his attempt to make up lost ground. If history matters, indictments have a way of doing just that.A veteran of George HW Bush’s losing re-election campaign, I remember Caspar Weinberger, Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary, being re-indicted just days before the 3 November 1992 election. In the run-up to that fateful Friday, the campaign had battled back into a statistical tie with Bill Clinton. The one-count re-indictment, however, derailed the campaign’s final gasp for momentum.Before the latest indictment, Harris already held an 11-point lead over Trump on the question of who is the more honest and trustworthy candidate. Expect Tuesday’s indictment to expand the gap, a development that he can ill afford.The map tells the story. According to Nate Silver, the polling guru, Harris has recaptured a lead in the electoral battlegrounds of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The website he founded, ABC’s 538, gives her nearly a three-in-five shot of winning. PredictIt, an online betting site, puts her chance at 55%.Nationally, House Democrats have improved their chances of retaking the chamber. Over in Texas, the senator Ted Cruz holds a mere two-point advantage over the representative Colin Allred, his Democratic opponent. The loathed incumbent senator is in trouble.This is not the future Trump and the Republicans envisioned after he walloped Biden in the debate. Even worse, this is not the endgame the Trump campaign anticipated. Rather, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles expected Sleepy Joe to hang on until the bitter end. Of all his unforced errors, Trump agreeing to an early debate may have been his most consequential. Lack of imagination can be fatal in politics and war.Adding insult to injury, the Harris campaign announced on Tuesday that Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, will sit for a joint interview to be aired this Thursday night on CNN. For days, the punditocracy repeatedly announced that without a media sit-down she would be unable to maintain her momentum.That box is about to be checked. Team Trump is on verge of losing another talking point.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBeyond that, the Harris-Walz interview falls on the eve of the upcoming Labor Day weekend, when most of the US is on the road, as opposed to being glued to their televisions. If the interview goes poorly for Harris, it is less likely to develop into a real-time disaster.The Trump re-indictment also serves to highlight Harris’s career as a local prosecutor and state attorney general. In this vein, a speech she delivered in late June in Atlanta sets the table for the final weeks of the campaign.“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women; fraudsters who ripped off consumers; cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she advised the crowd.“So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. I know the type. And I have been dealing with people like him my entire career.”Meanwhile, her campaign coffers brim. Voter registration among Black women explodes. And Trump is left to hawk another round of digital trading cards.He is not enjoying a “brat summer”.

      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Swifties for Kamala rally raises nearly $140,000 for Harris

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      Taylor Swift has yet to publicly endorse a candidate, but some of her fanbase are already mobilizing for Kamala Harris. The Swifties for Kamala Coalition officially launched on Tuesday, raising more than $138,000 for the Democratic candidate in a virtual rally featuring Carole King and the senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand.Swift, who has no affiliation with the group, was not present on the Zoom call nor involved in the event. The group has amassed about 250 million followers on social media platforms since Joe Biden dropped out of the race in late July and endorsed the vice-president.More than 26,000 people joined the Zoom call on Tuesday, according to CNN.King was introduced as the self-proclaimed “original cat lady” and began her speech by praising Swift as “my musical and songwriting granddaughter”. Swift inducted King into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021 with a performance of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, calling her “the greatest songwriter of all time”.“I’m excited about Kamala, because so many people are excited about Kamala,” King said after rapping the chorus to Swift’s 2014 hit Shake It Off. “I have admired her, the idea that this happened, and the stars lined up, and Joe Biden did a really gracious, hard thing to do, and I’m so proud of him … But this is about you. This call is about you.”King provided attendees with advice for volunteering, such as phone banking and door knocking. “I’ve been a political activist for years. I’ve been a volunteer, I’ve been a door knocker, even as a famous person,” she said. “I’m telling you all this because if any of you are thinking of volunteering to be door knockers or phone callers, but you’re a little nervous about what you might say, please believe me: there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.”Each speaker, including the senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the congressman Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, the congresswoman Becca Balint of Vermont and the chair of the North Carolina Democratic party, Anderson Clayton, named their favorite Swift song before their remarks. Warren picked the 10-minute version of All Too Well and her 2022 hit Karma. Warren also praised Swifties’ battle against Ticketmaster and summoned the “era of the first woman president”.“You are resilient, and you know how to take on bullies and you know how to be your most authentic, most joyful selves,” Warren said. “You come together hand-in-hand, friendship bracelets on your wrist, and you overcome pretty much anything that life throws at you. And that is what the Kamala Harris campaign is all about. It’s about standing up for what is right in the face of bullies, like Donald Trump.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile Swift has yet to comment on the 2024 election, she did ultimately back the Biden-Harris ticket in 2020. But the group is not waiting for her endorsement. “We are not waiting on Taylor to show her support for Kamala Harris,” the group’s social media manager, Rohan Reagan, told Cosmopolitan in August. “We are doing this outside of her, using the platform of Swifties as a way to get people involved in the election. Taylor did throw her support toward Joe Biden during the 2020 election, so it is possible that she’ll show her support again. But Swifties for Kamala aren’t waiting for her to do that.” More