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      In Dearborn, home of largest Arab American community, despair and apathy dominate

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      Abu Bilal sits quietly on a stool in Oriental Fashion, a clothing store he owns on Dearborn’s Warren Avenue, listening to the radio. It’s hard to ascertain whether his tone when talking about the war in Gaza is one of near-complete defeatism or seething anger.“Ninety people were killed today; hundreds were injured,” he says, referencing an Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians in Khan Younis on Saturday.“No one is talking about it; no one cares. I have one question: where is the humanity?”On a scorching Saturday afternoon in Dearborn, Michigan, the feeling of despairing resignation over the war and the role America’s political leaders are playing in enabling the suffering in the besieged territory is near-omnipresent – and so is a sense of apathy over the coming presidential election.Down Maple Street, a man getting a haircut at the Al-Rehab Barber Shop says in Arabic that regardless of who the president is or will be following November’s election, it’s not going to make any difference to him. The barber says that he didn’t vote in the 2020 presidential election and doesn’t plan to vote in November. Both refused to offer their names, saying they prefer not to be identified for their political views.As the death toll continues to mount in Gaza with little sign of a political solution forthcoming, the mood in America’s largest Arab American community in recent months and weeks has decidedly changed. While flags and protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has now killed more than 38,000 people, drew fervent energy and anger to Dearborn’s streets when the city became a protest hub around the state’s presidential primary, the sense today seems one of resignation and anger at America’s political leadership.For Joe Biden, who won the key battleground state of Michigan in 2020 by just 154,000 votes, that could be deeply damaging come November.When the US president defeated Donald Trump en route to the White House in 2020, turnout in Dearborn was around 10% higher than the previous election four years earlier. Biden also won 10% more votes than the Democratic party’s previous presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, suggesting voters in Dearborn four years ago were energized.Today, that positivity is nowhere to be found. During the Democratic party’s primary in February, 6,432 Dearborn voters chose “uncommitted” in protest of Biden’s support for Israel’s war, out of a total of 100,000 Michiganders who did the same. A Pew Research Center survey from May found that both Biden and Trump were the least-liked pair of presidential candidates in at least three decades. Trump currently holds a narrow lead in the state according to polls.There is little sign that support among Arab Americans has rebounded since the peak of the uncommitted movement’s strength earlier this year. According to a poll conducted by the Arab American Institute in May, Biden has the support of less than 20% of Arab Americans – down from nearly 60% in 2020. The poll estimates he could lose 91,000 votes in Michigan alone.When members of Biden’s election campaign team visited Dearborn in January, they were met on one occasion by an empty room after Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, and two other Arab American state representatives declined to meet with the team, rejecting a campaign meeting to discuss elections rather than a substantive discussion about the war.“If you’re planning on sending campaign officials to convince the Arab American community on why they should vote for your candidate, don’t do it on the same day you announce selling fighter jets to the tyrants murdering our family members,” Hammoud wrote on X at the time.On Friday, Biden held a campaign rally at a school a few miles north of Dearborn, but for the most part his campaign’s overtures to Arab Americans across the country have been rejected.“The whole community was aware [that the administration had sent campaign officials to meet with the community], and I think it says a lot, that he sees us as no more than votes and that it’s been normalized for our people back home to be killed,” says Jenin Yaseen, an artist whose family is from a village outside Nablus in the occupied West Bank.She says didn’t vote in 2020 and doesn’t plan to do so this year. “I don’t think that we see that there’s a distinguishment between Trump and Biden,” she says. She added that her position would not change should Biden step aside and Kamala Harris take his place at the top of the Democratic ticket. “Kamala Harris’ stance around Palestine is pretty much the same. She’s just as guilty as Joe Biden is.”She says anger among Dearborn’s Arab American communities has simmered for years.“Dearborn is made up of people from Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere that have been directly impacted by American imperialism,” she says. “There’s also this big sense of guilt being here.”But a victory for Trump could be devastating for Arab Americans with family in the Middle East.Under the previous Trump administration, raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcements (Ice) officers and deportation orders drove fear into the heart of the community. While Biden is on track to match the Trump administration’s number of deportation orders by focusing on border regions rather than the interior US, the president in February signed an order protecting around 6,000 Palestinians from deportation for 18 months.The proprietor at Nabil Hair Salon on Warren Avenue says he’d like to offer his views but was afraid it could affect him and his business.“We’re not looking for any attention,” he says, asking not to be identified by name. “We don’t know what could happen if we talk politics.” More

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      Trump’s Republican convention speech live: former president to formally accept nomination

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      Good evening US politics blog readers, and thank you for joining us as we cover the last night of the Republican national convention. Donald Trump is set to formally accept the GOP’s nomination to be its presidential candidate with a speech at the convention’s end. Before that, we’ll be hearing from a slew of speakers in a night themed “Make America great once again”. These include Tucker Carlson, the rightwing commentator who has struck off on his own show after Fox News fired him last year, the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, and the retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.As he usually is, Trump is the star of the show, and the convention has him scheduled to speak for a whole 90 minutes, beginning at 9pm CT. This will be his first public address since an assassin tried to kill him on Saturday, and he’s still sporting a bandage on his right ear from the attempt, which led to the death of a rally-goer. This will also be the highest profile speech Trump has made since his first debate with Joe Biden in late June. The president’s fatigued performance in that showdown has led to a growing wave of Democrats – reportedly including the party’s leaders in Congress – to urge that he reconsider his bid for a second term in office. The Republicans, meanwhile, have been united around Trump, and his speech this evening will serve as a chance for him to elaborate on his plans for a second term in office.Here’s what we’ll be watching out for:

      Will Trump cast himself as a unifier? After his brush with death on Saturday, the former president has tried to play up the theme in his statements, and several speakers at the convention thus far have tried to cast him as a family man – perhaps as a way to detract attention from his often tawdry legal troubles.

      Convention speakers over the past three nights have made plenty of rightwing policy promises – but not quite as many as expected. Though attendees have waved signs reading “Mass deportations now” and some speakers have claimed, without evidence, that undocumented people have cast ballots, there has not been much mention of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election, plans to use the national guard to carry out mass deportations, or Trump’s vow to have the justice department to retaliate against his enemies. Will the former president mention those themes in his speech?

      Who else might Trump attack? It’s a given that he’ll go after Biden, but the Democrat is facing a backlash not seen in decades to his re-election campaign, and could step aside. Some earlier convention speakers have made a point of criticizing Kamala Harris, perhaps as a hedge to her ascension as the Democratic candidate. We’ll see if Trump follows suit.
      We’ve put together an explainer going through the finer details of the closing evening of the Republican national convention, including when Donald Trump is expected to speak, how you can watch his address, and who else from the Trump family may be in the room.Give it a read here:Over the past three nights, several speakers at the Republican national convention have tried to rehabilitate Donald Trump’s image by telling the public that what they have heard about the former president isn’t quite right. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington takes a closer look at the campaign to “Make Trump Human Again”: Even before Donald Trump takes the stage at the Republican national convention on Thursday night, promising a speech on national unity rather than the usual partisan rancour, his team has laboured hard in the wake of the rally shooting to give the impression that he is a changed man.Gone was the Trump of “this American carnage”, the victim of witch-hunts who, if returned to the White House, would unleash a whirlwind of retribution on his enemies and be a dictator on day one. In its place was Trump the candy-peddling grandfather, the kiss-me-goodnight father, the comforting mentor and patriotic healer.It was as if the official theme of the week, Make America Great Again, had been hurriedly replaced by a new slogan: Make Trump Human Again.Kai Trump, the former US president’s 17-year-old granddaughter, helped set the tone. In a convention address on Wednesday she shared her big secret about the 78-year-old Republican nominee.“To me, he’s just a normal grandpa. He gives us candy and soda when our parents are not looking.”The theme of a “caring and loving” Trump – Kai’s words – was reminiscent of the narrative that has long been projected by Joe Biden, who presents his candidacy as a choice for dignity, respect and civility. It was as if the Trump team had adopted Biden’s playbook as empathiser-in-chief.Good evening US politics blog readers, and thank you for joining us as we cover the last night of the Republican national convention. Donald Trump is set to formally accept the GOP’s nomination to be its presidential candidate with a speech at the convention’s end. Before that, we’ll be hearing from a slew of speakers in a night themed “Make America great once again”. These include Tucker Carlson, the rightwing commentator who has struck off on his own show after Fox News fired him last year, the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, and the retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.As he usually is, Trump is the star of the show, and the convention has him scheduled to speak for a whole 90 minutes, beginning at 9pm CT. This will be his first public address since an assassin tried to kill him on Saturday, and he’s still sporting a bandage on his right ear from the attempt, which led to the death of a rally-goer. This will also be the highest profile speech Trump has made since his first debate with Joe Biden in late June. The president’s fatigued performance in that showdown has led to a growing wave of Democrats – reportedly including the party’s leaders in Congress – to urge that he reconsider his bid for a second term in office. The Republicans, meanwhile, have been united around Trump, and his speech this evening will serve as a chance for him to elaborate on his plans for a second term in office.Here’s what we’ll be watching out for:

      Will Trump cast himself as a unifier? After his brush with death on Saturday, the former president has tried to play up the theme in his statements, and several speakers at the convention thus far have tried to cast him as a family man – perhaps as a way to detract attention from his often tawdry legal troubles.

      Convention speakers over the past three nights have made plenty of rightwing policy promises – but not quite as many as expected. Though attendees have waved signs reading “Mass deportations now” and some speakers have claimed, without evidence, that undocumented people have cast ballots, there has not been much mention of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election, plans to use the national guard to carry out mass deportations, or Trump’s vow to have the justice department to retaliate against his enemies. Will the former president mention those themes in his speech?

      Who else might Trump attack? It’s a given that he’ll go after Biden, but the Democrat is facing a backlash not seen in decades to his re-election campaign, and could step aside. Some earlier convention speakers have made a point of criticizing Kamala Harris, perhaps as a hedge to her ascension as the Democratic candidate. We’ll see if Trump follows suit. More

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      ‘Make Trump Human Again’ seems to emerge as Republicans’ new theme

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      Even before Donald Trump takes the stage at the Republican national convention on Thursday night, promising a speech on national unity rather than the usual partisan rancour, his team has laboured hard in the wake of the rally shooting to give the impression that he is a changed man.Gone was the Trump of “this American carnage”, the victim of witch-hunts who, if returned to the White House, would unleash a whirlwind of retribution on his enemies and be a dictator on day one. In its place was Trump the candy-peddling grandfather, the kiss-me-goodnight father, the comforting mentor and patriotic healer.It was as if the official theme of the week, Make America Great Again, had been hurriedly replaced by a new slogan: Make Trump Human Again.Kai Trump, the former US president’s 17-year-old granddaughter, helped set the tone. In a convention address on Wednesday she shared her big secret about the 78-year-old Republican nominee.“To me, he’s just a normal grandpa. He gives us candy and soda when our parents are not looking.”The theme of a “caring and loving” Trump – Kai’s words – was reminiscent of the narrative that has long been projected by Joe Biden, who presents his candidacy as a choice for dignity, respect and civility. It was as if the Trump team had adopted Biden’s playbook as empathiser-in-chief.The approach was picked up by Trump’s newly-enshrined vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance. The Ohio senator and author of Hillbilly Elegy told the convention audience that he had recently witnessed Trump tell his elder sons Don Jr and Eric that he loved them, kissing them both on the cheek as he said goodnight.His boys “squirmed the same way my four-year-old does when his daddy tries to give him a kiss on the cheek”, Vance said.Outside the immediate family, Trump’s political family passed the baton around in earlier speeches at the convention. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Republican governor of Arkansas, not only portrayed Trump’s close shave in Pennsylvania on Saturday as an intervention from “God Almighty”, she also portrayed him as a champion of women’s rights as though E Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels had never existed.Sanders went on to laud Trump as an avuncular mentor, comforting her when she was his much-maligned White House press secretary. She recalled harsh criticism she had endured from members of the public and from journalists, especially at MSNBC.The then sitting president pulled her aside, she said, “looked me in the eye, and said: ‘Sarah, you’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re tough, and they attack you because you’re good at your job’”.“That’s the Donald Trump I know,” Sanders added.Whether Trump can sustain the new soft-soap image presented of him in Milwaukee this week remains to be seen. He is certainly trying to cement the Maga makeover.According to Axios, he specifically instructed aides to direct prime-time convention speakers to avoid expressions of outrage in their response to Saturday’s shooting. Instead, national unity has been the name of the game.Numerous speakers linked Trump’s fist-raised pose having survived the gunman’s bullet to his newly cast image as a unifier. “He can stand defiant against an assassin one moment and call for national healing the next,” the vice-presidential nominee said glowingly.In the past eight years, America has become accustomed to various adjectives attached to Trump. They include “strong”, “patriotic” and “great”; and “incompetent”, “racist” and “narcissistic” – take your pick.What neither supporters nor detractors have tended up until now to connect to him is the word “moral”.And yet Elise Stefanik, the fourth-ranking Republican in the US House, chose just that word on the convention stage to describe a convicted felon. “President Trump will bring back moral leadership to the White House,” she said.The new look Trump, and the political strategy that appears to undergird it, has required considerable sacrifice on the part of some of his peers. We will probably have to await Ron DeSantis’s memoir to know the emotional price paid by the Florida governor when he praised the man who had derided him as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and a “disloyal dog”.We can similarly only conjecture what paroxysms Nikki Haley went through to give her “strong endorsement” to the man who mocked her husband for being absent while deployed to Africa with the national guard, and who butchered her birth name Nimarata, scathingly calling her “Nimbra”. More

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      Some progressives stand behind Biden as he pushes policies for working class

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      Joe Biden, who so far has defied calls to quit the presidential race from Democrats worried about his ability to beat Donald Trump, this week rolled out a catalogue of left-leaning campaign promises aimed at working-class and middle-class Americans. His renewed emphasis on core progressive priorities comes after leading Washington progressives, Senator Bernie Sanders and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threw their weight behind his beleaguered candidacy.The moves reframe Biden’s campaign to focus on a suite of issues from US supreme court reform to ending medical debt. They come as Biden is reportedly more open to calls for him to step aside, but still has not left the race.On Monday, Biden released a plan for the first 100 days of a second term at a campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan – a vital swing state that is home to a large segment of the Democrats’ working-class base.The plan included strengthening social security and Medicare, bolstering voting rights and introducing legislation to restore women’s abortion rights previously enshrined in Roe v Wade, a historic ruling overturned by the supreme court two years ago.Biden has also vowed to “end” medical debt, which burdens many poorer Americans, in an apparent extension of reforms his administration has already promised that would ban such debt from appearing in credit rating reports – potentially making it easier for millions of people to own a home or a car.On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Biden is planning to introduce a package of reforms to the US supreme court, which has issued a series of pro-conservative rulings heavily influenced by rightwing justices appointed to the bench by Trump.“I’m going to need your help on the supreme court, because I’m about to come out … with a major initiative on limiting the court,” Biden said in a Zoom call with the Democrats’ Congressional Progressive Caucus on Saturday, held to allay concerns over his candidacy.Biden signalled his support for ending term limits – which, if enacted, could help shake up the rightwing stranglehold on the court – and for introducing a code of ethics to a court that has been rocked by scandals such as undeclared gifts by a billionaire to Justice Clarence Thomas.Brad Sherman, a Democratic Congress member from California, told Axios “it was not a complete coincidence” that Biden dangled many of the policies the progressive caucus wants, considering where the president was now drawing support in the party.“This is his base,” Sherman told Axios. “You see who has called upon him to move on, and who has called upon him to stay, and the progressive caucus lines up with those who have asked him to stay.”The shifting of Biden’s campaign strategy along more leftwing lines follows the full-throated endorsement of, Sanders, the Vermont senator, who made the case for Biden on economic grounds in an opinion article for the New York Times.“To win the election, the president … needs to propose and fight for a bold agenda that speaks to the needs of the vast majority of our people – the working families of this country, the people who have been left behind for far too long,” Sanders wrote.“If Mr Biden and his supporters focus on these issues – and refuse to be divided and distracted – the president will rally working families to his side in the industrial Midwest swing states and elsewhere and win the November election.”The support of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez effectively threw Biden’s candidacy a lifeline. Biden also gained backing from Netroots Nation, an organisation of progressive activists, in Baltimore last weekend.Keith Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told the Guardian at Netroots that backing Biden was essential to prevent a second Trump presidency.“Quite honestly, what’s the alternative?” he added.Greg Casar, a progressive Democratic congressman from Texas, also backed Biden, saying: “The fact is that we’ve had primaries and Biden is the nominee. The decision is entirely his to remain the nominee or not.““As long as he is, it’s important to rally the country around making sure that he is reelected.”But not all those present agreed.Aaron Regunberg – a former member of Congress from Rhode Island and a member of the Pass The Torch campaign, which is calling on Biden to stand aside – said: “This is an issue that does not have any ideological valence.”The president has also wooed the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses, via conversations on Zoom and speeches aimed at Black and Hispanic audiences, including an address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Las Vegas on Tuesday in which he called for a cap on annual rent increases at 5%.Biden’s success in enlisting the support of prominent progressives in the Democratic party momentarily halted the mutiny, abetted by the temporary reprieve after Saturday’s failed assassination attempt on Trump. But on Wednesday, California congressman Adam Schiff became the 22nd member of Congress to urge him to stand aside for a younger candidate, and new reports on Thursday detailed how Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, told Biden that it would be in the country’s interests if he stepped aside, according to ABC News. Eighty members of Congress have publicly pledged support for the 81-year-old Biden.The new-found enthusiasm for Biden among progressives – a segment that has been bitterly critical of his support for Israel’s long military offensive in Gaza – may also reflect the fact most leftwing members of Congress represent electorally-safe districts. That represents a stark contrast with many of the centrists pleading with him to step aside partly because they fear voters’ concerns over his age and mental acuity are undermining their re-election efforts.Even as Biden has gained support from some leading figures in the party’s left, other elements skeptical of his candidacy have resumed their offensive to persuade him to stand down, armed with new polling data that shows 15,000 voters in seven swing states supportive of an alternative candidate.A polling memo from BlueLab Analytics and circulating among party officials showed a list of potential candidates that included Kamala Harris as well as several Democratic state governors all performing better than Biden, Politico reported. The strongest candidates were Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor; Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan; Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland; and Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who all out-performed Biden “by roughly 5 points across battleground states”.The memo could further encourage those Democrats who favor Biden standing aside, and who were enraged by the Democratic National Committee (DNC)’s push to officially nominate Biden early, through an early electronic roll call of delegates starting in July that would lock Biden in well before next month’s party convention kicks off on 19 August in Chicago.Several Democratic members of Congress had complained to the DNC that there was “no legal justification for this extraordinary and unprecedented action which would effectively accelerate the nomination process by nearly a month”.On Wednesday the party changed tack, declaring that it would not start early voting in July and that the ostensible reason – an early deadline in Ohio – no longer applied after the state changed its law on 31 May. 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      Joe Biden reportedly more open to calls for him to step aside as candidate

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      Joe Biden has reportedly become more open in recent days to hearing arguments that he should step aside as the Democratic presidential candidate after the party’s two main congressional leaders told him they doubted his ability to beat Donald Trump.While continuing to insist he will be the party’s nominee in November, the president has reportedly started asking questions about negative polling data and whether the vice-president, Kamala Harris, considered the favourite to replace him if were to withdraw, fares better.The indications of a possible rethink come after Biden tested positive on Wednesday for Covid-19, forcing him to isolate for several days while curtailing a campaign visit to Nevada that had been part of a drive to show his candidacy was very much alive.It also coincides with fresh polling data showing that he now trails Trump by two points in Virginia, a state he won by 10 points in 2020, and signals that key Democrats, including Barack Obama, now believe he should stand down.The Emerson College Polling/the Hill survey showed Trump ahead by 45% to 43%, within the margin of error but consistent with a spate of other polls showing that Biden’s support has fallen in swing states since his disastrous showing at last month’s debate in Atlanta.Biden’s newfound receptivity to at least the possibility of stepping aside represents a shift from the position he adopted at a press conference at last week’s Nato summit in Washington, when he told journalists he would only drop out if polling data showed him “there’s no way you can win”.“No one’s saying that,” he added.His willingness to listen to opposing arguments comes after Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, reportedly both told him that it would be in the country’s interests if he stepped aside, ABC reported.Schumer described the report of his meeting with Biden at the president’s Delaware home last weekend as “idle speculation” but tellingly did not deny its contents.The Senate leader’s intervention has apparently been influential in delaying a move by the Democratic National Committee to stage an early electronic roll call of delegates that could have started next week and was aimed at locking in the nomination for Biden before next month’s party convention in Chicago. The roll call vote has been pushed by at least a week, giving forces opposed to him running more time to organise.Equally persuasively, Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, also told Biden in a recent conversation that polls show he cannot beat Trump and that he could wreck the Democrats’ chances of recapturing the chamber in November, according to CNN.Biden is said to have pushed back during the conversation, insisting – as he has in several Zoom sessions with other Democrats – that he had seen polling data showing he could win.It is not known if Pelosi had called on the president to stand aside during the talk, which was said to have taken place in the past week.Pelosi has been widely reported as orchestrating the renewed pressure on Biden to give up his re-election bid, which has intensified in recent days after a brief pause following last Saturday’s failed assassination attempt on Trump, to which the president responded with a series of authoritative statements calling for calm.Adam Schiff, the California congressman who on Tuesday became the latest elected Democrat to urge Biden to stand down, is known to be close to the former speaker.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The speaker does not want to call on him to resign [as the Democratic nominee], but she will do everything in her power to make sure it happens,” Politico reported one Pelosi ally as saying.A Washington Post report on Thursday suggested that Obama – for whom Biden served as vice-president – had told allies in recent days that Biden’s path to re-election had greatly diminished and that he needed to reconsider the viability of his campaign. Obama has spoken to Biden just once since the 27 June debate but he and Pelosi have reportedly shared their concerns privately on the phone. The former president initially tweeted his support for Biden in the immediate aftermath of the debate.Another key congressman, Jamie Raskin of Maryland – who played a leading role in the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the US Capitol – added his voice to the pressure with a four-page letter to Biden sent on 6 July comparing him to a tired baseball pitcher and pleading with him to consult with fellow Democrats over whether to continue his campaign, the New York Times reported.“There is no shame in taking a well-deserved bow to the overflowing appreciation of the crowd when your arm is tired out, and there is real danger for the team in ignoring the statistics,” wrote Raskin, drawing a comparison with a Boston Red Sox pitcher, Pedro Martinez, whose tired state cost his team a place in the World Series final in 2003.In another ominous sign for Biden, Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the president’s main advisers and a co-chairman of his campaign, has told him that donors have stopped giving money to his campaign.A Biden adviser told the New York Times that the decision on whether to withdraw from the race boiled down to three factors – polling, money and which states were in play. All three were moving in the wrong direction for Biden, he said.As renewed speculation about Biden’s thinking intensified on Thursday, his supporters continued to insist that the position was unchanged.“When it comes to if he’s open or being receptive to any of that, look, the president has said it several times: he’s staying in this race,” Quentin Fulks, the Biden campaign deputy manager, told reporters on the sidelines of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee.“Our campaign is not working through any scenarios where President Biden is not at the top of the ticket,” he added. More

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      Trump’s pick of JD Vance is a clear signal: this is a fight over America’s identity | Steve Phillips

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      Donald Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate is a clear and unmistakable message that Republicans are waging a holy war over the very identity of this nation. In choosing the Ohio senator, the former US president has selected and elevated a person who is one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders and whose primary qualification for national leadership is articulating the grievances of white people unhappy with the country’s changing racial composition.Rather than even pretend to reach out to the less rabid Republicans who backed Nikki Haley in the primaries or attempt to win greater support among Latinos by choosing Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, Trump has simply doubled down on his crusade to make America white again.Traditionally, vice-presidential selections aim to broaden the party’s appeal by signaling a commitment to a specific constituency or sector of the electorate. Barack Obama selected Joe Biden in 2008 to racially balance the ticket and reassure white voters that he’d have a veteran, moderate, white male political leader at his side. Biden, in turn, chose a younger woman of color to run with him to inspire and acknowledge the critical importance of women and people of color to the Democratic coalition.Trump had the opportunity to make a similar, more traditional, move. In many ways, Rubio would have been the smart pick; he’d have been the first person of color on a Republican ticket, and could plausibly have tried to appeal to Latinos and peel off some support from that cornerstone of the Democratic coalition. Others in the Republican party wanted Trump to calm the fears of the more moderate voters who had backed Haley over Trump’s bombast and division.But, true to form, Trump rejected all that counsel and went with the cultural warrior, Trump critic turned sycophant Vance.By any measure, Vance – who has no prior political experience and has only been a senator for 17 months – is grossly unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, but that is not surprising given that Trump himself is arguably the least qualified person to ever occupy the Oval Office. Vance’s primary qualification is his ability to articulate the anguish of white working-class Americans. Through his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy and his rhetoric as a candidate and now senator, Vance has done little else of note in his life than complain about how America is no longer a white-dominated country, a fact that has been painful and disorienting and hard to accept for a considerable number of white people.What perhaps poses one of the greatest dangers to this country is that Vance, like Trump, has already proven that he is committed to aggressively hacking away at the fraying social fabric that binds this nation together. Most alarmingly, Vance has said that if he had been vice-president on 6 January 2021, he would have done what Trump wanted and blocked electors from states that voted for Biden. Vance has raised money for insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the elected government of the United States and who sought to block the certification of an election in which all 50 governors – Republican and Democratic alike – certified results that showed Biden won the presidency.Vance’s contempt for democracy and democratic institutions was on full display as well in the immediate hours after the Trump rally shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday. Before anyone even knew who the shooter was, Vance was tweeting that Biden was to blame.Electorally, the implication of Vance’s selection is that it locks into place the contours, dynamics and stakes of the election.The journalist and analyst Ron Brownstein presaged this reality 12 years ago when he described modern American politics as a battle between two constellations of people, which he called the Coalition of Restoration and the Coalition of Transformation.Democrats, he observed, “are now operating with a largely coherent Coalition of Transformation that will allow (and even pressure) them to align more unreservedly with the big cultural and demographic forces remaking America”. Conversely, Obama’s 2012 re-election “clearly stamped the Republicans as a Coalition of Restoration, overwhelmingly dependent on the votes of whites unsettled by those changes”.In my books, I describe these groupings as the New American Majority and the Modern-Day Confederates, but the concepts are the same, and the implications for contemporary elections are far-reaching and under-appreciated.In each successive presidential election since Obama was elected, all that has really mattered is which coalition of voters the nominee is championing, AKA What Side Are You On?skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat dynamic will play out again this fall, as Trump has simply doubled down on trying to rally his Coalition of Restoration to turn out in large numbers. The good news for Democrats is that the Coalition of Transformation is larger than the Coalition of Restoration. Republicans know this in their bones and in their spreadsheets, and that is why they are relentlessly focused on voter suppression, introducing nearly 800 different pieces of legislation designed to make it harder to vote, according to Ari Berman’s book Give Us the Ballot and the Brennan Center’s 2021 analysis.Census data and election results over the past 40 years further affirm the fact that the Coalition of Transformation is larger. With the sole exception of 2004, the Democratic nominee for president has won the popular vote in every single presidential election since 1992. The logical result of one party rooting its politics in appeals to white racial fears and resentment is that the other party gets the majority of support from people of color.In a country where nearly half of the residents are people of color (41%) the Republican party remains overwhelmingly monochromatic; according to a Pew Research analysis, 83% of Republican voters are white. Conversely, 72% of people of color supported Biden in 2020, and no Democratic nominee has ever received less than 83% of the African American vote since the advent of exit polling in 1976.By picking Vance, the Republicans show they are not going to try to broaden their coalition: they’re just going to go harder with their shrinking coalition and focus on getting their supporters to the polls. Democrats need to have similar clarity and focus, and devote their resources and energy to maximizing voter turnout from now until election day. If they can do that, they will win – and JD Vance’s voice, and Trump’s, will remain far from the White House.

      Steve Phillips is the founder of Democracy in Color, and author of Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good More

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      Hundreds mourn Pennsylvania man killed in Trump assassination attempt

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      Hundreds of people who gathered to remember the former fire chief fatally shot at a weekend rally for former president Donald Trump were urged to find “unity” as the area in rural Pennsylvania sought to recover from the assassination attempt.Wednesday’s public event was the first of two to memorialize and celebrate Corey Comperatore’s life. The second, a visitation for friends, was planned for Thursday at Laube Hall in Freeport.Outside the Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, where the vigil was held for Comperatore, a sign read “Rest in Peace Corey, Thank You For Your Service” with the logo of his fire company.On the rural road to the auto racing track – lined with cornfields, churches and industrial plants – a sign outside a local credit union read: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Comperatore family.”View image in fullscreenComperatore, 50, had worked as a project and tooling engineer, was an army reservist and had spent many years as a volunteer firefighter after serving as chief, according to his obituary.He died on Saturday during the attempt on Trump’s life at the rally in Butler. Comperatore spent the final moments of his life shielding his wife and daughter from gunfire, officials said.A statement issued on Thursday by Comperatore’s family described him as “our beloved father and husband, and a friend to so many throughout the Butler region”.“Our family is finding comfort and peace through the heartfelt messages of encouragement from people around the world, through the support of our church and community, and most of all through the strength of God,” the statement said.Vigil organizer Kelly McCollough told the crowd on Wednesday that the event was not political in nature, adding that there was no room for hate or personal opinions other than an outpouring of support for the Comperatore family.“Tonight is about unity,” McCollough said. “We need each other. We need to feel love. We need to feel safe. We need clarity in this chaos. We need strength. We need healing.”Dan Ritter, who gave a eulogy, said he bought Comperatore’s childhood home in 1993, sparking a friendship that grew with their shared values of family, Christian faith and politics.“Corey loved his family and was always spending time with them,” Ritter said. “This past Saturday was supposed to be one of those days for him. He did what a good father would do. He protected those he loved. He’s a true hero for us all.”Jeff Lowers of the Freeport fire department trained with Comperatore and said at the vigil that he always had a smile on his face.Afterward, Heidi Powell, a family friend, read remarks from Comperatore’s high school economics teacher, who could not attend the vigil.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“What made Corey truly extraordinary was his indomitable spirit, unyielding courage, his unflappable optimism,” the teacher, Mark Wyant, wrote.Comperatore’s pastor, Jonathan Fehl of the Cabot Methodist church, said the family “has been humbled by the way this community has rallied around them”, and by the support they have received from people around the world.The vigil concluded with people in the crowd lighting candles and raising cellphones, glow sticks and lighters as Comperatore’s favorite song – I Can Only Imagine, by the Christian rock band MercyMe – played while pictures of him and his family were shown on a screen.Two other people were injured at the rally: David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township. As of Wednesday night, both had been upgraded to serious but stable condition, according to a spokesperson with Allegheny Health Network.Joseph Feldman, an attorney for Copenhaver, said on Wednesday that he had spoken with Copenhaver by phone.“He seems to be in good spirits, but he also understands the gravity of the situation,” Feldman said. “And he’s deeply saddened about what has occurred, and he’s deeply sympathetic” to the other victims and their families.Feldman said Copenhaver suffered “life-altering injuries”, declining to go into detail. He said Copenhaver’s priority is to “keep up with the medical treatment he’s receiving and hopefully be released at some point”.In a statement, Dutch’s family thanked the “greater western Pennsylvania community and countless others across the country and world” for the incredible outpouring of prayers and well wishes.Trump suffered an ear injury but was not seriously hurt and has been participating this week in the Republican national convention in Milwaukee. More

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      Trump’s Republican convention speech: how to watch and what’s at stake

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      The biggest event of the Republican convention kicks off Thursday night, with Donald Trump’s address to thousands of party loyalists in attendance.Trump appeared at the opening night of the Republican national convention on Monday, when he was greeted with thunderous applause, marking his first public appearance since surviving an assassination attempt at his campaign rally. Earlier in the day, Trump announced JD Vance, the Ohio senator and once vocal critic of Trump, as his running mate.Vance formally accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday, with a speech that presented the Republican party as a champion of working-class Americans while denouncing Democrats as out of touch and ineffective.Other speakers on the third day of the convention included Matt Gaetz, Newt Gingrich, Peter Navarro, Greg Abbott, Kellyanne Conway, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr.Notable speakers at the convention so far have also included Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, who both challenged Trump for the GOP nomination but backed him at the convention. Sean O’Brien, Ted Cruz, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Ben Carson, Kristi Noem, Rick Scott, Tim Scott and Tom Cotton also spoke at the convention.When is Trump’s convention speech?Trump is expected to deliver remarks on Thursday evening, the final day of the Republican convention, as delegates officially vote to nominate him as the party’s presidential candidate. His speech is scheduled to begin at 9p.m.Earlier this week, Trump told the Washington Examiner that he rewrote his convention speech to focus on calls for national unity. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now,” he told the paper.“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together,” he said, adding that the speech will be “a lot different” from the original draft.What else to know?After surviving Saturday’s assassination attempt, Trump suggested he had been changed by the experience and wanted to project a message of unity during his convention speech. In an interview Sunday, Trump said he is reworking his remarks with speechwriter Ross Worthington. He had intended to deliver biting remarks against Joe Biden until the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, prompted him to throw it out.The test of whether Trump will lead the effort to promote a spirit of unity, or whether it was more of a directive aimed at his surrogates, will probably come when he delivers his speech on Thursday.Where can I watch it?The Guardian will have live coverage of the speech. All major networks will carry convention coverage, including CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, Fox News and C-SPAN. PBS said it will begin broadcasting each night at 6pm ET.A livestream of the convention is also available on the GOP Convention website.Will Melania be in the audience for Trump’s speech?Former first lady Melania Trump has made very few public appearances or statements since Trump left the White House. She did not attend the 27 June debate against Joe Biden, nor did she appear at any of Trump’s court appearances during the hush-money trial.Following Saturday’s assassination attempt against Trump, Melania released a statement condemning the man who authorities say tried to assassinate her husband. She described the shooter as “a monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine”.Melania will attend the convention, according to Eric Trump, but she is not confirmed as a speaker.What about Ivanka Trump?Ivanka Trump has spent the last several years distancing herself from politics, having served as an advisor in her father’s White House. She and her husband Jared Kushner testified before the House committee investigating the January 6 attack.The eldest daughter of the former president was absent in November, 2022 as Trump announced his bid for re-election. “I do not plan to be involved in politics,” she said in a statement at the time.Eric Trump confirmed Ivanka will attend the convention; however unlike in 2016, she’s not confirmed as a speaker.Tiffany Trump is not on the list of confirmed speakers but was in the crowd Monday night. Barron Trump was invited, but will not attend “due to prior commitments”, according to a statement released by his mother, Melania.Trump’s eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump; Eric’s wife, Lara Trump; and Guilfoyle (Donald Jr’s finance) are listed as speakers. More