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The far right
How did the US’s mainstream right end up openly supporting vigilante terror?
Richard Seymour
The apocalyptic conspiracy theories of rightwing groups afraid of losing their power give evil a name, and offer an answer More
Donald Trump has the blind devotion of a rabid sports fan. His team can do no wrong. The opposition are liars and cheats.So maybe no one was surprised on Monday when he appeared to defend an accused murderer.At the White House press briefing, Trump was asked about Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old charged with killing two people and injuring another with an AR-15-style rifle during protests against the police shooting of an African American man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.Rittenhouse sat in the front row of a Trump rally this year and has become a darling of conservative media. Jesse Kelly, a radio host, reportedly said that “with a couple pelts on the wall” Rittenhouse “is gonna have to fight off hot conservative chicks with a bat”, while the columnist Ann Coulter said she wanted him “as my president”.Such signals from the base ensure that Trump’s loyalty is guaranteed. Asked if he will condemn the actions of vigilantes like Rittenhouse, the president demurred: “We’re looking at all of it. And that was an interesting situation. You saw the same tape as I saw. And he was trying to get away from them, I guess; it looks like. And he fell, and then they very violently attacked him. And it was something that we’re looking at right now and it’s under investigation.”And in another startling remark, Trump could not bring himself to say political violence is wrong. “I guess he was in very big trouble,” he said. “He probably would have been killed but it’s under investigation.”It was a moment that evoked memories of Charlottesville in 2017, when Trump drew moral equivalence between white nationalists and civil rights protesters. It will probably cause less of a stir, given the numbing effect of the past four years; recently Trump declined to condemn the QAnon conspiracy theory because its followers are on his side.Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman, observed on Twitter: “Mass shooters finally have a president who speaks for them.”“Law and order”, it seems, only applies to Trump’s perceived foes, not his supporters nor the half dozen aides to his 2016 campaign who now have criminal convictions. The president, due to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, is yet to speak to the family of Jacob Blake, who was shot and paralysed from the waist down.Moments earlier at Monday’s briefing, Trump was also asked about his own supporters riding pickup trucks into downtown Portland, Oregon, on Saturday and firing paintball guns and pepper spray. He said: “Paint is a defensive mechanism. Paint is not bullets.”A member of a far-right group was killed in the Portland clashes, prompting Trump to tweet a message of condolence: “Rest in peace Jay.” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, often a thorn in Trump’s side, tried several times to follow up but he refused to answer and moved to the next question.Monday’s briefing also featured a long diatribe against “leftwing rioters” and “antifa” who share “the same agenda” as Democratic nominee Joe Biden, waging a “war on law enforcement” and threatening to “destroy our suburbs”.In what may have been classic projection, Trump said: “When you surrender to the mob, you don’t get freedom; you get fascism. That’s what happens in all cases. You take a look at Venezuela. Look what’s going on there and other places.“Biden is using mafia talking points: the mob will leave you alone if you give them what you want … In America we will never surrender to mob rule because if the mob rules, America is dead.”He lambasted Democratic governors and mayors for unrest happening on his own watch. The divide-and-rule appeal to tribalism is naked and obvious but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. Just as in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was constantly asked to respond to Trump’s latest outrage rather than setting out her own agenda, Biden earlier on Monday was forced to issue a rebuttal to the president’s Nixonian law-and-order hammer.That meant another day distracting from the coronavirus pandemic – burning cars and mayhem in streets attract TV cameras more readily than an invisible microbe that has been around for months – and from his attempts to sabotage the postal service and election. Like a rabid sports fan, Trump is much more comfortable on home turf. More
Joe Biden has blown his chance to win over Kristen, to be found selling home-baked cakes and pies at a farmer’s market in Forest county, northern Wisconsin.The 46-year-old was once a fan of Barack Obama, voting for him twice before switching her allegiance to Donald Trump four years ago. Kristen, who doesn’t want her last name used, was minded to back Trump again in November but was holding off to see who Biden chose as his vice-presidential running mate.“The person I think should be the vice-presidential candidate is Michelle Obama. Nothing to do with her gender, nothing to do with her skin colour. I could care less. She could be purple. But I think she’s got a solid head on her shoulders. She’s not reactionary. She’s thoughtful. I don’t think she rushes to judgment,” she said.Ultimately, Kristen wants to see Michelle Obama as president. She was not happy that Biden chose Kamala Harris, saying the decision was influenced by “the racial climate”.So Kristen is likely to stick with Trump even if she struggles to offer a persuasive reason to vote for him again.“When you don’t have a good choice, you go with the least worst choice. Trump versus Clinton, he was the least worst option and it wasn’t saying much. When you’re the least worst option, that doesn’t mean you’re the pretty girl at the prom. It just means there wasn’t anyone else showing up to dance with,” she said.“Same with Biden. When dumb and dumber are running, it doesn’t matter who wins. I don’t think Trump is going to up his game but Biden, I just don’t think he has the tools in his chest to handle anything.”Kristen votes in a county that swung heavily to Trump in 2016 along with large parts of rural Wisconsin. That delivered the state to the president by fewer than 23,000 votes, a margin of just 0.77%, and with it the electoral college votes, alongside extremely close victories in Michigan and Pennsylvania, to put him in the White House. More
Concern was growing on Sunday that a tense but peaceful situation prevailing in Kenosha for the last four days and nights could be inflamed by a planned visit from Donald Trump this week, in the aftermath of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in the city last Sunday.Blake, a Black 29-year-old father, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer in the small Wisconsin city, and his family say he is now paralyzed from the waist down.There was unrest the following night and then largely peaceful marches spiraled into chaos on Tuesday night when white armed agitators appeared on the streets and, after being praised and given water by police despite being out after curfew, appeared to confront protesters and begin shooting.A white teenager, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was seen on video walking away after a man was shot, while others stooped to give the victim medical attention, although he later died.Then Rittenhouse was seen being chased and, as men tried to stop him, shooting again, then subsequently walking through police lines with an assault rifle around his neck and his hands up, without being apprehended.He turned himself in in Antioch, Illinois, the following day and has been charged with intentional homicide after the alleged shooting death of two white men , and other charges relating to the assault rifle he was carrying, and another shooting where a man’s arm was severely injured.Since Tuesday night, marches and rallies in Kenosha have been calm.On Saturday, Blake’s family spoke at an impassioned, peaceful rally in Kenosha. “We’re not going to stop,” Blake’s father, Jacob Sr, told the crowd. “We’re still suffering because there are two justice systems. There’s one for that white boy [Rittenhouse] that walked down the street and killed two people and blew another man’s arm off. Then there’s one for my son.”He was also critical of the police. “What gave them the right to think that my son was an animal?” he said.The US president announced on Saturday a plan to visit Kenosha on Tuesday. More
President rails against Joe Biden in dark address
Crowd prompts fears over Covid-19 spread
Protesters gather outside White House on convention’s final night
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Republican national convention: Trump accepts presidential nomination
Key events
Show
10.39pm EDT22:39
Trump’s speech continues dark tone of Republican convention
10.31pm EDT22:31
Trump accepts Republican presidential nomination
10.24pm EDT22:24
Trump takes the stage to accept Republican nomination
10.10pm EDT22:10
Ivanka Trump introduces her father at convention
10.00pm EDT22:00
Alice Johnson praises Trump for her commutation
9.47pm EDT21:47
Giuliani falsely accuses BLM of having ‘hijacked peaceful protests’
9.22pm EDT21:22
Protesters gather outside White House on last night of RNC
Live feed
Show
11.22pm EDT23:22
Trump made his first reference to the unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as protests continue over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
But the president did not mention the name of Blake, who was repeatedly shot in the back by Kenosha police officers.
Instead, like other convention speakers this week, Trump condemned “the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities.”
11.22pm EDT23:22
During the Democrat Convention, the words “Under God” were removed from the Pledge of Allegiance – not once, but twice,” Trump said. “The fact is, this is where they are coming from.”
The fact is, that is a bit misleading.
During the DNC, several caucuses were organized alongside the main convention.
At the LGBTQ Caucus Meeting and at the Muslim Delegates and Allies Assembly, the words “under God” were omitted
But during the primetime DNC broadcasts, the full Pledge of Allegiance was recited with the word God.
– Maanvi Singh
11.20pm EDT23:20
Ann Dorn, the widow of officer David Dorn who addressed the convention earlier tonight, is in the audience for Trump’s speech at the White House.
The president recounted how Dorn was fatally shot during unrest in St Louis earlier this year.
“To each of you: we will never forget the heroic legacy of Captain David Dorn,” Trump said.
11.15pm EDT23:15
“Days after taking office,” Trump said, his administration “ended the unfair and very costly Paris climate accord.”
That is not what happened.
Trump served notice that the US would withdraw from the Paris climate accord in 2019, not the day after he took office in 2017. Due to the accord’s rule of withdrawal, the US will not officially exit the agreement until 4 November this year.
Read the Guardian’s Climate Countdown series, which spotlights what the withdrawal will mean for the US:
– Maanvi Singh
Updated
at 11.16pm EDT
11.15pm EDT23:15
Repeating a line from one of his campaign commercials, Trump said, “No one will be safe in Biden’s America.”
Amid nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, the president added, “My administration will always stand with the men and women of law enforcement.”
Mike Pence delivered a similar line in his convention speech last night, and Biden responded to the vice-president in a statement today.
“Did Mike Pence forget Donald Trump is president? Is Donald Trump even aware he’s president?” Biden said in the statement.
“These are not images from some imagined ‘Joe Biden’s America’ in the future. These are images from Donald Trump’s America today. The violence we’re witnessing is happening under Donald Trump.”
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at 11.15pm EDT
11.11pm EDT23:11
Trump blamed Joe Biden and the Democratic party for the recent power outages in California amid an intense heatwave.
“How can Joe Biden claim to be an ally of the light when his own party can’t even keep the lights on?” Trump said, prompting laughter from the crowd gathered on the South Lawn.
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at 11.16pm EDT
11.08pm EDT23:08
Trump promised that a coronavirus vaccine would be developed by the end of this year.
“We will have a safe and effective vaccine this year, and together we will crush the virus,” the president said.
There are multiple vaccine candidates that are currently being developed, and Dr Anthony Fauci has previously said he is cautiously optimistic a coronavirus vaccine will be approved by the end of this year or early next year.
11.07pm EDT23:07
Here’s what Trump said on economic relief for Americans affected by the coronavirus crisis:
We enacted the largest package of financial relief in American history. Thanks to our Paycheck Protection Program, we have saved or supported more than 50 million American jobs. As a result, we have seen the smallest economic contraction of any major western nation, and we are recovering much faster. Over the past three months, we have gained over 9 million jobs, a new record.
A bit of context here:
The PPP program expired, and the Trump administration and Republicans couldn’t make a deal with congressional Democrats to extend the program.
The US gained 9m jobs, after losing 22m as the pandemic hit.
– Maanvi Singh
Updated
at 11.13pm EDT
11.04pm EDT23:04
“We are focusing on the science, the facts and the data” on coronavirus, Trump said.
Trump has not been doing that. The Trump administration has continuously undermined science and facts in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Here’s my explainer from a while back:
Play Video
5:28
From miracle cures to slowing testing: how Trump has defied science on coronavirus – video explainer
– Maanvi Singh
11.01pm EDT23:01
After Democrats spent a week highlighting Joe Biden’s empathy and compassion, Trump used his convention speech to dismiss the importance of such character traits.
“The laid off workers in Michigan, Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and many other states didn’t want Joe Biden’s hollow words of empathy, they wanted their jobs back,” Trump said.
Over the past four nights, a number of Trump’s advisers and family members have tried to paint him as a compassionate president, although those comments generally lacked examples of such behavior.
10.59pm EDT22:59
Trump said he “passed VA Accountability and VA Choice”. He did not.
President Barack Obama signed the Veterans Choice Act in 2014. Trump expanded it, under a 2018 law called the Mission Act.
– Maanvi Singh
Updated
at 11.15pm EDT
10.57pm EDT22:57
Trump continued his attacks against Joe Biden, painting the Democrat’s long career in government as a string of failures.
“Biden’s record is a shameful roll call of the most catastrophic betrayals and blunders in our lifetime,” Trump said. “He has spent his entire career on the wrong side of history.”
The president has already mentioned Biden’s name dozens of times in his convention speech, which is noteworthy given Biden never once said Trump’s name in his speech last week.
10.55pm EDT22:55
Some quick fact checks:
Donald Trump said this is the first time in 20 years that Nato members have increased spending. The president likes to repeat this false claim. But he’s still wrong: Nato Europe and Canada increased defense spending in 2015 and 2016, before Trump took office.
Trump touted the southern border wall, saying that 300 miles were built. That more or less true, if embellished – there’s new wall across about 245 miles of the border – but only thirty miles of wall has been erected where there was no barrier before.
– Maanvi Singh
Updated
at 10.57pm EDT
10.53pm EDT22:53
Trump repeated his outlandish claim that he has done more for the African American community than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
He added, “I have done more in three years for the black community than Joe Biden has done in 47 years.”
Trump apparently believes his accomplishments for African Americans exceed those of, for example, the Democratic president Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Updated
at 10.55pm EDT
10.48pm EDT22:48
Trump praised his own record on a wide range of issues, exaggerating his accomplishments and spewing a number of falsehoods.
On immigration, Trump said, “The wall will soon be complete and it’s working beyond our wildest expectations.”
That is not true. The border wall is nowhere near complete, and Trump has built very few new miles of the wall. More
Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for re-election in front of the White House on Thursday night.“This is the most important election in the history of our country. At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas,” Trump said after he “profoundly” accepted his party’s nomination.Trump went on to excoriate the Democratic party and argue that the choice for voters is between a president who has a record of unmatched accomplishments and an opposition party and candidate eager to tear down the country.“At the Democrat national convention, Joe Biden and his party repeatedly assailed America as a land of racial, economic, and social injustice,” Trump said. “So tonight, I ask you a very simple question: How can the Democrat party ask to lead our country when it spends so much time tearing down our country?”Trump’s remarks were the capstone of a night where speakers focused on national security and safety, describing the country as rife with chaos and lawlessness in the streets. Speakers also repeatedly stressed that Trump was a longstanding friend of the African American community and minorities.Few mentioned the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 180,000 Americans dead. Trump himself delivered his speech in front of an audience of around 1,500 officials and supporters at the White House, sitting packed together, few wearing masks.“I did what our political establishment never expected and could never forgive, breaking the cardinal rule of Washington politics,” Trump said. “I kept my promises.”Trump has kept around half of his 2016 campaign pledges, according to Politifact. Trump’s address was the main event of the party’s national convention.Over the past four days, speakers at the convention have included White House aides to Trump, his family members, and a few statewide elected politicians. Broadly they have argued that Biden is a leftist radical that would bring ruination to the country and Trump is the only person who can stop it.Trump delivered his speech amid heightened tensions across the country over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man who was repeatedly shot in front of his children and left paralyzed by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday. The shooting has sparked a wave of anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests across the country.Trump and his campaign have charged again and again that Biden is a “socialist” and liberal extremist who wants to defund police across the country and supports a Medicare for All healthcare plan championed by the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Both are untrue.In his speech, Trump portrayed himself as a president focused on law and order. During the protests across the country, Trump has expressed support for law enforcement using tougher tactics. He has dispatched federal law enforcement and military officials to cities experiencing protests, which has served to inflame tensions.Biden himself has pointed out that the dire picture Trump has described is actually what’s going on now, during his time in office.“The violence you’ve seen is in Donald Trump’s administration. Donald Trump’s America,” Biden said during a fundraiser Thursday afternoon.Trump, Mike Pence, and other speakers have also argued that under Trump the economy has only improved, foreign terrorists have been defeated, and the coronavirus pandemic is an afterthought. But the US defense department says Isis has not been entirely defeated; tens of millions remain unemployed; and more than 180,000 people have died from Covid-19, far more than in any other country.Trump has made some kind of appearance every night of the convention, at times blurring the lines between campaigning and governing, and raising ethics concerns. But Trump aides, including his chief of staff, have denied allegations that the president and his team violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from conducting political activity while on duty.Besides Trump, the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton and Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani delivered speeches. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, used his speech to paint a portrait of an America on the verge of anarchy, and accused New York current mayor Bill De Blasio of allowing protests and crime to spiral.“Today, my city is in shock. Murders, shootings, and violent crime are increasing in percentages never heard of in the past,” Giuliani claimed. In reality, serious crime is down under de Blasio, the annual number of murders is around half the number it was under Giuliani.“These continuous riots in Democratic cities gives a good view” of a Biden administration, Giuliani claimed. He ended by saying “Mr President, make our nation safe again!”In a taped speech, senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, described Trump as his friend, and framed himself as a midwestern champion leading the defense of the Senate from Democrats.“Today’s Democratic party doesn’t want to improve life for middle America,” McConnell said in the video, going on to say “we are the firewall against Nancy Pelosi’s agenda”.Unlike most speakers this week, Trump’s housing secretary Ben Carson directly addressed Blake’s shooting, starting his remarks by saying “our hearts go out to the Blake family” before launching into a full throated defense of Trump on the African American community.“Before the pandemic African American unemployment was at an all time low,” Carson said, in a somewhat misleading statement. “At this point in time President Trump is the man with the courage, the vision, and the ability to keep it shining brightly.”The RNC has notably lacked some key party figures and the presence of the last Republican president, George W Bush. Meanwhile, Democrats’ convention included speeches by former Republican elected officials who have emerged as outspoken critics of the president.On Thursday morning, aides to the previous two Republican nominees for president, the late John McCain and the Utah senator Mitt Romney, released statements endorsing Biden. The Biden campaign hopes that support will motivate moderates and Republicans to support the centrist Democrat.Earlier on Thursday, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, delivered a scathing rebuke of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic.“The Republican convention is designed for one purpose: to soothe Donald Trump’s ego, to make him feel good,” Harris said. “But here’s the thing: he’s the president of the United States, and it’s not supposed to be about him. It’s supposed to be about the health and the safety and the wellbeing of the American people.” More
500 more members of national guard to be sent to Kenosha
Tonight’s NBA playoff games reportedly postponed over protests
Two dead in Kenosha on third night of unrest after Jacob Blake shooting
Key takeaways from RNC night two: culture wars and a pitch to women
US recorded 1,212 coronavirus deaths and 38,712 new cases
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On Tuesday, America heard two calls for peace and unity. The first came from the mother of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot in the back by police multiple times in front of his children, and reportedly left paralysed. After episodes of arson and looting followed peaceful protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Julia Jackson urged: “We need healing.”The second was the gaslighting speech from Melania Trump at the Republican National Convention. The woman who offered what was described as “a plea for racial unity” is the same woman who said American people wanted to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate; wore a jacket reading “I really don’t care. Do U?” on her way to visit detained children on the Texas border; and was appearing on behalf of a man who has triumphed through bigotry. She spoke at a convention seeking to press those same buttons with what one Republican political operative described as “fear porn”. Speakers have included the St Louis lawyers who brandished their guns at Black Lives Matter protestors marching past their home.The first lady’s address was – like much of the programme on Tuesday – a cynical attempt to sanitise the brand, allowing her husband and the Republicans to exploit racism while insisting it is nothing of the kind, and for voters to back them without too much discomfort. Donald Trump’s attempts to capitalise on the Black Lives Matter movement by positioning himself as the “president of law and order” who would defend white suburbs, lifting from Richard Nixon’s playbook, have so far been notably unsuccessful. The public has proved much more sympathetic towards the protests than expected.Whether that will change before November’s election is unclear. What is certain is that the spectre of American carnage that he conjures up has real and dangerous impact. Mr Trump has not invented racial divisions, police impunity, paranoia about “anti-American” forces, or a culture of people taking the law into their own hands. But he has exploited and fostered them.Hours after the convention speech, two people were shot dead and another injured at the protests in Kenosha. A group of heavily armed white men had reportedly clashed with demonstrators earlier, and the county sheriff said a “militia” had been patrolling the streets. Footage posted on social media showed what appeared to be a white man with a semiautomatic rifle firing at what are believed to be Black Lives Matter protestors. Despite the tumult, the alleged gunman is finally seen walking away with his arms raised, a weapon still dangling from his shoulder, as police tactical vehicles drive past him – a stark contrast with the treatment of Mr Blake.Words have consequences. Mr Blake’s family were calling not simply for calm, but for the transformation that the US desperately needs. “We have been watching police kill Black people for years,” his sister Letetra Widman reminded listeners. “I don’t want your pity. I want change.”The first lady’s call was for the perpetuation of the status quo. Her husband rose to power by stoking bigotry and plans to remain in power the same way. His departure alone cannot fix America’s deep-rooted problems. But another victory in November would only multiply them. More
