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      Biden’s speech will deliver a hard truth: American democracy is under grave threat | Robert Reich

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      Biden’s speech will deliver a hard truth: American democracy is under grave threatRobert ReichThe essential political choice is no longer Democrat or Republican, left or right, liberal or conservative. It is democracy or authoritarian fascism On Thursday, Joe Biden will deliver a primetime speech outside the old Independence Hall, where the framers of the constitution met 235 years ago to establish the basic rules of our democratic form of government.His speech will focus on what the White House describes as the “battle for the soul of the nation” – the fight to protect that democracy.Trump team returns to court over request for special master – liveRead moreThe battle is already under way. A week after a team of FBI agents descended on his residence in Florida, Trump warned “people are so angry at what is taking place” that if the “temperature” isn’t brought down “terrible things are going to happen”.Yet Trump and his Republican allies are doing all they can to increase the temperature. Last Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham warned of “riots in the streets” if Trump is prosecuted.Trump spent much of Tuesday morning reposting messages from known proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory and from 4chan, an anonymous message platform where threats of violence often bloom.Several of Trump’s reposts were direct provocations, such as a photograph of President Biden, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi with their faces obscured by the words: “Your enemy is not in Russia.”Online threats are escalating against public servants. Bruce Reinhart, the federal magistrate judge who approved the warrant to search Mar-a-Lago, has been targeted with messages threatening him and his family.How to respond to this lawlessness? With bold and unwavering law enforcement.If Trump has broken the law – by attempting a coup, by instigating an assault on the US Capitol, by making off with troves of top-secret documents – he must be prosecuted. If found guilty, he must be penalized, including by prison.Yes, such prosecutions might increase tensions and divisions in the short term. They might provoke additional violence.But a failure to uphold the laws of the United States would be far more damaging in the longer term. It would undermine our system of government and the credibility of that system – more directly and irreparably than Trump has already done.Not holding a former president accountable for gross acts of criminality will invite ever more criminality from future presidents and lawmakers.It is also important for all those in public life who believe in democracy to call out what the Republican party is doing and what it has become: not just its embrace of Trump’s big lie but its moves toward voter suppression, takeovers of the machinery of elections, ending of reproductive rights, book bans, restrictions on what can be taught in classrooms, racism and assaults on LGBTQ people.While today’s Republican party does not have its own paramilitary, such as the Nazi’s Brownshirts, Republicans are effectively outsourcing these activities to violent fringe groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others who descended on the Capitol on January 6 2021 and who continue to threaten violence.With the notable and noble exceptions of Liz Cheney and a few other courageous Republicans – most of whom are being purged – the Republican party is rapidly morphing into an anti-democracy movement.The essential political choice in America, therefore, is no longer Democrat or Republican, left or right, liberal or conservative.It is democracy or authoritarian fascism.There can be no compromise between these two – no halfway point, no “moderate middle”, no “balance”. To come down squarely on the side of democracy is not to be “partisan”. It is to be patriotic.Yet Democrats cannot and must not take on this battle alone. They must seek common ground with independents and whatever reasonable Republicans remain.We must continue to appeal to truth, facts, logic, and common sense. We must be unwavering in our commitment to the constitution and the rule of law.We must be clear and courageous in exposing the authoritarian fascist direction the Republican party has now chosen, and the dangers this poses to America and the world.It is also important for Democrats to recognize – and to take bold action against – the threat to democracy posed by big money from large corporations and the super-wealthy: record amounts of campaign funding inundating and distorting our politics, serving the moneyed interests rather than the common good.The two threats – one, from an increasingly authoritarian-fascist Republican party; the second, from ever-larger amounts of corporate and billionaire money in our campaigns and elections – are two sides of the same coin.Americans who know the system is rigged against them and in favor of moneyed interests are more likely to give up on democracy and embrace an authoritarian fascist demagogue who pretends to be on “their side”.The battle to preserve and protect democracy is the most important battle of our lifetimes. If we win, there is nothing we cannot achieve. If we lose, there is nothing we can achieve.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsJoe BidenOpinionUS politicsDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decision

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      New York enacts new gun restrictions in response to supreme court decisionAfter court overturned 1911 New York law, state lawmakers produced act to create ‘gun-free zones’ and strengthen gun control measures After a federal judge said New York could implement gun restrictions passed after the US supreme court struck down a century-old law, the state attorney general saluted “a victory in our efforts to protect New Yorkers”.Texas judge overturns state ban on young adults carrying gunsRead more“Responsible gun control measures save lives and any attempts by the gun lobby to tear down New York’s sensible gun control laws will be met with fierce defense of the law,” Letitia James said on Wednesday night.In June, in the aftermath of mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, the conservative-dominated US supreme court overturned a New York law passed in 1911.The law said anyone wanting to carry a handgun in public had to prove “proper cause”.Justice Clarence Thomas said the 111-year-old law was a violation of the second amendment right to bear arms and also the 14th amendment, which made second-amendment rights applicable to the states.“Apart from a few late-19th-century outlier jurisdictions,” Thomas wrote, “American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense.”In dissent, Stephen Breyer, a liberal, wrote: “In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms. Since the start of this year there have been 277 reported mass shootings – an average of more than one per day.”The same source, the Gun Violence Archive, now puts that total at 450.Breyer wrote: “Gun violence has now surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents. Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence … the court today severely burdens states’ efforts to do so.”Joe Biden said: “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, said: “The supreme court is setting us backwards … This decision is not just reckless, it’s reprehensible.”Hochul called the legislature back into session. It produced the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, or CCIA.As defined by James, the CCIA “strengthens requirements for concealed carry permits, prohibits guns in sensitive locations, allows private businesses to ban guns on their premises, enhances safe storage requirements, requires social media review ahead of certain gun purchases, and requires background checks on all ammunition purchases to protect New Yorkers”.The law was challenged by the Gun Owners of America and the Gun Owners Foundation. On Wednesday, the GOA said the CCIA “would essentially make all of NY a gun-free zone and infringes upon the rights of its citizens”.Judge Glenn Suddaby, of the US district court in the northern district of New York, said the two gun groups lacked standing to bring the case.But Suddaby also indicated support, describing “a strong sense of the safety that a licensed concealed handgun regularly provides, or would provide, to the many law-abiding responsible citizens in the state too powerless to physically defend themselves in public without a handgun”.An appeal is likely. The CCIA went into effect on Thursday.On Wednesday the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, said: “The US supreme court’s … decision was the shot heard round the world that took dead aim at the safety of all New Yorkers.“New York City will defend itself against this decision, and, beginning tomorrow, new eligibility requirements for concealed carry permit applicants and restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons in ‘sensitive locations’, like Times Square, take effect.”The new law has prompted a change in what New York City authorities officially consider to be Times Square. As the New York Times reported, the new boundaries extend far beyond the traffic-choked and neon-blitzed Midtown hub known to tourists worldwide but largely avoided by locals.Under CCIA, the Times Square “gun free zone” will run “from Ninth to Sixth Avenues and from 53rd to 40th Streets and consists of about three dozen blocks”, the paper said.One New Yorker interviewed by the Times dismissed the idea that the Port Authority Bus Terminal, on Eighth Avenue, could be considered part of Times Square, even in order to make it a gun-free zone.“Nah,” Robert Govan, 62, told the city’s paper of record. “No way. Not going to happen.”TopicsNew YorkUS gun controlUS politicsUS supreme courtUS constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      Trump boasted he had ‘intelligence’ on Macron’s sex life

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      Trump boasted he had ‘intelligence’ on Macron’s sex lifeInventory of what was seized at Mar-a-Lago caused ‘transatlantic freakout’ between Paris and Washington Donald Trump boasted to close associates that he knew secrets about Emmanuel Macron’s sex life from US intelligence sources, it has been reported.The report in Rolling Stone magazine comes in the wake of the release of court documents on the classified and national defence documents found in a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on 8 August, which mention a file referred to as “info re: President of France”.It is unclear whether the file on Macron was classified or what it contained. But Rolling Stone claimed that its mention in the official inventory of what was seized at Mar-a-Lago caused a “transatlantic freakout” between Paris and Washington.A French embassy spokesperson said: “We do not comment on legal proceedings in the US and … the embassy has not asked the administration for any information concerning the documents retrieved at former President Trump’s residence.”Neither the state department nor Trump’s office have so far responded to a request for comment.The Rolling Stone report said that during and after his presidency, Trump claimed to some of his closest associates that he knew details of Macron’s private life, which he had gleaned from “intelligence” he had seen or been briefed on.Macron initially courted Trump, inviting him to the Bastille Day military parade in 2017 just two months after he was elected, inspiring the US president to badger his own generals to stage a similar show of military pageantry in Washington.Relations soon soured between the two leaders, particularly after Macron’s failure to persuade Trump to stay in the nuclear deal with Iran. Trump took the US out of the deal in 2018, and it has unravelled since then. They also fell out over Trump’s abrupt order to pull troops out of northern Syria and his distrust of Nato. In December 2019, Trump called Macron “a pain in the ass” while addressing a group of ambassadors to the UN.TopicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationEmmanuel MacronUS politicsFranceEuropenewsReuse this content More

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      New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeys | Lloyd Green

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      New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeysLloyd Green‘I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,’ Trump once vowed. As promises go, that one aged badly As a first-time presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly demanded that Hillary Clinton be sent to jail. “Lock her up” emerged as a battle cry for the 45th president and his fans. He also pledged that his presidency would properly handle the nation’s secrets.Justice department details conclusions from FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago – liveRead more“In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he intoned at a 2016 rally in North Carolina. “No one will be above the law.” As promises go, this one aged badly – much like his commitment to release his tax returns.On Tuesday night, the government filed its 36-page opposition to the ex-reality-show host’s demand that a special master be appointed. (A special master is an independent mediator appointed to go through documents and determine which may be protected by privilege.)Trump’s gambit backfired, however. Once again, he looks like a liar. Beyond that, his lawyers became his lackeys. Christina Bobb meet William Barr.In early June, Trump and Bobb, Trump’s attorney and a former marine, delivered to the government a packet of documents in a sealed folder. A certificate signed by Bobb attested to the fact that “any and all responsive documents accompany this certification”.Apparently not. Instead, the government subsequently “developed evidence” that “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation”. Who was involved in the conspiracy is an unanswered question.Regardless, it is now official: Trump will be on the midterm ballot even if his name does not appear. The upcoming congressional elections won’t be a normal referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency. Instead, 2022 will sound a lot like a rerun of 2020. A once anticipated red tsunami is now looking more like a “puddle”.On that score, ask media mogul Rupert Murdoch; he can tell you. Just hours before the government filed its latest round of paperwork, Murdoch’s New York Post published an editorial that decried the reemergence of Trump in the national spotlight and its likely impact on Republicans’ chances.“He lost in 2020 because too many Americans – especially moderates – had gotten sick of his self-indulgent behavior,” the Post wrote. “Since then, his egomania has only grown.”In case anyone forgot, in Fire and Fury, the first installment of Michael Wolff’s trilogy of Trump tell-alls, Murdoch referred to Trump as “a fucking idiot” after the two men had ended a phone call. And Fox’s Sean Hannity is caught saying, of Trump: “What the fuck is wrong with him?”These days, Fox News and its corporate parent are defendants in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems in connection with the network’s alleged role in spreading the “big lie”. According to reports, Murdoch, his son Lachlan, Hannity, and Tucker Carlson are all expected to testify at deposition.Meanwhile, Trump and his minions are threatening violence if things don’t go their way. “There literally will be riots in the street,” Senator Lindsey Graham told interviewers. Trump shared a clip of Graham’s interview on his beleaguered social media vehicle, Truth Social.Said differently, the Republican party is in the process of losing its reputation for law, order and national security. On the right, the drumbeat for defunding the FBI grows louder. Beyond that, Republicans’ relationship to democracy grows more strained.Larry Hogan, Maryland’s outgoing Republican governor, said as much the other day. In an interview with CBS, he acknowledged that authoritarianism had found a nesting place in what was once the party of Abraham Lincoln. “There’s no question we see some signs,” Hogan said.It has been years in the making. Republican politicians have embraced Trump as strongman-lite. In a 2016 radio broadcast, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, made Trump’s authoritarian streak a selling point. “Our constitution is not only broken,” LePage declared, “but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country.” The Republican party knew who it was getting.Whether the Democrats can find a message that resonates with swing-voters remains to be seen. Upstairs-downstairs coalitions are inherently unstable.Yet outrage at the US supreme court’s anti-abortion rights decision in Dobbs has spurred voter registration among women and younger Americans. In a recent special election in rural upstate New York, a Democrat pulled off an upset. Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh are not as wise as they fancy themselves.Sadly, the conditions that led to Trump’s electoral college win in 2016 remain – even if he eventually winds up behind bars. On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the sharpest drop in US life expectancy in a century, and that drug overdoses reached a record high.America ails; Trump is but one more symptom. On Thursday, the court will hear arguments on his motion. Don’t expect any indictments – if any – until after the fall’s elections. Thanksgiving and Christmas stand to be interesting.
      Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
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      FBI searched Trump Mar-a-Lago home over ‘likely’ efforts to hide classified files, justice department says

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      FBI searched Trump Mar-a-Lago home over ‘likely’ efforts to hide classified files, justice department saysCourt filing alleges files were found despite Trump lawyers saying all documents had been returned The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after it obtained evidence there was probably an effort to conceal classified documents in defiance of a grand jury subpoena and despite his lawyers suggesting otherwise, the justice department said in a court filing.The recounting – contained in a filing from the justice department that opposed Trump’s request to get an independent review of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago – amounted to the most detailed picture of potential obstruction of justice outlined to date by the government.“Efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the justice department alleged in its filing on Tuesday night.Among the new revelations in the 36-page filing were that FBI agents recovered three classified documents from desks inside Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago and additional classified files from a storage room, contrary to what the former president’s lawyers indicated to the justice department.The justice department said in the submission that, after a Trump lawyer in May accepted service of a subpoena for materials removed from the White House, the lawyer and Trump’s records custodian in June gave the government a single Redweld legal envelope, double-taped, that contained the documents.As Trump’s lawyer and custodian turned over the folder to Jay Bratt, the justice department’s chief counterintelligence official, the custodian produced and signed a letter certifying a “diligent search” had been conducted and all documents responsive to the subpoena were being returned.The lawyer for the former president also stated to Bratt that all the records in the envelope had come from one storage room at Mar-a-Lago, that there were no other records elsewhere at the resort, and that all boxes of materials brought from the White House had been searched, the justice department said.The custodian who signed the letter has been identified by two sources familiar with the matter as Christina Bobb, a member of Trump’s in-house counsel team, though a copy of the letter reproduced by the justice department in the filing redacted the custodian’s name. But the FBI subsequently uncovered evidence through multiple sources that classified documents remained at Mar-a-Lago in defiance of the subpoena, and that other government records were “likely” concealed and removed from the storage room, according to the filing.The justice department said in its submission that the evidence – details of which were redacted in the search warrant affidavit partially unsealed last week – allowed it to obtain a warrant to enter Mar-a-Lago, where FBI agents found more classified documents in Trump’s private office.“The government seized 33 items of evidence, mostly boxes,” from its search of Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida, the filing said. “Three classified documents that were not located in boxes, but rather were located in the desks in the ‘45 Office’, were also seized.”Illustrating the contents of the 8 August seizure, in an exhibit resembling how the justice department would show the results of a drug bust, the filing included a photo of the retrieved documents emblazoned with classification markings including “top secret” and “secret” designations.The justice department added that the documents collected most recently by the FBI included materials marked as “sensitive compartmented information”, while other documents were so sensitive that the FBI counterintelligence agents reviewing the materials needed additional security clearances.“That the FBI,” the filing said, “recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former president’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform, calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification.”After painting an extraordinary portrait of the hurdles that the justice department had to overcome to even recover the documents that belong to the government, prosecutors argued that Trump had no basis to seek the appointment of a so-called special master to review the files.The request for a special master in this case fails, the filing argued, because Trump is attempting to use the potential for executive privilege to withhold documents from the executive branch – which the supreme court decided in Nixon v GSA did not hold.The justice department added that even if Trump could somehow successfully assert executive privilege, it would not apply to the current case because the documents marked classified were seized as part of a criminal investigation into the very handling of the documents themselves.Trump is expected to press on with his request for a special master and to obtain a more detailed list of materials taken from Mar-a-Lago, according to a source close to his legal team, which also disputed that the justice department’s filing raised the likelihood for an obstruction charge.On Tuesday morning, before the justice department filed its response minutes before a court-imposed midnight deadline, Trump added a third lawyer, the former Florida solicitor general Christopher Kise, to his outside legal team, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. TopicsDonald TrumpFBIMar-a-LagoFloridaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Peace is Possible if India and Pakistan Listen to Each Other’s Stories of Partition

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Top Secret Service official at heart of January 6 Trump row steps down

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      Top Secret Service official at heart of January 6 Trump row steps downTony Ornato, who reportedly told aide Trump lunged for steering wheel as Capitol attack was starting, was key figure to committee Top US Secret Service official Tony Ornato, who has become a figure of intense interest to the congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack, has retired from the agency.Ornato was thrust into the center of the January 6 furor as an eyewitness to some of the most critical incidents involving Donald Trump in the hours leading up to the deadly assault on the US Capitol.He began as head of Trump’s Secret Service detail but in an unprecedented move in December 2019 became deputy chief of staff in the White House.Biden to take on Republicans over gun control, crime and attacks on FBI – liveRead moreIn that capacity, he was drawn into the sights of the January 6 committee in its investigation of Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol insurrection. A former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, in June testified publicly to the committee that Ornato had told her Trump had become “irate” when his security detail refused to drive him to the Capitol as the assault on Congress was beginning.The attack aimed to prevent the congressional certification of Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.When his Secret Service driver insisted it was not safe to go, Trump lunged for the steering wheel and then grabbed the agent’s throat, Hutchinson testified Ornato had told her. Ornato reportedly denied the account through unnamed sources.Hutchinson also revealed to the committee that Ornato had briefed top White House aides on January 6 itself that weapons were being carried among the crowd at the Capitol, including guns, knives and spears. Ornato has not denied that allegation.On Monday, he confirmed that he had retired from the Secret Service, saying in a statement that he wanted to work in the private sector. He has already been interviewed twice by the January 6 committee, though the contents of his testimony have not been made public.Among the areas of interest that the committee is likely to be pursuing is Ornato’s knowledge of how Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, was handled by Secret Service agents on January 6. As armed rioters were milling through the Capitol, shouting “Hang Mike Pence!”, the vice-president’s security detail tried to persuade him to evacuate the area.“I’m not getting in the car,” Pence told the lead special agent, according to Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig in their book I Alone Can Fix It.At the White House, Ornato, who as deputy chief of staff had oversight over Secret Service decisions, told Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, that the vice-president was going to be moved to the Maryland military facility Joint Base Andrews. Had he been evacuated, Pence would no longer have been able to certify Biden’s electoral victory, and Trump’s goal of postponing his defeat would have been fulfilled.When Ornato said that the Secret Service would move Pence, Kellogg was adamant, Rucker and Leonnig reported. “You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg said. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.”TopicsSecret ServiceDonald TrumpUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in office | Austin Sarat and Dennis Aftergut

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      Americans are starting to get it: we can’t let Trump – or Trumpism – back in officeAustin Sarat and Dennis AftergutRepublicans have put all their chips on extremism. But voters are sending more and more signals that they’re fed up with it Polls and election results over the last week reminded Americans that politics seldom moves in a straight line. As in physics, action produces reaction. Overreach invites backlash.For a long while former President Trump and his cronies seemed to be immune from this rule of political life and from the consequences of even the most outrageous conduct. As Trump himself once famously said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”And so it seemed. He escaped conviction in not one but two impeachment trials and cowed Republican leaders to fall in line after the January 6 insurrection. He remains the leading contender for the Republican party’s 2024 presidential nomination.Today Republicans are still falling over themselves to prove their loyalty to him by outdoing each other in extremism.On 19 August, a Republican candidate for Florida’s state assembly even took to Twitter to call for violence against federal law enforcement officials. “Under my plan,” Luis Miguel tweeted, “all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other [federal agents] ON SIGHT! Let freedom ring!”In Washington, the US supreme court cast aside almost 50 years of settled precedent to overturn Roe v Wade. Republican-dominated state legislatures rushed to enact draconian restrictions on women’s reproductive rights.This kind of extremism may be off-putting to swing voters. There are signs that most Americans aren’t ready to trade their rights and freedoms for a strongman and his election-denying, rights-infringing, violence-threatening allies. As the Cook Report’s Amy Walters wrote on 26 August: “The more Trump is in the news, the more dangerous the political climate for the GOP.”But let’s start with the supreme court’s Dobbs decision.Dobbs sent shock waves across the political spectrum and has jolted Democratic turnout. On 25 August, Axios reported that immediately after Dobbs, “Democratic primary turnout for governors’ races increased … in five of the eight states holding contested primaries.”Similarly, a report from TargetSmart suggests that in states like Michigan and Wisconsin “where reproductive rights are at stake”, women “are out-registering men by significant margins.”This pattern portends a “pink wave” in November, as women mobilize to defeat pro-life candidates. We saw evidence of this in the 23 August special congressional election in New York, where Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro, 52% to 48% in a bellwether swing district.Ryan’s campaign message was largely focused on protecting abortion rights. His victory follows the striking 2 August referendum vote in Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to ban abortion.Are Republicans being taught a lesson they should have learned from history?When the supreme court gets too far out in front of – or too far behind – the American public by ignoring American sentiment, political backlash results. That happened in the 1850s in the run-up to the civil war and in the 1930s when the conservative court that Franklin Roosevelt inherited struck down a new minimum wage law.It happened again after Roe v Wade, when abortion foes reacted and organized for a 50-year battle that resulted in a reactionary court majority.Republicans may now be reaping what those reactionaries on the court sowed.And it isn’t only that many Americans have been alarmed and aroused by what the court did last June. They are also awakening to the threats posed by Trump’s “big lie” and the election denial it has inspired.Democratic messaging that has called out the “big lie”, along with the meticulously presented hearings of the January 6 congressional hearings, seem to be taking root.Americans are coming to see that, as President Biden has warned, “A poison is running through our democracy … with disinformation massively on the rise. But the truth is buried by lies, and the lies live on as truth.”At the start of this summer’s January 6 hearings, Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney echoed that sentiment: “People must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don’t defend it.”An NBC News poll last week suggests that the American people are indeed now paying attention. It found that more respondents ranked “threats to democracy” as the most important issue facing the country, more important than inflation or jobs.Other polls suggest that candidates who are running as election deniers or opponents of a woman’s right to choose will pay a price in November.Take Pennsylvania, for example. A Franklin & Marshall poll released on 25 August found that the Democratic candidate for the Senate, John Fetterman, is leading Trump-endorsed election denier Mehmet Oz, 43% to 30%. Fetterman is also a vocal abortion rights supporter, while Oz supported overturning Roe.The same poll also shows that the Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, leads the Trump favorite and abortion foe, Republican Doug Mastriano, by 44% to 33%.According to the Washington Post, “In 2020, Mastriano tried to block Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory by introducing a resolution asserting incorrectly that the Republican-dominated legislature had the right to choose which electors’ votes should be counted.” As the Post also notes, “He attended the Jan. 6 riot … where he was captured on video crossing the police line.”This is not to say that in Pennsylvania or elsewhere the Trump fever has completely broken. And polls are not the same thing as an election. But they are signs of hope.Democracy won’t save itself. Abortion rights will not restore themselves. The American majority’s power to defeat Trumpism lies at the ballot box. If Trumpist candidates lose in general elections, over time Republicans may get the message that they’ve placed a losing bet on extremism.There is much to be done by Americans committed to preserving our republic and to saying “no” to Trump. As former president Obama put it in his 2017 farewell address: “It falls to each of us to be … jealous guardians of democracy.” Across America, a majority of voters are ready to do just that.
      Austin Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College and the author of Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty
      Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor, currently of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022US SenateUS CongressHouse of RepresentativescommentReuse this content More