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RepublicansRon DeSantis: is the Trump-aligned Florida governor plotting a White House run? The fast-rising Republican is topping polls and raising millions of dollars – but what if the former president wants his job back?Richard Luscombe in Miami@ More
US crimeRepublicans revive soft-on-crime rhetoric amid rise in US homicidesBiden rolls out fresh policy proposals to try to counter rising crime as Democrats look to bat away Republican attacks Daniel Strauss in Washington@ More
BooksThe Engagement review: a tour de force on the fight for same-sex marriageDon’t let the length or density of Sasha Issenberg’s new book put you off – it is a must-read on the fight for true civil rights Michael Henry AdamsSun 4 Jul 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 4 Jul 2021 02.01 EDTSasha Issenberg’s tour-de-force, 900-word chronicle of “America’s quarter-century struggle over same-sex marriage” might have been even better had it been given even a few illustrations.This is the Fire review: Don Lemon’s audacious study of racism – and loveRead moreThe New Yorker contributor Michael Shaw’s cartoon of 1 March 2004 would have been one candidate. Its arch question, “Gays and lesbians getting married – haven’t they suffered enough?”, seems to encapsulate how an unlikely issue, consistently championed, achieved a broader vision of “gay liberation” than many dreamed could be attained so rapidly.Thanks to works of scholarship like Charles Kaiser’s The Gay Metropolis and The Deviant’s War by Eric Cervini, it has become clear that the seemingly impossible is often achievable. With The Engagement, Issenberg adds to such proof that one can write LGBTQ+ history in a way that is engaging, authoritative and impeccably sourced.He conveys a telling truth for activists beyond the campaign for gay rights. Brimming with a promise of inclusion, of acceptance beyond mere toleration, his book shows there are indeed more ways than one to skin a cat. Awakened and empowered by Black Lives Matter and Trumpism’s exposure of widespread white supremacist alliances, many progressives were certain that only the most radical policy positions – “defund the police”, anyone? – and candidates offered any real remedy. But older black voters were certain of a different way of maneuvering. And it looks as if they were right, just as proponents of marriage equality were right – to a point at least.If The Engagement lacks snappy cartoons or colorful or insightful photographs, Issenberg manages nonetheless to present compelling depictions of fascinating individuals. Their pursuit of gay marriage propels his narrative, lawsuit by lawsuit, legislative victory by legislative victory and political endorsement by political endorsement.False starts, setbacks, losses – they are all here too. But then finally, on 26 June 2015, with Obergefell v Hodges, the supreme court invalidated same-sex marriage bans all across the land. In time, a court-sanctioned right to self-determination expanded the rights of transgender people too.Gay marriage declared legal across the US in historic supreme court rulingRead moreIf the quest began with an almost stereotypically flamboyant figure, Bill Woods, Issenberg shows with deft sensitivity how for all Woods’ drive and flair for manipulating media and politicians, two more reticent lesbians played a pivotal role. Their relatable story is one of opposites determined to fashion a life together, just three months after meeting in 1990. Initially, the LGBTQ+ community was compelled to fight just to be allowed to love one another. But this committed couple’s saga goes a long way to showing how marriage, as opposed to a brave new world of sexual revolution and limitless pairings, emerged as the definitive cause of gay civil rights.When Genora Dancel, a broadcast engineer, presented a ruby ring to Nina Baehr, she “thought our love could withstand anything”. Coming home to find Baehr in pain from an ear infection, Dancel learned otherwise. Baehr’s university health coverage had yet to take effect. Her new “wife” had two policies from her employers but could not use them for her partner. She had to pay out of pocket to to aid her.Out of this practical desire to care for each other, the pair joined two other same-sex couples organized by Bill Woods. On 17 December 1990, in Honolulu, they applied for marriage licenses. When they were denied, Dan Foley, an attorney who was straight, sued the state on their behalf. After a battle lasting nearly three years, they were vindicated. The Hawaii supreme court was the first in the US to determine that the right to wed was a basic civil right.Many, like the lesbian feminist Paula Ettelbrick, were convinced there was an alternative to marriage and that “making room in our society for broader definitions of family” was better. They saw little utility in such a gain.Jasmyne Cannick, a journalist from Los Angeles, was dubious as well. Following the passage of Proposition 8, a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage in California, she outlined the looming disconnect between disaffected queers of color and our sometimes oblivious white brethren.
The white gay community is banging its head against the glass ceiling of a room called equality, believing that a breakthrough on marriage will bestow on it parity with heterosexuals.
But the right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both Black gays and Black straights. Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?
In books such as Nigel Nicholson’s Portrait of a Marriage and Elizabeth Drexel Lehr’s King Lehr and the Gilded Age, one gets a poignant look at how especially for upper-class gays, conventional alliances, with partners of the opposite sex and children, are as old as time, assuring inheritances and perpetuating dynastic ties. George Chauncey’s Gay New York tells of how in Harlem same-sex couples, from the 1920s on, staged elaborate nuptial ceremonies, anticipating current trends.The Deviant’s War: superb epic of Frank Kameny and the fight for gay equalityRead moreYes, one way or another, even in the realm of queers, marriage still seems to constitute a profound idea.Issenberg contends that without overwhelming opposition, gay marriage would never have subsumed gay activism; that conservatives, lying in wait, biding their time, are poised to try to take it away. When they do, will we be ready, armed with the lesson of Issenberg’s book?Today, self-segregated into competing camps of righteous activists and dogged pragmatists, freedom fighters still at struggle and insiders who just happen to be gay, do we sincerely value the efficacy of throwing down our buckets where we stand? Have we lost hope that every road leads to a common victory? That in a street fight, every contribution adds value to our effort?
The Engagement: America’s Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage is published in the US by Penguin Random House
TopicsBooksLGBT rightsSame-sex marriage (US)US constitution and civil libertiesLaw (US)US politicsActivismnewsReuse this content More
Donald TrumpThe new circus comes to town: fiery support for Donald Trump at rain-soaked Florida rally Fireworks, a Trump impersonator and undying belief in the former president at his second rally after leaving officeDavid Smith in Sarasota, Florida@ More
Joe BidenJoe Biden cherry-picks audience to promote bipartisan infrastructure deal
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Donald TrumpDonald Trump stages Florida rally, decrying New York chargesRally billed as Fourth of July celebration featuring fireworks and expected to draw several thousand in state Trump won in 2020
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Martin Pengelly in Washington and agencies@ More
Beto O’RourkeInterviewBeto O’Rourke on Texas: ‘I don’t know that we’re a conservative state’Alexandra VillarrealThe former Democratic presidential hopeful discusses the importance of the voting rights fight Sat 3 Jul 2021 04.00 EDTTo Beto O’Rourke, voting rights represent the silver bullet for progress in Texas.If more of the over 7 million Texans who were eligible to vote but didn’t last election could actually make it to the ballot box, the former Democratic presidential hopeful thinks state lawmakers would soon stop going after transgender student athletes and abortion access.Bad strategy? How the Republican attack on voting rights could backfireRead moreInstead, legislators would spend their time fixing Texas’s electric grid, which left millions shivering in the dark and hundreds dead when it failed during a devastating winter storm last February. They would be compelled to expand healthcare coverage in a state with the most uninsured people anywhere in the country, and they would actually address the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 51,000 Texans.“I don’t know that we’re a red state. I don’t know that we’re a conservative state. I don’t know that we’re a state that is focused on transgender girls’ sports, or telling people what to do with their bodies,” O’Rourke told the Guardian in an exclusive interview.“I think it is a minority really of the people and the voters in this state. It’s just the majority aren’t reflected because they aren’t voting.”A native El Pasoan and one of the country’s foremost Democrats, O’Rourke spent much of June traversing his home state, advocating for voting rights. As he registered eligible voters in 102F (39C) heat or held intimate town halls with as few as 100 people, he was fighting for democracy in Texas – before it’s too late.“If the great crime committed by Republicans was trying to suppress the votes of those who live outside of the centers of power,” he said, “then the great crime of Democrats was to take all of these people for granted.”During his travels, he heard from people who readily admitted they hadn’t been paying attention until he showed up.“You cannot expect people to participate in the state’s politics if you don’t show them the basic respect of listening to them and understanding what’s most important to them and then reflecting that in the campaign that you run,” O’Rourke said.“You can’t do that at a distance, and you can’t do that through a pollster or a focus group. You have to do that in person.”Many Democrats are waiting with bated breath to see if O’Rourke launches a bid to oust Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, in 2022. But for now, he’s mostly brushing off questions about his political future; the voting rights fight could not be more urgent, he said, and he doesn’t have the bandwidth to simultaneously mount a separate campaign.“As this woman at our meeting in Wichita Falls said, you know, it may not matter who the candidates are on the ballot if that vote can be overturned,” he said. “Or if we functionally disenfranchise millions of our fellow Texans.”Texas was already infamous as the hardest place to vote in the United States before this year’s legislative session, when state lawmakers capitalized on false narratives about widespread voter fraud to push for new, sweeping voting restrictions.Democrats in the state House staged a historic walkout at the 11th hour to kill one of the most controversial restrictive voting bills. But Abbott, who still considers “election integrity” an emergency, announced he would convene a special session starting 8 July, teeing up yet another bitter showdown via legislative overtime.As O’Rourke sees it, the special session is one of two fronts in the war for voting rights in Texas. The other is at the federal level, where Democrats are scrambling to protect the polls after Republicans blocked their ambitious For the People Act.Texas special sessions can’t last more than 30 days, and the US Congress has mere weeks before a long August recess.“There is a very tight window within which we’ve gotta do everything we can,” O’Rourke said.At stake are a rash of new provisions that would make it even harder and scarier to vote, in a state with already chronically low voter turnout.In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Texas Republicans proposed barring 24-hour and drive-thru voting, doing away with drop boxes, and subjecting public officials to state felonies for soliciting or distributing unrequested vote by mail applications, among other hardline policies.Many of their suggestions directly targeted innovations to expand voter access last year in Texas’s largest county, Harris, which is both diverse and more left-leaning. And voting rights advocates worry that in general, Texans of color will be disproportionately disenfranchised by the restrictions being advanced.Already, Texas has extremely limited vote-by-mail access, virtually no online voter registration and no same-day registration during early voting or on election day. Voters have to show acceptable forms of identification, which can include a handgun license but not a student ID.The state is a hotbed for gerrymandering, and politicians purposely attenuate the voting power in communities of color. Hundreds of Texas polling stations have shuttered since 2012, with closures concentrated where Black and Latino populations are growing the most.O’Rourke remembers how he used to be baffled by people who didn’t vote. Not any more.“When your voting power has been diminished like that, it is not illogical or irrational to say, ‘I’m not gonna vote. I’m not gonna participate in this one. I’m not gonna get my hopes up,’” he said.Last month, when O’Rourke visited Rains county, Texas, a woman with multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other illnesses explained how – because she’s disabled and doesn’t drive – she struggled to get identification. An ID cost her $125, a modern-day poll tax, she said.As she told her story, O’Rourke said, even the local GOP chairwoman was seemingly nodding her head, as if the issue was starting to make sense.In Gainesville, where 40 suspected Unionists were hanged during the civil war, a young woman told O’Rourke that she successfully organized to bring down a Confederate statue at the park where his town hall was taking place.But she wasn’t registered to vote, she added.“It’s not for lack of urgency or love for country,” O’Rourke said. “I think it’s because they are acutely aware of how rigged our democracy is at this moment, and nowhere more so than Texas.”From ideological courts to a Republican-controlled legislature and a rightwing executive, conservatives dominate every branch of the state government.Their overpowering dominion makes it nearly impossible for liberals to make inroads in Texas, despite long-held Democratic hopes that rapidly changing demographics will trigger a blue wave.Still, O’Rourke refuses to give up.“If we register in numbers and turn out in numbers, even with a rigged system – and we should acknowledge that it’s rigged – and even with the deck that is stacked, there’s still a way to prevail,” he said.“It’s not gonna be easy. And it’s gonna require a lot of us.”TopicsBeto O’RourkeTexasUS voting rightsUS politicsinterviewsReuse this content More
BooksNightmare Scenario review: Trump, Covid and a lasting national trauma Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta of the Washington Post show how bad things got – and how they could have been worseLloyd GreenSat 3 Jul 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 3 Jul 2021 02.21 EDTAs the world wakes from its pandemic-induced coma, Bloomberg rates the US as the best place to be. More than 150 million Americans have been vaccinated; little more than 4,100 have been hospitalized or have died as a result of breakthrough infection.Trump contempt for White House Covid taskforce revealed in new bookRead moreThe vaccines worked – but too late to save more than 600,000 Americans who have died. More than 500,000 were on Donald Trump’s watch.“This would have been hard regardless of who was president,” a senior administration official confided to Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta. “With Donald Trump, it was impossible.”Abutaleb is a health policy writer for the Washington Post. Paletta is its economics editor. Together, they supply a bird’s-eye narrative of a chaotic and combative response to a pandemic that has subsided but not disappeared in the west. Elsewhere, it still rages.At almost 500 pages, Nightmare Scenario depicts an administration riven by turf wars, terrified of losing re-election and more concerned about the demands of Trump and his base than broader constituencies and realities. It was always “them” v “us”. Sadly, this is what we expected.Under the subtitle “Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic that Changed History”, Abutaleb and Paletta confirm that life in the Trump White House was Stygian bleak. Trump was the star. Pain and insecurity were the coins of the realm.Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, laboured in constant fear of Trump and competitors inside the government. After taking a hard line against flavoured e-cigarettes early on, to Trump’s dismay, Azar never recovered. The pandemic simply deepened his personal nightmare.When Covid struck, he was all but a dead man walking. Then the White House Covid taskforce, headed by Mike Pence, neutered his authority. Think of it as a one-two punch. True to form, Trump told a taskforce member Azar was “in trouble” and that he, Trump, had “saved him”.Azar was forced to take on Michael Caputo, an acolyte of Roger Stone, as spokesman. Eventually, Caputo posted a Facebook video in which he claimed “hit squads [were] being trained all over this country”, ready to mount an armed insurrection to stop a second Trump term. Caputo embarked on a two-month medical leave. His “mental health … definitely failed”.Not surprisingly, Trump lost patience with Pence’s taskforce. It failed to deliver a magic bullet and he dismissed it as “that fucking council that Mike has”. For the record, in April 2020 Pence remarked: “Maybe I’m a glass half-full kind of guy, but I think the country is ready to reopen.” For all of his obsequiousness, Pence could never make Trump happy.Instead, Peter Navarro, Scott Atlas and Stephen Moore emerged as Trump’s go-to guys. Predictably, mayhem ensued.Navarro suggested his PhD in economics made him an expert in medicine as well. He jousted with Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease since 1984 – seemingly for giggles.Atlas was a radiologist whose understanding of infectious diseases was tangential. As for Moore, he played emissary for a libertarian donor base distraught by shutdowns and mask mandates.“Fauci is the villain here,” Moore intoned. “He has the Napoleon complex, and he thinks he is the dictator who could decide how to run the country.” Trump’s own authoritarian streak seems to have escaped him.Moore also referred to Fauci as “Fucky”, and advised state-based “liberation” movements against public health measures that served as precursors and incubators to the invasion of the US Capitol on 6 January this year.Going back to 2019, Moore was forced to withdraw from consideration for the board of the Federal Reserve after the Guardian reported on his bouts of alimony-dodging, contempt of court and tax delinquency.With one major exception – financing and developing a vaccine – the Trump administration left Covid to the states. Hydroxychloroquine never saved the day, though Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, ordered a bunch of it from India to sate Trump’s ego. Six days after the 2020 election, the National Institutes of Health issued a statement that insisted: “Hydroxychloroquine does not benefit adults hospitalized with Covid-19.” Trump was callous and mendacious before the pandemic. Yet even as he embraced medical quackery, bleach injections and self-pity, he presided over unprecedented vaccine development, the medical equivalent of winning the space race and the cold war at once.Preventable review: Andy Slavitt indicts Trump over Covid – but scolds us all tooRead moreWhen Trump signed off on Operation Warp Speed in May 2020, “he thought vaccines were too pie in the sky”, Abutaleb and Paletta report. When Trump learned the first contract executed under the program was with AstraZeneca, from the UK, he growled: “This is terrible news. I’m going to get killed.”Boris Johnson would “have a field day”, he said. Things didn’t work out that way.Right now, countries that relied on Chinese vaccines are experiencing a death spike in the face of the Delta variant. In the Seychelles, almost seven in 10 are fully vaccinated – yet deaths per capita are currently running at the highest rate in the world.Added to Chinese opacity surrounding its role in the outbreak, the limits of vaccine diplomacy and technology are apparent. From the looks of things, Trump has left multiple legacies, some more complex and alloyed than others. But things could have been worse.TopicsBooksCoronavirusInfectious diseasesPolitics booksUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationreviewsReuse this content More
