theguardian--2020-09-09--Crowds cram in for Trump rally in North Carolina, with few masks despite rule – as it happened

Deriding demonstrators across the country protesting racist policing , Donald Trump told a jam-packed , cheering crowd at his North Carolina : “ We decided to call our rallies peaceful protests.
” “ Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you can not have more than five people , ” the president said .
“ You can ’ t go to church , you can ’ t do anything outside .
If you are willing to riot , running down the main street , if you want to riot and stand on top of each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hell you want to do , you are allowed to do that because you are considered a peaceful protester.
” That ’ s a lot of exaggeration : In North Carolina , run by Democrat Roy Cooper , gatherings are currently capped at 50 , and masks are mandated .
Going outside is allowed in North Carolina ( as it in all states ) , and churches are allowed to conduct services , though officials recommend that worshippers space out and wear masks .
Trump mocked his opponent Joe Biden for following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see the gyms with the circles ?
” he said of Biden ’ s events .

Maanvi Singh (now) and Joan E Greve and Martin Belam (earlier)

9 Sept 2020 01.10 BST Summary From me and Joan E Greve: Speaking at a crowded campaign rally in North Carolina where many voters were not wearing face masks, as mandated by the state, Donald Trump referred to his supporters as “peaceful protestors”. He said his supporters – at planned campaign rallies – should be able to gather like demonstrators against police brutality. Trump also mocked his opponent for following safety guidelines amid an ongoing pandemic. During the rally, Trump said that Kamala Harris, “could never be the first woman president ... That would be an insult to our country,” and once again encouraged voters to commit voter fraud.
He said his supporters – at planned campaign rallies – should be able to gather like demonstrators against police brutality. Trump also mocked his opponent for following safety guidelines amid an ongoing pandemic. During the rally, Trump said that Kamala Harris, “could never be the first woman president ... That would be an insult to our country,” and once again encouraged voters to commit voter fraud. Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading White House infectious disease expert, who has been increasingly at odds with Donald Trump, stressed that a coronavirus vaccine would be unlikely to be ready “by the end of the year”. Fauci contradicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has signaled that health officials might expect a vaccine to be ready before the November election.
Fauci contradicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has signaled that health officials might expect a vaccine to be ready before the November election. Trump is considering spending his own money on his reelection campaign. “ If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters today. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.” The comments come as Trump’s fundraising advantage over Democratic nominee Joe Biden has vanished in recent months.
If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters today. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.” The comments come as Trump’s fundraising advantage over Democratic nominee has vanished in recent months. Democratic congressional leaders rejected Republicans proposal to pass a “skinny” coronavirus relief bill. House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.”
House speaker and Senate minority leader said in a statement, “[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.” The police chief of Rochester, New York, resigned amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude. Prude, an African American man, died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by police officers.
Prude, an African American man, died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by police officers. House Democrats are launching an investigation of the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Democrats intend to investigate reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company to donate to Republican candidates, violating campaign finance laws.
Democrats intend to investigate reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company to donate to Republican candidates, violating campaign finance laws. Trump signed an executive order to expand an offshore drilling moratorium to include Florida’s Atlantic coast, Georgia and South Carolina. The moratorium already applied to Florida’s Gulf coast, and it was expected to expire in 2022. Some Florida officials expressed concern that the state’s tourism industry could be negatively impacted if the moratorium was allowed to expire. Trump’s announcement of the order appeared to be an attempt to curry favor with voters in the crucial swing state.
Updated at 01.38 BST
8 Sept 2020 00.28 BST Trump: 'We decided to call our rallies peaceful protests' Deriding demonstrators across the country protesting racist policing, Donald Trump told a jam-packed, cheering crowd at his North Carolina: “We decided to call our rallies peaceful protests.” “Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you cannot have more than five people,” the president said. “You can’t go to church, you can’t do anything outside. If you are willing to riot, running down the main street, if you want to riot and stand on top of each other’s face and do whatever the hell you want to do, you are allowed to do that because you are considered a peaceful protester.”
That’s a lot of exaggeration: In North Carolina, run by Democrat Roy Cooper, gatherings are currently capped at 50, and masks are mandated. Going outside is allowed in North Carolina (as it in all states), and churches are allowed to conduct services, though officials recommend that worshippers space out and wear masks. Trump mocked his opponent Joe Biden for following social distancing guidelines. “You ever see the gyms with the circles?” he said of Biden’s events.
Updated at 00.37 BST
8 Sept 2020 00.10 BST Donald Trump is speaking to supporters in North Carolina, many of whom are not wearing face masks. The packed crowd has defied state guidelines that cap gatherings at 50 people. Behind him, some are carrying signs proclaiming that they are “peaceful protestors”. Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally Tuesday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Photograph: Chris Carlson/AP The president previously suggested that unmasked, crammed members of a Trump country club who were spectators at a press conference were peaceful protestors, and Trump supporters have said that if protestors against police brutality are allowed to gather then they should be too. Speaking at his rally, Trump said that Kamala Harris “could never be the first woman president. She could never be. That would be an insult to our country”.
Updated at 00.27 BST
8 Sept 2020 23.56 BST Lois Beckett More than a thousand people gathered on a San Francisco beach over the weekend to celebrate Burning Man, the desert arts festival that was cancelled this year because of coronavirus, San Francisco’s mayor announced, saying the “absolutely reckless” party had put people’s lives at risk. Social media video of people dancing, some without wearing masks, and setting fires at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach on Saturday prompted widespread condemnation. “You are putting our progress at risk,” San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, tweeted Sunday morning, announcing that the city was closing down the parking lots at one of the city’s most accessible beaches to prevent another Burning Man gathering. San Francisco had seen only 86 coronavirus deaths, according to public health data, compared to a toll of nearly 14,000 deaths statewide. The news that San Francisco’s mayor was reducing access to a public beach on a holiday weekend of record-breaking heat only renewed criticism of Burning Man, an event that is often derided as elitist and exclusionary, despite its stated principles of radical inclusion and self-reliance. Burning Man, which takes place each year in Nevada’s remote Black Rock desert, actually began on a San Francisco beach in 1986 when a group of friends built a figure out of wood and burned him. Since then it has grown into a massive international arts and music festival that attracts 80,000 participants a year, with the cheapest tickets costing hundreds of dollars. Shahid Buttar, a progressive candidate who challenged Nancy Pelosi in a Democratic congressional primary earlier this year, called the Ocean Beach gathering “lovely” and tweeted that he had seen “dozens of groups scattered across the beach at sunset”. San Francisco mayor criticizes ‘reckless’ crowd celebrating Burning Man Read more
8 Sept 2020 23.37 BST Georgia’s secretary of state said his office is looking into how 1,000 Georgians allegedly voted twice, via absentee ballot and in person, during the 9 June primary elections. A voter who requests an absentee ballot but decides to vote in person is required to sign an affidavit confirming that they haven’t already mailed-in their vote, and poll workers are required to confirm that county elections officials haven’t received an absentee ballot from that voter. Donald Trump, who has repeatedly falsely alleged that mail-in-voting is rife with fraud, also suggested last week that voters commit fraud by voting twice as a way to test the election system. “Let me reiterate this: Every double voter will be investigated thoroughly,” said secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican. “A double voter knows exactly what they’re doing, diluting the votes of each and every voter that follows the law. Those that make the choice to game the system are breaking the law.” Even if someone votes twice, the state’s election system is designed to catch it - and only count one voter person. Scott Hogan, the Democratic Party of Georgia executive director, said that Raffensperger is undermining voters’ trust in the system ahead of the elections. “It is clear that rather than do his job of promoting the safety and security of our voting process, the secretary of state is instead pushing the GOP’s voting conspiracy theories and disinformation, as he fights in court to make voting by mail less accessible to all voters,” he told Georgia Public Radio. Voting rights group Common Cause Georgia also criticized the secretary of state’s announcement that his office would investigate possible fraud that might at most concern one-tenth of one percent of absentee ballots cast. “Speculating about ‘potential’ double-voting is irresponsible,” Aunna Dennis, Executive Director of Common Cause Georgia. “Generating headlines that might cause voters to question our elections systems does a grave disservice – not just to voters, but to our entire system of government.”
8 Sept 2020 23.15 BST Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading White House infectious disease expert, who has been increasingly at odds with Donald Trump, stressed that a coronavirus vaccine would be unlikely to be ready “by the end of the year”. Fauci contradicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has signaled that health officials might expect a vaccine to be ready before the election. “It’s unlikely we’ll have a definitive answer” on whether a vaccine is safe and effective by the election, Fauci said at the Research! America 2020 National Health Research Forum. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that he’s also worried that the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted efforts to prevent other diseases as people skip screenings. “You can wind up getting into a situation where diseases that have nothing to do with Covid, diseases of different types, infection, cancer, autoimmune, inflammatory, they might get neglected and routine checkups that you would need tend to get neglected,” he said.
Updated at 23.51 BST
8 Sept 2020 22.53 BST A packed crowd of supporters – many without masks – have gathered and are awaiting Donald Trump in North Carolina. People arrive ahead of a Donald Trump campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Photograph: Chris Carlson/AP The state’s mask mandate is still in place, but many among the crowd in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, don’t seem to be paying it any mind. Nearly 178,000 people in the state have tested positive Covid-19, and there were more than 1,000 cases reported today – though the number of cases and deaths are slowly trending downward. While supporters waited for Trump, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door played over the loudspeakers, which made for an inadvertently dark soundtrack for a scene of people overcrowded while viral respiratory illness raged on.
“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is playing at Trump's event in NC. pic.twitter.com/If8R2iCwjW — The Recount (@therecount) September 8, 2020
Updated at 22.56 BST
8 Sept 2020 22.32 BST Local Republican official asks Trump to wear a mask ahead of president's visit to North Carolina North Carolina, where Trump is making an appearance this evening, has a mask requirement in place to slow the spread of coronavirus. Ahead of the president’s visit to Winston-Salem, NC, the chair of the local county commission, a Republican, urged Trump to wear a face mask. “It’s been ordered by the governor,” said Dave Plyler, the Republican chairman of the Forsyth county board of commissioners, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in North Carolina, do as the governor says.” Trump “is a citizen of the United States, but he is also a guest in our county”, Plyler said. “Without a mask, he could get sick, and he could blame the governor.” Recent polls have found Trump locked in a close race with Joe Biden in North Carolina. As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, the president has often sought to focus on the economy and policing rather than the disease.
Updated at 23.03 BST
8 Sept 2020 22.18 BST Kenya Evelyn reports: A 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police officers who responded to his home in Salt Lake City after his mother called for help. Linden Cameron was recovering in a Utah hospital, his mother said, after suffering injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, his intestines and his bladder. Golda Barton told KUTV she called 911 to request a crisis intervention team because her son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was having an episode caused by “bad separation anxiety” as his mother went to work for the first time in more than a year. “I said, ‘He’s unarmed, he doesn’t have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming,’” she said. “He’s a kid, he’s trying to get attention, he doesn’t know how to regulate.” She added: “They’re supposed to come out and be able to de-escalate a situation using the most minimal force possible.”
Instead, she said, two officers went through the front door of the home and in less than five minutes were yelling “get down on the ground” before firing several shots. “He’s a small child,” she said. “Why didn’t you just tackle him? He’s a baby. He has mental issues.” Police shoot 13-year-old boy with autism several times after mother calls for help Read more
Updated at 22.20 BST
8 Sept 2020 22.00 BST Today so far That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours. Here’s where the day stands so far: Trump is considering spending his own money on his reelection campaign. “ If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters today. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.” The comments come as Trump’s fundraising advantage over Democratic nominee Joe Biden has vanished in recent months.
If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters today. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.” The comments come as Trump’s fundraising advantage over Democratic nominee has vanished in recent months. Democratic congressional leaders rejected Republicans proposal to pass a “skinny” coronavirus relief bill. House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.”
House speaker and Senate minority leader said in a statement, “[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.” The police chief of Rochester, New York, resigned amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude. Prude, an African American man, died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by police officers.
Prude, an African American man, died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by police officers. House Democrats are launching an investigation of the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Democrats intend to investigate reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company to donate to Republican candidates, violating campaign finance laws.
Democrats intend to investigate reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company to donate to Republican candidates, violating campaign finance laws. Trump signed an executive order to expand an offshore drilling moratorium to include Florida’s Atlantic coast, Georgia and South Carolina. The moratorium already applied to Florida’s Gulf coast, and it was expected to expire in 2022. Some Florida officials expressed concern that the state’s tourism industry could be negatively impacted if the moratorium was allowed to expire. Trump’s announcement of the order appeared to be an attempt to curry favor with voters in the crucial swing state. Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
8 Sept 2020 21.43 BST Joe Biden’s speech in Warren, Michigan, tomorrow will make a new phase of his campaign, focused on delivering an economic pitch to voters in key swing states. Bloomberg News reports: Biden opens the new front with a campaign trip to Michigan on Wednesday, a must-win state that Democrats just barely lost in 2016. There he’ll unveil a new policy aimed at tackling offshoring -- the practice of U.S. companies basing some operations in lower-tax countries -- and hammer at what he sees as President Donald Trump’s broken promises on improving U.S. manufacturing and reducing offshoring, senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said. ...
Biden turns to economic issues as recent polls show his standing on the issue improving. It has long been the one policy area where the former vice president lagged Trump. But in several new polls, Biden is tied or within 1 point of Trump on who voters trust to handle the economy. The president has tried to attack Biden on the economy by claiming the Democratic nominee is a “Trojan horse for socialism” who is trying to “abolish” the suburbs. (In reality, Biden is not a socialist, and he is not trying to destroy American suburbs.)
8 Sept 2020 21.26 BST Emily Holden President Trump has announced a 10-year ban on oil drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina -- in a political reversal likely meant to help shore up his support in swing states. There is already a moratorium against drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, on Florida’s west coast. That ban will be extended until 2032. The drilling ban for the southern Atlantic coast will begin July 1, 2022. Just months ago, Donald Trump was planning to allow oil and gas drilling off the coast of Florida.
Now, with 56 days until the election, he conveniently says that he changed his mind. Unbelievable.
You don't have to guess where I stand: I oppose new offshore drilling. https://t.co/oxfQNIymBh — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 8, 2020 Industry officials were not expecting the decision and called it an “ambush,” according to Politico. Trump in 2017 proposed opening essentially all US coasts to offshore drilling. But Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott and other coastal leaders opposed the plan, arguing that any oil spill could jeopardize tourism and fisheries.
8 Sept 2020 21.10 BST Rochester police chief resigns amid protests over Daniel Prude's death The police chief of Rochester, New York, has announced his resignation amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude, who died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by officers. “As a man of integrity, I will not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character,” the police chief, La’Ron D Singletary, said in a statement. “The mischaracterization and the politicization of the actions that I took after being informed of Mr. Prude’s death is not based on facts, and is not what I stand for.” Singletary’s resignation comes three days after the attorney general of New York, Letitia James, announced she had moved to form a grand jury to investigate Prude’s death. “The Prude family and the Rochester community have been through great pain and anguish,“ James said on Saturday, promising to launch an “exhaustive investigation” into the matter. 02:50 Daniel Prude: video released of police using ‘spit hood’ on black man who died of asphyxiation
8 Sept 2020 20.48 BST Joe Biden’s campaign just announced the Democratic nominee will deliver remarks in Warren, Michigan, tomorrow. According to his campaign, Biden will speak about “his plan to ensure the future is Made in America by all of America’s workers.” Biden’s appearance comes one day before Trump is scheduled to speak at an airport hangar in Freeland, Michigan. The president carried Michigan by less than 1 point in 2016, but Biden has been leading in recent polls of the swing state.
8 Sept 2020 20.31 BST Speaking in Jupiter, Florida, Trump announced he was signing an order to expand a moratorium on offshore drilling to include Florida’s Atlantic coast, Georgia and South Carolina. The current moratorium on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida is set to expire in 2022. The Trump administration has generally been enthusiastic about oil and gas drilling, but some Florida officials had expressed fear that the state’s tourism industry would be negatively impacted if the moratorium was allowed to expire. Trump’s announcement seems to be an attempt to curry favor with voters in a key swing state that could determine the winner of the presidential election.


theguardian--2020-09-08--Michael Cohen book details Trump's racism and toxic family dynamic

Michael Cohen published his memoir of his time as Donald Trump ’ s fixer on Tuesday , greeted by a White House statement calling him a “ disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer ” , and a liar .
It was pointed out in return that Cohen was convicted of lying to Congress in order to protect Trump – himself a well-catalogued liar – over his links to Russia and payments to women which may have violated campaign finance law .
Cohen was also convicted of lying to a financial institution and tax fraud .
He is still serving a three-year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but now at home in New York because of the coronavirus .
Cohen beat official attempts to stop his book , and Disloyal was duly leaked , to be picked over by the Washington Post , the New York Times , CNN and the Associated Press .
Those reports revealed Cohen ’ s claims about Trump ’ s racism and hatred of Barack Obama ; his admiration for Vladimir Putin and his business interests in Russia ; his mutually beneficial relationship with the National Enquirer tabloid ; and his brutal treatment of women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 15-year-old he did not know was Cohen ’ s daughter .
Cohen also gave an interview to NBC , in which he called the president a “ cult leader ” who should resign , to receive a pardon from Mike Pence and thereby avoid criminal charges .
He also said he thought Trump would “ manipulate the ballots ” or “ start a war ” in order to avoid losing the White House to Joe Biden in November .
But other stories are still emerging from the book .
For example , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jr , a top campaign surrogate for his father , offering further detail into what was included in testimony to Congress about the president ’ s brittle relationship with his oldest child .
Cohen describes Trump confronting his son over his fondness for trophy hunting , a hobby pursued with his brother Eric Trump to the fury of conservationists and delight of political opponents .
“ ‘ What the fuck is wrong with you ?
’ Trump screamed at his namesake .
‘ You think you ’ re a big man sitting on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kill some fucking animal ?
Then you drag your brother into this bullshit ?
Why the fuck would you post photos like that ?
Get the fuck out of my office.
’ ” The president ’ s distaste for his sons ’ hunting was also detailed in Melania & Me , a recent tell-all by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff , a former aide and friend to the first lady .
According to Wolkoff , the first lady ’ s lobbying was behind Trump changing his mind on reversing an Obama-era ban on importing big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship with Ivanka Trump , a senior White House adviser , was mostly warm .
But he says Trump “ didn ’ t particularly like Jared Kushner ” , Ivanka ’ s husband , tolerating him because he will “ do as he ’ s told , with discretion , in a way that Trump can ’ t find in other advisers ” .
Cohen writes : “ The truth was that all three kids were starved for their father ’ s love … abandoned by their egomaniacal dad and humiliated when he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now all three are forever trapped in a cycle of seeking his attention.
” Donald Jr , Eric and Ivanka are Trump ’ s children with his first wife , Ivana Trump .
Cohen writes that those three children referred to his fourth child , Tiffany Trump , whose mother was Trump ’ s second wife , Marla Maples , as the “ red-haired stepchild ” .
He also describes the president and Ivanka Trump belittling Tiffany ’ s looks .
Tiffany spoke in support of her father at last month ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , whose mother is first lady Melania Trump , attended but did not speak .
Cohen quotes the first lady as saying she did not “ care what people say or write ” about her husband ’ s many alleged affairs .
“ But she knew , ” Cohen writes .
“ She knew everything , but she didn ’ t do what most wives would do and insist on the whole story.
” Disloyal also offers Cohen ’ s side of the story about hush money payments to Stormy Daniels , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Playboy model , who claimed affairs with Trump which Trump denies .
Those payments , the mechanics of which Cohen explains , are at the heart of an attempt by prosecutors in New York to obtain financial information Trump has refused to disclose .
Cohen says Trump was not concerned that the first lady might leave him .
“ I can always get another wife , ” he says Trump told him .
“ That ’ s no problem for me .
If she wants to go , so be it.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divorced the mother of his five children and who many think could run for the Republican nomination in 2024 , “ more and more resembles his father ” .
Cohen was notoriously brutal to reporters and anyone else who might damage the man he protected .
In his book , he details dreams of living like a gangster .
The White House statement released on Saturday implied he made it at least some of the way there , calling Cohen “ a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer , who lied to Congress .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies.
” Nonetheless , Disloyal shows just how close Cohen came to the corridors of power .
In October 2016 , when a tape of Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women was released , the man who made such problems go away was in London , “ catching up with some folks we knew who lived in the United Kingdom ” .
Cohen includes a picture with one such individual .
It is “ former PM Tony Blair ” .

Michael Cohen published his memoir of his time as Donald Trump’s fixer on Tuesday, greeted by a White House statement calling him a “disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer”, and a liar.
It was pointed out in return that Cohen was convicted of lying to Congress in order to protect Trump – himself a well-catalogued liar – over his links to Russia and payments to women which may have violated campaign finance law.
Cohen was also convicted of lying to a financial institution and tax fraud. He is still serving a three-year sentence, begun in a federal institution but now at home in New York because of the coronavirus.
Cohen beat official attempts to stop his book, and Disloyal was duly leaked, to be picked over by the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press.
Those reports revealed Cohen’s claims about Trump’s racism and hatred of Barack Obama; his admiration for Vladimir Putin and his business interests in Russia; his mutually beneficial relationship with the National Enquirer tabloid; and his brutal treatment of women, including a vulgar sexual remark about a 15-year-old he did not know was Cohen’s daughter.
Cohen also gave an interview to NBC, in which he called the president a “cult leader” who should resign, to receive a pardon from Mike Pence and thereby avoid criminal charges. He also said he thought Trump would “manipulate the ballots” or “start a war” in order to avoid losing the White House to Joe Biden in November.
“Donald Trump will do anything and everything within which to win. And I believe that includes manipulating the ballots,” Michael Cohen tells @LesterHoltNBC. pic.twitter.com/XtRjGivvKO — TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 8, 2020
But other stories are still emerging from the book. For example, Cohen piles on embarrassments for Donald Trump Jr, a top campaign surrogate for his father, offering further detail into what was included in testimony to Congress about the president’s brittle relationship with his oldest child.
Cohen describes Trump confronting his son over his fondness for trophy hunting, a hobby pursued with his brother Eric Trump to the fury of conservationists and delight of political opponents.
“‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Trump screamed at his namesake. ‘You think you’re a big man sitting on the rocks and then boom! You kill some fucking animal? Then you drag your brother into this bullshit? Why the fuck would you post photos like that? Get the fuck out of my office.’”
Donald Jr, Cohen writes, “left without a word, head downcast”.
The president’s distaste for his sons’ hunting was also detailed in Melania & Me, a recent tell-all by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former aide and friend to the first lady. According to Wolkoff, the first lady’s lobbying was behind Trump changing his mind on reversing an Obama-era ban on importing big game trophies.
Cohen says his own relationship with Ivanka Trump, a senior White House adviser, was mostly warm. But he says Trump “didn’t particularly like Jared Kushner”, Ivanka’s husband, tolerating him because he will “do as he’s told, with discretion, in a way that Trump can’t find in other advisers”.
Cohen writes: “The truth was that all three kids were starved for their father’s love … abandoned by their egomaniacal dad and humiliated when he openly cheated on their mother, and now all three are forever trapped in a cycle of seeking his attention.”
Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka are Trump’s children with his first wife, Ivana Trump. Cohen writes that those three children referred to his fourth child, Tiffany Trump, whose mother was Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples, as the “red-haired stepchild”. He also describes the president and Ivanka Trump belittling Tiffany’s looks.
Tiffany spoke in support of her father at last month’s Republican convention. Barron Trump, 14, whose mother is first lady Melania Trump, attended but did not speak.
Cohen quotes the first lady as saying she did not “care what people say or write” about her husband’s many alleged affairs.
“But she knew,” Cohen writes. “She knew everything, but she didn’t do what most wives would do and insist on the whole story.”
Disloyal also offers Cohen’s side of the story about hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, and Karen McDougal, a Playboy model, who claimed affairs with Trump which Trump denies. Those payments, the mechanics of which Cohen explains, are at the heart of an attempt by prosecutors in New York to obtain financial information Trump has refused to disclose.
Cohen says Trump was not concerned that the first lady might leave him.
“I can always get another wife,” he says Trump told him. “That’s no problem for me. If she wants to go, so be it.”
Cohen also says Donald Jr, who divorced the mother of his five children and who many think could run for the Republican nomination in 2024, “more and more resembles his father”.
Cohen was notoriously brutal to reporters and anyone else who might damage the man he protected. In his book, he details dreams of living like a gangster. The White House statement released on Saturday implied he made it at least some of the way there, calling Cohen “a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer, who lied to Congress. He has lost all credibility, and it’s unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies.”
Nonetheless, Disloyal shows just how close Cohen came to the corridors of power. In October 2016, when a tape of Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women was released, the man who made such problems go away was in London, “catching up with some folks we knew who lived in the United Kingdom”.
Cohen includes a picture with one such individual. It is “former PM Tony Blair”.


theguardian--2020-09-09--Biden to visit Michigan as fallout from Cohen's book on Trump continues – live

Donald Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize – after being nominated by the same far-right politician for the second time .
Christian Tybring-Gjedde , a member of the Norwegian parliament , has revealed that he has nominated the US president for the key role he has played in the recent agreement to normalise relationships between Israel and the United Arab Emirates .
Tybring-Gjedde himself has leaked the news that he has nominated Trump , telling Fox News , “ For his merit , I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for being nominated , however , is very low .
In 2020 , there were 318 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize .
The statutes of the Nobel Foundation state that nominations will be accepted from “ Members of national assemblies and national governments ( cabinet members/ministers ) of sovereign states as well as current heads of states ” , which means essentially any politician in the world can nominate any other politician .
Tybring-Gjedde says in his nomination letter that “ As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreement could be a game changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity.
” As yet , there has been no sign of this happening , with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo ’ s recent visit to the region yielding no further developments .
Tybring-Gjedde was also one of two Norwegian lawmakers who nominated Trump for the peace prize in 2018 for his efforts to bring reconciliation between North and South Korea .
At the time he and former justice minister Per-Willy Amundsen said that Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ step in the direction of the disarmament , peace and reconciliation between North and South Korea ” .
A group of Republicans from the House of Representatives sent an open letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in 2018 urging them to award the prize to Trump .
Prior to that , a previous attempt to nominate ended in mystery in 2018 when two nominations for him that year appeared to have been faked .
They were subsequently withdrawn by the committee , leading to Norwegian police contacting the FBI over it to try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Peace Prize was awarded to president Barack Obama in 2009 for his “ extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people ” .
He donated $ 1.4 million of the award to charity .
In 2013 Trump called for Obama ’ s award to be rescinded .
Other previous US administration recipients of the prize have included president Woodrow Wilson in 1920 , for his efforts in ending the First World War and help in creating the League of Nations .
Jimmy Carter received the award in 2002 , and former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2007 , for his efforts to obtain and spread knowledge about climate change .

10 Sept 2020 01.00 BST From me and Joan E Greve: Fires are raging across the west. More than 85 significant wildfires are burning across the region. In California, high, dry winds stoked dozens of out-of-control blazes that have forced helicopter rescues and evacuations. In Washington, more acres burned in a single day than firefighters usually see all year, and the fires scorched farming town of Malden. Fires also forced people to flee in Oregon and Idaho.
More than 85 significant wildfires are burning across the region. In California, high, dry winds stoked dozens of out-of-control blazes that have forced helicopter rescues and evacuations. In Washington, more acres burned in a single day than firefighters usually see all year, and the fires scorched farming town of Malden. Fires also forced people to flee in Oregon and Idaho. Mike Pence and officials from Donald Trump’s campaign are expected to attend a a fundraiser hosted by a couple that subscribe to the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory. The event is scheduled to take place in Montana. Hosts Caryn and Michael Borland shared QAnon memes and posts on their social media.
The event is scheduled to take place in Montana. Hosts Caryn and Michael Borland shared QAnon memes and posts on their social media. Trump acknowledged in March that he was trying to downplay the threat of coronavirus, according to a new book from Bob Woodward. The president told the journalist earlier this year, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump also acknowledged coronavirus was “deadly” and airborne as early as February, while publicly saying the virus would “disappear”.
according to a new book from The president told the journalist earlier this year, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump also acknowledged coronavirus was “deadly” and airborne as early as February, while publicly saying the virus would “disappear”. Reacting to Woodward’s book, Trump said he “perhaps” misled the country about coronavirus to avoid creating panic. When asked whether he had misled the American public, the president said this afternoon, “Well, I think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so. The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic.”
When asked whether he had misled the American public, the president said this afternoon, “Well, I think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so. The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic.” Biden accused Trump of betraying the country by downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. Delivering a speech in Warren, Michigan, the Democratic nominee said, “He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. He failed to do his job on purpose ... It was a life and death betrayal of the American people.”
Delivering a speech in Warren, Michigan, the Democratic nominee said, “He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. He failed to do his job on purpose ... It was a life and death betrayal of the American people.” A senior DHS official claimed he was told to stop providing intelligence assessments of Russian election interference. In a new whistleblower complaint, Brian Murphy, the former acting DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, said he was told an “intelligence notification” regarding Russian disinformation should be “held” because it “made the President look bad”. The House intelligence committee has called on Murphy to testify about the allegations later this month.
In a new whistleblower complaint, the former acting DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, said he was told an “intelligence notification” regarding Russian disinformation should be “held” because it “made the President look bad”. The House intelligence committee has called on Murphy to testify about the allegations later this month. Trump released his list of potential future supreme court nominees. The list included three Republican senators: Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. But Hawley and Cruz quickly signaled they did not plan to leave the Senate anytime soon.
Updated at 01.14 BST
9 Sept 2020 00.33 BST Chris McGreal Iowa’s governor, Kim Reynolds, is refusing to enforce a White House coronavirus taskforce recommendation to close bars and require people to wear masks after Covid-19 infections in some of the state’s cities surged. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases have risen sharply across the whole midwest in recent weeks, putting the region at the forefront of America’s pandemic. The region accounted for six of the eight states with the highest number of new Covid-19 cases by early September even as infections fell in other parts of the US previously among the worst hit. North Dakota has the largest number of positive cases per capita in the country over the past 14 days. Iowa and South Dakota are enduring the highest percentage increases. Missouri has seen more than 1,300 new cases a day on average over the past week. In Iowa, the increase was centered on university towns following the return of students to classes. By late August, two of the state’s cities, Ames and Iowa City, were enduring the worst coronavirus surges in the country. The per capita infection rates were higher than any individual country. Amid warnings that the failure to enforce masks and social distancing was likely to cost hundreds of additional lives in the coming months, the White House taskforce said in a report on 31 August that bars “must be closed” in 61 of Iowa’s 99 counties and seating in restaurants should be limited. It also recommended restrictions on the size of gatherings in the worst-hit counties, along with the closure of gyms. Iowa refuses to close bars and require masks as Covid-19 cases surge in cities Read more
Updated at 01.17 BST
9 Sept 2020 23.57 BST Jessica Krug, the George Washington University professor who made headlines around the world after confessing she was in fact a white woman from Kansas City despite having claimed she was Black has resigned, according to the university. “Dr Krug has resigned her position, effective immediately. Her classes for this semester will be taught by other faculty members, and students in those courses will receive additional information this week,” noted the university in a statement issued Wednesday. Last week, the university announced it had cancelled classes taught by Krug. Her colleagues in the history department had called on her to step down from her post, saying they were “shocked and appalled by Dr Jessica Krug’s admission on September 3, 2020, that she has lied about her identity for her entire career”. In a Medium essay, Krug said she claimed identities “that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness”. Jessica Krug: university cancels classes by white academic who posed as Black Read more
Updated at 00.05 BST
9 Sept 2020 23.27 BST Meanwhile, fires are raging across the west Large, fast-moving fires raged on across the American west on Wednesday, destroying hundreds of homes in the Pacific north-west and sending a dense plume of smoke that turned skies amber across parts of the region. More than 85 significant wildfires are burning across the west. In California, high, dry winds stoked dozens of out-of-control blazes that have forced helicopter rescues and evacuations. In Washington, more acres burned in a single day than firefighters usually see all year, and the fires scorched farming town of Malden. Fires also forced people to flee in Oregon and Idaho. “The geographic scale and intensity of what is transpiring is truly jarring,” wrote Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “What’s remarkable is that there’s so many fires,” said Chris Field, who directs the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “Even as someone whose job is to understand what’s happening, it’s really hard to keep up.” Winds fuel wildfires in California as blazes rage across US west Read more
9 Sept 2020 23.03 BST Poll: Slight shift away from Biden in Kenosha in wake of protests A poll of voters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, from Marquette Law School found that while Joe Biden still leads Donald Trump by four points, the Democratic candidate’s support is slipping slightly in the wake of protests against police brutality and a deadly shooting. The police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black 29-year-old father, sparked widespread protests in Kenosha. Amid demonstrations, a white Trump supporter was charged with shooting two men and injuring another.
Updated at 23.19 BST
9 Sept 2020 22.37 BST Victoria Bekiempis A health official hired by a Donald Trump appointee has been working to prevent Dr Anthony Fauci from talking about dangers that Covid-19 poses to children, Politico reported on Wednesday. The attempts by Dr Paul Alexander – who serves as a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) assistant public affairs secretary – were described in emails obtained by Politico. Alexander reportedly told media liaisons at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about what Fauci should discuss during interviews. Alexander opined on Fauci’s possible responses to inquiries from publications such as Bloomberg News, HuffPost and BuzzFeed. “I continue to have an issue with kids getting tested and repeatedly and even university students in a widespread manner … and I disagree with Dr Fauci on this. Vehemently,” Alexander wrote in a 27 August email, in response to a press office rundown of Fauci’s planned remarks to Bloomberg. In an email Tuesday, Alexander also told Fauci’s spokesperson that he should not advocate mask-wearing by children in a planned MSNBC sit-down. “Can you ensure Dr Fauci indicates masks are for the teachers in schools. Not for children,” Alexander reportedly said in this email. “There is no data, none, zero, across the entire world, that shows children, especially young children, spread this virus to other children, or to adults or to their teachers. None. And if it did occur, the risk is essentially zero.” Trump official preventing Fauci from discussing Covid children risk – report Read more
Updated at 23.23 BST
9 Sept 2020 22.30 BST Edward Helmore The White House coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that AstraZeneca’s decision to pause global trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine was “unfortunate” – but not an uncommon safety precaution in a vaccine development process. The UK drugmaker AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it had voluntarily paused trials, including late-stage ones, after an unexplained illness in a participant. The company said it was working to expedite a review of safety data by an independent committee to minimize any potential impact on the trial timeline. “This particular candidate from the AstraZeneca company had a serious adverse event, which means you put the rest of the enrollment of individual volunteers on hold until you can work out precisely what went on,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the top public health expert on the coronavirus, said in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday morning. “It’s really one of the safety valves that you have on clinical trials such as this, so it’s unfortunate that it happened,” Fauci added. “Hopefully, they’ll work it out and be able to proceed along with the remainder of the trial but you don’t know. They need to investigate it further.” The vaccine, which AstraZeneca is developing with the University of Oxford, has been described by the World Health Organization as probably the world’s leading candidate and the most advanced in terms of development. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University school of public health said via Twitter that the significance of the interruption was unclear. “We have no idea whether this is a big deal or not. Science is hard. This is why we have to let the trials play out. I remain optimistic we will have a vaccine found to be safe and effective in upcoming months,” he said, but cautioned: “Optimism isn’t evidence. Let’s let science drive this process.” Anthony Fauci calls pausing of Oxford coronavirus vaccine trial 'unfortunate' Read more
9 Sept 2020 22.05 BST Today so far That’s it from me on this very newsy Wednesday. My west coast colleague Maanvi Singh will take over for the next few hours. Here’s where the day stands so far: Trump acknowledged in March that he was trying to downplay the threat of coronavirus, according to a new book from Bob Woodward. The president told the journalist earlier this year, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump also acknowledged coronavirus was “deadly” and airborne as early as February, while publicly saying the virus would “disappear”.
according to a new book from The president told the journalist earlier this year, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” Trump also acknowledged coronavirus was “deadly” and airborne as early as February, while publicly saying the virus would “disappear”. Reacting to Woodward’s book, Trump said he “perhaps” misled the country about coronavirus to avoid creating panic. When asked whether he had misled the American public, the president said this afternoon, “Well, I think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so. The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic.”
When asked whether he had misled the American public, the president said this afternoon, “Well, I think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that’s so. The fact is, I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened. I don’t want to create panic.” Biden accused Trump of betraying the country by downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. Delivering a speech in Warren, Michigan, the Democratic nominee said, “He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. He failed to do his job on purpose ... It was a life and death betrayal of the American people.”
Delivering a speech in Warren, Michigan, the Democratic nominee said, “He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was. He failed to do his job on purpose ... It was a life and death betrayal of the American people.” A senior DHS official claimed he was told to stop providing intelligence assessments of Russian election interference. In a new whistleblower complaint, Brian Murphy, the former acting DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, said he was told an “intelligence notification” regarding Russian disinformation should be “held” because it “made the President look bad”. The House intelligence committee has called on Murphy to testify about the allegations later this month.
In a new whistleblower complaint, the former acting DHS undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, said he was told an “intelligence notification” regarding Russian disinformation should be “held” because it “made the President look bad”. The House intelligence committee has called on Murphy to testify about the allegations later this month. Trump released his list of potential future supreme court nominees. The list included three Republican senators: Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. But Hawley and Cruz quickly signaled they did not plan to leave the Senate anytime soon. Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated at 22.12 BST
9 Sept 2020 21.52 BST The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports: A government watchdog group asked North Carolina officials to investigate a report that Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general, pressured his employees in the private sector to donate to Republican candidates and then reimbursed them through his company. Louis DeJoy testifies before the House oversight committee. Photograph: Tom Williams/AP The complaint, filed by the North Carolina chapter of Common Cause, came after former employees of DeJoy’s logistics company, New Breed Logistics, told the Washington Post DeJoy would push them to write checks or attend Republican fundraisers. DeJoy would subsequently increase bonus payments to make up for those contributions. A DeJoy spokesman did not directly address whether DeJoy had made such arrangements to the Post, but said DeJoy had not run afoul of campaign finance laws. In a filing with the North Carolina State Board of Elections, lawyers for Common Cause noted the state sets a $5,100 maximum individual donation limit and prohibits donors from giving money either anonymously or under someone else’s name. The group asked North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, to launch a similar investigation. “Our state’s campaign finance laws are designed to protect the fundamental integrity of our elections and guard against undue influence by self-serving mega donors and special interests,” Bob Phillips, the executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. “Violations of these laws undermine public trust in our democracy and must be treated with the utmost seriousness. No one is above the law, no matter the size of their bank account.” DeJoy, a major Republican donor, was appointed postmaster general by the USPS board of governors earlier this year, despite having no prior experience at the agency. A former governor told Congress last month that DeJoy did not appear to be a serious candidate for the job and struggled to answer questions about the position. He has faced loud calls for his resignation after reports of widespread mail delays across the country. DeJoy conceded last month that a program he implemented to try and get trucks to run on time had caused delays, but offered few details on what he was doing to fix it. He also said he would not reinstall mail sorting machines that had been removed from post office facilities.
9 Sept 2020 21.41 BST Here is the full list of potential future supreme court nominees that Trump announced at the White House this afternoon: Bridget Bade, judge on the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit
judge on the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit Daniel Cameron, attorney general of Kentucky
attorney general of Kentucky Tom Cotton, US senator from Arkansas
US senator from Arkansas Paul Clement, partner with Kirkland & Ellis LLP
partner with Kirkland & Ellis LLP Ted Cruz, US senator from Texas
US senator from Texas Stuart Kyle Duncan, judge on the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit
judge on the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit Steven Engel, assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel at the Department of Justice
assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel at the Department of Justice Noel Francisco, former solicitor general
former solicitor general Josh Hawley, US senator from Missouri
US senator from Missouri James Ho, judge on the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit
judge on the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit Gregory Katsas, judge on the US court of appeals for the DC circuit
judge on the US court of appeals for the DC circuit Barbara Lagoa, judge on the US court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
judge on the US court of appeals for the eleventh circuit Christopher Landau, US ambassador to Mexico
US ambassador to Mexico Carlos Muñiz, justice on the supreme court of Florida
justice on the supreme court of Florida Martha Pacold, judge on the US district court for the northern district of Illinois
judge on the US district court for the northern district of Illinois Peter Phipps, judge on the US court of appeals for the third circuit
judge on the US court of appeals for the third circuit Sarah Pitlyk, judge on the US district court for the eastern district of Missouri
judge on the US district court for the eastern district of Missouri Allison Jones Rushing, judge on the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit
judge on the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit Kate Todd, deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president
deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president Lawrence VanDyke, judge on the US court of appeals for the ninth circuit
Updated at 22.10 BST


theguardian--2020-09-09--'Our democracy is deeply imperiled': how democratic norms are under threat ahead of the US election

Last month Barack Obama returned to the political stage to deliver a speech about the future of the nation .
He did it standing in the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia against the backdrop of a facsimile of the US constitution , which was drafted and signed in that city .
This was not the Obama of old , jacket off , sleeves rolled out , firing rhetorical retorts about hope and change that the world came to know on the campaign trail in 2008 .
This was a more restrained , somber Obama who barely raised his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He talked about how the president of the United States should be “ the custodian of this democracy ” , and how he had hoped Donald Trump would “ discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care , but he never did.
” .
He went on to warn that democratic institutions in America were “ threatened like never before ” .
Addressing weary voters tempted not to bother in November ’ s presidential poll , he told them that Trump and those “ who enable him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ … they ’ re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote , and to convince you that your vote doesn ’ t matter ” .
Then he delivered a coup de grâce : “ That ’ s how a democracy withers , until it ’ s no democracy at all.
” Barack Obama would say that , wouldn ’ t he ?
His speech was a keynote at the Democratic national convention , delivered in support of his friend and former vice-president , Joe Biden .
But you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama to hear alarm bells ringing over the health of American democracy .
Set the party politicians and their partisan screeds to one side , and you can still pick up ominous forebodings that grow louder by the day .
Leading figures in the non-partisan world of democracy reform and civil rights are articulating exactly the same concern .
Is the backbone of American democracy strong enough to resist the triple blast of pandemic , the Black Lives Matter reckoning with police brutality and racial injustice , and an incumbent president hellbent on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
“ This is a perfect storm in this country , ” said Vanita Gupta , who heads the nation ’ s oldest and largest civil rights coalition .
“ We can ’ t take American democracy for granted , as for a long time we did.
” Then Gupta , president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights , used a word not usually associated with America .
“ Things are happening on our watch that are clear signs of authoritarianism , ” she said , “ and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kids around the world are taught that the United States is the world ’ s oldest constitutional democracy .
It may not have been perfect – how could it have been when enslaved people were excluded and women only got the vote 100 years ago last month ?
– but it was there , bolstered by its legendary checks and balances , standing proud both as a clarion call to government by “ We the people ” and as an admonition to petty dictators everywhere .
But with 55 days to go before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that this cycle has veered way beyond the normal imperfections and incompetency of US elections .
Deep cracks are being prised open in the core institutions and structures of democracy itself that beg the question : is the edifice revered for more than 200 years quite as solid and robust as assumed ?
The Guardian spoke to the principals of five major US organizations that are at the heart of the movement to protect and improve US democracy and civil rights .
Though each came from distinct starting points – from racial justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic inequality – they have all arrived at the same disturbing end point : profound anxiety about the state of the nation .
“ Our democracy is deeply imperiled , ” said Michael Waldman , president of the Brennan Center for Justice , the go-to authority on all things electoral .
“ We have relied on democratic norms and expectations for years that now turn out to be very weak in the face of somebody with an authoritarian bent.
” “ A set of actors in the Trump administration and the Republican party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intention is to hold on to political power at the expense of democratic institutions , ” said Sabeel Rahman , president of the thinktank Demos .
Take two of the central pillars of American representative government : the twin concepts that there will be a presidential election every four years and that there will always be a peaceful transfer of power from one president and party to the next .
Trump has already trashed both .
In July , the US president used Covid-19 as an excuse to float the idea of postponing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his predecessors ever did no matter how severe their respective crises : not during the civil war , not in the thick of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic , not in the second world war .
In this case , Trump ’ s intervention was startling but ultimately powerless – he has no more ability to delay the election than to convert the White House into a Trump hotel .
But when it comes to the peaceful transfer of power , his capacity for troublemaking on 4 November , the day after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked by the Fox anchor Chris Wallace whether he would honor the timeworn principle that the loser concedes , and replied : “ No , I have to see .
I ’ m not going to just say yes , I ’ m not going to say no.
” That was no idle threat .
Given the vagaries of the pandemic , there is likely to be a surge in ballots cast by mail that could take days to count , giving Trump potentially weeks before a final result is known to create @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a $ 20m war chest to spend on litigation in what has the potential to be a toxic post-election period .
Trump has also commandeered the support of the US attorney general , William Barr .
In normal times , the justice department ( DoJ ) which Barr leads would be looked to as one of the hallowed checks and balances safeguarding democracy .
But as was seen during the Mueller inquiry into Russian links with the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential race , Barr has shown himself willing to cross the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ constitution .
Testifying before Congress this summer Barr pointedly declined to give assurances that he will keep the DoJ out of any contested election count in November .
“ It sounds outlandish to say that in an American election one party would refuse to admit the legitimacy of the result , but that ’ s very much where we are and all the rhetoric right now is about creating the atmospherics that would enable that kind of power grab on 4 November , ” Rahman said .
In Waldman ’ s view , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the election is asking the wrong question .
“ We are falling into his royalist mindset if we think that matters .
What matters is whether the rest of us accept the results.
” But Trump has that down too .
Over the past several months he has relentlessly sought to undermine the credibility of the presidential poll , calling it the “ greatest rigged election in history ” .
Trump claims that US elections are riddled by fraud which allows Democrats to steal victory .
The accusation has become a favorite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having been conclusively debunked .
As Waldman , an authority on the subject , put it : “ In the US in 2020 , widespread claims of voter fraud are not a charge , they are a lie .
Voter fraud is vanishing rare , as every study has shown over and over again.
” Trump , with Barr ’ s avid backing , has reserved his bitterest scorn for voting by mail , a form of democratic participation that has been used routinely by one in four Americans – of all political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year there was no significant public anxiety about this most anodyne of practices , yet look at what the polls say now .
A recent Opinium Research poll for the Guardian found almost three out of four Trump voters are worried about fraud in mail-in voting .
More telling still is that more than a third of those who intend to vote for Biden share those misgivings .
Trump ’ s precise intentions in whipping up this storm are uncertain , but whatever the motivation his efforts are working .
As we enter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost half of Americans are wavering over the very bedrock of US democracy – confidence that the ballot will be fair .
“ Distrust is being stoked and weaponized , ” Rahman said , “ and a huge chunk of the country has been primed to disbelieve the legitimacy of the result – whatever that result is.
” Deirdre Schifeling expressed the same thought differently : “ Donald Trump is not trying to win the election , he ’ s trying to hold on to power.
” Schifeling is founder and campaign director @ @ @ @ @ @ @ progressive coalition seeking reform of the US system .
A few years ago she came to the realization that there was a growing disconnect between the will of the American people and their political representation in federal and state governments .
“ I was talking to my colleagues in a range of organizations and we were sharing our frustration at not being able to make progress on our missions , ” she said .
They began to compare notes and found their experiences overlapped .
In key areas such as access to healthcare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis and policing reform , “ We the people ” were on the side of progress by a clear majority .
At the time , Schifeling was head of the advocacy arm of Planned Parenthood , the country ’ s largest provider of reproductive health services .
She could point to polls that suggested that in her field 70 % of Americans approved of the US supreme court ruling Roe v Wade that legalizes abortion .
Yet Schifeling found herself spending more and more of her time defending Planned Parenthood against the aggressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-abortion politicians .
Despite the settled nature of the law , and the clear progressive bent of public opinion , women were finding it increasingly difficult in practice to secure their reproductive rights .
She reached a reluctant and unhappy conclusion : “ Our government is not able to represent the will of the people.
” Since then , Schifeling and her peers have been looking at the causes of this dysfunction and searching for solutions .
Some of it goes back to the founding of the nation .
The US Senate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a state , now skews heavily towards relatively unpopulated rural states that lean Republican over intensely populated Democratic-leaning urban centers .
One voter in Montana ( population 1 million ) is worth 40 voters in California ( population 40 million ) .
The electoral college too is capable of distorting outcomes , as has been seen twice in the past two decades .
One of those occasions was Trump in 2016 , an election which he won in the electoral college having lost to Hillary Clinton in the popular count by 3m votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bush in 2000 ) .
On top of those foundational irregularities , a slew of dirty tricks has been crafted over the years in the form of voter suppression .
The practice is generations old , dating back to the days of southern segregation when African Americans were discouraged and intimidated from voting .
Derrick Johnson , president and CEO of the largest civil rights group in the country , the NAACP , noted that such sleight of hand used to be confined to the deep south but in recent years has metastasized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a regional problem in the South has become a national critical issue .
We ’ ve fought against it since our creation 111 years ago , but there ’ s been a huge uptick in efforts to misdirect , mislead or outright suppress the right of African Americans to cast a ballot in this election cycle.
” As Johnson indicated , skullduggery and US elections have gone hand in hand long before Trump came along .
But in the run-up to this election , voter suppression techniques are being taken to the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this level of intentional overt exclusion since the 50s and 60s , ” Johnson said .
Time-tested voter suppression techniques are colliding with the pandemic to cause severe impediments to voting .
Hours-long lines in polling places were seen in Georgia ’ s primary in June after many who requested mail-in ballots failed to receive them .
Milwaukee in Wisconsin , which has an almost 40 % Black population , also suffered huge lines in April after polling places were reduced from 180 to just five .
A Demos study found that average @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Milwaukee in that primary was 30 percentage points lower than in majority white wards .
Other sub-species of voter suppression abound .
In Florida , voters decided in 2018 to re-enfranchise 1.4 million people who had been stripped for life of the right to vote because they had felony convictions , only to have Republicans gut the reform by erecting insurmountable barriers that effectively overturned the will of Florida ’ s people .
The result is that more than 700,000 citizens , disproportionately Black and Latino , are likely to be denied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that famously handed Bush the US presidency in 2000 by just 537 votes .
The most glaring – and surreal – case of apparent voter suppression in the 2020 cycle relates to the US post office .
Under the new US postmaster general , a major Republican donor named Louis DeJoy , steps have been taken that will hobble voting by mail including the removal of post boxes from streets and mothballing of sorting machines in post facilities .
DeJoy said he had suspended the cuts until after the election , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A US president appoints big money donor to destroy the post office as ruse to prevent Americans voting .
That sounds like one of those conspiracy theories so beloved of Trump .
But you only have to take the word of one person to know there is a problem here : Trump himself .
He has openly admitted to withholding funding from the post office as a way of hampering voting by mail .
He has also been explicit about his reason for opposing mail-in voting , saying it would lead to “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d ever agreed to it , you ’ d never have a Republican elected in this country again ” .
That comment spoke volumes .
It gives an extremely rare insight into the political course adopted by Republican leaders in recent years .
“ It tells us that those in power simply don ’ t want a true representative democracy , that too many people voting in their estimation creates a hurdle , ” Johnson said .
“ Instead of seeking ways to be more inclusive in their public policy , they exclude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was alluding to the shifting demographics of the US .
When Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984 , 87 % of registered voters were white .
By this November that proportion is projected to have fallen to 67 % .
And by 2045 , the US is expected have become a minority white nation – meaning that less than half of the voting public will be white .
“ The electorate is becoming more diverse , and one group is trying to hold on to power by making it harder for Black , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Waldman said .
The consequences of this epic demographic shift , and the political response to it , helps explain the extraordinary outpouring of protests that erupted this summer across America .
The Black Lives Matter demonstrations were trigged by police brutality following the killing of George Floyd , but in a wider sense they were a howl of anger about the failures of American democracy .
“ The protests put a spotlight on the fact that for Black and brown Americans , they are already not living in a democracy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans , democracy has been a fiction and we are having to come to terms with that.
” The Republican party ’ s way of coping with the demographic shift – standing by its shrinking base of white voters while imposing increasingly extreme voter suppression on everybody else – is only likely to exacerbate that problem .
As Waldman put it : “ One of the two main parties in the United States has embraced a vision of white nationalism and is changing the rules of democracy so that others can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suppression , the intensity of the undermining of democratic norms , this is not improvisation – it ’ s a core strategy.
” Donald Trump is a master of imagery and soundbites , a skill honed during his apprenticeship in reality TV .
That finesse was on full display during his speech to the Republican national convention last month where he appeared flanked by 50 American flags .
Stunts like that raise the question , does any of this matter ?
Are these visual spectacles merely the actions of a man who craves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ signifying nothing ?
Yes , but it doesn ’ t stop with the imagery and soundbites .
His RNC stunt was staged from the White House grounds – a shattering of unwritten democratic norms that until now have prohibited the use of the White House for political rallies .
When Trump stood outside St John ’ s Church near the White House in June it wasn ’ t a mere photo op .
He had mobilized federal agents in riot gear unleashing teargas on peaceful protesters to clear a path .
“ What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” said Gupta .
“ It was an abuse of power.
” Once again Barr , the US ’ s top law enforcement official , was an accessory to the fact .
The whittling down of checks and balances goes wider than the justice department , it reaches the heart of the judiciary : judges .
Trump has so far appointed more than 200 federal judges including two US supreme court justices – lifetime appointments every one .
That will yank the judiciary in a hyper-conservative direction that in turn will distort the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As the final push to election day gets under way , Trump has set in train his most contentious campaign strategy yet – what Johnson of the NAACP calls his “ fear narrative ” .
Having invoked the specter of “ American carnage ” in his inaugural address back in 2017 , the president is now busily stoking up trouble in cities across the country so that he can then present himself as the “ law and order ” candidate who will take the anarchists on .
Cohorts of vigilantes have descended on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s endorsement of them as “ patriots ” egging them on .
He has gone so far as to defend the teenaged gunman charged with murdering two people in Kenosha , Wisconsin .
“ This president can only win by stoking fear , ” Johnson said .
It all amounts to a cumulative chipping away at the load-bearing structures of American democracy that has left our five panelists greatly unnerved .
“ I would be lying if I didn ’ t say that I am still shocked , that every few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t possibly be happening , ” Waldman said .
“ I am a civil rights advocate , I have a profound well of hope that keeps me in this work , ” Gupta said .
“ Despair is a feeling of the privileged.
” Schifeling is convinced this election marks a tipping point in America , a moment in which the country , having been jolted out of its complacency , will rebound .
“ Faith in our democracy is at an all-time low and that is very dangerous .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ”

Last month Barack Obama returned to the political stage to deliver a speech about the future of the nation. He did it standing in the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia against the backdrop of a facsimile of the US constitution, which was drafted and signed in that city.
This was not the Obama of old, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, firing rhetorical retorts about hope and change that the world came to know on the campaign trail in 2008. This was a more restrained, somber Obama who barely raised his voice and looked sternly into the camera.
He talked about how the president of the United States should be “the custodian of this democracy”, and how he had hoped Donald Trump would “discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care, but he never did”.
He went on to warn that democratic institutions in America were “threatened like never before”. Addressing weary voters tempted not to bother in November’s presidential poll, he told them that Trump and those “who enable him” were “counting on your cynicism … they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesn’t matter”.
Then he delivered a coup de grâce: “That’s how a democracy withers, until it’s no democracy at all.”
Barack Obama would say that, wouldn’t he? His speech was a keynote at the Democratic national convention, delivered in support of his friend and former vice-president, Joe Biden.
Barack Obama speaks from Philadelphia during the Democratic national convention on 19 August. Photograph: DNC/AFP/Getty Images
But you don’t have to listen to Obama to hear alarm bells ringing over the health of American democracy. Set the party politicians and their partisan screeds to one side, and you can still pick up ominous forebodings that grow louder by the day.
Leading figures in the non-partisan world of democracy reform and civil rights are articulating exactly the same concern. Is the backbone of American democracy strong enough to resist the triple blast of pandemic, the Black Lives Matter reckoning with police brutality and racial injustice, and an incumbent president hellbent on holding on to power whatever the cost?
“This is a perfect storm in this country,” said Vanita Gupta, who heads the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights coalition. “We can’t take American democracy for granted, as for a long time we did.”
Then Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, used a word not usually associated with America. “Things are happening on our watch that are clear signs of authoritarianism,” she said, “and we have to push back.”
School kids around the world are taught that the United States is the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. It may not have been perfect – how could it have been when enslaved people were excluded and women only got the vote 100 years ago last month? – but it was there, bolstered by its legendary checks and balances, standing proud both as a clarion call to government by “We the people” and as an admonition to petty dictators everywhere.
We can’t take American democracy for granted Vanita Gupta
But with 55 days to go before election day, the sense is building that this cycle has veered way beyond the normal imperfections and incompetency of US elections. Deep cracks are being prised open in the core institutions and structures of democracy itself that raise the question: is the edifice revered for more than 200 years quite as solid and robust as assumed?
The Guardian spoke to the principals of five major US organizations that are at the heart of the movement to protect and improve US democracy and civil rights. Though each came from distinct starting points – from racial justice to electoral reform and the fight against economic inequality – they have all arrived at the same disturbing end point: profound anxiety about the state of the nation.
“Our democracy is deeply imperiled,” said Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, the go-to authority on all things electoral. “We have relied on democratic norms and expectations for years that now turn out to be very weak in the face of somebody with an authoritarian bent.”
That word “authoritarian” again.
“A set of actors in the Trump administration and the Republican party have made it very clear that their intention is to hold on to political power at the expense of democratic institutions,” said Sabeel Rahman, president of the thinktank Demos.
A protester holds up a poster as he demonstrates near the US Capitol on 29 January. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
Take two of the central pillars of American representative government: the twin concepts that there will be a presidential election every four years and that there will always be a peaceful transfer of power from one president and party to the next. Trump has already trashed both.
In July, the US president used Covid-19 as an excuse to float the idea of postponing the election – something that none of his predecessors ever did no matter how severe their respective crises: not during the civil war, not in the thick of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, not in the second world war. In this case, Trump’s intervention was startling but ultimately powerless – he has no more ability to delay the election than to convert the White House into a Trump hotel.
But when it comes to the peaceful transfer of power, his capacity for troublemaking on 4 November, the day after the election, is considerable. Trump was asked by the Fox anchor Chris Wallace whether he would honor the timeworn principle that the loser concedes, and replied: “No, I have to see. I’m not going to just say yes, I’m not going to say no.”
That was no idle threat. Given the vagaries of the pandemic, there is likely to be a surge in ballots cast by mail that could take days to count, giving Trump potentially weeks before a final result is known to create havoc.
The Republican party has amassed a $20m war chest to spend on litigation in what has the potential to be a toxic post-election period. Trump has also commandeered the support of the US attorney general, William Barr.
In normal times, the justice department (DoJ) which Barr leads would be looked to as one of the hallowed checks and balances safeguarding democracy. But as was seen during the Mueller inquiry into Russian links with the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential race, Barr has shown himself willing to cross the line in defending the president above the constitution.
Testifying before Congress this summer Barr pointedly declined to give assurances that he will keep the DoJ out of any contested election count in November.
Donald Trump and William Barr on Capitol Hill in Washington DC on 15 May 2019. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
“It sounds outlandish to say that in an American election one party would refuse to admit the legitimacy of the result, but that’s very much where we are and all the rhetoric right now is about creating the atmospherics that would enable that kind of power grab on 4 November,” Rahman said.
In Waldman’s view, pondering whether Trump will accept the result of the election is asking the wrong question. “We are falling into his royalist mindset if we think that matters. What matters is whether the rest of us accept the results.”
But Trump has that down too. Over the past several months he has relentlessly sought to undermine the credibility of the presidential poll, calling it the “greatest rigged election in history”.
Trump claims that US elections are riddled by fraud which allows Democrats to steal victory. The accusation has become a favorite of Republicans in recent years, despite having been conclusively debunked.
As Waldman, an authority on the subject, put it: “In the US in 2020, widespread claims of voter fraud are not a charge, they are a lie. Voter fraud is vanishing rare, as every study has shown over and over again.”
Trump, with Barr’s avid backing, has reserved his bitterest scorn for voting by mail, a form of democratic participation that has been used routinely by one in four Americans – of all political persuasions – entirely uneventfully. Until this year there was no significant public anxiety about this most anodyne of practices, yet look at what the polls say now.
A recent Opinium Research poll for the Guardian found almost three out of four Trump voters are worried about fraud in mail-in voting. More telling still is that more than a third of those who intend to vote for Biden share those misgivings.
Donald Trump is not trying to win the election, he’s trying to hold on to power. Deirdre Schifeling
Trump’s precise intentions in whipping up this storm are uncertain, but whatever the motivation his efforts are working. As we enter the final stretch of the election, almost half of Americans are wavering over the very bedrock of US democracy – confidence that the ballot will be fair.
“Distrust is being stoked and weaponized,” Rahman said, “and a huge chunk of the country has been primed to disbelieve the legitimacy of the result – whatever that result is.”
Deirdre Schifeling expressed the same thought differently: “Donald Trump is not trying to win the election, he’s trying to hold on to power.”
Schifeling is founder and campaign director of Democracy For All 2021, a progressive coalition seeking reform of the US system. A few years ago she came to the realization that there was a growing disconnect between the will of the American people and their political representation in federal and state governments.
“I was talking to my colleagues in a range of organizations and we were sharing our frustration at not being able to make progress on our missions,” she said.
They began to compare notes and found their experiences overlapped. In key areas such as access to healthcare, worker rights, combating the climate crisis and policing reform, “We the people” were on the side of progress by a clear majority.
At the time, Schifeling was head of the advocacy arm of Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest provider of reproductive health services. She could point to polls that suggested that in her field 70% of Americans approved of the US supreme court ruling Roe v Wade that legalizes abortion.
Yet Schifeling found herself spending more and more of her time defending Planned Parenthood against the aggressive attacks of a small minority of extremist anti-abortion politicians. Despite the settled nature of the law, and the clear progressive bent of public opinion, women were finding it increasingly difficult in practice to secure their reproductive rights.
Attendees chant and march through downtown St Louis during a rally and march to protest the closure of the last abortion clinic in Missouri on 30 May 2019. Photograph: Jacob Moscovitch/Getty Images
She reached a reluctant and unhappy conclusion: “Our government is not able to represent the will of the people.”
Since then, Schifeling and her peers have been looking at the causes of this dysfunction and searching for solutions. Some of it goes back to the founding of the nation.
The US Senate, with its rigid allocation of two senators a state, now skews heavily towards relatively unpopulated rural states that lean Republican over intensely populated Democratic-leaning urban centers. One voter in Montana (population 1 million) is worth 40 voters in California (population 40 million).
The electoral college too is capable of distorting outcomes, as has been seen twice in the past two decades. One of those occasions was Trump in 2016, an election which he won in the electoral college having lost to Hillary Clinton in the popular count by nearly 3m votes (the other time was George W Bush in 2000).
On top of those foundational irregularities, a slew of dirty tricks has been crafted over the years in the form of voter suppression. The practice is generations old, dating back to the days of southern segregation when African Americans were discouraged and intimidated from voting.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the largest civil rights group in the country, the NAACP, noted that such sleight of hand used to be confined to the deep south but in recent years has metastasized nationwide. “What used to be a regional problem in the south has become a national critical issue. We’ve fought against it since our creation 111 years ago, but there’s been a huge uptick in efforts to misdirect, mislead or outright suppress the right of African Americans to cast a ballot in this election cycle.”
As Johnson indicated, skulduggery and US elections have gone hand in hand long before Trump came along. But in the run-up to this election, voter suppression techniques are being taken to the next level.
“We have not seen this level of intentional overt exclusion since the 50s and 60s,” Johnson said.
Time-tested voter suppression techniques are colliding with the pandemic to cause severe impediments to voting. Hours-long lines in polling places were seen in Georgia’s primary in June after many who requested mail-in ballots failed to receive them.
People wait in line in Atlanta, Georgia, to vote in the state’s primary election on 9 June. Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Milwaukee in Wisconsin, which has an almost 40% Black population, also suffered huge lines in April after polling places were reduced from 180 to just five. A Demos study found that average voter turnout in Black and Latino wards of Milwaukee in that primary was 30 percentage points lower than in majority white wards.
Other sub-species of voter suppression abound. In Florida, voters decided in 2018 to re-enfranchise 1.4 million people who had been stripped for life of the right to vote because they had felony convictions, only to have Republicans gut the reform by erecting insurmountable barriers that effectively overturned the will of Florida’s people.
The result is that more than 700,000 citizens, disproportionately Black and Latino, are likely to be denied the vote in November in a state that memorably handed Bush the US presidency in 2000 by just 537 votes.
The most glaring – and surreal – case of apparent voter suppression in the 2020 cycle relates to the US post office. Under the new US postmaster general, a major Republican donor named Louis DeJoy, steps have been taken that will hobble voting by mail including the removal of post boxes from streets and mothballing of sorting machines in post facilities.
DeJoy said he had suspended the cuts until after the election, but the damage may already have been done.
A US president appoints a big-money donor to destroy the post office as a ruse to prevent Americans voting. That sounds like one of those conspiracy theories so beloved of Trump.
But you only have to take the word of one person to know there is a problem here: Trump himself. He has openly admitted to withholding funding from the post office as a way of hampering voting by mail.
He has also been explicit about his reason for opposing mail-in voting, saying it would lead to “levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again”.
That comment spoke volumes. It gives an extremely rare insight into the political course adopted by Republican leaders in recent years.
“It tells us that those in power simply don’t want a true representative democracy, that too many people voting in their estimation creates a hurdle,” Johnson said. “Instead of seeking ways to be more inclusive in their public policy, they exclude people from participating as citizens.”
Johnson was alluding to the shifting demographics of the US. When Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984, 87% of registered voters were white. By this November that proportion is projected to have fallen to 67%. And by 2045, the US is expected have become a minority-white nation – meaning that less than half of the voting public will be white.
“The electorate is becoming more diverse, and one group is trying to hold on to power by making it harder for Black, Latino and other minorities to vote,” Waldman said.
For many Americans, democracy has been a fiction and we are having to come to terms with that Sabeel Rahman
The consequences of this epic demographic shift, and the political response to it, helps explain the extraordinary outpouring of protests that erupted this summer across America. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations were triggered by police brutality following the killing of George Floyd, but in a wider sense they were a howl of anger about the failures of American democracy.
“The protests put a spotlight on the fact that for Black and brown Americans, they are already not living in a democracy,” Rahman said. “For many Americans, democracy has been a fiction and we are having to come to terms with that.”
The Republican party’s way of coping with the demographic shift – standing by its shrinking base of white voters while imposing increasingly extreme voter suppression on everybody else – is only likely to exacerbate that problem. As Waldman put it: “One of the two main parties in the United States has embraced a vision of white nationalism and is changing the rules of democracy so that others can’t vote. The ferocity of the voter suppression, the intensity of the undermining of democratic norms, this is not improvisation – it’s a core strategy.”
Donald Trump is a master of imagery and soundbites, a skill honed during his apprenticeship in reality TV. That finesse was on full display during his speech to the Republican national convention last month where he appeared flanked by 50 American flags.
Stunts like that raise the question, does any of this matter? Are these visual spectacles merely the actions of a man who craves attention, full of sound and fury signifying nothing?
Yes, but it doesn’t stop with the imagery and soundbites. His RNC stunt was staged from the White House grounds – a shattering of unwritten democratic norms that until now have prohibited the use of the White House for political rallies.
Donald Trump, center, speaks on the South Lawn of the White House during the Republican national convention on 27 August. Photograph: Erin Scott/Bloomberg/Getty Images
When Trump stood outside St John’s church near the White House in June it wasn’t a mere photo op. He had mobilized federal agents in riot gear unleashing teargas on peaceful protesters to clear a path.
“What happened in Washington DC was unconscionable,” said Gupta. “It was an abuse of power.”
Once again Barr, the US’s top law enforcement official, was an accessory to the fact. The whittling down of checks and balances goes wider than the justice department, it reaches the heart of the judiciary: judges.
Trump has so far appointed more than 200 federal judges including two US supreme court justices – lifetime appointments every one. That will yank the judiciary in a hyper-conservative direction that in turn will distort the democratic system for years to come.
As the final push to election day gets under way, Trump has set in train his most contentious campaign strategy yet – what Johnson of the NAACP calls his “fear narrative”. Having invoked the specter of “American carnage” in his inaugural address back in 2017, the president is now busily stoking up trouble in cities across the country so that he can then present himself as the “law-and-order” candidate who will take the anarchists on.
Cohorts of vigilantes have descended on largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests with Trump’s endorsement of them as “patriots” egging them on. He has gone so far as to defend the teenaged gunman charged with murdering two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin. “This president can only win by stoking fear,” Johnson said.
It all amounts to a cumulative chipping away at the load-bearing structures of American democracy that has left our five panelists greatly unnerved. “I would be lying if I didn’t say that I am still shocked, that every few days I wake up and say this can’t possibly be happening,” Waldman said.
Shocked, yes. Despairing, no.
“I am a civil rights advocate, I have a profound well of hope that keeps me in this work,” Gupta said. “Despair is a feeling of the privileged.”
Schifeling is convinced this election marks a tipping point in America, a moment in which the country, having been jolted out of its complacency, will rebound. “Faith in our democracy is at an all-time low and that is very dangerous. Now the work begins on fixing it.”