theguardian--2020-11-14--How marijuana legalization made strides across the US in this election

As an election issue competing against the immediacy of a global pandemic , an economic crisis , and a renegade in the White House , the legalization of marijuana was always likely to be something of a slow burn .
Yet as it turned out , voters were more enthused about that than almost any other issue in states where drugs were on the ballot .
They delivered a unanimous mandate for recreational marijuana use in Arizona , Montana , New Jersey and South Dakota , and approved its use for medicinal purposes in Mississippi and South Dakota .
With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any form , some experts believe the campaign to advance formal policy and promote acceptance of a drug once widely abhorred by the public has reached a tipping point .
It also reflects a repudiation of the harsher elements of America ’ s decades-long War on Drugs , pioneered by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s , which saw escalating numbers of mostly Black young men arrested or incarcerated for relatively minor offenses such as possession .
“ There ’ s been building momentum towards this , ” said Robert Mikos , professor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on marijuana law and policy .
“ A change in attitudes is what ’ s driving legalization , and it ’ s interesting about why people view this drug more positively today than 50 years ago .
In part , I think it ’ s because we ’ ve come to realize that it ’ s not as harmful as we once thought it was .
People are less worried about it.
” The pace at which states have decriminalized marijuana has been swift , in parallel with shifting public perceptions of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As recently as eight years ago , no state other than California , whose voters approved the Compassionate Use Act to legalize medicinal marijuana in 1996 , was tolerant of any form of the drug .
Colorado and Washington DC were the first to approve recreational marijuana use in 2012 and since then a steady drum beat of approval of similar state statutes led to last week ’ s election and the point where 34 states and two territories now approve marijuana for use as a medicine .
Fifteen states , two territories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recreation .
It effectively mirrors Pew research from September 2019 that found 67 % of American adults believed marijuana should be legal , and 32 % disagreed .
In 1969 , Pew found only 12 % in favor of legalization and 84 % against .
The crossing point at which a majority was in favor for the first time came in the years immediately following 2010 , just as pro-marijuana initiatives began appearing on state ballots , even though organizations pushing for legalization had been in existence since the 1970s .
“ There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a difference between the recreational measures and the medical measures , ” said Mikos , author of the 2017 book Marijuana Law , Policy and Authority .
“ Medical marijuana legalization is oftentimes promoted as a drug that rather than being harmful for some people can actually improve their lives , so it ’ s a public health story.
” “ Whereas with recreational marijuana , that ’ s where you get the claims about it creating new jobs .
The sales pitch is there ’ s an economic story there .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you don ’ t want to raise property taxes or income taxes , one way to do that is to impose sin taxes.
” A New York Times analysis of the issue last week argued that political opposition to legalization measures had not disappeared , but had been driven underground by an acceptance of perceived softer drugs such as marijuana while the use of more dangerous drugs ran rampant .
“ The cultural campaigns against pot can ’ t gain a foothold when opioids today , or crack in the 1980s , seemed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Emily Dufton , author of Grass Roots : The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America told the newspaper .
Meanwhile , campaigners will have a friend in the White House when president-elect Joe Biden assumes office in January .
Biden has committed to decriminalizing cannabis use and expunging prior convictions .
“ What ’ s holding back too many people of color , in finding a good job or starting a business , is a criminal record that follows them every step of the way , ” Biden said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ equality in Wilmington , Delaware .
“ Getting caught for smoking marijuana shouldn ’ t deny you a good-paying job and career , a loan , or ability to rent an apartment.
” The push for federal reform is backed by the Drug Policy Alliance , which released an open letter from more than 100 researchers , academics , clinicians and public health organizations in support of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement ( MORE ) act introduced in Congress last year .
“ Although marijuana arrests do not always result in incarceration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drug convictions can carry significant collateral consequences that can place health and wellbeing at risk … ineligibility for social services including public housing , restricted employment opportunities , ineligibility for federal financial aid , and denial of voting rights , ” the letter said .
Such an act would face an uncertain future in a Republican-controlled Senate , and Mikos said it might not be the catch-all that campaigners would hope for .
“ Alcohol prohibition ended in the 1930s , it took until the 1960s for the last state to lift its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in Mississippi .
And you still have dry counties , we have them here in Tennessee , a lot in Texas , and other states , ” he said .
“ So even if you legalize it at the federal level that doesn ’ t necessarily mean it ’ s going to be legal everywhere .
”

As an election issue competing against the immediacy of a global pandemic, an economic crisis, and a renegade in the White House, the legalization of marijuana was always likely to be something of a slow burn.
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Yet as it turned out, voters were more enthused about that than almost any other issue in states where drugs were on the ballot. They delivered a unanimous mandate for recreational marijuana use in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota, and approved its use for medicinal purposes in Mississippi and South Dakota.
With only 15 states still outlawing marijuana in any form, some experts believe the campaign to advance formal policy and promote acceptance of a drug once widely abhorred by the public has reached a tipping point.
It also reflects a repudiation of the harsher elements of America’s decades-long War on Drugs, pioneered by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, which saw escalating numbers of mostly Black young men arrested or incarcerated for relatively minor offenses such as possession.
“There’s been building momentum towards this,” said Robert Mikos, professor of law at Vanderbilt University and an expert on marijuana law and policy.
“A change in attitudes is what’s driving legalization, and it’s interesting about why people view this drug more positively today than 50 years ago. In part, I think it’s because we’ve come to realize that it’s not as harmful as we once thought it was. People are less worried about it.”
The pace at which states have decriminalized marijuana has been swift, in parallel with shifting public perceptions of the drug and attitudes towards its legalization.
As recently as eight years ago, no state other than California, whose voters approved the Compassionate Use Act to legalize medicinal marijuana in 1996, was tolerant of any form of the drug.
Colorado and Washington state were the first to approve recreational marijuana use in 2012 and since then a steady drum beat of approval of similar state statutes led to last week’s election and the point where 34 states and two territories now approve marijuana for use as a medicine. Fifteen states, two territories plus Washington DC accept its use for recreation.
It effectively mirrors Pew research from September 2019 that found 67% of American adults believed marijuana should be legal, and 32% disagreed. In 1969, Pew found only 12% in favor of legalization and 84% against.
The crossing point at which a majority was in favor for the first time came in the years immediately following 2010, just as pro-marijuana initiatives began appearing on state ballots, even though organizations pushing for legalization had been in existence since the 1970s.
“There’s two different stories here, a difference between the recreational measures and the medical measures,” said Mikos, author of the 2017 book Marijuana Law, Policy and Authority.
“Medical marijuana legalization is oftentimes promoted as a drug that rather than being harmful for some people can actually improve their lives, so it’s a public health story.”
“Whereas with recreational marijuana, that’s where you get the claims about it creating new jobs. The sales pitch is there’s an economic story there. When you need more government tax revenue and you don’t want to raise property taxes or income taxes, one way to do that is to impose sin taxes.”
A New York Times analysis of the issue last week argued that political opposition to legalization measures had not disappeared, but had been driven underground by an acceptance of perceived softer drugs such as marijuana while the use of more dangerous drugs ran rampant.
“The cultural campaigns against pot can’t gain a foothold when opioids today, or crack in the 1980s, seemed so much scarier or more deadly,” Emily Dufton, author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, campaigners will have a friend in the White House when president-elect Joe Biden assumes office in January. Biden has committed to decriminalizing cannabis use and expunging prior convictions.
“What’s holding back too many people of color, in finding a good job or starting a business, is a criminal record that follows them every step of the way,” Biden said in July in a speech on racial equality in Wilmington, Delaware.
“Getting caught for smoking marijuana shouldn’t deny you a good-paying job and career, a loan, or ability to rent an apartment.”
The push for federal reform is backed by the Drug Policy Alliance, which released an open letter from more than 100 researchers, academics, clinicians and public health organizations in support of the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) act introduced in Congress last year.
“Although marijuana arrests do not always result in incarceration; police contact, arrests, and drug convictions can carry significant collateral consequences that can place health and wellbeing at risk … ineligibility for social services including public housing, restricted employment opportunities, ineligibility for federal financial aid, and denial of voting rights,” the letter said.
Such an act would face an uncertain future in a Republican-controlled Senate, and Mikos said it might not be the catch-all that campaigners would hope for.
“Alcohol prohibition ended in the 1930s, it took until the 1960s for the last state to lift its own statewide prohibition on sales of alcohol, in Mississippi. And you still have dry counties, we have them here in Tennessee, a lot in Texas, and other states,” he said.
“So even if you legalize it at the federal level that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be legal everywhere.”


theguardian--2020-11-14--'Truth and lies have eroded': why an artist took over a billboard at the US-Mexico border

The artist Stefan Brüggemann woke up at his London apartment last Wednesday to Donald Trump declaring he had won the presidency .
It was , of course , a lie .
“ The second I turned on YouTube , I saw him and Mike Pence declare victory , ” Brüggemann says .
It was a moment that epitomized the political climate in which the Mexican-German artist had launched his latest project , which tackles the interchangeability of fact and deception .
On the day of the US election Brüggemann unveiled two neon words – “ Truth ” and “ Lie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US Mexico border .
At six feet height and beaming in red , white and blue , Truth/Lie can be read in two ways .
When viewed from San Diego towards Tijuana , Baja California , it spells “ TRUTH ” ; when viewed from Mexico , the word “ LIE ” is framed against the backdrop of a mountainous American landscape .
Brüggemann , whose career spans several decades , seeks to highlight how the meaning of two seemingly straightforward words has been diluted in an era of political polarization and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth and lie have eroded , ” he says , “ and layers of global crises only contribute to this muddling.
” He hopes his billboard will offer viewers “ a moment of reflection ” – a “ sublime and subtle ” experience of encountering the work from either end , regardless of national or political affiliation .
Brüggemann didn ’ t set out to create a work about the border crisis ; rather , the location found him .
He initially envisioned the work with an urban backdrop , and considered New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when a Mexican curator suggested a three-story building , where Brüggemann learned someone had dug a hole from Mexico to the US more than a decade ago , he realized the setting would speak not only to the political moment , but to the more poetic idea of borders as a symbol of the “ limitations and meaning of language ” .
Speaking about Truth/Lie , he says he enjoys the location ’ s spacious and muted backdrop for the words , which he executed in an Arial typeface .
His concept was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he puts it , in laconic thinking , which he describes as “ using simple words to convey meaning ” .
He chose neon , a medium he occasionally works with , for its tension between fragility and bold visual impact .
“ It ’ s just gas and glass , but when neon is there , you can not look away , ” he says .
His original plan was to create a rapidly rotating sign that would make the words illegible – a blur of red , white and blue hues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rotating structure , however , would have delayed things , and the urgency of unveiling it on election day weighed heavier .
The 45-year-old has spent much of his career playing with words , and enjoys subverting both their aesthetic and ideological natures .
Some of his recent projects – such as in Headlines and Last Line in the Movies series ( 2016 ) , or his Beats per Minute paintings ( 2017-ongoing ) – have involved words lifted from newspapers , smart devices , films and vinyl records .
Brüggemann began his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ art school .
He later befriended Malcolm McLaren and became seduced by the city ’ s punk scene .
( Brüggemann ’ s own version of punk is scattering hidden typos in his paintings for the sharp eye to spot . )
Born to a German father and a Mexican mother in Mexico City , Brüggemann considers himself a product of the mixed sense of identity that results from globalization .
“ In Mexico , I have a very German name ; in Germany , I am considered Mexican ; and , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” And , while he could not participate in the US election , he speaks as someone who , like many around the world , is vulnerable to its far-reaching implications .
“ The whole world is watching the process because it feels like if the US fails , others will follow up .
”

The artist Stefan Brüggemann woke up at his London apartment last Wednesday to Donald Trump declaring he had won the presidency. It was, of course, a lie. “The second I turned on YouTube, I saw him and Mike Pence declare victory,” Brüggemann says.
It was a moment that epitomized the political climate in which the Mexican-German artist had launched his latest project, which tackles the interchangeability of fact and deception. On the day of the US election Brüggemann unveiled two neon words – “Truth” and “Lie” – perched on a billboard at the US Mexico border.
At six feet height and beaming in red, white and blue, Truth/Lie can be read in two ways. When viewed from San Diego towards Tijuana, Baja California, it spells “TRUTH”; when viewed from Mexico, the word “LIE” is framed against the backdrop of a mountainous American landscape.
Brüggemann, whose career spans several decades, seeks to highlight how the meaning of two seemingly straightforward words has been diluted in an era of political polarization and ideological chaos.
Stefan Brüggemann’s work Truth/Lie sits on the Mexico side of the US-Mexico border. Photograph: Andrew Roberts
“The notions of truth and lie have eroded,” he says, “and layers of global crises only contribute to this muddling.” He hopes his billboard will offer viewers “a moment of reflection” – a “sublime and subtle” experience of encountering the work from either end, regardless of national or political affiliation.
Brüggemann didn’t set out to create a work about the border crisis; rather, the location found him. He initially envisioned the work with an urban backdrop, and considered New York, Berlin and Dubai. But when a Mexican curator suggested a three-story building, where Brüggemann learned someone had dug a hole from Mexico to the US more than a decade ago, he realized the setting would speak not only to the political moment, but to the more poetic idea of borders as a symbol of the “limitations and meaning of language”.
Stefan Brüggemann’s most recent work Truth/Lie was inspired by an interest in laconic thinking. Photograph: Fabiola Quiroz
Speaking about Truth/Lie, he says he enjoys the location’s spacious and muted backdrop for the words, which he executed in an Arial typeface. His concept was also inspired by an interest, as he puts it, in laconic thinking, which he describes as “using simple words to convey meaning”. He chose neon, a medium he occasionally works with, for its tension between fragility and bold visual impact. “It’s just gas and glass, but when neon is there, you cannot look away,” he says.
His original plan was to create a rapidly rotating sign that would make the words illegible – a blur of red, white and blue hues. The technical complexities of creating a rotating structure, however, would have delayed things, and the urgency of unveiling it on election day weighed heavier.
The 45-year-old has spent much of his career playing with words, and enjoys subverting both their aesthetic and ideological natures. Some of his recent projects – such as in Headlines and Last Line in the Movies series (2016), or his Beats per Minute paintings (2017-ongoing) – have involved words lifted from newspapers, smart devices, films and vinyl records.
Brüggemann began his career in London, where he attended art school. He later befriended Malcolm McLaren and became seduced by the city’s punk scene. (Brüggemann’s own version of punk is scattering hidden typos in his paintings for the sharp eye to spot.)
‘The notions of truth and lie have eroded,’ said Brüggemann. Photograph: Andrew Roberts
Born to a German father and a Mexican mother in Mexico City, Brüggemann considers himself a product of the mixed sense of identity that results from globalization. “In Mexico, I have a very German name; in Germany, I am considered Mexican; and, in the UK, I am totally foreign.”
And, while he could not participate in the US election, he speaks as someone who, like many around the world, is vulnerable to its far-reaching implications. “The whole world is watching the process because it feels like if the US fails, others will follow up.”


theguardian--2020-11-14--'Failure is not an option': Biden's Covid taskforce ready to step up

President-elect Joe Biden has set up a 13-member coronavirus advisory board will play a high-profile role in helping the Biden-Harris administration contain the coronavirus pandemic in the US as it enters its deadliest phase so far .
“ Failure is not an option here , ” Dr Michael Osterholm , an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a member of the advisory board , told the Guardian .
“ We have to do whatever we can to reduce the impact of the virus on our society.
” The high-powered board , which includes a former US surgeon general , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , leading virologists and experts in bio-defense and the health of marginalized populations , is an about-face from the Trump administration .
Trump routinely muzzled scientists , pushed misinformation , sought to change scientific guidance for political purposes and shunted much of the Covid-19 response to states .
“ The work has been going on for months , ” said Dr Celine Gounder , a clinical assistant professor of infectious diseases at NYU Langone Health ’ s department of medicine , and a member of the advisory board .
“ The role of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picture , to have a second set of eyes on these plans to provide feedback and to be thinking big ideas.
” The coming weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic will be among the most challenging , as the US shatters records for new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations , with deaths sure to follow , and economic fallout likely .
The disease has killed 242,000 people and is claiming more than 1,000 lives a day .
The rate of Americans hospitalized has more than doubled over two weeks , and the coming holidays threaten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It ’ s important to understand virtually the entire US is becoming a hotspot , which means nothing really is a hotspot any more – everything is , ” said Osterholm .
The Biden campaign laid out a multi-pronged plan for dealing with the virus , including : • None shared guidance on reopening from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ; • None an enormous expansion of testing and production of protective equipment ; The scientists and researchers tapped by the Biden-Harris administration will work with that blueprint , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to address public trust , rampant viral spread , vaccine distribution and even novel solutions such as screening entire towns for Covid-19 , according to Gounder .
“ Really scaling up testing is a big priority , because you can ’ t really understand how the virus is spreading if you don ’ t have that kind of data , ” said Gounder .
Importantly , there is disagreement on the board – not everyone agrees on how to approach the pandemic response , and this is by design .
President-elect Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategy of his predecessor , and assembled a group of 13 of the nation ’ s foremost scientists to lead a federal response to the pandemic .
The group ’ s very appointment is a stark departure from Trump ’ s administration , which has still refused to concede or aid in a transition .
Biden has also signaled he would turn much of the federal government to face the Covid-19 challenge .
He announced a 52-member Covid-19 transition team to coordinate across federal agencies .
Trump ’ s intransigence has consequences – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will probably have to wait until 20 January when Biden takes office .
Still , as a nationwide surge of infections grips the country , the group can address perhaps its most important challenge – getting buy-in from the American people .
“ [ Biden ’ s ] single biggest challenge is going to be re-establishing trust , ” said Dr Leana Wen , an emergency doctor and public health professor at George Washington University , who is not involved in the advisory board .
She previously served as Baltimore ’ s health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be able to stop the surges and infections if half of the country does not follow his guidance.
” Overwhelmingly , those who rated the economy as their top issue voted for the now outgoing President Trump .
But those people must be brought on board to participate in public health measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing to stem the tide of infection .
“ If I could change one thing right now , I wish everyone in this country could spend just one hour in an intensive care unit , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ convince the American public of the severity of the disease .
“ That ’ s been one of the challenges – is the fact that people still think this is not real .
”

President-elect Joe Biden has set up a 13-member coronavirus advisory board will play a high-profile role in helping the Biden-Harris administration contain the coronavirus pandemic in the US as it enters its deadliest phase so far.
“Failure is not an option here,” Dr Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a member of the advisory board, told the Guardian. “We have to do whatever we can to reduce the impact of the virus on our society.”
The high-powered board, which includes a former US surgeon general, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, leading virologists and experts in bio-defense and the health of marginalized populations, is an about-face from the Trump administration.
Trump routinely muzzled scientists, pushed misinformation, sought to change scientific guidance for political purposes and shunted much of the Covid-19 response to states.
“The work has been going on for months,” said Dr Celine Gounder, a clinical assistant professor of infectious diseases at NYU Langone Health’s department of medicine, and a member of the advisory board. “The role of the advisory board is sort of bigger picture, to have a second set of eyes on these plans to provide feedback and to be thinking big ideas.”
The coming weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic will be among the most challenging, as the US shatters records for new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, with deaths sure to follow, and economic fallout likely.
The disease has killed 242,000 people and is claiming more than 1,000 lives a day. The rate of Americans hospitalized has more than doubled over two weeks, and the coming holidays threaten to make the pandemic exponentially worse.
“It’s important to understand virtually the entire US is becoming a hotspot, which means nothing really is a hotspot any more – everything is,” said Osterholm.
The Biden campaign laid out a multi-pronged plan for dealing with the virus, including:
shared guidance on reopening from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
an enormous expansion of testing and production of protective equipment;
an expansion of health insurance benefits;
a multi-pronged, logistically challenging, vaccination campaign to provide free shots;
hiring 100,000 new public health workers;
and lobbying for coronavirus economic relief.
02:41 Joe Biden: US still facing 'very dark winter' despite promising coronavirus vaccine news – video
The scientists and researchers tapped by the Biden-Harris administration will work with that blueprint, as well as look broadly at how to address public trust, rampant viral spread, vaccine distribution and even novel solutions such as screening entire towns for Covid-19, according to Gounder.
“Really scaling up testing is a big priority, because you can’t really understand how the virus is spreading if you don’t have that kind of data,” said Gounder. Importantly, there is disagreement on the board – not everyone agrees on how to approach the pandemic response, and this is by design.
President-elect Joe Biden has made a stark departure from the strategy of his predecessor, and assembled a group of 13 of the nation’s foremost scientists to lead a federal response to the pandemic.
The group’s very appointment is a stark departure from Trump’s administration, which has still refused to concede or aid in a transition. Biden has also signaled he would turn much of the federal government to face the Covid-19 challenge. He announced a 52-member Covid-19 transition team to coordinate across federal agencies.
Trump’s intransigence has consequences – the most ambitious plans of this group will probably have to wait until 20 January when Biden takes office. Still, as a nationwide surge of infections grips the country, the group can address perhaps its most important challenge – getting buy-in from the American people.
“[Biden’s] single biggest challenge is going to be re-establishing trust,” said Dr Leana Wen, an emergency doctor and public health professor at George Washington University, who is not involved in the advisory board. She previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner. “We won’t be able to stop the surges and infections if half of the country does not follow his guidance.”
Overwhelmingly, those who rated the economy as their top issue voted for the now outgoing President Trump. But those people must be brought on board to participate in public health measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing to stem the tide of infection.
“If I could change one thing right now, I wish everyone in this country could spend just one hour in an intensive care unit,” said Osterholm, as a way to convince the American public of the severity of the disease. “That’s been one of the challenges – is the fact that people still think this is not real.”


theguardian--2020-11-14--White men swung to Biden. Trump made gains with Black and Latino voters. Why? | Musa al-Gharbi

The prevailing narrative of the last five years has been that Trump seized and maintains power by appealing to the desires of white voters and men ( and especially , white men ) to preserve the patriarchy and white supremacy .
However , it seems difficult to square these talking points with the preliminary exit poll data from this year ’ s presidential race .
Let ’ s start with gender : across racial and ethnic groups , women shifted towards Trump this cycle .
In the last election , Trump won white women by a margin of 9 percentage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by 11 percentage points .
In 2016 , Democrats won Hispanic and Latina women by 44 percentage points ; in 2020 they won by 39 .
Last cycle , Democrats won black women by 90 percentage points .
This year , by 81 points .
That is , in a year when a black woman was on a major party ticket for the first time in US history , the margin between Democrats and Republicans among black women shifted 9 percentage points in the other direction – towards Trump .
Trump saw comparable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well .
Overall , comparing 2016 and 2020 , Trump gained 4 percentage points with African Americans , 3 percentage points with Hispanics and Latinos , and 5 percentage points with Asian Americans .
The shifts described in Edison ’ s exit polls are verified by AP Votecast , which showed similar movement among black and Hispanic voters this cycle .
We can look at The American Election Eve Poll to gain some additional context on this movement .
Let ’ s start with the Hispanic and Latino vote : comparing 2016 and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points towards Trump ( or , away from the Democrats ) among those of South American ancestry .
The margins also shifted 37 percentage points towards the Republican party among those whose families hail from Central America , 35 percentage points among Dominicans , 16 percentage points among Puerto Ricans , 15 percentage points among Mexican Americans and 9 percentage points among Cubans .
Indeed , this latter group actually ended up favoring Trump over Biden outright .
That is , while recognizing that these populations are not monolithic , and although Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote overall , nonetheless Hispanic and Latino voters shifted decisively towards Trump this cycle .
Similar patterns hold among Asian Americans : Filipino , Korean , Chinese and Indian Americans alike seem to have drifted towards Trump .
The trend was so dramatic among Vietnamese Americans that they , like Cubans , actually favored Trump outright .
Among Asians , only Japanese Americans seem to have shifted towards the Democrats since 2016 .
That is , minorities and women ( and minority women ) – the very people who are supposed to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have suffered most in the current pandemic and economic recession – seem to have shifted in Trump ’ s direction across the board .
In fact , virtually the only racial or gender constellation the President did not gain with are the people that are often described as his core constituency : white men .
In 2016 , Trump won white men by a margin of 31 percentage points .
In 2020 , however , he won this constituency by 23 percentage points .
Put another way , comparing 2016 to 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Biden ’ s direction this year – helping flip the election towards the Democrats , despite Trump ’ s significant gains among minorities and women across the board .
What changed in the racial and gender dynamics this cycle to produce these apparently extraordinary results ?
The truth is , absolutely nothing .
These trends have been underway for the entirety of Trump ’ s public life .
In fact , Democrat losses with minority voters precede Trump ’ s candidacy .
Over the course of Obama ’ s tenure in office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hispanic voters in 2010 , 2012 and 2014 .
Trump won in 2016 precisely of this long-running erosion .
Despite lackluster support among whites for the Republican candidate , Asian , Black and Hispanic voters continued to defect from the Democratic party – tipping key swing states in Trump ’ s direction , and handing him the election .
Contrary to the prevailing narratives , the Republican party saw continued attrition with whites throughout Trump ’ s tenure in office .
Almost all the losses Republicans saw in 2018 , for instance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As compared to 2016 , Republicans slightly improved their numbers with Blacks and Hispanic voters during the midterms .
However , the margins among whites shifted 10 percentage points in the other direction , helping Trump ’ s opposition win the House .
In the leadup to the 2020 election , the polling continued to tell the story it ’ d been telling all along : Trump was poised to see continued defections from whites , while Democrats would see continued attrition among voters of color .
The trends in the polling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question the available data couldn ’ t answer prior to the ballots being cast was whether or not Trump ’ s losses with whites would eclipse his growth among minorities ( as they did in 2018 ) -- or if minority voters would again help Trump deliver an upset despite his relative softness with whites ( as happened in 2016 ) .
Now we know .
Swing state breakdowns by the New York Times – comparing actual voting data to regional demographics -- suggest that gains with Hispanic and Latino voters helped Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gains with whites .
Republican gains among African Americans did the same in North Carolina .
In Georgia , 8 of the 11 counties with the highest shares of African American voters shifted towards Trump as well – although these gains were more than offset by Biden ’ s gains in more racially heterogenous counties .
In Arizona , Trump shrunk Democrats 2016 margins in regions with a majority Hispanic population .
Meanwhile , shifts among white voters are what flipped Michigan to Biden .
In other words , the prevailing discourse around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Shifts among minorities were responsible for Trump ’ s surprising strength this cycle , while shifts among whites are what helped put Biden over the edge in the end .
Unfortunately , the dominant narratives around gender have been just as deficient as those on race .
For instance , men did not support Trump in record-shattering numbers in 2016 – nor did women rally strongly behind Clinton .
Instead , Hillary lost because of anemic support among women .
She got one of the lowest shares of the female vote of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among women was down as compared to the previous cycles .
Had female turnout – or Democrat ’ s female vote share -- been as strong for Clinton as it had been for Obama , Hillary would have won .
Consequently , the question of why women exercised their agency the way they did in 2016 becomes an extremely important question .
In fact , it is objectively more critical than how men voted : women comprised a larger share of the electorate than men in 2016 .
Indeed , they ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cycle since 1976 .
Nonetheless , narratives about the 2016 election have overwhelmingly focused on men , sexism , patriarchy , etc .
How women voted has been largely ignored .
When discussed at all , Democrats ’ surprising weakness with women in 2016 is typically attributed to white women having prioritized their commitment to white supremacy above their commitment to feminism .
Yet , there was absolutely nothing special about Trump winning a majority of white women : Going back to 1972 , Democrats have literally never won an outright majority of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plurality twice .
White women were less supportive of Trump in 2016 than they were of the Republican candidates in 1972 , 1984 , 1988 , 2004 or 2012 ( for the reference , similar patterns hold for white men ) .
Nonetheless , white women ’ s 2016 votes are often described as being uniquely motivated by racism – despite the fact that voters were choosing between two tickets comprised 100 % of white people .
This time around , spinning such narratives will be much harder .
Yes , white women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ direction this time , unlike in 2016 .
However , Black women and Hispanic women shifted in the exact same direction .
In short , it was shifts among minority voters that helped Trump win the presidency in 2016 .
This movement among minority voters carried into 2020 – and women across the board shifted towards the Republican party as well .
Fortunately , defections among white men overrode the preferences of this growing share of women and minorities , bringing about Trump ’ s political demise .
• None Musa al-Gharbi is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Columbia University

The prevailing narrative of the last five years has been that Trump seized and maintains power by appealing to the desires of white voters and men (and especially, white men) to preserve the patriarchy and white supremacy. However, it seems difficult to square these talking points with the preliminary exit poll data from this year’s presidential race.
Let’s start with gender: across racial and ethnic groups, women shifted towards Trump this cycle. In the last election, Trump won white women by a margin of 9 percentage points. This year, he won by 11 percentage points. In 2016, Democrats won Hispanic and Latina women by 44 percentage points; in 2020 they won by 39. Last cycle, Democrats won black women by 90 percentage points. This year, by 81 points. That is, in a year when a black woman was on a major party ticket for the first time in US history, the margin between Democrats and Republicans among black women shifted 9 percentage points in the other direction – towards Trump.
Trump saw comparable gains with Black and Hispanic men as well.
Overall, comparing 2016 and 2020, Trump gained 4 percentage points with African Americans, 3 percentage points with Hispanics and Latinos, and 5 percentage points with Asian Americans. The shifts described in Edison’s exit polls are verified by AP Votecast, which showed similar movement among black and Hispanic voters this cycle.
We can look at The American Election Eve Poll to gain some additional context on this movement.
Let’s start with the Hispanic and Latino vote: comparing 2016 and 2020, the margins shifted 47 percentage points towards Trump (or, away from the Democrats) among those of South American ancestry. The margins also shifted 37 percentage points towards the Republican party among those whose families hail from Central America, 35 percentage points among Dominicans, 16 percentage points among Puerto Ricans, 15 percentage points among Mexican Americans and 9 percentage points among Cubans. Indeed, this latter group actually ended up favoring Trump over Biden outright.
That is, while recognizing that these populations are not monolithic, and although Democrats won most of the Hispanic and Latino vote overall, nonetheless Hispanic and Latino voters shifted decisively towards Trump this cycle.
Similar patterns hold among Asian Americans: Filipino, Korean, Chinese and Indian Americans alike seem to have drifted towards Trump. The trend was so dramatic among Vietnamese Americans that they, like Cubans, actually favored Trump outright. Among Asians, only Japanese Americans seem to have shifted towards the Democrats since 2016.
That is, minorities and women (and minority women) – the very people who are supposed to be central to the Democratic coalition, and who have suffered most in the current pandemic and economic recession – seem to have shifted in Trump’s direction across the board.
In fact, virtually the only racial or gender constellation the President did not gain with are the people that are often described as his core constituency: white men.
In 2016, Trump won white men by a margin of 31 percentage points. In 2020, however, he won this constituency by 23 percentage points. Put another way, comparing 2016 to 2020, white men shifted 8 percentage points in Biden’s direction this year – helping flip the election towards the Democrats, despite Trump’s significant gains among minorities and women across the board.
What changed in the racial and gender dynamics this cycle to produce these apparently extraordinary results? The truth is, absolutely nothing. These trends have been underway for the entirety of Trump’s public life.
In fact, Democrat losses with minority voters precede Trump’s candidacy. Over the course of Obama’s tenure in office, Democrats saw attrition with black and Hispanic voters in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Trump won in 2016 precisely of this long-running erosion. Despite lackluster support among whites for the Republican candidate, Asian, Black and Hispanic voters continued to defect from the Democratic party – tipping key swing states in Trump’s direction, and handing him the election.
Contrary to the prevailing narratives, the Republican party saw continued attrition with whites throughout Trump’s tenure in office. Almost all the losses Republicans saw in 2018, for instance, were due to defections by white voters. As compared to 2016, Republicans slightly improved their numbers with Blacks and Hispanic voters during the midterms. However, the margins among whites shifted 10 percentage points in the other direction, helping Trump’s opposition win the House.
In the leadup to the 2020 election, the polling continued to tell the story it’d been telling all along: Trump was poised to see continued defections from whites, while Democrats would see continued attrition among voters of color. The trends in the polling were consistent and clear.
What changed to produce these apparently extraordinary results? The truth is absolutely nothing
The main question the available data couldn’t answer prior to the ballots being cast was whether or not Trump’s losses with whites would eclipse his growth among minorities (as they did in 2018) -- or if minority voters would again help Trump deliver an upset despite his relative softness with whites (as happened in 2016). Now we know.
Swing state breakdowns by the New York Times – comparing actual voting data to regional demographics -- suggest that gains with Hispanic and Latino voters helped Trump hold Florida and Texas despite Democrats’ gains with whites. Republican gains among African Americans did the same in North Carolina. In Georgia, 8 of the 11 counties with the highest shares of African American voters shifted towards Trump as well – although these gains were more than offset by Biden’s gains in more racially heterogenous counties. In Arizona, Trump shrunk Democrats 2016 margins in regions with a majority Hispanic population. Meanwhile, shifts among white voters are what flipped Michigan to Biden.
In other words, the prevailing discourse around race seems to be flat out wrong. Shifts among minorities were responsible for Trump’s surprising strength this cycle, while shifts among whites are what helped put Biden over the edge in the end.
Unfortunately, the dominant narratives around gender have been just as deficient as those on race.
For instance, men did not support Trump in record-shattering numbers in 2016 – nor did women rally strongly behind Clinton. Instead, Hillary lost because of anemic support among women. She got one of the lowest shares of the female vote of any Democrat in decades – and turnout among women was down as compared to the previous cycles. Had female turnout – or Democrat’s female vote share -- been as strong for Clinton as it had been for Obama, Hillary would have won.
Consequently, the question of why women exercised their agency the way they did in 2016 becomes an extremely important question. In fact, it is objectively more critical than how men voted: women comprised a larger share of the electorate than men in 2016. Indeed, they’ve comprised a majority of the electorate every cycle since 1976.
Nonetheless, narratives about the 2016 election have overwhelmingly focused on men, sexism, patriarchy, etc. How women voted has been largely ignored.
When discussed at all, Democrats’ surprising weakness with women in 2016 is typically attributed to white women having prioritized their commitment to white supremacy above their commitment to feminism. Yet, there was absolutely nothing special about Trump winning a majority of white women:
Going back to 1972, Democrats have literally never won an outright majority of white women, and only reached a plurality twice. White women were less supportive of Trump in 2016 than they were of the Republican candidates in 1972, 1984, 1988, 2004 or 2012 (for the reference, similar patterns hold for white men).
Nonetheless, white women’s 2016 votes are often described as being uniquely motivated by racism – despite the fact that voters were choosing between two tickets comprised 100% of white people.
This time around, spinning such narratives will be much harder. Yes, white women actually did shift in Trump’s direction this time, unlike in 2016. However, Black women and Hispanic women shifted in the exact same direction.
In short, it was shifts among minority voters that helped Trump win the presidency in 2016. This movement among minority voters carried into 2020 – and women across the board shifted towards the Republican party as well. Fortunately, defections among white men overrode the preferences of this growing share of women and minorities, bringing about Trump’s political demise.


theguardian--2020-11-14--Republicans are playing with fire. And we all risk getting burned | Laurence H Tribe

Imagine raiding Versailles with a herd of bulls .
You probably won ’ t make it past the gates , and you certainly won ’ t wind up King of France , but you would irreparably trample the gardens and might well erode the foundation .
That ’ s more or less how I view Donald Trump ’ s current assault on the election .
Let ’ s begin with the obvious : Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States on 20 January 2021 .
As Benjamin Wittes recently explained , “ It is exceedingly difficult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States.
” I encourage interested readers to look through his analysis , which I believe is spot on .
I ’ ll quickly sum up the legal arguments .
Trump ’ s lawsuits will not award him the presidency .
To win , Mr Trump must prove systemic fraud , with illegal votes in the tens of thousands .
There is no evidence of that so far , and evidence of widespread fraud is unlikely to arise in an election that Trump ’ s own Department of Homeland Security just labeled “ the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His lawsuits are , as one commentator aptly put it , “ too absurd to be even dignified as frivolous ” .
As of this writing , he is 0-12 in court , a batting average that would shame even a little league baseball player .
His lawsuits are also mathematically useless .
He has focused on 2,000 ballots in Michigan where , at the time of this writing , Biden leads by 148,645 votes .
He ’ s challenging a whopping 180 ballots in Arizona , a state recently called for Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s short-lived lawsuit sought to shave 53 ballots off a 14,057-vote lead .
Elsewhere , the math is much the same .
Nor will any recounts move the needle .
The largest recount swing in history – Florida ’ s 2000 recount – changed only 1,247 votes .
Recounts currently under way in Wisconsin and Georgia should look more like Wisconsin ’ s 2016 recount , where the margin shifted by 571 votes .
Neither number even approaches Biden ’ s margins .
More far-fetched scenarios are , well , far-fetched .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not report to Trump , are on track to certify Biden ’ s electors in the next few weeks .
State legislatures are understandably reluctant to bypass their own constituents by certifying Republican electors , which would in any case be ineffectual and might well be unconstitutional .
And the possibility of Trump mobilizing military resources to barricade himself in the White House on 20 January is almost certainly fanciful .
Many Americans are laughing at Trump , joking that he ’ ll take the fight from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the way up to the Supreme Courtyard by Marriott .
The man is a clown and deserves every ounce of ridicule thrown his way .
But Republican leaders aren ’ t laughing .
Not even close .
They ’ re backing the president step by frivolous step .
What began with exhortations to let legal challenges run their course seems to be escalating , withMike Pompeo giggling about a “ smooth transition to a second Trump administration ” and the House minority leader saying he doesn ’ t know if Biden will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disturbing is a memo from the attorney general , Bill Barr , that opens the door for politically motivated federal investigations .
The memo lowers the bar for new investigations , allowing the DoJ to investigate “ irregularities ” instead of only “ potential crimes ” .
It also explicitly permits investigations before election results are certified , a departure from the department ’ s longstanding practice of avoiding electoral interference .
Barr ’ s memo promises a steady drip of misinformation to gloss Trump ’ s legal claims with a veneer of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials should be shocking .
Shockingly , it isn ’ t .
Republicans have spent four years engaged in a kind of performance art to stroke the fragile ego of their “ Dear Leader ” and appease his base .
This time around , Republican politicians dance on Trump ’ s command to secure control of the Senate in this January ’ s runoff elections and extend their majorities in 2022 and 2024 .
Maybe some Republicans feel stuck , unable to do anything but play along with Trump ’ s latest delusion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a bulwark against tyranny , saving them from themselves .
It ’ s an uncomfortable position , but not unexpected in a party that , data shows , has taken a hard turn toward authoritarianism in recent years .
( To Republicans bristling at the characterization : you know you ’ re tilting authoritarian when Turkey ’ s strongman recognizes the results of a US election before you do . )
Or perhaps the Republicans just wanted a distraction .
The Senate ’ s ramming through unqualified judicial nominations has been bumped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent purge of the military ’ s high-level civilian leadership , while concerning to some , has met only mealy-mouthed displeasure from Republicans committed to backing his electoral posture .
Commentators predict that Trump hopes to shield himself from future federal prosecution or selectively declassify information that undermines the Russiagate investigation with his new Pentagon personnel .
And stoking election conflict is providing cover for the White House conman to fleece his loyal followers once again .
A fundraising campaign promised to “ stop the steal ” but actually lined the pockets of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As one commentator put it Trump is orchestrating “ not a coup , but a cover-up and a con game ” .
Republicans might succeed in holding Trump ’ s base .
They might confirm a few more judges and retain control of the Senate and successfully grift Magaphiles .
But they ’ re playing with fire and we are all in extreme danger of getting burned .
History shows : “ When politicians break democracy , they are wrong to think they control what comes next.
” You ’ d think the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lesson .
After Obama ’ s election , the neo-conservatives sold their souls for tax cuts .
They welcomed birthers and bigots into their big white tent .
They expected Paul Ryan would take the Republican mantle .
Instead they got Trump .
Even the most repugnant Republicans hated him .
After Trump denigrated Ted Cruz ’ s wife , the brave senator shot back , calling Trump a “ sniveling coward ” and vowing that he would not “ go like a servile puppy dog ” and support then-candidate Trump .
Fast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the president ’ s defense after Don Jr publicly shamed “ 2024 GOP hopefuls ” for failing to lick his father ’ s boots .
Ask Ted whether he ’ s steering the party , or whether the party is steering him .
If Republicans are telling themselves that “ this time it will be different , ” that they now know how to harness the explosive cocktail of economic displacement and racial anxiety , they ’ re flat-out wrong .
Biden ’ s administration will probably be the first thing burned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delay presidential transition , Trump and the Republicans have denied the president-elect access to transition funds , barred incoming personnel from processing security clearances , and prevented Biden from receiving intelligence briefings .
While Biden and some of his senior staff know how to run a White House , they still need a smooth transition to hit the ground running full speed .
Republicans don ’ t seem to appreciate how the country as a whole could suffer .
Early stumbles in an administration can be catastrophic .
The 9/11 commission found that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevented him from hiring national security personnel , which in turn left us vulnerable to the attacks .
President Biden needs every waking moment between now and 20 January to prepare for the known challenges : a raging pandemic , a tanking economy and a fractured country .
The Republican party ’ s obstinance will amplify those threats and probably create new ones .
This election denialism erodes national security in the immediate term , too .
With America ’ s attention directed inward , our allies are worried and our adversaries are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information and permitted Russian bounties on the heads of American servicemen and women .
The harm that he is doing to the nation ’ s defenses as he draws out the election , and the even greater harm he ’ s capable of doing as long as he has his fingers on the nuclear codes and his hands on the instruments of executive power , is incalculable .
The damage he and the Republicans are doing to democracy may be even worse .
Our system requires legitimate government , which requires legitimate elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if Republicans convince half the country that “ those people that got elected were illegitimately chosen , then so must be the actions they take when they get in office.
” America has a long history of violently disobeying allegedly illegitimate governments , stretching from the Revolution through secession to the recent plot to kidnap and execute Michigan ’ s governor for “ treasonous ” Covid-19 restrictions .
Even if violence doesn ’ t ensue this election cycle – and I fervently hope it won ’ t – the degradation of democracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic self-government is not a condition , it ’ s a practice .
The colonies practiced for over 150 years before forming a union , and even then they succeeded only on the second try .
We practiced poorly for a century before unshackling our fellow citizens , and it took another 50 years of effort to enfranchise America ’ s women .
We have not been perfect , but we have constantly endeavored to embody our ideals , to ensure that government of the people , by the people , and for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation .
When we begin to doubt that government does reflect and represent the people , we begin to doubt that it ever can .
Republicans are sowing those seeds of doubt .
And if we allow them to germinate and grow , we ’ ll soon find thorny disunion where our manicured garden of democracy once bloomed .
No , the gates won ’ t be overrun and yes , the Biden administration will take office on 20 January .
But we should all worry whether that will be enough .
To @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to flourish .
Please , put patriotism above party loyalty before it ’ s too late .
• None Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University professor and professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School .
His latest book is To End a Presidency : The Power of Impeachment .
You can follow him on Twitter @ Tribelaw

Imagine raiding Versailles with a herd of bulls. You probably won’t make it past the gates, and you certainly won’t wind up King of France, but you would irreparably trample the gardens and might well erode the foundation. That’s more or less how I view Donald Trump’s current assault on the election.
Let’s begin with the obvious: Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States on 20 January 2021. As Benjamin Wittes recently explained, “It is exceedingly difficult to steal an election in the United States.” I encourage interested readers to look through his analysis, which I believe is spot on. I’ll quickly sum up the legal arguments.
Trump’s lawsuits will not award him the presidency. To win, Mr Trump must prove systemic fraud, with illegal votes in the tens of thousands. There is no evidence of that so far, and evidence of widespread fraud is unlikely to arise in an election that Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security just labeled “the most secure in American history”. His lawsuits are, as one commentator aptly put it, “too absurd to be even dignified as frivolous”. As of this writing, he is 0-12 in court, a batting average that would shame even a little league baseball player.
His lawsuits are also mathematically useless. He has focused on 2,000 ballots in Michigan where, at the time of this writing, Biden leads by 148,645 votes. He’s challenging a whopping 180 ballots in Arizona, a state recently called for Biden with a lead of 11,434. Georgia’s short-lived lawsuit sought to shave 53 ballots off a 14,057-vote lead. Elsewhere, the math is much the same.
Nor will any recounts move the needle. The largest recount swing in history – Florida’s 2000 recount – changed only 1,247 votes. Recounts currently under way in Wisconsin and Georgia should look more like Wisconsin’s 2016 recount, where the margin shifted by 571 votes. Neither number even approaches Biden’s margins.
More far-fetched scenarios are, well, far-fetched. State and local election officials, who do not report to Trump, are on track to certify Biden’s electors in the next few weeks. State legislatures are understandably reluctant to bypass their own constituents by certifying Republican electors, which would in any case be ineffectual and might well be unconstitutional. And the possibility of Trump mobilizing military resources to barricade himself in the White House on 20 January is almost certainly fanciful.
Many Americans are laughing at Trump, joking that he’ll take the fight from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping building next to a porn shop all the way up to the Supreme Courtyard by Marriott. The man is a clown and deserves every ounce of ridicule thrown his way.
But Republican leaders aren’t laughing. Not even close. They’re backing the president step by frivolous step. What began with exhortations to let legal challenges run their course seems to be escalating, withMike Pompeo giggling about a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration” and the House minority leader saying he doesn’t know if Biden will be president on 20 January.
Donald Trump is a clown and deserves every ounce of ridicule thrown his way
Most materially disturbing is a memo from the attorney general, Bill Barr, that opens the door for politically motivated federal investigations. The memo lowers the bar for new investigations, allowing the DoJ to investigate “irregularities” instead of only “potential crimes”. It also explicitly permits investigations before election results are certified, a departure from the department’s longstanding practice of avoiding electoral interference. Barr’s memo promises a steady drip of misinformation to gloss Trump’s legal claims with a veneer of plausibility.
Consciously undermining democracy by elected officials should be shocking. Shockingly, it isn’t.
Republicans have spent four years engaged in a kind of performance art to stroke the fragile ego of their “Dear Leader” and appease his base. This time around, Republican politicians dance on Trump’s command to secure control of the Senate in this January’s runoff elections and extend their majorities in 2022 and 2024. Maybe some Republicans feel stuck, unable to do anything but play along with Trump’s latest delusion and hope that the federal judiciary will be a bulwark against tyranny, saving them from themselves. It’s an uncomfortable position, but not unexpected in a party that, data shows, has taken a hard turn toward authoritarianism in recent years. (To Republicans bristling at the characterization: you know you’re tilting authoritarian when Turkey’s strongman recognizes the results of a US election before you do.)
Or perhaps the Republicans just wanted a distraction. The Senate’s ramming through unqualified judicial nominations has been bumped below the fold. Trump’s recent purge of the military’s high-level civilian leadership, while concerning to some, has met only mealy-mouthed displeasure from Republicans committed to backing his electoral posture. Commentators predict that Trump hopes to shield himself from future federal prosecution or selectively declassify information that undermines the Russiagate investigation with his new Pentagon personnel. And stoking election conflict is providing cover for the White House conman to fleece his loyal followers once again. A fundraising campaign promised to “stop the steal” but actually lined the pockets of Trump’s personal Super Pac.
As one commentator put it Trump is orchestrating “not a coup, but a cover-up and a con game”.
Republicans might succeed in holding Trump’s base. They might confirm a few more judges and retain control of the Senate and successfully grift Magaphiles. But they’re playing with fire and we are all in extreme danger of getting burned.
History shows: “When politicians break democracy, they are wrong to think they control what comes next.”
You’d think the modern Republican party would have learned this lesson. After Obama’s election, the neo-conservatives sold their souls for tax cuts. They welcomed birthers and bigots into their big white tent. They expected Paul Ryan would take the Republican mantle. Instead they got Trump. Even the most repugnant Republicans hated him. After Trump denigrated Ted Cruz’s wife, the brave senator shot back, calling Trump a “sniveling coward” and vowing that he would not “go like a servile puppy dog” and support then-candidate Trump.
Fast forward to this week: Cruz rushed to the president’s defense after Don Jr publicly shamed “2024 GOP hopefuls” for failing to lick his father’s boots. Ask Ted whether he’s steering the party, or whether the party is steering him.
If Republicans are telling themselves that “this time it will be different,” that they now know how to harness the explosive cocktail of economic displacement and racial anxiety, they’re flat-out wrong.
Biden’s administration will probably be the first thing burned. In forcing the federal government to delay presidential transition, Trump and the Republicans have denied the president-elect access to transition funds, barred incoming personnel from processing security clearances, and prevented Biden from receiving intelligence briefings. While Biden and some of his senior staff know how to run a White House, they still need a smooth transition to hit the ground running full speed.
Republicans don’t seem to appreciate how the country as a whole could suffer. Early stumbles in an administration can be catastrophic. The 9/11 commission found that delays with President Bush’s transition prevented him from hiring national security personnel, which in turn left us vulnerable to the attacks. President Biden needs every waking moment between now and 20 January to prepare for the known challenges: a raging pandemic, a tanking economy and a fractured country. The Republican party’s obstinance will amplify those threats and probably create new ones.
This election denialism erodes national security in the immediate term, too. With America’s attention directed inward, our allies are worried and our adversaries are emboldened. This president has spilled classified information and permitted Russian bounties on the heads of American servicemen and women. The harm that he is doing to the nation’s defenses as he draws out the election, and the even greater harm he’s capable of doing as long as he has his fingers on the nuclear codes and his hands on the instruments of executive power, is incalculable.
The damage he and the Republicans are doing to democracy may be even worse.
Our system requires legitimate government, which requires legitimate elections. As Senator Chris Murphy put it, if Republicans convince half the country that “those people that got elected were illegitimately chosen, then so must be the actions they take when they get in office.”
America has a long history of violently disobeying allegedly illegitimate governments, stretching from the Revolution through secession to the recent plot to kidnap and execute Michigan’s governor for “treasonous” Covid-19 restrictions.
Even if violence doesn’t ensue this election cycle – and I fervently hope it won’t – the degradation of democracy will reverberate for years to come. Democratic self-government is not a condition, it’s a practice. The colonies practiced for over 150 years before forming a union, and even then they succeeded only on the second try. We practiced poorly for a century before unshackling our fellow citizens, and it took another 50 years of effort to enfranchise America’s women. We have not been perfect, but we have constantly endeavored to embody our ideals, to ensure that government of the people, by the people, and for the people will flourish in our great nation.
When we begin to doubt that government does reflect and represent the people, we begin to doubt that it ever can.
Republicans are sowing those seeds of doubt. And if we allow them to germinate and grow, we’ll soon find thorny disunion where our manicured garden of democracy once bloomed. No, the gates won’t be overrun and yes, the Biden administration will take office on 20 January.
But we should all worry whether that will be enough. To Republican leaders: democracy needs your help to flourish. Please, put patriotism above party loyalty before it’s too late.


theguardian--2020-11-14--Is Joe Biden's win a turning point in a hard year of bad news? | Candice Carty-Williams

I ’ d describe myself as a realist .
In the past , friends have described me as a pessimist , probably because I tend to err on the side of the very worst thing happening .
When it ’ s come to 2020 , my realism has been working very hard , and my friends have joined me in that .
They don ’ t call me a pessimist any more , because actually there ’ s been very little to be optimistic about .
It has been one thing after another .
So many little hits of pain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US election , though , I was hopeful .
The part of me that has always adjusted to expecting and preparing myself for the worst was dormant .
I even surprised myself .
We ’ ve all had such a hard time , and so consistently , that bad news had become predictable .
Some part of me knew that we had to have one positive outcome from this year ( or maybe even two , with the possible new vaccine breakthrough ) .
And I think that some part of all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ live in the US , or have friends or family there , pinned on it a sense of life , on the whole , getting better .
In some way , perhaps the US election ended up symbolising the light at the end of a tunnel we never thought we ’ d emerge from .

I’d describe myself as a realist. In the past, friends have described me as a pessimist, probably because I tend to err on the side of the very worst thing happening. When it’s come to 2020, my realism has been working very hard, and my friends have joined me in that. They don’t call me a pessimist any more, because actually there’s been very little to be optimistic about. It has been one thing after another. So many little hits of pain and disappointment.
When it came to the US election, though, I was hopeful. The part of me that has always adjusted to expecting and preparing myself for the worst was dormant. I even surprised myself. We’ve all had such a hard time, and so consistently, that bad news had become predictable. Some part of me knew that we had to have one positive outcome from this year (or maybe even two, with the possible new vaccine breakthrough). And I think that some part of all of us, whether or not we live in the US, or have friends or family there, pinned on it a sense of life, on the whole, getting better. In some way, perhaps the US election ended up symbolising the light at the end of a tunnel we never thought we’d emerge from.


theguardian--2020-11-14--Why are politicians suddenly talking about their 'lived experience'? | Kwame Anthony Appiah

Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris told a TV interviewer the other day that she had promised Joe Biden that she would always share with him her “ lived experience , as it relates to any issue that we confront ” .
That sounded comforting , but should it ?
This expression has a fairly standard application among qualitative sociologists , where it comes up in work that explores individual subjectivity .
How to record and communicate “ lived experience ” has been a topic of earnest professional debate , sometimes involving appeals to the philosophical traditions of phenomenology .
Yet the future @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former vice-president to deliver the results of a technical sociological method applied to her own case .
Needless to say , the expression has , over the past decade or so , escaped the academy and assumed a somewhat different set of meanings .
At first , it tended to designate firsthand experiences that were specific to women , minorities and other vulnerable groups .
During last year ’ s Democratic primaries in the United States , one supporter of Julián Castro ( who served in Barack Obama ’ s cabinet ) was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have somebody who has the lived experience of being a brown person in this country on that stage – a dark-skinned Latino man.
” Yet semantic sprawl had already set in ; it turns out that “ ordinary people ” could be in possession of lived experience , too .
Elizabeth Warren , before her run in the primaries , said that politicians such asBarack Obama , being overly impressed with hopeful economic statistics , were blind to “ the lived experiences of most Americans ” .
Pete Buttigieg , another contender @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Trump-bashing , “ it didn ’ t seem like we were talking about the lived experience of Americans ” .
If you were the sort of person who felt estranged from the coastal elites , it emerged , you , too , might have lived experience .
And what made the phrase so powerful was the unappealable authority it seemed to represent .
As Walt Whitman wrote in Song of Myself , that most American of poems , “ I am the man , I suffer ’ d , I was there.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ – those facts and interpretations are shared and public – but not my lived experience .
Lived experience isn ’ t something you argue , it ’ s something you have .
Yet if lived experience was once viewed as a way to speak truth to power , power has learned to speak “ lived experience ” with remarkable fluency .
Consider what happened when , in the wake of the George Floyd protests , Senate Republicans set out to counter a Democratic bill for police reform with a milder proposal of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Scott , from South Carolina .
Mitch McConnell , the Republican leader of the Senate , declared : “ It ’ s a straightforward plan based on facts , on data and lived experience ” – the lived experience evidently supplied by Scott , the only black Republican in the Senate .
Somehow the lived experience of Cory Booker , the black senator who introduced a Democratic police reform bill , offered different lessons .
Experience , alas , is never unmediated and self-interpreting .
Ideology , though it can be shaped by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The twins Shelby Steele and Claude Steele – a former professor of English and a professor of psychology – draw on their lived experience to produce opposite pictures of the black American condition .
Claude has emphasised the detrimental effects of racial stereotypes ; Shelby sees the real threat in efforts , such as affirmative action , to remedy racial disparities .
Justice Clarence Thomas , a black conservative , draws from his lived experience to confirm a bootstrapping position ( If I can make it , so can you ) , just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hero of the civil rights left , could do so to confirm the need for social intervention ( I almost didn ’ t make it ) .
There ’ s no guarantee what message people will take from their experience : no guarantee that we ’ ll all be singing the Song of Myself in the same key .
When we ’ re thinking about policy , then , how much weight should we give to private experience ?
Pressed to explain what she had in mind , Harris listed some elements of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ child in the US , serving as a prosecutor , having a mother who was a teenage immigrant from India .
There ’ s no doubt , of course , that these are the sorts of experiences from which a person could learn a great deal .
And stories drawn from our own experience can be powerful ways of recounting what we have learned .
But identities are too multiple and complex to allow any individual ’ s experience to count as truly representative .
Take being black .
Harris ’ s mother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because she was studying at Berkeley , and she went on to be a university professor at McGill in Canada .
Her father , born in Jamaica , is an emeritus economics professor from Stanford .
Harris has doubtless experienced racial discrimination : in the US , that ’ s almost guaranteed for a person from an ethnic minority who spends any time out of the house .
But her upper-middle-class upbringing , not to mention the fact that she spent five years of her teens in Canada , means that being black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ someone who came from a background of modest education and means .
The point isn ’ t that being middle class means you ’ re not an “ authentic ” black person .
It ’ s that , as with all of us , her experience has been particular .
People who have served as prosecutors will be found on the left , the centre , and the right .
And the children of some Indian immigrants to the US will have voted enthusiastically for Donald Trump .
There isn ’ t a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , or an Indian immigrant experience , shared by the children of immigrants from India , or even a prosecutor ’ s experience , shared by all prosecutors .
What makes the invocation of lived experience such a powerful move – the fact that it ’ s essentially private , removed from inspection – is exactly what makes it such a perilous one .
No doubt a story about an injustice you ’ ve experienced , or a positive story about a state school or a public hospital , may be more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Still , people across the ideological spectrum will have their own perceptions of injustice , their own stories of public-sector success or failure .
And so I hope the vice-president-elect will offer , alongside her lived experience , her considered judgment .
We go wrong when we treat personal history as revelation , to be elevated above facts and reflection .
Talk of lived experience should be used not to end conversation but to begin them .
• None Kwame Anthony Appiah is professor of philosophy and law at New York University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s House

Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris told a TV interviewer the other day that she had promised Joe Biden that she would always share with him her “lived experience, as it relates to any issue that we confront”. That sounded comforting, but should it? This expression has a fairly standard application among qualitative sociologists, where it comes up in work that explores individual subjectivity. How to record and communicate “lived experience” has been a topic of earnest professional debate, sometimes involving appeals to the philosophical traditions of phenomenology. Yet the future vice-president assuredly wasn’t promising a former vice-president to deliver the results of a technical sociological method applied to her own case.
Needless to say, the expression has, over the past decade or so, escaped the academy and assumed a somewhat different set of meanings. At first, it tended to designate firsthand experiences that were specific to women, minorities and other vulnerable groups. During last year’s Democratic primaries in the United States, one supporter of Julián Castro (who served in Barack Obama’s cabinet) was quoted saying: “It is important to have somebody who has the lived experience of being a brown person in this country on that stage – a dark-skinned Latino man.” Yet semantic sprawl had already set in; it turns out that “ordinary people” could be in possession of lived experience, too. Elizabeth Warren, before her run in the primaries, said that politicians such asBarack Obama, being overly impressed with hopeful economic statistics, were blind to “the lived experiences of most Americans”. Pete Buttigieg, another contender, remarked that when Democrats were over-focused on Trump-bashing, “it didn’t seem like we were talking about the lived experience of Americans”. If you were the sort of person who felt estranged from the coastal elites, it emerged, you, too, might have lived experience.
And what made the phrase so powerful was the unappealable authority it seemed to represent. As Walt Whitman wrote in Song of Myself, that most American of poems, “I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.” You can debate my sociopolitical analyses – those facts and interpretations are shared and public – but not my lived experience. Lived experience isn’t something you argue, it’s something you have.
Yet if lived experience was once viewed as a way to speak truth to power, power has learned to speak “lived experience” with remarkable fluency. Consider what happened when, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, Senate Republicans set out to counter a Democratic bill for police reform with a milder proposal of their own, one backed by Senator Tim Scott, from South Carolina. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, declared: “It’s a straightforward plan based on facts, on data and lived experience” – the lived experience evidently supplied by Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate. Somehow the lived experience of Cory Booker, the black senator who introduced a Democratic police reform bill, offered different lessons.
Experience, alas, is never unmediated and self-interpreting. Ideology, though it can be shaped by experience, also shapes our experiences. The twins Shelby Steele and Claude Steele – a former professor of English and a professor of psychology – draw on their lived experience to produce opposite pictures of the black American condition. Claude has emphasised the detrimental effects of racial stereotypes; Shelby sees the real threat in efforts, such as affirmative action, to remedy racial disparities. Justice Clarence Thomas, a black conservative, draws from his lived experience to confirm a bootstrapping position (If I can make it, so can you), just as the late Congressman John Lewis, hero of the civil rights left, could do so to confirm the need for social intervention (I almost didn’t make it). There’s no guarantee what message people will take from their experience: no guarantee that we’ll all be singing the Song of Myself in the same key.
When we’re thinking about policy, then, how much weight should we give to private experience? Pressed to explain what she had in mind, Harris listed some elements of her biography: growing up a black child in the US, serving as a prosecutor, having a mother who was a teenage immigrant from India. There’s no doubt, of course, that these are the sorts of experiences from which a person could learn a great deal. And stories drawn from our own experience can be powerful ways of recounting what we have learned. But identities are too multiple and complex to allow any individual’s experience to count as truly representative.
Take being black. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was an immigrant because she was studying at Berkeley, and she went on to be a university professor at McGill in Canada. Her father, born in Jamaica, is an emeritus economics professor from Stanford. Harris has doubtless experienced racial discrimination: in the US, that’s almost guaranteed for a person from an ethnic minority who spends any time out of the house. But her upper-middle-class upbringing, not to mention the fact that she spent five years of her teens in Canada, means that being black has affected her differently than it would someone who came from a background of modest education and means.
The point isn’t that being middle class means you’re not an “authentic” black person. It’s that, as with all of us, her experience has been particular. People who have served as prosecutors will be found on the left, the centre, and the right. And the children of some Indian immigrants to the US will have voted enthusiastically for Donald Trump. There isn’t a black experience, shared by all black people, or an Indian immigrant experience, shared by the children of immigrants from India, or even a prosecutor’s experience, shared by all prosecutors.
What makes the invocation of lived experience such a powerful move – the fact that it’s essentially private, removed from inspection – is exactly what makes it such a perilous one. No doubt a story about an injustice you’ve experienced, or a positive story about a state school or a public hospital, may be more powerful than some abstract evocation of equality. Still, people across the ideological spectrum will have their own perceptions of injustice, their own stories of public-sector success or failure. And so I hope the vice-president-elect will offer, alongside her lived experience, her considered judgment. We go wrong when we treat personal history as revelation, to be elevated above facts and reflection. Talk of lived experience should be used not to end conversation but to begin them.


theguardian--2020-11-14--Donald Trump comes close to admitting defeat but stops short – video

Donald Trump appeared to come close to acknowledging Joe Biden 's election victory in a Rose Garden press conference .
@ @ @ @ @ national lockdown , the president said : 'Whatever happens in the future , who knows @ @ @ @ @ , I guess time will tell ... this administration will not go to a lockdown @ @ @ @ @ refused to concede to the president-elect , instead making false claims of mass voter fraud

Donald Trump appeared to come close to acknowledging Joe Biden's election victory in a Rose Garden press conference.
Discussing the possibility of a national lockdown, the president said: 'Whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, I guess time will tell ... this administration will not go to a lockdown.'
Donald Trump has refused to concede to the president-elect, instead making false claims of mass voter fraud


theguardian--2020-11-15--Judge rules Daca suspension invalid, Homeland Security head in office illegally

A federal judge in New York has ruled that the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security , Chad Wolf , assumed his position unlawfully and has invalidated Wolf ’ s suspension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ( Daca ) program , which shields young people from deportation .
“ DHS failed to follow the order of succession as it was lawfully designated , ” the US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote .
“ Therefore the actions taken by purported acting secretaries , who were not properly in their roles according to the lawful order of succession @ @ @ @ @ @ @ About 650,000 people are part of Daca , which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to legally work and shields them from deportation Karen Tumlin , an attorney who represented a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits that challenged Wolf ’ s authority , called the ruling “ another win for Daca recipients and those who have been waiting years to apply for the program for the first time ” .
Wolf issued a memorandum in July effectively suspending Daca pending review by DHS .
A month earlier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Donald Trump failed to follow rule-making procedures when he tried to end the program , but the justices kept a window open for him to try again .
In August the Government Accountability Office , a bipartisan congressional watchdog , said Wolf and his acting deputy , Ken Cuccinelli , were improperly serving and ineligible to run the agency under the Vacancies Reform Act .
The two have been at the forefront of administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement .
Wolf is the fifth person to serve as homeland security secretary under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , while George W Bush and Barack Obama each had three people in the job over the course of their two presidential terms .
Wolf was named to the post only after two of the president ’ s preferred candidates were ruled ineligible to take up the job .
Since being appointed to the role , Wolf has overseen the controversial deployment of federal agents to quell Black Lives Matter protests in Portland , as well as denying hat there was a problem with systemic racism in US law enforcement .
He has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while overseeing the implementation of extreme immigration restrictions the White House claimed would stem the spread of coronavirus .
In Garaufis ’ s ruling on Saturday , the judge wrote that DHS did not follow an order of succession established when then-secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019 .
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling .

A federal judge in New York has ruled that the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, assumed his position unlawfully and has invalidated Wolf’s suspension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which shields young people from deportation.
“DHS failed to follow the order of succession as it was lawfully designated,” the US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis wrote.
“Therefore the actions taken by purported acting secretaries, who were not properly in their roles according to the lawful order of succession, were taken without legal authority.”
About 650,000 people are part of Daca, which allows young immigrants who were brought to the country as children to legally work and shields them from deportation.
Karen Tumlin, an attorney who represented a plaintiff in one of two lawsuits that challenged Wolf’s authority, called the ruling “another win for Daca recipients and those who have been waiting years to apply for the program for the first time”.
Wolf issued a memorandum in July effectively suspending Daca pending review by DHS. A month earlier the US supreme court had ruled that Donald Trump failed to follow rule-making procedures when he tried to end the program, but the justices kept a window open for him to try again.
In August the Government Accountability Office, a bipartisan congressional watchdog, said Wolf and his acting deputy, Ken Cuccinelli, were improperly serving and ineligible to run the agency under the Vacancies Reform Act. The two have been at the forefront of administration initiatives on immigration and law enforcement.
Wolf is the fifth person to serve as homeland security secretary under Trump in an acting or confirmed capacity, while George W Bush and Barack Obama each had three people in the job over the course of their two presidential terms. Wolf was named to the post only after two of the president’s preferred candidates were ruled ineligible to take up the job.
Since being appointed to the role, Wolf has overseen the controversial deployment of federal agents to quell Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, as well as denying that there was a problem with systemic racism in US law enforcement. He has also downplayed the threat of Covid-19, while overseeing the implementation of extreme immigration restrictions the White House claimed would stem the spread of coronavirus.
In Garaufis’s ruling on Saturday, the judge wrote that DHS did not follow an order of succession established when then-secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned in April 2019.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.


theguardian--2020-11-15--Million Maga March: Trump fans rage against dying of the light

Jerry Babb and Robert Beckner stood on a brick pedestal and looked on at a crowd of tens of thousands , gathered by the Freedom Plaza for the Million Maga March .
“ America is beautiful , ” Babb said , a sea of Trump flags in front of him .
“ And America is back.
” The crowd sang the national anthem , sporadically erupting in cheers for the president .
The rally began at the Freedom Plaza on Saturday morning , and would culminate in a crowd of hundreds and thousands by late afternoon .
A large number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their support for Donald Trump , from as far as Los Angeles and Seattle .
One group , with the banner “ Korean Americans Support 2020 President Trump ” , said they came in from South Korea for the election and had showed up to support their man again on Saturday .
Craig Johnson , who had driven 14 hours from Florida , was giving out dollar bills featuring a photo of Melania Trump .
“ Isn ’ t she gorgeous ?
” he said to protesters walking by .
“ That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want this nightmare to end , ” he told the Guardian .
“ I haven ’ t slept much since the election because I ’ m sad that Donald Trump is not our president .
He ’ s gon na be our president though.
” Johnson wasn ’ t the only one with such strong belief in Trump ’ s claims , made without evidence , that the election was rigged – and in his refusal to concede to Joe Biden after all major media organisations called the race for the Democrat , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Babb , 60 , said Trump was the best president he ’ d ever had , one who “ did everything he said he would ” .
Beckner added that he has started a petition for a recount and already had 18,000 signatures .
He was confident a recount would happen , and that Trump would “ absolutely ” emerge as the winner .
Many supporters were fueled by a combination of mistrust of state ballot counts and the media , and a conviction that Trump had , in fact , won the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being reported .
Stevan Roknic , who had come from Hobart , Indiana , said it was “ mysterious ” how Trump had been reported to have lost the election .
“ Trump was winning , he had the election in a landslide , ” Roknic said .
“ And then in the middle of the night they stopped doing the count , and mysteriously all these votes showed up for Joe Biden .
I don ’ t buy it.
” Roknic , among others , said he believed the coronavirus pandemic was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in turning the election to the Democrats .
There was a heavy presence of minority groups , mainly Asian Americans .
But Alexandira Juarez , from Buxton , Maine , wore a “ Latinas for Trump ” t-shirt and said : “ I absolutely love Trump and what he ’ s done for this country , and he got robbed from four more years.
” Asked about the issue of child separation , one of the most controversial of Trump ’ s policies , and which predominantly affected Latin American migrants at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t believe they were actually separated .
Tony Capo , an Egyptian American pharmacy student from New York , said he was attending the rally just to support an election audit .
He went from being a Democrat in 2016 to supporting Trump this time .
“ We just want an audit for the vote , I ’ m not trying to say there is voter fraud necessarily , ” he said .
“ But the fact that some high officials are denying an audit , is ludicrous.
” A Muslim , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and racism , and that Trump ’ s Muslim ban wasn ’ t a ban against Muslims , but happened to be concern countries with large Muslim populations .
As he spoke , the crowd behind him broke into a “ Four More Years !
” chant .
Capo cheered them on .
Dennis and Mikami Lam , a Hongkonger American couple , had come from Los Angeles .
They were celebrating outside the supreme court because of Trump ’ s policy towards China , which they said was beneficial for Hong Kong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thronged outside the supreme court , where they were met by a crowd of counter-protesters .
The two groups were separated by a barricade and law enforcement officers , but still briefly collided after rumors spread that members of the Proud Boys extremist group were present .
Some supporters were seen cheering for Proud Boys and wearing Proud Boys hats .
The Guardian could not independently verify if people wearing Proud Boys gear were actually from the group .
The crowd contained people from a range of backgrounds and communities .
Some screamed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all smiles , in the capital merely to celebrate .

Jerry Babb and Robert Beckner stood on a brick pedestal and looked on at a crowd of tens of thousands, gathered by the Freedom Plaza for the Million Maga March.
“America is beautiful,” Babb said, a sea of Trump flags in front of him. “And America is back.”
The crowd sang the national anthem, sporadically erupting in cheers for the president. The rally began at the Freedom Plaza on Saturday morning, and would culminate in a crowd of hundreds and thousands by late afternoon.
A large number of protesters had travelled cross-country to show their support for Donald Trump, from as far as Los Angeles and Seattle. One group, with the banner “Korean Americans Support 2020 President Trump”, said they came in from South Korea for the election and had showed up to support their man again on Saturday.
Craig Johnson, who had driven 14 hours from Florida, was giving out dollar bills featuring a photo of Melania Trump.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?” he said to protesters walking by. “That’s my first lady.”
“I want this nightmare to end,” he told the Guardian. “I haven’t slept much since the election because I’m sad that Donald Trump is not our president. He’s gonna be our president though.”
Johnson wasn’t the only one with such strong belief in Trump’s claims, made without evidence, that the election was rigged – and in his refusal to concede to Joe Biden after all major media organisations called the race for the Democrat, by 306-232 in the electoral college.
‘America is back’: Jerry Babb and Robert Beckner. Photograph: Samira Sadeque/The Guardian
Babb, 60, said Trump was the best president he’d ever had, one who “did everything he said he would”.
Beckner added that he had started a petition for a recount and already had 18,000 signatures. He was confident a recount would happen, and that Trump would “absolutely” emerge as the winner.
Many supporters were fueled by a combination of mistrust of state ballot counts and the media, and a conviction that Trump had, in fact, won the presidency – it just wasn’t being reported. Stevan Roknic, who had come from Hobart, Indiana, said it was “mysterious” how Trump had been reported to have lost the election.
“Trump was winning, he had the election in a landslide,” Roknic said. “And then in the middle of the night they stopped doing the count, and mysteriously all these votes showed up for Joe Biden. I don’t buy it.”
Roknic, among others, said he believed the coronavirus pandemic was “orchestrated” and had a role in turning the election to the Democrats.
There was a heavy presence of minority groups, mainly Asian Americans. But Alexandria Juarez, from Buxton, Maine, wore a “Latinas for Trump” T-shirt and said: “I absolutely love Trump and what he’s done for this country, and he got robbed from four more years.”
Asked about the issue of child separation, one of the most controversial of Trump’s policies, and which predominantly affected Latin American migrants at the southern border, Juarez said she didn’t believe they were actually separated.
Tony Capo, an Egyptian American pharmacy student from New York, said he was attending the rally just to support an election audit. He went from being a Democrat in 2016 to supporting Trump this time.
“We just want an audit for the vote, I’m not trying to say there is voter fraud necessarily,” he said. “But the fact that some high officials are denying an audit, is ludicrous.”
Craig Johnson drove 14 hours to hand out dollar bills featuring an image of Melania Trump. Photograph: Samira Sadeque/The Guardian
A Muslim, he said Trump had condemned white supremacists and racism, and that Trump’s Muslim ban wasn’t a ban against Muslims, but happened to be concern countries with large Muslim populations. As he spoke, the crowd behind him broke into a “Four More Years!” chant. Capo cheered them on.
Dennis and Mikami Lam, a Hongkonger American couple, had come from Los Angeles. They were celebrating outside the supreme court because of Trump’s policy towards China, which they said was beneficial for Hong Kong.
00:57 Donald Trump motorcade drives by supporters protesting US election results – video
By late afternoon, Trump supporters thronged outside the supreme court, where they were met by a crowd of counter-protesters. The two groups were separated by a barricade and law enforcement officers, but still briefly collided after rumors spread that members of the Proud Boys extremist group were present. Some supporters were seen cheering for Proud Boys and wearing Proud Boys hats. The Guardian could not independently verify if people wearing Proud Boys gear were actually from the group.
The crowd contained people from a range of backgrounds and communities. Some screamed obscenities at counter-protesters. But some were all smiles, in the capital merely to celebrate.