theguardian--2020-10-24--'How do we become a serious people again?' Dave Eggers, Annie Proulx and more on the 2020 election

In January , 2017 , the day after being sworn in as president of the United States , Donald Trump directed the interior department to help lie about the size of the crowd who turned out to witness him rave about “ American carnage ” .
I read the news in a state of stunned disbelief .
Since then , few weeks have passed without some escalating offence coming from the White House .
Four years of sadness , horror , and trauma : We ’ ve all been broken by it .
In these four years , I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not have imagined witnessing in my country .
The president has stoked paranoid conspiracy theories .
The president has championed division and hatred and violence .
The president repeatedly attacks basic decency and violates the constitution .
The president is actively working to undermine public trust in the election .
Each new day brings some impossible outrage that I have habituated to , changed by the daily horrors in ways I can no longer see .
As Yeats captured it , in another time of civil war : I ’ m afraid this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breaking point .
I see the polls but take no comfort in them .
The president ’ s plans to subvert the vote are forming up in plain sight , as open and obvious as all the other high crimes and misdemeanours that he has already gotten away with .
Maybe the vote will yield the results that all the polls predict .
Maybe the president will leave office peacefully , without ordering his supporters into the street .
( It would be the first such conciliatory act of his life . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ best possible course , an uncontested Biden victory won ’ t save us : for four years , 40 % of the country has unwaveringly backed Trump ’ s every assault against civic life , and the once-great party that has enabled him at every turn shows no sign of repudiation , even now .
It will take decades to heal the deep wounds .
One thing is certain , though : Trump ’ s re-election would maim the US beyond recovering .
A considerable majority of Americans now know that , too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst , but I take my slender hope from our great poet of democracy , Walt Whitman , writing over a century and a half ago , in the middle of the war for the nation ’ s soul that we ’ re somehow still fighting : When I was young I thought American capitalism and democracy were equal working partners .
Years passed and I saw the democracy of the United States with its banners of equality and justice was an illusory ideal and there was partnership only when capitalism found it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ached with ecological grief to see the natural world torn and burned at accelerating speed .
Melting ice , flaming forests , catastrophe-size storms and floods , species extinctions – these were proofs that we irrational and egotistic humans had set forces in motion that were retooling the workings of the Earth and would send many species , possibly including ourselves , to the extinction chamber .
I believed the rumbling climate shift caused an invisible , unspoken malaise in people the world over .
Something was wrong and they felt it in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ice , among the lianas , in thin high air , even in denying cities .
Climate crisis exposed the bad wiring in the human brain .
I saw Trump ’ s election as more evidence of ecological derangement .
People may have sensed that their god-given right to wrest a share of wealth from the natural world ( the source of every fortune ) was passing from “ unlikely ” to “ sorry , it ’ s over ” .
An immediate assault on natural resources could be a last chance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ businessman ” , would lead the way : to force , to grab and get by any means .
To win !
And so colourful and energetic he seemed an extension of Friday night football .
I was afraid then and I am afraid now .
The last four years have been a stress-building mix of anger , sorrow , loss , disgust , evil wishes and fear .
Not a generalised fear but a multiple-barbed hook of unemployment , Covid-19 pandemic , oil drilling , naked racism , people at one another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ catalyst in this cauldron of miseries .
Take him out of the mix and we have a chance .
I had a history professor long ago who came from the Pennsylvania coal fields .
One day , following a discussion of European political power and how multiple smaller factions are funnelled into two gargantuan opposing sides , he looked out at the class and in a hard voice said “ You don ’ t know how quickly left can flip to right.
” Now I know .
Less than four years .
Last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man who may or may not have still been contagious with a deadly virus , danced to the Village People ’ s “ YMCA ” in front of thousands of closely packed supporters at rallies in Pennsylvania and Florida .
The same week , Americans won five Nobel prizes .
The dichotomy of American life has never been starker .
We still have enlightened humans inhabiting our land , thinking profound thoughts in labs and universities , even though in most other ways we ’ ve become the world ’ s silliest people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long been a maxim that says : “ Anyone can grow up to be president.
” The idea is that from humble beginnings , anyone can rise to the highest office in the nation .
Over the years , though , this egalitarian notion has been bastardised to the point where in 2016 , 60 million people thought a reality TV star , with not a day ’ s experience at governing at any level , could lead the most powerful country on Earth .
It followed a prankish pattern that begins in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often half-hearted attempt to expose students to democratic processes , every school holds their own elections .
And because teenagers tend to disdain anyone who actually wants to be elected – think of Tracy Flick in Election – high schoolers tend to vote for the least qualified , least serious person possible .
In my own high school , we elected a guy who otherwise would have flunked out .
He had no platform and didn ’ t want the job .
“ If I wasn ’ t class president , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have expelled me.
” In 2016 , Hillary Clinton was Flick , and Trump was the least qualified candidate .
His supporters thought it would be hilarious , demented and disruptive – thank you , Silicon Valley – to elect a person who hated government to be the one to lead the government .
Everyone knew Trump was a racist , a draft-dodger , a sexual predator and a tax avoider with nothing approaching a presidential temperament , and still they rolled the dice .
A T-shirt vendor I interviewed at a Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ I wanted to see the guy fuck shit up.
” In the wake of the Trump administration ’ s breathtakingly incompetent pandemic response , at least some voters have sobered up enough to realise that there is a difference between high school and adult life , between reality and reality TV .
We elected the class clown , and have spent four years living inside the horrifying carnival of death and division he created .
How do we become a serious people again ?
It has to start with education .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in American schools any more , but it should be a yearly unit , starting in grade school .
We must ask ourselves and our children : what does government actually do ?
How does it affect our lives ?
Should the people running our water systems , roads , schools , fire service and military have experience in the work they oversee ?
Should we have a dog groomer run the water treatment facility ?
A water-treatment specialist run the air force ?
A golf course developer run the nation ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 , 400,000 Americans will have died to prove that simple government competence matters .
It should not be so hard to teach this to our kids : when we vote for ridiculous people , we become a ridiculous nation .
Yesterday , I took a long walk through West Philly .
Almost every corner was blanketed with large red , white and blue signs declaring , “ VOTE : MAKE A PLAN.
” As I walked along one of the neighbourhood ’ s main arteries , Baltimore Avenue , I saw two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Their porch was littered with several signs– Resist !
and Vote !
– but taking up the most real estate was a large black letter board , quoting Rebecca Solnit .
“ VOTING IS A CHESS MOVE , ” it said .
“ NOT A VALENTINE.
” A number of houses in this predominantly black but gentrifying part of Philadelphia had Biden-Harris signs , but if there was excitement around any single message , it was this : vote .
The same day I received an email from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mail .
One of the surprises of the past four years ( to me , anyway ) has been the onslaught of art that couples grand symbolic gestures with a stupendous lack of ambition .
Film studios , TV shows and publishing houses have vowed to tackle white supremacy and include more voices of colour .
This , in the abstract , is a good thing .
The stories of non-white people continue to be neglected .
But this emphasis on representation mainly operates as a form of rebranding : we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same class of people – but with a slightly higher percentage of dark faces .
And while this minor change in cultural production did surprise me , it shouldn ’ t have .
The liberal bourgeoisie want to see themselves as enlightened and inclusive , while capital wants to expand into new markets .
A dollar is a dollar regardless of who it ’ s taken from .
Everyone wins but the working-class ( and people who like art ) .
This dizzying disparity between what ’ s said and what ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too .
Democratic mayors paint “ Black Lives Matter ” on the streets of their cities while increasing their police departments ’ already bloated budgets .
Democratic governors tell us they believe in the climate crisis while ramping up fracking .
And Biden proclaims that healthcare is a human right while opposing any plan that would realise that right .
Lately , I ’ ve been watching Fred Hampton ’ s speeches when I need a break from writing .
“ Political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other line better encapsulates the failures of our era .
Symbolism has overwhelmed both art and politics during Trump ’ s presidency , but it ’ s a sterile symbolism , detached from power .
In 2012 , I went to the polls three hours before my shift .
I wanted to vote and I ’ d made a plan .
But after waiting in line for two and a half hours , I had to forfeit my place , and my vote , to go to work .
I now have the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without worrying about my shift , but after four years of capitalists donning dashikis , I ’ ve never been more aware that my vote is symbolic and bereft of power .
No matter what move working-class voters make this year , they lose .
In chess , this is called a checkmate .
The US election is looming over us and I am struggling to grapple with it .
My technique of survival , for my own mental health , is to question the office of the presidency itself .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidents .
They are allowed to do so many horrific things .
If you sat down with someone and they told you that they had deported thousands of children ; brushed off a water crisis in Flint , Michigan ; bombed multiple countries in the Middle East , you ’ d probably scoot away .
Regardless of whether their name is Donald Trump or Barack Obama , you ’ d probably say , “ I ’ m going to go home.
” But somehow , we allow this .
I question America as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is to choose between a horrific choice and a bad choice .
When we go to bed at night and say : “ This is the American Dream , this is democratic freedom ” – I am not sure that is where we want to be .
I am pessimistic about this election .
I know the polls are looking good for Joe Biden .
But I also live here .
I grew up with a lot of working-class folks .
I live in Massachusetts and if you drive 30 minutes out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So I wouldn ’ t be surprised if it is a Trump election again , based on what I see in the people .
I have been reading a lot of essays by William Carlos Williams .
People think he wrote cute poems about plums and wheelbarrows .
But what he wrote about best is what it means to be American .
I am thinking of him a lot at this moment .
He encourages writers to question the institutions themselves , and I am trying to do that .
Like Chekhov ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Moscow , amid the paralysis of 19th-century Russian provincial life , so , since the stunning surprise of November 2016 , when an unqualified , race-baiting , several times bankrupt conman “ billionaire ” was elected president of the United States , opponents of Trump have yearned for things to be set right again , for justice to be restored , something like common sense , decency , sanity reinstated .
For what seemed like forever , great hope was stirred by the long-awaited Mueller report , as if a lifelong Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a saviour for Democrats .
Then , when the Mueller report , diluted of its potential impact by Mueller himself , and mocked and ridiculed by Republicans , failed to make any difference , impeachment proceedings initiated by the Democrat-controlled House stirred even greater hope , providing a national showcase for the investigation of what was just a small fraction of the president ’ s “ crimes and misdemeanours ” .
But these failed to gain support in the Senate among Republicans , thus were doomed to defeat with the predictable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever more divisive and despotic acts .
This yearning has prevailed , at times quixotically , with a hope that , for instance , the long-time demand for an exposé of Trump ’ s taxes might finally be fulfilled , however belatedly , and that this would make a difference , or lawsuits filed by women in the wake of the # MeToo movement alleging that Trump had sexually abused them , or , indeed , the most potentially damaging evidence made public , that Trump had been an intimate associate of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sexual trafficking of a minor in Florida , and charged , at the time of his suspicious death in a Manhattan detention centre , with the sexual trafficking of dozens of minors in Florida and New York City – that this would make a difference … One by one , like beguiling mirages that , on closer examination , are revealed to be only distortions in the atmosphere caused by pollution , these hopes for the reversal of political fortune emerge and quickly fade , leaving Republican-controlled institutions – presidency , Senate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Each day echoes Dorothy Parker ’ s query : “ What fresh hell can this be ?
” We have , admittedly , a minority government in the US , like apartheid South Africa ; such governments , once entrenched , even in nominal democracies under assault by rightwing propaganda ( Fox News , rightwing radio , social media ) , are difficult to overcome .
Catastrophic fires in the west precipitated by the climate emergency , an upsurge in explicit acts of racism encouraged by Trump ’ s support of white nationalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 220,000 Americans to Covid-19 as a consequence of Trump ’ s pretence for months that the pandemic was a “ hoax ” have not made much difference in Republican approval of Trump though , over all , Trump ’ s support has been shrinking .
Through four exhausting years the prevailing myth has been that there was a “ normal ” time BT ( Before Trump ) to which the United States might be restored , as an afflicted person might be restored to previous health .
But where once even “ hotly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lead to peaceful transferrals of power , as if in acknowledgment that politics is a kind of game or sport , and that “ good sportsmanship ” is the model , now this very expectation , as old as the US Constitution , indeed as old as sport , is suddenly not universally shared but rather another sort of yearning , or fantasy , on the part of liberals .
No one knows with any certainty what will happen : indeed , there might be a peaceful transferral of power , if Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there might be , as Trump and his cohorts have grimly predicted , another “ civil war ” – as the losing incumbent president refuses to relinquish power and the supreme court , a partisan Republican stronghold , is called on to determine the winner .
Or , Trump might be re-elected , buoyed by the non-democratic electoral college , election rigging , as in 2016 , with aid from Russian disinformation and highly skilled Republican stratagems of voter suppression in “ red ” states .
In which case , the yearning for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for humankind can not live without hope , however quixotic .
We have been busy tending to our dead this past year .
These last several months have been punctuated by certain numbers : 200,000-plus , 8 minutes and 46 seconds , one woman asleep in her home .
There has been an endless accumulation of details : scientific , forensic , the biological realities of our fragile selves .
All of it has left us staggered and broken .
So we count and measure to describe how our dead became that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us calculate the true extent of our losses .
But for that , we need to have slowed down enough to trace our steps into the past , account for the present , and reimagine the future .
To understand what has been taken , we must sit with our grief .
And there has been no time .
My father died after a sudden illness in late October 2016 .
He lived in Ethiopia and my brother and I had to rush back to Addis Ababa for the funeral .
I returned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his passing , just in time to vote in the presidential elections .
That night , as the numbers were counted , I went to bed , drained and in shock .
I woke to a new America .
A horror settled in .
It wove around my grief and I often feel that , despite the years , I have not had the time to fully weep for all that I have lost .
I wonder if that is why , when I have joined other protesters in the streets , tears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sobs , often unsuccessfully .
I have had a quote by Walter Benjamin haunting me these last four years .
It has become increasingly central to everything that I am feeling and thinking as uprisings and Covid-related deaths sweep across the world .
As the fourth anniversary of my father ’ s death and the US elections approach .
I have paraphrased it to this essential thought : “ Not even the dead will be safe from the enemy if he is victorious.
” Benjamin was talking about fascism , about how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who has the right to be mourned .
We are all aware of the unnerving parallels between German and Italian fascism and this Trumpian reality .
The Black Lives Matter movement , those protesters demanding a reckoning with history and our present , are refusing to bury their dead in silence .
The elections will not end our mourning , no matter who wins – we have lost too much .
It will not erase the debt we owe to the dead .
It will not ease us of the responsibility we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thus our future .
If the enemy wins , our history will be wiped clear by the brutal force of a fake nostalgia , a yearning for an America that never was , a criminal amnesia that will , I fear , take us too .
Those children , wandering lost without their parents in those camps , understand what this means .
Now 11 and eight , my children often play a game – long running , seemingly improvisatory – the only tool of which is language .
“ Pretend , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m a dragon ” , or “ You ’ re James Bond ” , or “ We ’ re on a mountain ” , or “ We ’ re in a car ” .
That ’ s all there is to it : you say it and it is true .
I overhear them at this game with a premature sense of mourning .
I hated losing their malapropisms and mispronunciations , and I know when they ’ ve aged out of the ability to play pretend like this they ’ ll have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interstitial space between fact and fiction , the very thing we call childhood .
For now , I try to appreciate this game for the genius that it is .
Children can bend reality using only their imaginations .
A stick picked up at the park – why does every child pick up sticks in the park ?
– is whatever they determine it must be , in that moment .
The simple incantation of “ pretend ” causes the rest of the world to fall away .
“ Pretend ” is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that magic doesn ’ t exist .
It demands we admit the sword is simply a stick ; it demands we acknowledge we ’ re not dragons or James Bond .
I ’ ll be sad to see my children understand this .
Yet I remain hopeful that the rest of our culture will .
For too long , we ’ ve played a game of pretend , one also to do with language .
We ask our candidates for political office about their stance on the climate crisis , pretending belief has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ let our leaders reminisce about some earlier , greater time , pretending that the past was better than the future might be .
We allow strange rhetorical games , pretending there ’ s nuance in morally straightforward scenarios .
It ’ s all as absurd as a child lost in fantasy , but considerably less sweet .
I hope we are now at that moment I don ’ t want my children to reach : the inevitable point at which we see things as they are .
I hope we have the courage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s presidency has consistently proved to be worse than I could have imagined it would be – and I was already deeply pessimistic from the day his dubious victory was announced .
That fact is one of two horrific lessons I have learned .
The other bothers me even more , and it is that so many of my fellow citizens have been so easily and firmly duped into his delusional world .
George Orwell warned us that the Ministry of Truth in a totalitarian state could brainwash the citizenry with a heavy-handed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it turns out that even in an apparent democracy , using methods that all can see ( no secret torture chambers , no burning of books and newspapers ) people can be put into a dreamlike state of misinformation from which they can not readily be aroused by the most evidence-rich and eloquently posed alarms .
Wake up , wake up , my fellow Americans !
Can you not see what these people are doing to our precious and fragile democracy ?
I still hold out hope that the Republicans complicit in this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out , much too late to be heroes but not too late to restore some shreds of their dignity and self-respect .
I wonder how many of them have had disturbing thoughts about what their children and grandchildren will make of them in retrospect .
Children can bring out the best in their parents simply by innocently witnessing their behaviour , and expressing shock – or , even worse , disappointment .
Be brave , children , and ask your parents what they are doing and why .
You may save us all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the significance of American presidential elections .
The campaigns produce overheated ads .
The more desperate the Trump campaign gets , the crazier its ad copy .
“ Your family and your rights won ’ t be safe in Joe Biden ’ s America !
” warns one ominous ad .
Television news networks hawk their coverage in language nothing short of hysterical , and have taken to using countdown clocks , just to hype up audiences .
Most Americans find it impossible to open an internet browser without being bombarded by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a campaign donation to play a role in what is regularly touted as “ The Most Important Election in American History ” .
Biden says he is fighting for “ the soul of America ” , language that has been used many times before , maybe most famously by the Republican and evangelical Pat Buchanan in 1992 , about an election that pitted Bob Dole against Bill Clinton .
“ It is as great a battle and as important a battle as was the cold war itself , because now we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside aggression , we are fighting to save her soul.
” But curiously , the Biden/Kamala Harris campaign has mostly taken a different tack , backing away from overheated rhetoric .
One recent Biden/Harris ad features a black businesswoman in Pittsburgh .
“ This election is a defining moment for our country , ” Marimba Milliones says .
“ We should not take for granted that things can not get worse.
” It ’ s one of the frankest , truest and most honest assessments I ’ ve heard .
How bad are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attacked and undermined and done grave and in some cases possibly irreparable damage to the freedom of the press , the freedom of assembly , the freedom of religion , the freedom of speech , the independence of the judiciary , the separation of powers , the rule of law and free and fair elections .
His immorality and malign intentions are held in check only by his ineptitude and shortsightedness and shallow understanding of domestic and foreign affairs .
He has doomed the Republican party .
He has contributed to , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the fraying of the ties of affection and loyalty and common purpose that hold a republic together .
His abuses of power and assaults on human rights and constitutional government and , not least , his mendacity and cruelty , have so outraged his political opponents that many of them have violated their own good sense of how to act and how to speak in public , have lost sight of what is required of people committed to living in peace with people with whom they disagree , have abandoned their own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and sacrifice .
If he is re-elected , no one should take for granted that things can not get worse .

Richard Powers, Annie Proulx, Dave Eggers , Kiley Reid, Ocean Vuong, Joyce Carol Oates,Maaza Mengiste, Rumaan Alam, Daniel Dennett and Jill Lepore

Richard Powers, novelist
In January, 2017, the day after being sworn in as president of the United States, Donald Trump directed the interior department to help lie about the size of the crowd who turned out to witness him rave about “American carnage”. I read the news in a state of stunned disbelief. Since then, few weeks have passed without some escalating offence coming from the White House.
Four years of sadness, horror, and trauma: We’ve all been broken by it. In these four years, I’ve lived through things that I could not have imagined witnessing in my country. The president has stoked paranoid conspiracy theories. The president has championed division and hatred and violence. The president repeatedly attacks basic decency and violates the constitution. The president is actively working to undermine public trust in the election. Each new day brings some impossible outrage that I have habituated to, changed by the daily horrors in ways I can no longer see. As Yeats captured it, in another time of civil war:
We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart’s grown brutal from the fare,
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love …
I’m afraid this election will shake the US to the breaking point. I see the polls but take no comfort in them. The president’s plans to subvert the vote are forming up in plain sight, as open and obvious as all the other high crimes and misdemeanours that he has already gotten away with.
Maybe the vote will yield the results that all the polls predict. Maybe the president will leave office peacefully, without ordering his supporters into the street. (It would be the first such conciliatory act of his life.) But even if the election follows the best possible course, an uncontested Biden victory won’t save us: for four years, 40% of the country has unwaveringly backed Trump’s every assault against civic life, and the once-great party that has enabled him at every turn shows no sign of repudiation, even now. It will take decades to heal the deep wounds.
One thing is certain, though: Trump’s re-election would maim the US beyond recovering. A considerable majority of Americans now know that, too. I’m braced for the worst, but I take my slender hope from our great poet of democracy, Walt Whitman, writing over a century and a half ago, in the middle of the war for the nation’s soul that we’re somehow still fighting:
Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten’d – Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet;
Those who love each other shall become invincible.
Annie Proulx, novelist
When I was young I thought American capitalism and democracy were equal working partners. Years passed and I saw the democracy of the United States with its banners of equality and justice was an illusory ideal and there was partnership only when capitalism found it useful.
Before the 2016 election I ached with ecological grief to see the natural world torn and burned at accelerating speed. Melting ice, flaming forests, catastrophe-size storms and floods, species extinctions – these were proofs that we irrational and egotistic humans had set forces in motion that were retooling the workings of the Earth and would send many species, possibly including ourselves, to the extinction chamber. I believed the rumbling climate shift caused an invisible, unspoken malaise in people the world over. Something was wrong and they felt it in their bones, even those remote in the ice, among the lianas, in thin high air, even in denying cities. Climate crisis exposed the bad wiring in the human brain.
Trump is a catalyst in this cauldron of miseries. Take him out of the mix and we have a chance
I saw Trump’s election as more evidence of ecological derangement. People may have sensed that their god-given right to wrest a share of wealth from the natural world (the source of every fortune) was passing from “unlikely” to “sorry, it’s over”. An immediate assault on natural resources could be a last chance and Trump, masquerading as a “businessman”, would lead the way: to force, to grab and get by any means. To win! And so colourful and energetic he seemed an extension of Friday night football. I was afraid then and I am afraid now. The last four years have been a stress-building mix of anger, sorrow, loss, disgust, evil wishes and fear. Not a generalised fear but a multiple-barbed hook of unemployment, Covid-19 pandemic, oil drilling, naked racism, people at one another’s throats. Trump is a catalyst in this cauldron of miseries. Take him out of the mix and we have a chance.
I had a history professor long ago who came from the Pennsylvania coal fields. One day, following a discussion of European political power and how multiple smaller factions are funnelled into two gargantuan opposing sides, he looked out at the class and in a hard voice said “You don’t know how quickly left can flip to right.” Now I know. Less than four years.
Dave Eggers, writer and editor
Last week, Donald Trump, a 74-year-old man who may or may not have still been contagious with a deadly virus, danced to the Village People’s “YMCA” in front of thousands of closely packed supporters at rallies in Pennsylvania and Florida. The same week, Americans won five Nobel prizes.
The dichotomy of American life has never been starker. We still have enlightened humans inhabiting our land, thinking profound thoughts in labs and universities, even though in most other ways we’ve become the world’s silliest people.
In the US, there has long been a maxim that says: “Anyone can grow up to be president.” The idea is that from humble beginnings, anyone can rise to the highest office in the nation. Over the years, though, this egalitarian notion has been bastardised to the point where in 2016, 60 million people thought a reality TV star, with not a day’s experience at governing at any level, could lead the most powerful country on Earth.
It followed a prankish pattern that begins in every American high school. In an often half-hearted attempt to expose students to democratic processes, every school holds their own elections. And because teenagers tend to disdain anyone who actually wants to be elected – think of Tracy Flick in Election – high schoolers tend to vote for the least qualified, least serious person possible. In my own high school, we elected a guy who otherwise would have flunked out. He had no platform and didn’t want the job. “If I wasn’t class president,” he used to joke, “they would have expelled me.”
By the end of 2020, 400,000 Americans will have died to prove that simple government competence matters
In 2016, Hillary Clinton was Flick, and Trump was the least qualified candidate. His supporters thought it would be hilarious, demented and disruptive – thank you, Silicon Valley – to elect a person who hated government to be the one to lead the government. Everyone knew Trump was a racist, a draft-dodger, a sexual predator and a tax avoider with nothing approaching a presidential temperament, and still they rolled the dice. A T-shirt vendor I interviewed at a Trump rally in El Paso summed it up: “I wanted to see the guy fuck shit up.”
In the wake of the Trump administration’s breathtakingly incompetent pandemic response, at least some voters have sobered up enough to realise that there is a difference between high school and adult life, between reality and reality TV. We elected the class clown, and have spent four years living inside the horrifying carnival of death and division he created.
How do we become a serious people again? It has to start with education. Civics as a topic is rarely taught in American schools any more, but it should be a yearly unit, starting in grade school. We must ask ourselves and our children: what does government actually do? How does it affect our lives? Should the people running our water systems, roads, schools, fire service and military have experience in the work they oversee? Should we have a dog groomer run the water treatment facility? A water-treatment specialist run the air force? A golf course developer run the nation’s pandemic response? By the end of 2020, 400,000 Americans will have died to prove that simple government competence matters. It should not be so hard to teach this to our kids: when we vote for ridiculous people, we become a ridiculous nation.
Kiley Reid, novelist
Yesterday, I took a long walk through West Philly. Almost every corner was blanketed with large red, white and blue signs declaring, “VOTE: MAKE A PLAN.” As I walked along one of the neighbourhood’s main arteries, Baltimore Avenue, I saw two middle-aged white women chatting on their stoop. Their porch was littered with several signs– Resist! and Vote! – but taking up the most real estate was a large black letter board, quoting Rebecca Solnit. “VOTING IS A CHESS MOVE,” it said. “NOT A VALENTINE.” A number of houses in this predominantly black but gentrifying part of Philadelphia had Biden-Harris signs, but if there was excitement around any single message, it was this: vote. The same day I received an email from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania informing me that my ballot was in the mail.
One of the surprises of the past four years (to me, anyway) has been the onslaught of art that couples grand symbolic gestures with a stupendous lack of ambition. Film studios, TV shows and publishing houses have vowed to tackle white supremacy and include more voices of colour. This, in the abstract, is a good thing. The stories of non-white people continue to be neglected. But this emphasis on representation mainly operates as a form of rebranding: we’re getting the same glossy stories lionising the same class of people – but with a slightly higher percentage of dark faces. And while this minor change in cultural production did surprise me, it shouldn’t have. The liberal bourgeoisie want to see themselves as enlightened and inclusive, while capital wants to expand into new markets. A dollar is a dollar regardless of who it’s taken from. Everyone wins but the working-class (and people who like art).
Biden proclaims that healthcare is a human right while opposing any plan that would realise that right
This dizzying disparity between what’s said and what’s done extends to our politics, too. Democratic mayors paint “Black Lives Matter” on the streets of their cities while increasing their police departments’ already bloated budgets. Democratic governors tell us they believe in the climate crisis while ramping up fracking. And Biden proclaims that healthcare is a human right while opposing any plan that would realise that right.
Lately, I’ve been watching Fred Hampton’s speeches when I need a break from writing. “Political power does not flow from the sleeve of a dashiki,” he said in 1969. No other line better encapsulates the failures of our era. Symbolism has overwhelmed both art and politics during Trump’s presidency, but it’s a sterile symbolism, detached from power.
In 2012, I went to the polls three hours before my shift. I wanted to vote and I’d made a plan. But after waiting in line for two and a half hours, I had to forfeit my place, and my vote, to go to work. I now have the leisure of voting whenever I want, without worrying about my shift, but after four years of capitalists donning dashikis, I’ve never been more aware that my vote is symbolic and bereft of power. No matter what move working-class voters make this year, they lose. In chess, this is called a checkmate.
Ocean Vuong, poet and novelist
The US election is looming over us and I am struggling to grapple with it.
My technique of survival, for my own mental health, is to question the office of the presidency itself. I think we have a double standard for our presidents. They are allowed to do so many horrific things. If you sat down with someone and they told you that they had deported thousands of children; brushed off a water crisis in Flint, Michigan; bombed multiple countries in the Middle East, you’d probably scoot away. Regardless of whether their name is Donald Trump or Barack Obama, you’d probably say, “I’m going to go home.” But somehow, we allow this.
I question America as an institution. Our rendition of freedom is to choose between a horrific choice and a bad choice. When we go to bed at night and say: “This is the American Dream, this is democratic freedom” – I am not sure that is where we want to be.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a Trump election again
I am pessimistic about this election. I know the polls are looking good for Joe Biden. But I also live here. I grew up with a lot of working-class folks. I live in Massachusetts and if you drive 30 minutes out of Northampton, there are Trump supporters. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a Trump election again, based on what I see in the people.
I have been reading a lot of essays by William Carlos Williams. People think he wrote cute poems about plums and wheelbarrows. But what he wrote about best is what it means to be American. I am thinking of him a lot at this moment. He encourages writers to question the institutions themselves, and I am trying to do that.
Joyce Carol Oates, novelist
Like Chekhov’s three sisters ardently, desperately yearning for Moscow, amid the paralysis of 19th-century Russian provincial life, so, since the stunning surprise of November 2016, when an unqualified, race-baiting, several times bankrupt conman “billionaire” was elected president of the United States, opponents of Trump have yearned for things to be set right again, for justice to be restored, something like common sense, decency, sanity reinstated. For what seemed like forever, great hope was stirred by the long-awaited Mueller report, as if a lifelong Republican (Robert Mueller) might reasonably prove to be a saviour for Democrats. Then, when the Mueller report, diluted of its potential impact by Mueller himself, and mocked and ridiculed by Republicans, failed to make any difference, impeachment proceedings initiated by the Democrat-controlled House stirred even greater hope, providing a national showcase for the investigation of what was just a small fraction of the president’s “crimes and misdemeanours”. But these failed to gain support in the Senate among Republicans, thus were doomed to defeat with the predictable consequence of inspiring the indignant Trump to ever more divisive and despotic acts.
This yearning has prevailed, at times quixotically, with a hope that, for instance, the long-time demand for an exposé of Trump’s taxes might finally be fulfilled, however belatedly, and that this would make a difference, or lawsuits filed by women in the wake of the #MeToo movement alleging that Trump had sexually abused them, or, indeed, the most potentially damaging evidence made public, that Trump had been an intimate associate of the scandalous Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of the sexual trafficking of a minor in Florida, and charged, at the time of his suspicious death in a Manhattan detention centre, with the sexual trafficking of dozens of minors in Florida and New York City – that this would make a difference …
One by one, like beguiling mirages that, on closer examination, are revealed to be only distortions in the atmosphere caused by pollution, these hopes for the reversal of political fortune emerge and quickly fade, leaving Republican-controlled institutions – presidency, Senate, supreme court – stronger than ever. Each day echoes Dorothy Parker’s query: “What fresh hell can this be?”
We have, admittedly, a minority government in the US, like apartheid South Africa; such governments, once entrenched, even in nominal democracies under assault by rightwing propaganda (Fox News, rightwing radio, social media), are difficult to overcome. Catastrophic fires in the west precipitated by the climate emergency, an upsurge in explicit acts of racism encouraged by Trump’s support of white nationalism, even the loss of more than 220,000 Americans to Covid-19 as a consequence of Trump’s pretence for months that the pandemic was a “hoax” have not made much difference in Republican approval of Trump though, over all, Trump’s support has been shrinking.
Through four exhausting years the prevailing myth has been that there was a “normal” time BT (Before Trump) to which the United States might be restored, as an afflicted person might be restored to previous health. But where once even “hotly contested” presidential elections were understood to lead to peaceful transferrals of power, as if in acknowledgment that politics is a kind of game or sport, and that “good sportsmanship” is the model, now this very expectation, as old as the US Constitution, indeed as old as sport, is suddenly not universally shared but rather another sort of yearning, or fantasy, on the part of liberals.
No one knows with any certainty what will happen: indeed, there might be a peaceful transferral of power, if Biden is elected; or, indeed, there might be, as Trump and his cohorts have grimly predicted, another “civil war” – as the losing incumbent president refuses to relinquish power and the supreme court, a partisan Republican stronghold, is called on to determine the winner. Or, Trump might be re-elected, buoyed by the non-democratic electoral college, election rigging, as in 2016, with aid from Russian disinformation and highly skilled Republican stratagems of voter suppression in “red” states.
In which case, the yearning for the “real” America will prevail, for humankind cannot live without hope, however quixotic.
Maaza Mengiste, novelist
We have been busy tending to our dead this past year. These last several months have been punctuated by certain numbers: 200,000-plus, 8 minutes and 46 seconds, one woman asleep in her home. There has been an endless accumulation of details: scientific, forensic, the biological realities of our fragile selves. All of it has left us staggered and broken. So we count and measure to describe how our dead became that way, as if that might help us calculate the true extent of our losses. But for that, we need to have slowed down enough to trace our steps into the past, account for the present, and reimagine the future. To understand what has been taken, we must sit with our grief. And there has been no time.
My father died after a sudden illness in late October 2016. He lived in Ethiopia and my brother and I had to rush back to Addis Ababa for the funeral. I returned to New York, still stunned by his passing, just in time to vote in the presidential elections. That night, as the numbers were counted, I went to bed, drained and in shock. I woke to a new America. A horror settled in. It wove around my grief and I often feel that, despite the years, I have not had the time to fully weep for all that I have lost. I wonder if that is why, when I have joined other protesters in the streets, tears well up and I find myself swallowing the sobs, often unsuccessfully.
The elections will not end our mourning, no matter who wins – we have lost too much
I have had a quote by Walter Benjamin haunting me these last four years. It has become increasingly central to everything that I am feeling and thinking as uprisings and Covid-related deaths sweep across the world. As the fourth anniversary of my father’s death and the US elections approach. I have paraphrased it to this essential thought: “Not even the dead will be safe from the enemy if he is victorious.” Benjamin was talking about fascism, about how it will rewrite history and tell us who has the right to be mourned. We are all aware of the unnerving parallels between German and Italian fascism and this Trumpian reality. The Black Lives Matter movement, those protesters demanding a reckoning with history and our present, are refusing to bury their dead in silence.
The elections will not end our mourning, no matter who wins – we have lost too much. It will not erase the debt we owe to the dead. It will not ease us of the responsibility we have to protect them, their history and thus our future. If the enemy wins, our history will be wiped clear by the brutal force of a fake nostalgia, a yearning for an America that never was, a criminal amnesia that will, I fear, take us too. Those children, wandering lost without their parents in those camps, understand what this means.
Rumaan Alam, novelist
Now 11 and eight, my children often play a game – long running, seemingly improvisatory – the only tool of which is language. “Pretend,” they announce, then “I’m a dragon”, or “You’re James Bond”, or “We’re on a mountain”, or “We’re in a car”. That’s all there is to it: you say it and it is true.
I overhear them at this game with a premature sense of mourning. I hated losing their malapropisms and mispronunciations, and I know when they’ve aged out of the ability to play pretend like this they’ll have once and for all left behind the interstitial space between fact and fiction, the very thing we call childhood.
For now, I try to appreciate this game for the genius that it is. Children can bend reality using only their imaginations. A stick picked up at the park – why does every child pick up sticks in the park? – is whatever they determine it must be, in that moment. The simple incantation of “pretend” causes the rest of the world to fall away.
“Pretend” is the magic word, and adulthood means recognising that magic doesn’t exist. It demands we admit the sword is simply a stick; it demands we acknowledge we’re not dragons or James Bond. I’ll be sad to see my children understand this. Yet I remain hopeful that the rest of our culture will. For too long, we’ve played a game of pretend, one also to do with language.
We ask our candidates for political office about their stance on the climate crisis, pretending belief has anything to do with fact. We let our leaders reminisce about some earlier, greater time, pretending that the past was better than the future might be. We allow strange rhetorical games, pretending there’s nuance in morally straightforward scenarios. It’s all as absurd as a child lost in fantasy, but considerably less sweet.
I hope we are now at that moment I don’t want my children to reach: the inevitable point at which we see things as they are. I hope we have the courage to stop pretending.
Daniel Dennett, philosopher
Donald Trump’s presidency has consistently proved to be worse than I could have imagined it would be – and I was already deeply pessimistic from the day his dubious victory was announced. That fact is one of two horrific lessons I have learned. The other bothers me even more, and it is that so many of my fellow citizens have been so easily and firmly duped into his delusional world.
George Orwell warned us that the Ministry of Truth in a totalitarian state could brainwash the citizenry with a heavy-handed onslaught of propaganda and torture, but it turns out that even in an apparent democracy, using methods that all can see (no secret torture chambers, no burning of books and newspapers) people can be put into a dreamlike state of misinformation from which they cannot readily be aroused by the most evidence-rich and eloquently posed alarms. Wake up, wake up, my fellow Americans! Can you not see what these people are doing to our precious and fragile democracy?
I wonder how many Republicans have had disturbing thoughts about what their grandchildren will make of them in retrospect
I still hold out hope that the Republicans complicit in this slow-motion coup d’état will back out, much too late to be heroes but not too late to restore some shreds of their dignity and self-respect. I wonder how many of them have had disturbing thoughts about what their children and grandchildren will make of them in retrospect. Children can bring out the best in their parents simply by innocently witnessing their behaviour, and expressing shock – or, even worse, disappointment. Be brave, children, and ask your parents what they are doing and why. You may save us all.
Jill Lepore, historian
Lots of forces conspire to overstate the significance of American presidential elections. The campaigns produce overheated ads. The more desperate the Trump campaign gets, the crazier its ad copy. “Your family and your rights won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America!” warns one ominous ad. Television news networks hawk their coverage in language nothing short of hysterical, and have taken to using countdown clocks, just to hype up audiences. Most Americans find it impossible to open an internet browser without being bombarded by a pop-up instant poll, or being asked for a campaign donation to play a role in what is regularly touted as “The Most Important Election in American History”.
Biden says he is fighting for “the soul of America”, language that has been used many times before, maybe most famously by the Republican and evangelical Pat Buchanan in 1992, about an election that pitted Bob Dole against Bill Clinton. “It is as great a battle and as important a battle as was the cold war itself, because now we are not simply fighting to preserve America against outside aggression, we are fighting to save her soul.”
But curiously, the Biden/Kamala Harris campaign has mostly taken a different tack, backing away from overheated rhetoric. One recent Biden/Harris ad features a black businesswoman in Pittsburgh. “This election is a defining moment for our country,” Marimba Milliones says. “We should not take for granted that things cannot get worse.” It’s one of the frankest, truest and most honest assessments I’ve heard.
How bad are things already? The incumbent president has attacked and undermined and done grave and in some cases possibly irreparable damage to the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the independence of the judiciary, the separation of powers, the rule of law and free and fair elections. His immorality and malign intentions are held in check only by his ineptitude and shortsightedness and shallow understanding of domestic and foreign affairs. He has doomed the Republican party. He has contributed to, and taken a deep and visible pleasure in, the fraying of the ties of affection and loyalty and common purpose that hold a republic together. His abuses of power and assaults on human rights and constitutional government and, not least, his mendacity and cruelty, have so outraged his political opponents that many of them have violated their own good sense of how to act and how to speak in public, have lost sight of what is required of people committed to living in peace with people with whom they disagree, have abandoned their own sense of decency and integrity and generosity and sacrifice. If he is re-elected, no one should take for granted that things cannot get worse.


theguardian--2020-10-24--As election day nears, what final dirty tricks could Trump turn to?

On 28 October 2016 , the then director of the FBI , James Comey , dropped a bomb into the middle of the presidential race .
With just 11 days to go until election day , he announced that his agents were investigating a newly discovered batch of emails from Hillary Clinton ’ s personal server .
The highly irregular intervention led nowhere , but it was enough to wreak havoc in the final stretch of the contest , putting Clinton on the defensive and giving Donald Trump an artificial leg-up .
To this day , many Democrats – and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ substantial role in Trump ’ s unexpected victory .
Twenty days before election day 2020 , the Trump campaign dropped what it hoped would be a similar bomb into the middle of the current race .
On 14 October , the New York Post ( owner : Rupert Murdoch ) splashed with the screaming headline “ Biden Secret Emails ” .
The paper alleged that a laptop had been discovered at a computer repair shop in Delaware , the home state of the Democratic presidential candidate , Joe Biden .
On its hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stored personal emails from Biden ’ s son Hunter Biden that pointed to inappropriate conflicts of interest between the younger Biden ’ s business interests in Ukraine and the elder ’ s diplomatic work as then vice-president .
It was a case of Clinton emails redux .
Like the 2016 saga , the Hunter Biden emails were flimsy in their contents and , in this case , of dubious provenance .
The cast of characters involved in “ discovering ” the laptop was like a roll call of some of Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the ploy were Trump ’ s former chief strategist Steve Bannon , who has been charged with fraud and money laundering related to the border wall with Mexico ; and Rudy Giuliani , who has questions of his own to answer over his blush-inducing appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen ’ s new movie , Borat Subsequent Moviefilm .
How the Hunter Biden story came to be put together from inside the New York Post also raised eyebrows .
The New York Times reported that the journalist at the Post who wrote most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name to it because of doubts over the credibility of the material .
The lead byline on the story , Emma-Jo Morris , recently worked as a producer on the Fox News Show of the Trump loyalist Sean Hannity .
The second byline , Gabrielle Fonrouge , had little to do with the article and only learned her name was on it after it was published , the Times reported .
Such machinations over a controversial story are nothing new within the Post ’ s newsroom , a former employee of the paper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw that Hunter Biden piece I had flashbacks to how shitty that place was .
That ’ s happened to me there .
I ’ d wake up and think , ‘ I didn ’ t write that story , ’ ” the journalist said .
The Hunter Biden story was a transparent effort to replicate the undoubted success of the Clinton emails hit of 2016 .
But as a work of political dirty tricks , it was too obvious to impress many .
“ It ’ s blatant and it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Elaine Kamarck , senior fellow at the Brookings Institution .
It was also tired .
“ The Hunter Biden allegations were fully aired during impeachment .
If you want a real October surprise you have to come up with something new , ” she said .
If it failed to hit its mark , the Biden ruse did at least flag up the lengths to which Trump and friends are prepared to go to hang on to presidential power .
Kamarck predicted that more dirty tricks are yet to come .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knows what else they could cook up .
You have a president who has his back against the wall and is acting increasingly bizarrely , ” Kamarck said .
John Weaver , the chief strategist to John Kasich during his presidential battle with Trump in the Republican primaries in 2016 and now co-founder of the anti-Trump group of disaffected former Republicans , the Lincoln Project , urged the nation to brace itself for a wild ride in the final days .
“ The next two weeks are going to see dirty tricks on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , nor would we want to.
” Weaver pointed out that dirty tricks in American politics are as old as the nation .
They can be traced all the way back to the 1796 contest .
In that race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson , vying to replace George Washington as president , Alexander Hamilton , acting on behalf of Adams and their Federalist party , adopted the pseudonym of Phocion .
He then wrote an article in the Gazette of the United States accusing Jefferson of having an affair with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing compared with what we are witnessing today , Weaver said .
“ What we are seeing from Trump is on a scale , and in the crossing of norms and willingness to blatantly make things up out , and the mean-spiritedness of it , on another level .
Even when Hamilton and Jefferson were going after each other they had respect for the new institutions they had just helped put in place – there ’ s no respect for any institution now.
” Hunter Biden is just the thin end of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been trying to reheat the grotesque “ Pizzagate ” conspiracy theory that did the rounds in 2016 claiming that Hillary Clinton was at the center of a pedophile ring – this time with the Bidens the focus .
The lie was aired this week by the Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo and alluded to by Trump when he refused to denounce the cult conspiracy theory QAnon in an NBC News town hall .
The litany of dirty tricks pans out from there .
They come in all shapes and sizes : doctoring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ favorite .
Dr Anthony Fauci , the top infectious diseases official in the US , found himself at the receiving end of that technique in a Trump re-election ad that crudely took his words out of context to make it appear he was endorsing the president .
For Kamarck , the most insidious dirty tricks this cycle have targeted the election process itself .
Trump has repeatedly and falsely depicted the US voting system , and mail-in voting in particular , as being riddled with fraud ; in fact the amount of substantiated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boxes where voters are encouraged to put their absentee ballots suspiciously began popping up in Los Angeles and other parts of California .
They turned out to have been the work of the local Republican party which was duly ordered by state officials to remove them on grounds they are illegal .
“ Disinformation about how to vote is the worst dirty tricks I see , ” Kamarck said .
“ Voting is already confusing in the pandemic , and if you add more confusion to that then efforts to suppress the vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump and his allies are busily stepping up their efforts at distortion , an important contrast with 2016 is that there is much less sign of the tactics working this time around .
The FBI has so far resisted White House pressure to do another Comey and announce an investigation of the Bidens , much to Trump ’ s fury .
The media too has shown itself to be much more disciplined in dealing with Trump ’ s fireball of lies and misinformation .
The Hunter Biden story was handled with care by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the breathless treatment of the Clinton emails four years ago .
If the mud that is being thrown at the wall isn ’ t sticking in the same way as it did then , it is possible that the underhand tactics will backfire for the increasingly beleaguered president .
Every dirty trick that is pulled is a distraction from Trump ’ s core message on the economy .
“ Time is being wasted on Hunter Biden , QAnon and all this other circus activity , ” Weaver said .
“ Voters don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump is stepping on his own re-election chances every minute he devotes to it .
”

On 28 October 2016, the then director of the FBI, James Comey, dropped a bomb into the middle of the presidential race. With just 11 days to go until election day, he announced that his agents were investigating a newly discovered batch of emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server.
The highly irregular intervention led nowhere, but it was enough to wreak havoc in the final stretch of the contest, putting Clinton on the defensive and giving Donald Trump an artificial leg-up. To this day, many Democrats – and Republicans – are convinced it played a substantial role in Trump’s unexpected victory.
Twenty days before election day 2020, the Trump campaign dropped what it hoped would be a similar bomb into the middle of the current race. On 14 October, the New York Post (owner: Rupert Murdoch) splashed with the screaming headline “Biden Secret Emails”.
The paper alleged that a laptop had been discovered at a computer repair shop in Delaware, the home state of the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden. On its hard drive, the Post said, were stored personal emails from Biden’s son Hunter Biden that pointed to inappropriate conflicts of interest between the younger Biden’s business interests in Ukraine and the elder’s diplomatic work as then vice-president.
It was a case of Clinton emails redux. Like the 2016 saga, the Hunter Biden emails were flimsy in their contents and, in this case, of dubious provenance.
The cast of characters involved in “discovering” the laptop was like a roll call of some of Trump’s most discredited associates. At the center of the ploy were Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has been charged with fraud and money laundering related to the border wall with Mexico; and Rudy Giuliani, who has questions of his own to answer over his blush-inducing appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
How the Hunter Biden story came to be put together from inside the New York Post also raised eyebrows. The New York Times reported that the journalist at the Post who wrote most of the account refused to attach his name to it because of doubts over the credibility of the material.
The lead byline on the story, Emma-Jo Morris, recently worked as a producer on the Fox News Show of the Trump loyalist Sean Hannity. The second byline, Gabrielle Fonrouge, had little to do with the article and only learned her name was on it after it was published, the Times reported.
Such machinations over a controversial story are nothing new within the Post’s newsroom, a former employee of the paper told the Guardian. “When I saw that Hunter Biden piece I had flashbacks to how shitty that place was. That’s happened to me there. I’d wake up and think, ‘I didn’t write that story,’” the journalist said.
The Hunter Biden story was a transparent effort to replicate the undoubted success of the Clinton emails hit of 2016. But as a work of political dirty tricks, it was too obvious to impress many.
“It’s blatant and it’s desperate,” was the assessment of Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. It was also tired. “The Hunter Biden allegations were fully aired during impeachment. If you want a real October surprise you have to come up with something new,” she said.
If it failed to hit its mark, the Biden ruse did at least flag up the lengths to which Trump and friends are prepared to go to hang on to presidential power. Kamarck predicted that more dirty tricks are yet to come.
We have 10 days to go, who knows what else they could cook up Elaine Karmack
“We have 10 days to go, who knows what else they could cook up. You have a president who has his back against the wall and is acting increasingly bizarrely,” Kamarck said.
John Weaver, the chief strategist to John Kasich during his presidential battle with Trump in the Republican primaries in 2016 and now co-founder of the anti-Trump group of disaffected former Republicans, the Lincoln Project, urged the nation to brace itself for a wild ride in the final days. “The next two weeks are going to see dirty tricks on a scale we can’t imagine, nor would we want to.”
Weaver pointed out that dirty tricks in American politics are as old as the nation. They can be traced all the way back to the 1796 contest.
In that race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, vying to replace George Washington as president, Alexander Hamilton, acting on behalf of Adams and their Federalist party, adopted the pseudonym of Phocion. He then wrote an article in the Gazette of the United States accusing Jefferson of having an affair with a female slave.
That election was as nothing compared with what we are witnessing today, Weaver said. “What we are seeing from Trump is on a scale, and in the crossing of norms and willingness to blatantly make things up out, and the mean-spiritedness of it, on another level. Even when Hamilton and Jefferson were going after each other they had respect for the new institutions they had just helped put in place – there’s no respect for any institution now.”
Hunter Biden is just the thin end of the wedge. The Trump coterie have also been trying to reheat the grotesque “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that did the rounds in 2016 claiming that Hillary Clinton was at the center of a pedophile ring – this time with the Bidens the focus.
The lie was aired this week by the Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo and alluded to by Trump when he refused to denounce the cult conspiracy theory QAnon in an NBC News town hall.
The litany of dirty tricks pans out from there. They come in all shapes and sizes: doctoring digital material to create misinformation is a favorite. Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases official in the US, found himself at the receiving end of that technique in a Trump re-election ad that crudely took his words out of context to make it appear he was endorsing the president.
For Kamarck, the most insidious dirty tricks this cycle have targeted the election process itself. Trump has repeatedly and falsely depicted the US voting system, and mail-in voting in particular, as being riddled with fraud; in fact the amount of substantiated fraud is infinitesimally small.
Ballot drop boxes where voters are encouraged to put their absentee ballots suspiciously began popping up in Los Angeles and other parts of California. They turned out to have been the work of the local Republican party which was duly ordered by state officials to remove them on grounds they are illegal.
“Disinformation about how to vote is the worst dirty tricks I see,” Kamarck said. “Voting is already confusing in the pandemic, and if you add more confusion to that then efforts to suppress the vote could be successful in places.”
Time is being wasted on Hunter Biden, QAnon and all this other circus activity John Weaver
While Trump and his allies are busily stepping up their efforts at distortion, an important contrast with 2016 is that there is much less sign of the tactics working this time around. The FBI has so far resisted White House pressure to do another Comey and announce an investigation of the Bidens, much to Trump’s fury.
The media too has shown itself to be much more disciplined in dealing with Trump’s fireball of lies and misinformation. The Hunter Biden story was handled with care by most outlets, in stark contrast to the breathless treatment of the Clinton emails four years ago.
If the mud that is being thrown at the wall isn’t sticking in the same way as it did then, it is possible that the underhand tactics will backfire for the increasingly beleaguered president. Every dirty trick that is pulled is a distraction from Trump’s core message on the economy.
“Time is being wasted on Hunter Biden, QAnon and all this other circus activity,” Weaver said. “Voters don’t care about that stuff, and Trump is stepping on his own re-election chances every minute he devotes to it.”


theguardian--2020-10-25--Trump and Biden hone closing messages as Pence staffers test positive for Covid – live

The Lincoln Project “ will not be intimidated by empty bluster ” , a lawyer for the group wrote late on Saturday , in response to a threat from an attorney for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner over two billboards the group put up in Times Square .
The billboards show the president ’ s daughter and her husband , both senior White House advisers , showing apparent indifference to public suffering under Covid-19 .
Kushner is shown next to the quote “ [ New Yorkers ] are going to suffer and that ’ s their problem ” , above @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is shown gesturing , with a smile , to statistics for how many New Yorkers and Americans as a whole have died .
The Lincoln Project is a group of former Republican consultants who have made it their mission to attack Donald Trump and support Joe Biden .
On Friday Marc Kasowitz , an attorney who has represented the president in cases involving allegations of fraud and sexual assault , wrote to the Lincoln Project , demanding the “ false , malicious and defamatory ” ads be removed , or “ we will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enormous compensatory and punitive damages ” .
The Lincoln Project responded that they would not remove the billboards , citing among other things their first amendment rights of free speech .
In a legal response released on Saturday night , attorney Matthew Sanderson wrote : “ Please peddle your scare tactics elsewhere .
The Lincoln Project will not be intimidated by such empty bluster … your clients are no longer Upper East Side socialites , able to sue at the slightest offense to their personal sensitivities.
” Due to a “ gross act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump and Kushner have become public officials whom Americans “ have the right to discuss and criticize freely ” .
Sanderson cited supreme court precedent and “ substantial constitutional protections for those who speak out ” .
Kasowitz claimed Kushner “ never said ” the words attributed to him on the billboards , and Trump “ never made the gesture ” she is shown to make .
Vanity Fair reported the Kushner quote , from a meeting on 20 March , as the pandemic gathered terrible speed , New York reeled and Kushner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pose used by the Lincoln Project in July , controversially promoting Goya foods .
The “ bruised self-image ” of the president ’ s daughter “ does not change the fact that this billboard accurately depicts her support of a federal response that has utterly failed to prevent an unmitigated tragedy for the United States ” , Sanderson wrote .
“ May I suggest , ” he added , “ that if Mr Kushner and Ms Trump are genuinely concerned about salvaging their reputations , they would do well to stop suppressing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Covid-19 crisis that is still unfolding under their inept watch .
“ These billboards are not causing [ their ] standing with the public to plummet .
Their incompetence is.
” Sanderson also said “ This isn ’ t over ” and added : “ Sue if you must.
” As University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told the Guardian , that seems unlikely .
Ivanka Trump ’ s “ father has honed litigation abuse , as a business person and president , to an art form , ” Tobias @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sue , the litigation might take years to resolve , be expensive and lead to embarrassing revelations … suits like this by people who have thrust themselves into the public eye are notoriously difficult to win .
“ In short , this appears to be the usual Trump family bluster .
”

25 Oct 2020 21.32 GMT Summary Here’s a quick overview of what happened today: The Senate, which is in the middle of a special weekend session, made its final step toward confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court. Senate Republicans overrode a Democratic filibuster and are set to confirm Barrett tomorrow night.
Senate Republicans overrode a Democratic filibuster and are set to confirm Barrett tomorrow night. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said in an interview with CNN that the president is “not going to control the pandemic”. The unusually candid statement gave insight into the mindset of a White House that has, from the beginning, played down the effect of the coronavirus.
The unusually candid statement gave insight into the mindset of a White House that has, from the beginning, played down the effect of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, the US merely set a new Covid case record on Saturday, coming close to the 83,757 cases that were reported on Friday – the highest number in a single day – at 83,718 new cases. US health officials have for weeks voiced concerns of a new surge as the weather gets colder, and people stay indoors where the virus is more likely to spread. We’ll be back tomorrow with more live updates. Thanks for reading.
25 Oct 2020 21.24 GMT A ballot drop box that held more than 120 ballots was set on fire in Boston earlier Sunday. The box was outside the Boston Public Library in downtown Boston. Police say that the fire appears to have been a “deliberate attack”. Officials said that of the 122 ballots that were inside the box when it was emptied, and 87 of the ballots were still legible and able to process. The Massachusetts secretary of state said that voters whose ballots were affected by the fire will be sent a new ballot and will also have the option of voting early in person, if they choose. Security cameras around the box showed footage of a person setting fire to the box. The Boston Police Department is asking the public to help identify the person who started the fire. BPD Investigating Ballot Box Fire in the area of 700 Boylston Street in Boston. https://t.co/8FYA34H815 pic.twitter.com/FNrO1PpEUg — Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) October 25, 2020 In a joint statement, William Galvin, Massachusetts’ secretary of state, and Boston mayor Marty Walsh said: “We ask voters not to be intimidated by this bad act, and remain committed to making their voices heard in this and every election.”
25 Oct 2020 21.08 GMT Donald Trump Jr. posed in front of a “Don Jr. 2024” sign for a picture he posted on Instagram yesterday. “Hahahahaha. Oh boy. This was a sign up at the Fallon Nevada Livestock Auction,” he wrote on Instagram. “This will make the lib heads explode. To whomever made that thanks for the compliment… but let’s get through 2020 with a big win first!!!!!” Hmm. Don Jr not going out of his way to play down the 2024 speculation. pic.twitter.com/G99NigQSpA — Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) October 24, 2020 Though Nevada went blue for Hillary Clinton in 2016, the state is technically a swing state that leans slightly left. Joe Biden holds a lead over Trump in the state, where Democratic voters are concentrated in Las Vegas and its surrounding suburbs while Republicans can be found in more rural areas of the state. Donald Trump Jr, 42, is best known for being an internet provocateur, complementing his father’s brashness and inclination for sharing disinformation on Twitter. Trump hasn’t been as involved in White House policy as his sister, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, nor has he been as active in running the Trump Organization as his brother, Eric, but Don Jr. has seemed to be the Trump offspring most inclined to politics and has turned into a valuable asset for his father’s campaign. “Don Jr. represents the emotional center of the MAGA universe,” Jason MIller, a senior advisor on Trump’s campaign, told the New York Times. While Trump has only joked about running for office, a Vice reporter suggested that Pennsylvania Republicans were floating the idea of Trump replacing a Republican Senator from the state who will be retiring. Trump himself has not spoken about the Pennsylvania Senate seat.
25 Oct 2020 20.34 GMT At least 58 million Americans have voted in the 2020 general election through early voting, according to Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who is running the US Election Project that’s keeping tabs on early voting count. Using individual state reports with ballot counts, the project estimates that 39.7 million Americans have voted by mail while 19 million have voted early in-person. Over 19 million of the total early votes come from California, Texas and Florida – the states with the highest population. Across 19 states that provide party registration with their reports, 13 million have been Democrat while 7 million are Republican. Another 6 million are registered independents. On Twitter, McDonald pointed out that Texas has hit nearly 80% of the total turnout in the state in 2016. McDonald has suggested that this election could have the highest voter turnout since 1908, with an estimated 65% of eligible voters participating in the election. #earlyvote morning update 10/25
At least 58 million people have voted in the 2020 general election 🥳https://t.co/s8K2xFDeSA pic.twitter.com/8NI64sWGRq — Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) October 25, 2020 Joining the group of early voters is this interesting group of Joe Biden supporters in Nevada. Nevada:
Biden voters. Latinos. On horseback. In style.
This is my America... pic.twitter.com/8ri9Ur7SyH — Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) October 25, 2020
25 Oct 2020 20.13 GMT From the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe in Miami: Born in Hawaii with deep roots in Chicago, Barack Obama is far removed from the traditional image of Florida Man. But with two appearances here in four days stumping for Joe Biden, the former president is relishing the atmosphere of the Sunshine State in the final days of the 2020 campaign. On Tuesday, Obama will follow up Saturday’s skewering of Donald Trump at a drive-in rally in North Miami with a similar gathering in Orlando, the exact details yet to be released by the Biden campaign. But the event means that, inside 96 hours, Obama will have made the same number of Florida appearances campaigning for his former vice-president that he did for Hillary Clinton in the last weeks of her run for the White House four years ago, “Oh, it’s good to be back in Florida,” Obama told the crowd in North Miami, shortly after paying a surprise visit to thank campaign workers in the nearby city of Miami Springs who helped him carry the state in 2008 and 2012. “You delivered twice for me, Florida. And now I’m asking you to deliver for Joe and deliver for Kamala.” Obama’s role in flipping Florida back blue after Trump seized the state by barely 1.2 percent in 2016 is more than just symbolic. Popular with Hispanic voters to a level that Biden has not been able to achieve, his messaging in a state where 2.5 million Latinos make up 17 percent of the electorate is crucial. On Saturday, he attacked Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and noted it had “hit African Americans and Latinos harder than anybody in Florida.” It is a point he is certain to press again on Tuesday in Orlando, the heart of the I-4 corridor with a significant Hispanic population, including about 300,000 Puerto Ricans. The demographic also offers Obama another opportunity to slam Trump. Criticism of the president’s handling of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island, was loud among Central Florida’s Puerto Rican community, with images of Trump casually tossing rolls of paper towels to suffering residents still fresh. “When a hurricane devastates Puerto Rico, a president’s supposed to help it rebuild, not toss paper towels [or] withhold billions of dollars in aid until just before an election,” Obama told the crowd in Miami. Expect more of the same in Orlando on Tuesday as Trump, the ultimate Florida Man, gets roasted by his nemesis once again.
25 Oct 2020 19.53 GMT Joe Biden released a statement in response to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ interview with CNN today where he said that the White House is not going to control the pandemic. “We’re not going to control the pandemic. We’re going to control the fact that we get a vaccine, therapeutics and other mitigation,” Meadows told CNN’s Jake Tapper. Biden said that the interview wasn’t a slip-up, but “a candid acknowledgement of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn’t, and it won’t.” BIDEN: "This wasn't a slip by Meadows, it was a candid acknowledgement of what President Trump's strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn't, and it won't." pic.twitter.com/BTizJZMQdf — Scott Wong (@scottwongDC) October 25, 2020
25 Oct 2020 19.30 GMT Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he’s happy with Donald Trump’s coziness with Russia, but the Kremlin today contradicted Trump and said that he doesn’t believe Joe Biden’s ties with Ukraine are criminal. Trump used Thursday’s debate with Biden as an opportunity to accuse Biden’s son of having unethical ties to Ukraine, accusations that have not been verified and that Biden has denied. According to Reuters, Putin said today that he is willing to work with any US leader, but noted that Biden has “sharp anti-Russian rhetoric”. Here’s more from the Reuters report: Putin appeared less friendly towards Trump in remarks broadcast by Russian state TV on Sunday. In what may be seen by some analysts as an attempt to try to curry favour with the Biden camp, the Russian presdient took the time to knock down what he made clear he regarded as false allegations from Trump about the Bidens. “Yes, in Ukraine he [Hunter Biden] had or maybe still has a business, I don’t know. It doesn’t concern us. It concerns the Americans and the Ukrainians,” said Putin. “But well yes he had at least one company, which he practically headed up, and judging from everything he made good money. I don’t see anything criminal about this, at least we don’t know anything about this [being criminal]”.
25 Oct 2020 19.00 GMT Mike Pence, who as vice president is technically the president of the Senate, is coming under criticism from Democrats for planning to come into the chamber to preside over the vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. At a rally in Florida yesterday, Pence said “I wouldn’t miss that vote for the world”. Pence’s appearance would be symbolic as he does not need to be physically present in the Senate for the confirmation to go through. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer denounced Pence’s plan to attend the vote tomorrow, saying it sets “a terrible, terrible example for the American public”. “It is clear to me that their closing message is that they’re going to personally deliver Covid to as many people as possible,” Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator for Hawaii, told a reporter. “It is clear to me that their closing message is that they’re going to personally deliver COVID to as many people as possible,” Schatz adds — Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) October 25, 2020 At least five people close to Pence, including his chief of staff, have tested positive for Covid-19. A White House official said Sunday that Pence and his wife have tested negative for the virus. His office said that the vice president does not plan to quarantine. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say a person should quarantine for 14 days if they were in close contact with a person who tested positive, even if they themselves do not have symptoms or tested negative. Pence, who is head of the White House’s coronavirus task force, has said that he can bypass CDC guidelines because he is an essential worker – a claim that has been questioned by health experts.
25 Oct 2020 18.27 GMT Ed Pilkington Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, is having a field day over the comments of the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows this morning. In a rare moment of transparency, Meadows admitted to a Sunday political talk show that the Trump administration had no intention of containing coronavirus, saying: “We’re not going to control the pandemic”. Cuomo said that thinking was tantamount to giving in to the virus. “They surrendered without firing a shot. It was the great American surrender,” he said on Sunday, as reported by the Daily News. The New York governor said that the Trump administration’s approach to Covid was summed up from the start by such capitulation. “They have believed from the beginning that they can’t control the virus,” he said. By contrast, Cuomo prides himself on having wrestled coronavirus to the ground. After a bad start to the pandemic, which saw New York City become the world’s top hotspot, the rate of infection has been reduced to one of the lowest in the country through an aggressive program of testing and contact tracing. There have been a total of almost 500,000 confirmed cases in the state, and 25,730 deaths. About 120,000 New Yorkers are being tested every day. “What we learned in New York was, if you put up a fight you will have won. Because New York won,” Cuomo said.
25 Oct 2020 18.10 GMT After the Senate voted to move forward with the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, celebrating the lasting influence of the vote for posterity. “By tomorrow night, we’ll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court,” he told the chamber. McConnell acknowledged that this election could change the tide in Washington but said that not much could be done to change the nature of the court “for a long time to come”. McConnell, just after the Senate votes to limit debate on Amy Coney Barrett: "A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come." — Nicholas Fandos (@npfandos) October 25, 2020 One Capitol Hill reporter noted that it appears the bruising on McConnell’s face and hands that were seen on Friday appeared to have gotten better. Apparently, getting three judges onto the Supreme Court in four years can do wonders to one’s health. Also, McConnell's right hand, which was deeply bruised earlier this week and prompted several Qs about his health, appears much better. Most of the bruising is gone https://t.co/WPFJcqsog2 — Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 25, 2020
Updated at 18.19 GMT
25 Oct 2020 17.35 GMT Senate to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to Supreme Court tomorrow 01:34 McConnell revels in moving Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court vote forward – video The Senate just made a 51-48 vote to move forward with the final vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Republicans overrode a Democratic filibuster with today’s vote, and the final vote for her confirmation will take place tomorrow night. With the Republican majority in the Senate, Barrett’s nomination is pretty much a guarantee, despite weeks of criticism from Democrats about a Supreme Court nomination weeks before the presidential election. #Breaking: Amy Coney Barrett on track for confirmation tomorrow evening after Senate Republicans defeat a Democratic filibuster, 51-48, during a rare Sunday session just nine days before the election — Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 25, 2020
Updated at 20.31 GMT
25 Oct 2020 17.10 GMT The NFL has fined the Tennessee Titans $350,000 for violating protocols leading to the league’s first Covid-19 outbreak during the season, multiple outlets are reporting. The Titans had 24 people, including 13 players, test positive for the coronavirus between 24 September and 11 October. The outbreak led the NFL to postpone two Tennessee games and the rescheduling of a game against Pittsburgh from 4 October to today and the second against Buffalo from 11 October to 13 October. The league and its players association sent officials, including infectious disease experts, to Nashville where they reviewed video and interviewed players, coaches and other personnel. ESPN reports the NFL informed the Titans last week that their review had concluded and the organization would face a potential fine. Individuals would not be disciplined and there was no discussion of forfeiture of draft picks.
25 Oct 2020 16.35 GMT Archie Bland One of the more surprising headlines of the day comes from the Wall Street Journal in: Health Agency Halts Coronavirus Ad Campaign, Leaving Santa Claus in the Cold. The WSJ reports that the Trump administration offered Santa Claus performers a deal: if they agreed to promote a Covid-19 vaccine, they would get early access to it. The story says that performers playing Mrs Claus or elves would also have been included. But the plan has now been called off. The article continues: Ric Erwin, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, called the news “extremely disappointing”, adding: “this was our greatest hope for Christmas 2020, and now it looks like it won’t happen.” You can read more of this belter at the Wall Street Journal (although it’s behind a paywall).
25 Oct 2020 16.08 GMT The US Senate has started day two of a rare weekend session to continue debate over the confirmation of federal appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court. Democrats have expressed outrage at the vacancy being filled so close to the election – in fact boycotting Thursday’s vote to advance her nomination to the full Senate – but the Republicans’ 53-47 majority in the upper chamber ensures they have the votes they need to approve her nomination and cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court for years to come. No supreme court nominee has ever been installed so close to a presidential election and, just four years ago, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and senator Lindsey Graham, who now chairs the judiciary committee, said that installing a nominee in an election year would be a shameful defiance of the will of voters. Barrett, 48, is expected to be confirmed Monday and quickly join the court. This post was amended on 25 October 2020 to give the correct figure for the Republicans’ senate majority.
Updated at 23.21 GMT
25 Oct 2020 16.04 GMT More from Richard Luscombe… Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, was grilled on NBC’s Meet the Press about the Democrat nominee’s “light physical footprint”.
To the backdrop of a graphic comparing Biden’s appearances since September in four key battleground states – North Carolina, Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania – to Trump’s (the president leads 19-14), host Chuck Todd wanted to know why Biden was concentrating heavily on Georgia instead of more northerly swing states. The answer: Biden is “focused on maintaining as many paths to 270 electoral votes as we possibly can.” Bedingfield also pointed out that at a scheduled appearance in Warm Springs, Georgia, on Tuesday, Biden would deliver his closing arguments at a place “which obviously has historical significance in this country”. Warm Springs is the resort town where the 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, built his Little White House, a cottage he used while suffering from polio in the 1930s. “Vice-President Biden has visited all of these battleground states multiple times,” Bedingfield said. “He was in Pennsylvania yesterday, doing two events, along with Dr [Jill] Biden. So no, we have been very aggressively campaigning. “Here’s the difference between what we’re doing and what Donald Trump is doing, we’re doing it safely.” Bedingfield noted that the president’s rallies feature large, mostly maskless crowds with no social distancing. A new CBS poll, meanwhile, showed Biden tied with Trump in Georgia and holding narrow leads in other southern battlegrounds, including Florida and North Carolina. Todd also pressed Bedingfield on Biden’s comments at last week’s final debate about the oil industry. Why, he wondered, would oil workers in Texas or elsewhere support a candidate who supports a transition away from the industry at a risk to their jobs? “There is only one person in this country who Joe Biden thinks should lose his job and it’s Donald Trump,” she said. “Joe Biden … is not going to end the fossil fuel industry, he’s going to end subsidies for the oil industry. He believes your taxpayer dollars should go to education. Donald Trump believes they should go to Exxon. That’s a conversation we’re willing to have any day.”