theguardian--2020-08-23--First ladies: voices of reason and compassion, central to US politics today

Michelle Obama may think that Donald Trump “ can not meet this moment ” , but she has proved without a doubt that she can .
When Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention ( DNC ) last week , she pleaded for Americans to vote for Joe Biden like their “ lives depend on it ” .
She used her recent history as America ’ s “ mom-in-chief ” to make her case in what was the most talked-about speech of the convention .
And she made clear that first ladies have enormous platforms , if they choose to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I tell you exactly what I ’ m feeling .
You know I hate politics , ” she said .
“ If you take one thing from my words tonight , it is this : if you think things can not possibly get worse , trust me , they can ; and they will if we don ’ t make a change in this election.
” There is no role in American politics as nebulous , or as visible , as the first lady ’ s .
These women have a difficult needle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be relatable women , perfect mothers , and brilliant campaigners all at once .
Ironically , the less political they are , the more political capital they earn with voters .
Now , during a surreal virtual convention with no cheering crowds and no balloons , Americans are looking for familiar comforting faces , and that is exactly what Michelle Obama gave them .
First ladies are playing an increasingly important role because , as the country grows more divided , they are voices of reason and compassion .
These women use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ soften and humanise their husbands .
And showing a politician ’ s human side is more important during the pandemic than ever .
Like Eleanor Roosevelt during the second world war , or Laura Bush after 11 September , a first lady offers hope .
First lady hopeful , Jill Biden , spoke at the DNC from the Delaware high school classroom where she taught English .
She talked about grading papers at night while her husband tucked their two sons into bed ( Biden ’ s political career is inextricably tied to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ baby daughter in a car crash ) .
And she marvelled at her husband ’ s strength after his son Beau ’ s death from cancer .
Biden went back to work four days after he died , she said , because he had to keep fighting for American families .
“ I ’ ve always understood why he did it – for the daughter who convinces her mom to finally get a breast cancer screening and misses work to drive her to the clinic , for the community college student who has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the grit to finish her degree and make a good life for her kids.
” When Michelle Obama said that Trump “ simply can not be who we need him to be for us .
It is what it is , ” she was referring to comments Trump made during an Axios interview that aired on HBO in early August .
When asked about the devastating death toll from coronavirus , the president said , “ It is what it is.
” Obama ’ s entire point was to show his lack of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Joe Biden ’ s preponderance of both .
First ladies are perfectly poised to make the case .
They usually have higher favourability ratings than their husbands because they typically keep their influence private .
From Jackie Kennedy , who in the summer of 1961 had a 66 % favourable rating , to Rosalynn Carter , who had a 68 % positive rating , to Laura Bush , whose favourable rating peaked at an astonishing 85 % in 2005 , these women are huge assets to their husbands and anyone they choose to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At the DNC , Obama framed her argument against Trump by looking through her two daughters ’ eyes : “ They see our leaders labelling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists .
They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages , and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protestors for photo-ops , ” she said .
“ Sadly , this is the America that is on display for the next generation.
” Just imagine Laura Bush talking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who was her husband ’ s successor .
Bush ( and her husband George ) did not even bother showing up at the 2012 Republican National Convention where Mitt Romney was nominated .
It was not worth it .
Melania Trump is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday .
She will be delivering her remarks from the White House ’ s famous Rose Garden , which she recently had redone using private donations .
Her headlining speech at the RNC ’ s opening night in 2016 did not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how strikingly similar it was to Michelle Obama ’ s remarks at the DNC in 2008 .
I wonder if she can find her own words to tell voters why they should re-elect her husband .
Kate Andersen Brower is the author of Team of Five : The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump and First Women : The Grace and Power of America ’ s Modern First Ladies

Michelle Obama may think that Donald Trump “cannot meet this moment”, but she has proved without a doubt that she can.
When Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) last week, she pleaded for Americans to vote for Joe Biden like their “lives depend on it”. She used her recent history as America’s “mom-in-chief” to make her case in what was the most talked-about speech of the convention. And she made clear that first ladies have enormous platforms, if they choose to use them.
“You know that I tell you exactly what I’m feeling. You know I hate politics,” she said. “If you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: if you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election.”
There is no role in American politics as nebulous, or as visible, as the first lady’s. These women have a difficult needle to thread: first ladies are supposed to be relatable women, perfect mothers, and brilliant campaigners all at once. Ironically, the less political they are, the more political capital they earn with voters. Now, during a surreal virtual convention with no cheering crowds and no balloons, Americans are looking for familiar comforting faces, and that is exactly what Michelle Obama gave them.
First ladies are playing an increasingly important role because, as the country grows more divided, they are voices of reason and compassion. These women use their resumés as wives and mothers to soften and humanise their husbands. And showing a politician’s human side is more important during the pandemic than ever. Like Eleanor Roosevelt during the second world war, or Laura Bush after 11 September, a first lady offers hope.
First ladies are perfectly poised to make the case – they usually have higher favourability ratings than their husbands
First lady hopeful, Jill Biden, spoke at the DNC from the Delaware high school classroom where she taught English. She talked about grading papers at night while her husband tucked their two sons into bed (Biden’s political career is inextricably tied to the death of his first wife and baby daughter in a car crash). And she marvelled at her husband’s strength after his son Beau’s death from cancer. Biden went back to work four days after he died, she said, because he had to keep fighting for American families. “I’ve always understood why he did it – for the daughter who convinces her mom to finally get a breast cancer screening and misses work to drive her to the clinic, for the community college student who has faced homelessness and survived abuse but finds the grit to finish her degree and make a good life for her kids.”
When Michelle Obama said that Trump “simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is,” she was referring to comments Trump made during an Axios interview that aired on HBO in early August. When asked about the devastating death toll from coronavirus, the president said, “It is what it is.” Obama’s entire point was to show his lack of empathy and humanity and contrast that with Joe Biden’s preponderance of both.
First ladies are perfectly poised to make the case. They usually have higher favourability ratings than their husbands because they typically keep their influence private. From Jackie Kennedy, who in the summer of 1961 had a 66% favourable rating, to Rosalynn Carter, who had a 68% positive rating, to Laura Bush, whose favourable rating peaked at an astonishing 85% in 2005, these women are huge assets to their husbands and anyone they choose to support after they leave the White House.
At the DNC, Obama framed her argument against Trump by looking through her two daughters’ eyes: “They see our leaders labelling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful protestors for photo-ops,” she said. “Sadly, this is the America that is on display for the next generation.”
Melania Trump’s headlining speech at the Republican National Convention in 2016 was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention speech. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Just imagine Laura Bush talking like that in 2012 about Barack Obama, who was her husband’s successor. Bush (and her husband George) did not even bother showing up at the 2012 Republican National Convention where Mitt Romney was nominated. It was not worth it.
Melania Trump is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday. She will be delivering her remarks from the White House’s famous Rose Garden, which she recently had redone using private donations.
Her headlining speech at the RNC’s opening night in 2016 did not go so well once it was discovered how strikingly similar it was to Michelle Obama’s remarks at the DNC in 2008. I wonder if she can find her own words to tell voters why they should re-elect her husband.
Kate Andersen Brower is the author of Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump and First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies


theguardian--2020-08-23--The People, No review: elites, anti-populism and how progressive promise is squandered

Thomas Frank has a simple thesis : populism has been mischaracterized by its enemies , since its birth at the end of the 19th century , as a “ one-word evocation of the logic of the mob ” .
In our own time , it has been skewered as “ the secret weapon ” behind the wildly unlikely selection of Donald Trump as president .
The Guardian contributor and author of What ’ s the Matter with Kansas ?
points out that Trump ’ s triumph was only made possible by an “ anti-populist instrument from long ago ” , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ irony quickly receded into the background.
” As a president whose policies have almost exclusively benefitted the top 1 % , with vast tax cuts for the rich and – at the moment – not one more cent from Trump ’ s Senate allies for the economic victims of the pandemic , our benighted leader is actually the pure opposite of a true populist .
Frank writes that populism has been continuously misidentified by elites , so much so that the liberal Center for American Progress made an extremely unusual alliance with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ report denouncing “ authoritarian populism ” .
True populists , Frank writes , the adherents of the People ’ s Party who adopted the word in 1891 , were those who supported “ a specific list of reforms designed to take power away from ‘ the plutocrats ’ ” while advancing the “ rights and needs , the interests and welfare of the people ” .
They were protesting “ unbearable debt , monopoly and corruption … forcing the country to acknowledge that ordinary Americans who were just as worthy as bankers or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic system that in fact answered to no moral laws.
” Which of course is a perfect description of the version of American capitalism which reigns unfettered today .
Frank bows to no one in his determination to highlight “ racist , rightwing demagogues and figuring out what can be done to defeat them ” .
Opponents of the right , he writes , “ should be claiming the high ground of populism , not ceding it to guys like Donald Trump ” .
He proclaims himself “ flabbergasted anew every time I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
How does it help reformers … to deliberately devalue the coinage of the American reform tradition ?
” Denunciations of populism come “ from a long tradition of pessimism about popular sovereignty and democratic participation ” , a “ tradition of quasi-aristocratic scorn ” that has “ allowed the paranoid right to flower so abundantly ” .
Anti-populism ’ s “ most toxic ingredient ” , Frank writes , is “ a highbrow contempt for ordinary Americans ” .
He has particular contempt for experts , including most of the academic establishment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been invested ” , he writes , to promote the canard that populism is a “ threat to liberal democracy … Your daily paper , if your town still has one , almost certainly throws the word ‘ populist ’ at racist demagogue and pro-labor liberals alike ” .
“ Populism , ” he adds , “ was about mass enlightenment , not the empowerment of a clique of foundation favorites or Ivy League grads.
” These are the people he holds responsible for failing to prosecute any bankers after the housing bubble @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and “ prosecuting stupid wars ” .
The best argument Frank makes for populism lies in the record of Franklin Delano Roosevelt , who he correctly identifies as “ the most consequential president of the 20th century ” , a leader who didn ’ t “ merely talk in a populist way ” , but delivered .
“ FDR bailed out farmers and homeowners , he protected unions , he pulled the teeth of the Wall Street wolves , he smashed oligopolies , he took America off the gold standard and … @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s respectables as the most dangerous demagogue of them all , a sort of one man mob-rule.
” For modern progressives , Roosevelt ’ s attacks against Wall Street have the greatest resonance .
In 1936 he declared : “ Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob … Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today .
They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.
” According to Frank @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for liberals to acknowledge nowadays , it was Roosevelt ’ s willingness to disregard elites ” that revived America after the Great Depression .
Frank also offers a strong section on Martin Luther King Jr ’ s understanding of the populism of the 1890s and how Southern plutocrats helped to destroy it , enacting laws “ that made it a crime for negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level ” .
The poor white man was given “ a psychological bird that told him no matter how bad off @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a white man , better than the black man .
And he ate Jim Crow.
” I agree with most of Frank ’ s economic analysis .
But his fury at modern progressives such as Barack Obama leads him to ignore their real achievements .
I , too , believe it was a tremendous mistake not to prosecute any financial executives after the financial collapse in 2008 .
But Frank is blind to the other sides of the story .
Dodd-Frank was a huge corrective to disastrous financial deregulation begun under the Clinton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” never appear in this volume .
Obamacare did not go after big pharma , because of a calculation by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel that no bill would pass if the corporate thieves opposed it .
But it was still the first major expansion of the federal role in healthcare since Lyndon Johnson , and 20 million Americans got insurance because of it .
Finally , Frank ’ s focus on economic inequality leaves out other social issues : the letters “ LGBTQ ” appear once , on page 231 .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movement have made gigantic improvements in the lives of millions , especially under Obama .
By ignoring those accomplishments , Frank slights all who marched and bled and died for justice – even though he is right to argue that our greatest economic battles remain to be fought and won .

Thomas Frank has a simple thesis: populism has been mischaracterized by its enemies, since its birth at the end of the 19th century, as a “one-word evocation of the logic of the mob”.
In our own time, it has been skewered as “the secret weapon” behind the wildly unlikely selection of Donald Trump as president.
The Guardian contributor and author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? points out that Trump’s triumph was only made possible by an “anti-populist instrument from long ago”, the electoral college. “But that irony quickly receded into the background.”
As a president whose policies have almost exclusively benefitted the top 1%, with vast tax cuts for the rich and – at the moment – not one more cent from Trump’s Senate allies for the economic victims of the pandemic, our benighted leader is actually the pure opposite of a true populist.
Frank writes that populism has been continuously misidentified by elites, so much so that the liberal Center for American Progress made an extremely unusual alliance with the rightwing American Enterprise Institute to co-author a report denouncing “authoritarian populism”.
True populists advanced the rights and needs, the interests and welfare of the people
True populists, Frank writes, the adherents of the People’s Party who adopted the word in 1891, were those who supported “a specific list of reforms designed to take power away from ‘the plutocrats’” while advancing the “rights and needs, the interests and welfare of the people”.
They were protesting “unbearable debt, monopoly and corruption … forcing the country to acknowledge that ordinary Americans who were just as worthy as bankers or railroad barons were being ruined by an economic system that in fact answered to no moral laws.”
Which of course is a perfect description of the version of American capitalism which reigns unfettered today.
Frank bows to no one in his determination to highlight “racist, rightwing demagogues and figuring out what can be done to defeat them”. Opponents of the right, he writes, “should be claiming the high ground of populism, not ceding it to guys like Donald Trump”. He proclaims himself “flabbergasted anew every time I see the word abused in this way. How does it help reformers … to deliberately devalue the coinage of the American reform tradition?”
Denunciations of populism come “from a long tradition of pessimism about popular sovereignty and democratic participation”, a “tradition of quasi-aristocratic scorn” that has “allowed the paranoid right to flower so abundantly”. Anti-populism’s “most toxic ingredient”, Frank writes, is “a highbrow contempt for ordinary Americans”.
He has particular contempt for experts, including most of the academic establishment. “Millions of foundation dollars have been invested”, he writes, to promote the canard that populism is a “threat to liberal democracy … Your daily paper, if your town still has one, almost certainly throws the word ‘populist’ at racist demagogue and pro-labor liberals alike”.
“Populism,” he adds, “was about mass enlightenment, not the empowerment of a clique of foundation favorites or Ivy League grads.”
These are the people he holds responsible for failing to prosecute any bankers after the housing bubble fiasco, negotiating “disastrous trade agreements” and “prosecuting stupid wars”.
The best argument Frank makes for populism lies in the record of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom he correctly identifies as “the most consequential president of the 20th century”, a leader who didn’t “merely talk in a populist way”, but delivered.
“FDR bailed out farmers and homeowners, he protected unions, he pulled the teeth of the Wall Street wolves, he smashed oligopolies, he took America off the gold standard and … he was roundly condemned by the nation’s respectables as the most dangerous demagogue of them all, a sort of one man mob-rule.”
For modern progressives, Roosevelt’s attacks against Wall Street have the greatest resonance. In 1936 he declared: “Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob … Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.”
According to Frank, “painful though it may be for liberals to acknowledge nowadays, it was Roosevelt’s willingness to disregard elites” that revived America after the Great Depression.
Frank also offers a strong section on Martin Luther King Jr’s understanding of the populism of the 1890s and how Southern plutocrats helped to destroy it, enacting laws “that made it a crime for negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level”. The poor white man was given “a psychological bird that told him no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate Jim Crow.”
The Queer March for Black Lives in New York City, in June. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Getty Images
I agree with most of Frank’s economic analysis. But his fury at modern progressives such as Barack Obama leads him to ignore their real achievements. I, too, believe it was a tremendous mistake not to prosecute any financial executives after the financial collapse in 2008. But Frank is blind to the other sides of the story. Dodd-Frank was a huge corrective to disastrous financial deregulation begun under the Clinton administration. But the words “Dodd-Frank” never appear in this volume.
Obamacare did not go after big pharma, because of a calculation by chief of staff Rahm Emanuel that no bill would pass if the corporate thieves opposed it. But it was still the first major expansion of the federal role in healthcare since Lyndon Johnson, and 20 million Americans got insurance because of it.
Finally, Frank’s focus on economic inequality leaves out other social issues: the letters “LGBTQ” appear once, on page 231. The gay movement and the women’s movement have made gigantic improvements in the lives of millions, especially under Obama.
By ignoring those accomplishments, Frank slights all who marched and bled and died for justice – even though he is right to argue that our greatest economic battles remain to be fought and won.


theguardian--2020-08-23--From Washington to Minsk, democracy is under siege ... and losing the battle

It would be reassuring to think that if Russia moved to intervene militarily in Belarus – as it did in Ukraine and Georgia – the EU , the US and Nato would finally draw a line .
Vladimir Putin would be firmly told : “ Not again .
Enough of your overt aggression , covert operations , ‘ little green men ’ , cyber attacks , poll meddling and assassinations .
If you really want a new cold war with the west , then we ’ re ready – and just like last time , Russia will lose.
” Reassuring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s EU response to the popular uprising in Belarus made clear , a primary concern of Europe ’ s leaders is to avoid antagonising Russia ’ s president .
True , they told Putin not to interfere .
But in return , they promised not to interfere themselves .
“ The EU stands in solidarity with the people of Belarus , ” they said .
Solidarity turned out to mean limited sanctions and backing for a “ national dialogue ” already rejected by the regime .
For courageous protesters in Minsk seeking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s caution must surely be a great disappointment .
It is often said that most Belarusians are content to stick close to Russia .
This proposition warrants closer examination .
A 2019 survey found 89 % of respondents have a positive or neutral opinion of the EU .
Trust levels are high .
This month ’ s stolen election was not a vote to join Europe .
But it was a vote for Europe ’ s values .
European pressure aside , Putin has good reasons to hold back , not least the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a weakened and thus more pliable Alexander Lukashenko would hold on as president .
Predictions that Belarusian “ people power ” could inspire copycat upheavals in Russia before next month ’ s regional polls also seem over-cooked .
It ’ s beginning to look like another Kremlin win – and another defeat for the forces of democratic reform .
Perhaps there will be a reckoning with Putin one day .
But not yet .
Europe fears him , Donald Trump shields him , and China befriends him .
His sense of impunity is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poisoning of Russia ’ s leading opposition figure , Alexei Navalny , who was touring disaffected Siberia , is a horribly familiar crime .
Who can doubt where ultimate responsibility lies ?
The Kremlin ’ s message – for domestic and foreign consumption – is deadly and uncompromising .
The thwarting of Belarus ’ s revolution , if that is what is happening , comes at a portentous juncture in an increasingly intense , global battle for democratic rights .
In one camp , broadly speaking , sit the forces of reaction – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racists who rule by division , violence and fear .
In the opposing camp , liberals and progressives adhere to ideas of universal , law-based human rights and values .
This world-wide struggle has been developing since the end of the 1990s .
It has exploded myths about the “ end of history ” and the triumph of the west .
And it is fought everywhere .
“ What we do these next 76 days will echo through generations to come , ” Barack Obama warned last week as Democrats geared up for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about the threat to American democracy .
In truth , the threat is ubiquitous .
And too often , the fight is being lost .
Just look around .
In Hong Kong , China ’ s new security law is rapidly strangling what remains of open , representative governance as Britain and allies flail about impotently .
Intimidation and censorship spread like blight .
In Thailand , pro-democracy protests against the junta-turned-government of tinpot general Prayuth Chan-ocha culminated last week in the arrest of activists on spurious charges .
In Lebanon , shaken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hopes that the old political order could also be blown up appear to be sinking in a sea of hunger and poverty as the same self-serving elites that failed the country manoeuvre for power .
In Mali , once lauded as a paradigm of modern African democracy , military coup-makers defied regional opinion , ousted an elected president and promised new elections , if and when they saw fit .
These disparate cases share a common root : the way the world ’ s most influential leaders distort , ignore or reject outright @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China , Xi Jinping has created an imperial presidency , scaring critics into silence .
Cai Xia , an outspoken former Communist party college professor , was an honourable exception last week .
In Brazil , Egypt and Turkey , as in Russia , elected dictators give democracy a bad name .
In India , Narendra Modi erects an intolerant new raj .
Yet it is in the US that the faltering democratic imperative is most keenly felt .
A bipartisan Senate inquiry last week confirmed the Mueller report ’ s findings : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russian officials to turn the 2016 election .
In fact , the Senate was more damning still .
It said , in effect , that Trump lied when he denied knowledge of Russia ’ s theft of Democratic party emails , later published by WikiLeaks .
Let ’ s be clear : what is alleged is criminal behaviour , for which Trump could one day face jail .
He was complicit in “ a plot against American democracy ” , the New York Times thundered .
Trump , Obama said , “ will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s what it takes to win ” .
They do not exaggerate .
Whether it ’ s obstruction of justice , the Ukraine scam , sabotaged postal votes , cronyism , abuse of power , daily lies or “ fake news ” , Trump is democracy ’ s foremost foe .
This is the dismal example the unworthy heir to Roosevelt ’ s “ arsenal of democracy ” now sets for the world .
Little wonder dictators , autocrats and authoritarians think they are winning .
This contagious plague of unaccountability , arrogance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings , nor is Europe immune .
Belarus is but the latest failure of the democratic ideal .
If Trump wins again , all the bad guys win , too .

It would be reassuring to think that if Russia moved to intervene militarily in Belarus – as it did in Ukraine and Georgia – the EU, the US and Nato would finally draw a line. Vladimir Putin would be firmly told: “Not again. Enough of your overt aggression, covert operations, ‘little green men’, cyber attacks, poll meddling and assassinations. If you really want a new cold war with the west, then we’re ready – and just like last time, Russia will lose.”
Reassuring, but unrealistic. As last week’s EU response to the popular uprising in Belarus made clear, a primary concern of Europe’s leaders is to avoid antagonising Russia’s president. True, they told Putin not to interfere. But in return, they promised not to interfere themselves. “The EU stands in solidarity with the people of Belarus,” they said. Solidarity turned out to mean limited sanctions and backing for a “national dialogue” already rejected by the regime.
For courageous protesters in Minsk seeking an end to dictatorship, Europe’s caution must surely be a great disappointment. It is often said that most Belarusians are content to stick close to Russia. This proposition warrants closer examination. A 2019 survey found 89% of respondents have a positive or neutral opinion of the EU. Trust levels are high. This month’s stolen election was not a vote to join Europe. But it was a vote for Europe’s values.
European pressure aside, Putin has good reasons to hold back, not least the calculation, now apparently vindicated, that a weakened and thus more pliable Alexander Lukashenko would hold on as president. Predictions that Belarusian “people power” could inspire copycat upheavals in Russia before next month’s regional polls also seem over-cooked. It’s beginning to look like another Kremlin win – and another defeat for the forces of democratic reform.
Perhaps there will be a reckoning with Putin one day. But not yet. Europe fears him, Donald Trump shields him, and China befriends him. His sense of impunity is powerful. Last week’s non-coincidental poisoning of Russia’s leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, who was touring disaffected Siberia, is a horribly familiar crime. Who can doubt where ultimate responsibility lies? The Kremlin’s message – for domestic and foreign consumption – is deadly and uncompromising.
The thwarting of Belarus’s revolution, if that is what is happening, comes at a portentous juncture in an increasingly intense, global battle for democratic rights. In one camp, broadly speaking, sit the forces of reaction – autocrats, authoritarian nationalists, populists and racists who rule by division, violence and fear. In the opposing camp, liberals and progressives adhere to ideas of universal, law-based human rights and values.
Whether it’s obstruction of justice, sabotaged postal votes, cronyism or “fake news”, Trump is democracy’s foremost foe
This world-wide struggle has been developing since the end of the 1990s. It has exploded myths about the “end of history” and the triumph of the west. And it is fought everywhere. “What we do these next 76 days will echo through generations to come,” Barack Obama warned last week as Democrats geared up for the US election. He was speaking about the threat to American democracy. In truth, the threat is ubiquitous. And too often, the fight is being lost.
Just look around. In Hong Kong, China’s new security law is rapidly strangling what remains of open, representative governance as Britain and allies flail about impotently. Intimidation and censorship spread like blight. In Thailand, pro-democracy protests against the junta-turned-government of tinpot general Prayuth Chan-ocha culminated last week in the arrest of activists on spurious charges.
In Lebanon, shaken by the devastating explosion in Beirut, hopes that the old political order could also be blown up appear to be sinking in a sea of hunger and poverty as the same self-serving elites that failed the country manoeuvre for power. In Mali, once lauded as a paradigm of modern African democracy, military coup-makers defied regional opinion, ousted an elected president and promised new elections, if and when they saw fit.
These disparate cases share a common root: the way the world’s most influential leaders distort, ignore or reject outright the supposed post-1989 democratic consensus. In China, Xi Jinping has created an imperial presidency, scaring critics into silence. Cai Xia, an outspoken former Communist party college professor, was an honourable exception last week. In Brazil, Egypt and Turkey, as in Russia, elected dictators give democracy a bad name. In India, Narendra Modi erects an intolerant new raj.
Yet it is in the US that the faltering democratic imperative is most keenly felt. A bipartisan Senate inquiry last week confirmed the Mueller report’s findings: that Trump’s campaign worked with Russian officials to turn the 2016 election. In fact, the Senate was more damning still. It said, in effect, that Trump lied when he denied knowledge of Russia’s theft of Democratic party emails, later published by WikiLeaks.
Let’s be clear: what is alleged is criminal behaviour, for which Trump could one day face jail. He was complicit in “a plot against American democracy”, the New York Times thundered. Trump, Obama said, “will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes to win”. They do not exaggerate. Whether it’s obstruction of justice, the Ukraine scam, sabotaged postal votes, cronyism, abuse of power, daily lies or “fake news”, Trump is democracy’s foremost foe.
This is the dismal example the unworthy heir to Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy” now sets for the world. Little wonder dictators, autocrats and authoritarians think they are winning. This contagious plague of unaccountability, arrogance and diktat also infects the Britain of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, nor is Europe immune. Belarus is but the latest failure of the democratic ideal. If Trump wins again, all the bad guys win, too.


theguardian--2020-08-23--How Donald Trump canceled the Republican party | Sidney Blumenthal

The Republican convention that nominates Donald Trump for a second term will be the greatest event in the political history of cancel culture .
What Trump is cancelling is nothing less than the Republican party as it has existed before him .
He ran in 2016 in the primaries on cancelling the GOP and in 2020 he ratifies his triumph .
After the election , political scientists and historians will study his obliteration of the Republican party as his greatest and most enduring political achievement .
The Republican party has been on a long journey away from being the party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Goldwater and rightwing cadres captured it in 1964 in reaction to the civil rights movement .
After Richard Nixon embraced the southern strategy and won the nomination in 1968 with the help of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina , the Dixiecrat segregationist presidential candidate in 1948 , the party increasingly radicalized in every election cycle and became gradually unmoored .
In 1980 , Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair , the place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964 .
Surrounded by Confederate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rights ” .
As brazen an appeal as it was , Reagan felt he had to resort to the old code words .
Central to Trump ’ s unique selling proposition is that he dispenses with the dog whistles .
His vulgarity gives a vicarious thrill to those who revel in his taunting of perceived enemies or scapegoats .
He made them feel dominant at no social price , until his catastrophic mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis .
Flouting a mask is the magical act of defiance to signal that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any case , Trump bears no responsibility .
But there has also been a political cost to Trump ’ s louche comic lounge act that still transfixes a diehard audience lingering like late-night gamblers for the last show .
Trump is the only president since the advent of modern polling never to reach 50 % approval .
Despite decisively losing the popular vote in 2016 , he said he “ won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally ” .
This time , fearing an even more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outcome will be “ rigged ” and he has pre-emptively tried to cancel the US Postal Service , to undermine voting by mail .
From Reagan onward , even as the fringe moved to the center and took it over , the party did not anticipate that it was slouching toward Trump .
Conservatives have consistently failed to grasp the unintended consequences of conservatism .
Even when Reagan fostered the evangelical right , George HW Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the supreme court , George W Bush invaded Iraq and neglected oversight of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate , Republicans believed they were expanding the attraction of the conservative project .
When Newt Gingrich , Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh methodically degraded language , it seemed a propaganda technique to herd supporters .
When the dark money of the Koch family and the wealthy reactionaries of the cloaked Donors Trust bankrolled the lumpen dress-up Tea Party to do their bidding on deregulation of finance and industry , the munificently funded conservative candidates did their bidding as retainers of privilege .
At the presidential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to what metastasized into Trumpism .
Reagan represented free trade and western firmness against Russia .
George HW Bush was a paragon of public service .
George W Bush was an advocate for immigrants .
John McCain was the embodiment of patriotic sacrifice .
After Trump , all that has been cancelled .
Since he first rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015 , to declare his candidacy against Mexican “ rapists ” , there has always been a new escalator downward .
After overcoming his initial hesitation , the House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the election of a QAnon conspiracy-spouting candidate from Georgia , Marjorie Taylor Greene .
Then McCarthy condemned QAnon and stated that Greene wasn ’ t part of a movement she continued to defend .
Trump hailed her as a “ future Republican star ” .
For months , he has been tweeting messages to encourage the racist , antisemitic cult .
“ There ’ s a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out , and I think we have the president to do it , ” Greene proclaimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are people that love our country , ” Trump said .
In the wasteland , only cockroaches and Mitch McConnell may survive .
Stuart Stevens , a prominent Republican political consultant , eyes startled wide open , has entitled his exposé of the party It Was All A Lie .
He describes the conservative Trump apologists , the adults in the room , as latter-day versions of Franz von Papen , the German chancellor who enabled the rise of Hitler in the complacent belief that he could be controlled and the conservatives would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the mammoth stage set of Mount Rushmore , Trump mugged for his photo op by posing his face next in line to the carving of Abraham Lincoln .
He had earlier told the South Dakota governor , Kristi Noem , “ ‘ Did you know it ’ s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore ?
’ ” “ And I started laughing , ” she recounted .
“ And he wasn ’ t laughing , so he was totally serious.
” ( Trump tweeted that it was “ fake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aide to inquire about immortalizing his face on the mountain . )
Ostensibly , Trump came to deliver his ideological message .
He denounced “ cancel culture ” , which he said was “ the very definition of totalitarianism , and it is completely alien to our culture and to our values , and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America ” .
He attributed it to “ a new far-left fascism ” .
And he spelled out its punitive nature : “ If you do not speak its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its mantras and follow its commandments , then you will be censored , banished , blacklisted , persecuted and punished.
” Thus , he offered a concise description of his own cancel culture ’ s methods .
Trump ’ s cancel culture deals in aggressions , not micro-aggressions .
The only safe space is where Trump is worshipped .
Before , during and after the death of McCain , Trump unleashed tirades of insult .
He finally complained that the McCain family never thanked him for approving the senator ’ s funeral arrangements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gave approval .
For years , Trump has disparaged the Bush family .
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic , when George W Bush called for setting aside partisanship and embracing national unity , Trump tweeted , “ but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside ” .
Trump has invoked Reagan only as a stepping stone of his own monumental pedestal .
At a rally in 2019 , Trump mused : “ I was watching the other night the great Lou Dobbs [ of Fox News ] , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took over , President Trump , ’ he used to say , ‘ Trump is a great president.
’ Then he said , ‘ Trump is the greatest president since Ronald Reagan.
’ Then he said , ‘ No , no , Trump is an even better president than Ronald Reagan.
’ And now he ’ s got me down as the greatest president in the history of our country , including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln .
Thank you .
We love you too.
” When Trump sought to profit for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commemorative coin set , the Reagan Foundation sent him a curt letter , telling him to cease and desist .
Trump has constantly retailed a false story about Reagan supposedly remarking after meeting him , “ For the life of me , and I ’ ll never know how to explain it , when I met that young man , I felt like I was the one shaking hands with the president.
” The chief administrative officer of the Reagan Foundation felt compelled to note that Reagan “ did not ever say that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s petty , vindictive and exploitative abuse of the Bush presidents , McCain and Reagan pales in comparison to his raging obsessions about Lincoln .
He has boasted his poll numbers are better than Lincoln ’ s ever were ( true ) , claimed he is more a victim than the assassinated martyr ( untrue ) , and declared he has done more for Black Americans than Lincoln ( untrue ) .
Trump , the would-be Great Emancipator and upholder of Confederate monuments , has lately ruminated about giving an address at Gettysburg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the thousands of poor white southerners who gave their lives for the Slave Power and to overthrow the democracy of the United States .
Perhaps , contemplating his last campaign , Trump could trudge across the rutted field of Pickett ’ s Charge .
He might ask what his bikers and self-styled militia would be willing to do for him .
What Lincoln consecrated , Trump would desecrate .
But he would undoubtedly speak longer .
Trump ’ s compulsive need to elevate himself as greater than the greatest president does not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from members of his inner circle .
Some fancy that they too resemble Lincoln , alongside Trump .
Some insist they are bravely fighting the civil war , on behalf of Trump .
Some depict Trump as the reincarnation of Lincoln , to justify his dishonesty .
Some summon Lincoln to claim God is on their side .
The disconnect of these incoherent and eccentric gestures from any reality past or present is a telltale sign of terminal party identity .
Each weird distortion marks the progress of Trump ’ s cancel culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one-man misrule that is a half-cocked aspiration to an authoritarian system that might be codified by the likes of William Barr .
Stephen Bannon , Trump ’ s now-indicted former campaign manager and senior adviser , appeared in a 2019 documentary about his post-White House crusade to organize an international neo-fascist alliance .
The film opens with Bannon cradling a volume of Carl Sandburg ’ s biography of Lincoln .
Bannon says portentously that it ’ s 1862 .
Then he reads Lincoln ’ s words : “ They wish to get rid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to gratify them .
We are now on the brink of destruction .
It appears to me the Almighty is against us and I can hardly see a ray of hope.
” Lincoln ’ s “ fiery trial ” to preserve the union is reduced to Bannon ’ s dark apocalyptic mutterings against the forces conspiring against him and Trump : the “ Deep State ” , rootless cosmopolitans , globalists and liberal elites .
We ’ re a long way from , as Lincoln said , “ the last best hope of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Lincoln for the occasional non-sequitur defense of her father .
Her vacant voice and immobile expression augment the surprise effect of her inapt citations .
After Attorney General Barr issued a deceptive characterization of the Mueller Report to mislead the public about its actual content , Ivanka rushed to support Barr ’ s falsehood .
She tweeted a quote : “ Truth is generally the best vindication against slander – Abraham Lincoln.
” The difference between Barr and Lincoln was that Barr covered up the truth .
During the impeachment inquiry into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 400m in military aid to Ukraine , to coerce its government to launch an investigation that would smear Joe Biden with fabricated accusations of corruption , Ivanka leaped to protect her father .
She claimed the incontrovertible facts were nothing but a partisan attack contrived to malign him , originating from a whistleblower within the intelligence community who was “ not particularly relevant ” .
“ Basically since the election , ” she said , “ this has been the experience that our administration and our family has been having .
Rather than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people can decide for themselves based on his record and based on his accomplishments , this new effort has commenced.
” Once again , she reached for Lincoln as her father ’ s model .
“ This has been the experience of most , ” she observed with the sagacious tone of a student of history .
“ Abraham Lincoln was famously , even within his own cabinet , surrounded by people who were former political adversaries.
” Ivanka ’ s smug confusion was complete .
She had mistaken the whistleblower whose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ team of rivals ” .
On 23 January , Betsy DeVos , Trump ’ s secretary of education , a billionaire heiress and funder of rightwing causes , spoke at the Museum of the Bible in Washington to a group from the Colorado Christian University , to claim Lincoln as the imaginary leader for the anti-abortion movement .
“ He too contended with the ‘ pro-choice ’ arguments of his day , ” she said .
“ They suggested that a state ’ s ‘ choice ’ to be slave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ question in it.
” According to DeVos , women asserting their reproductive rights are engaged in a “ vast moral evil ” , equivalent to slavery .
“ Lincoln was right about slavery ‘ choice ’ then , and he would be right about the life ‘ choice ’ today , ” she said .
“ Freedom is not about doing what we want .
Freedom is about having the right to do what we ought.
” DeVos ’ s mangling of Lincoln , who was an early advocate of women ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ word about abortion , is intended to legitimate the anti-abortion agenda of granting personhood rights to fetuses , which she and other zealots equate to enslaved African Americans .
Her definition of freedom as “ what we ought ” , that is , what she determines , is more Orwellian than Lincolnian .
Historically , claiming that law should be rooted in theological dogma is in the tradition of the southern theologians Lincoln condemned , who justified slavery by biblical references and divine sanction .
Mike Pence , Trump ’ s vice-president , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in January to Ripon , Wisconsin , site of the founding of the Republican party in 1854 , garrulously to praise Trump as the true heir to Lincoln in “ the advancement of our highest ideals ” .
Once again , Pence explained , we are at a “ crossroads of freedom ” .
Trump , the Lincoln manqué , is all that stands between America and the threat of Joe Biden and “ socialism and decline ” .
Months before the murder of George Floyd and the wave of Black Lives Matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pence charged , “ Joe Biden believes America is , in his words , systemically racist .
And despite historically low crime rates prior to this pandemic , Joe Biden believes that law enforcement in America has a , quote , ‘ implicit bias ’ against minorities.
” In conclusion , the evangelical Pence declared , “ The Bible says , ‘ Where the Spirit of the Lord is , there is freedom ’ , and “ with President Donald Trump in the White House for four more years , we ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the long-ago days when there was only one “ again ” , during the 2016 campaign , Pence defended Trump ’ s shout-out to Vladimir Putin to hack and release Clinton campaign emails : “ Russia if you ’ re listening … ” “ You know , ” Pence explained , “ Abraham Lincoln said , give the people the facts , and the republic will be saved .
I mean , I think that ’ s the point that [ Trump is ] making .
He ’ s not encouraging some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country.
” Bowdlerizing a dubiously sourced Lincoln quote , Pence portrayed Trump as the simple protector of facts and denied he was “ encouraging ” Russian intervention .
Pence ’ s statement was a cover-up in real time .
We now know from the Senate intelligence committee report that Roger Stone , Trump ’ s longtime political operative and dirty trickster , was directly in touch with Trump on the theft of the Clinton emails by Russian intelligence and their release by WikiLeaks .
To quote Marx – Groucho – “ Who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or your lying eyes ?
” If Trump has a faithful servant , it is Mike Pence .
Mike Pompeo , Trump ’ s secretary of state and yet another evangelical crusader , has raised Lincoln to justify his own brand of dogma .
In a speech entitled “ Being a Christian Leader ” , to the American Association of Christian Counselors at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel at Nashville on 11 October , he explained how God directs him to be humble , forgiving and thrifty .
“ I know some people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when they hear that I ask God for direction in my work , ” he said .
“ But you should know , as much as I ’ d like to claim originality , it is not a new idea .
I love this quote from President Lincoln .
He said … quote , ‘ I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.
’ ” Unfortunately , in their Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln , the historians Don and Virginia Fehrenbacher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grade D : in other words , bogus .
Lincoln is in fact recorded to have referred to “ knees ” only three times , all involving jokes .
The Fehrenbachers also give a D to another well-used “ Lincoln ” quotation : “ You can fool all the people some of the time ; you can fool some of the people all the time ; but you can ’ t fool all the people all the time.
” Stephen Miller , Trump ’ s senior adviser , originator of the Muslim ban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , author of the cancel culture speech at Mount Rushmore , is impatient for the apocalypse .
Observing the protests at Portland before the federal courthouse that were met with a show of armed force , Miller went on Tucker Carlson Tonight to explain why this was Fort Sumter .
“ The Democratic party for a long time historically has been the party of secession , ” he said .
“ What you ’ re seeing today is the Democratic party returning to its roots.
” In his compact and inverted analogy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battle in a new civil war and the ragtag shifting bands of protesters including the “ Wall of Moms ” were the restoration of the pro-secession Southern Democratic party , which would of course transform Trump into Lincoln .
The identity of the enemy may change – Muslims , Mexicans or Moms – but Miller is prepared to draw the sword for whatever clash of civilization may come .
He ’ s just not prepared for a virus .
During his 2016 campaign , Trump plagiarized not only Reagan ’ s slogan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but also Nixon ’ s appeal to “ the silent majority ” .
He also boasted : “ I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn ’ t lose any voters.
” Trump ’ s attorney , asked about “ the Fifth Avenue example ” by the judge presiding in the case of the Manhattan district attorney seeking Trump ’ s tax returns , argued that Trump would have legal immunity if he killed somebody .
Since March , more than 170,000 Americans – the New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have died of coronavirus .
On 20 June , Trump kicked off his campaign with a rally at Tulsa .
Campaign workers tore stickers off the seats that encouraged social distancing .
In the sparse but closely packed crowd sat Herman Cain , proudly grinning , not wearing a mask .
For a brief moment in 2012 the former CEO of Godfather ’ s Pizza and fast-talking Tea Party advocate had been the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination .
Disillusioned after he quit the race when accused of sexual harassment , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came Trump .
For 2020 , the man who said his Secret Service code name as president would be “ Cornbread ” became chairman of Black Voices For Trump .
A month later , he was dead of coronavirus .
Cain would miss his speaking slot at the Republican convention .
He had joined what the ancient Greeks called “ the silent majority ” .
Yet 20 days after Cain ’ s death , on 19 August , his Twitter account posted Trump ’ s latest ad : “ Boy , it sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mental faculties.
” In death , nobody , not even Mike Pence , could claim greater devotion to the party of Trump .
• None Sidney Blumenthal , former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton , has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln : A Self-Made Man , Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth

The Republican convention that nominates Donald Trump for a second term will be the greatest event in the political history of cancel culture. What Trump is cancelling is nothing less than the Republican party as it has existed before him. He ran in 2016 in the primaries on cancelling the GOP and in 2020 he ratifies his triumph. After the election, political scientists and historians will study his obliteration of the Republican party as his greatest and most enduring political achievement.
The Republican party has been on a long journey away from being the party of Abraham Lincoln, accelerating since Barry Goldwater and rightwing cadres captured it in 1964 in reaction to the civil rights movement. After Richard Nixon embraced the southern strategy and won the nomination in 1968 with the help of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the Dixiecrat segregationist presidential candidate in 1948, the party increasingly radicalized in every election cycle and became gradually unmoored. In 1980, Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair, the place where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. Surrounded by Confederate flags, he hailed “states’ rights”. As brazen an appeal as it was, Reagan felt he had to resort to the old code words.
Central to Trump’s unique selling proposition is that he dispenses with the dog whistles. His vulgarity gives a vicarious thrill to those who revel in his taunting of perceived enemies or scapegoats. He made them feel dominant at no social price, until his catastrophic mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis. Flouting a mask is the magical act of defiance to signal that nothing has really changed and that in any case, Trump bears no responsibility.
But there has also been a political cost to Trump’s louche comic lounge act that still transfixes a diehard audience lingering like late-night gamblers for the last show. Trump is the only president since the advent of modern polling never to reach 50% approval. Despite decisively losing the popular vote in 2016, he said he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”. This time, fearing an even more overwhelming popular rejection, he says the outcome will be “rigged” and he has pre-emptively tried to cancel the US Postal Service, to undermine voting by mail.
From Reagan onward, even as the fringe moved to the center and took it over, the party did not anticipate that it was slouching toward Trump. Conservatives have consistently failed to grasp the unintended consequences of conservatism. Even when Reagan fostered the evangelical right, George HW Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the supreme court, George W Bush invaded Iraq and neglected oversight of financial markets that collapsed, and John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, Republicans believed they were expanding the attraction of the conservative project. When Newt Gingrich, Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh methodically degraded language, it seemed a propaganda technique to herd supporters. When the dark money of the Koch family and the wealthy reactionaries of the cloaked Donors Trust bankrolled the lumpen dress-up Tea Party to do their bidding on deregulation of finance and industry, the munificently funded conservative candidates did their bidding as retainers of privilege.
In the wasteland, only cockroaches and Mitch McConnell may survive
At the presidential level there still remained residual elements contrary to what metastasized into Trumpism. Reagan represented free trade and western firmness against Russia. George HW Bush was a paragon of public service. George W Bush was an advocate for immigrants. John McCain was the embodiment of patriotic sacrifice.
After Trump, all that has been cancelled. Since he first rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, to declare his candidacy against Mexican “rapists”, there has always been a new escalator downward. After overcoming his initial hesitation, the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, welcomed the election of a QAnon conspiracy-spouting candidate from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Then McCarthy condemned QAnon and stated that Greene wasn’t part of a movement she continued to defend.
Trump hailed her as a “future Republican star”. For months, he has been tweeting messages to encourage the racist, antisemitic cult. “There’s a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” Greene proclaimed. “I’ve heard these are people that love our country,” Trump said. In the wasteland, only cockroaches and Mitch McConnell may survive.
Stuart Stevens, a prominent Republican political consultant, eyes startled wide open, has entitled his exposé of the party It Was All A Lie. He describes the conservative Trump apologists, the adults in the room, as latter-day versions of Franz von Papen, the German chancellor who enabled the rise of Hitler in the complacent belief that he could be controlled and the conservatives would maintain power.
On 4 July, at the mammoth stage set of Mount Rushmore, Trump mugged for his photo op by posing his face next in line to the carving of Abraham Lincoln. He had earlier told the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, “‘Did you know it’s my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?’” “And I started laughing,” she recounted. “And he wasn’t laughing, so he was totally serious.” (Trump tweeted that it was “fake news” that he had ordered an aide to inquire about immortalizing his face on the mountain.)
Ostensibly, Trump came to deliver his ideological message. He denounced “cancel culture”, which he said was “the very definition of totalitarianism, and it is completely alien to our culture and to our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America”. He attributed it to “a new far-left fascism”. And he spelled out its punitive nature: “If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished.” Thus, he offered a concise description of his own cancel culture’s methods.
Trump’s cancel culture deals in aggressions, not micro-aggressions. The only safe space is where Trump is worshipped. Before, during and after the death of McCain, Trump unleashed tirades of insult. He finally complained that the McCain family never thanked him for approving the senator’s funeral arrangements, even though it was Congress that gave approval. For years, Trump has disparaged the Bush family. At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, when George W Bush called for setting aside partisanship and embracing national unity, Trump tweeted, “but where was he during Impeachment calling for putting partisanship aside”.
Trump’s cancel culture deals in aggressions, not micro-aggressions. The only safe space is where Trump is worshipped
Trump has invoked Reagan only as a stepping stone of his own monumental pedestal. At a rally in 2019, Trump mused: “I was watching the other night the great Lou Dobbs [of Fox News], and he said, ‘When Trump took over, President Trump,’ he used to say, ‘Trump is a great president.’ Then he said, ‘Trump is the greatest president since Ronald Reagan.’ Then he said, ‘No, no, Trump is an even better president than Ronald Reagan.’ And now he’s got me down as the greatest president in the history of our country, including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Thank you. We love you too.”
When Trump sought to profit for his 2020 campaign by selling a gold-colored Trump-Reagan commemorative coin set, the Reagan Foundation sent him a curt letter, telling him to cease and desist. Trump has constantly retailed a false story about Reagan supposedly remarking after meeting him, “For the life of me, and I’ll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man, I felt like I was the one shaking hands with the president.” The chief administrative officer of the Reagan Foundation felt compelled to note that Reagan “did not ever say that about Donald Trump”.
A man dressed as Abraham Lincoln holds up a sign as Donald Trump’s motorcade passes in Washington in June. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Trump’s petty, vindictive and exploitative abuse of the Bush presidents, McCain and Reagan pales in comparison to his raging obsessions about Lincoln. He has boasted his poll numbers are better than Lincoln’s ever were (true), claimed he is more a victim than the assassinated martyr (untrue), and declared he has done more for Black Americans than Lincoln (untrue).
Trump, the would-be Great Emancipator and upholder of Confederate monuments, has lately ruminated about giving an address at Gettysburg. There are many such monuments there to the thousands of poor white southerners who gave their lives for the Slave Power and to overthrow the democracy of the United States. Perhaps, contemplating his last campaign, Trump could trudge across the rutted field of Pickett’s Charge. He might ask what his bikers and self-styled militia would be willing to do for him. What Lincoln consecrated, Trump would desecrate. But he would undoubtedly speak longer.
Trump’s compulsive need to elevate himself as greater than the greatest president does not stand alone among strange statements about Lincoln from members of his inner circle. Some fancy that they too resemble Lincoln, alongside Trump. Some insist they are bravely fighting the civil war, on behalf of Trump. Some depict Trump as the reincarnation of Lincoln, to justify his dishonesty. Some summon Lincoln to claim God is on their side. The disconnect of these incoherent and eccentric gestures from any reality past or present is a telltale sign of terminal party identity. Each weird distortion marks the progress of Trump’s cancel culture, the eclipse of history bred by one-man misrule that is a half-cocked aspiration to an authoritarian system that might be codified by the likes of William Barr.
Stephen Bannon, Trump’s now-indicted former campaign manager and senior adviser, appeared in a 2019 documentary about his post-White House crusade to organize an international neo-fascist alliance. The film opens with Bannon cradling a volume of Carl Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln. Bannon says portentously that it’s 1862. Then he reads Lincoln’s words: “They wish to get rid of me and I am sometimes half-disposed to gratify them. We are now on the brink of destruction. It appears to me the Almighty is against us and I can hardly see a ray of hope.” Lincoln’s “fiery trial” to preserve the union is reduced to Bannon’s dark apocalyptic mutterings against the forces conspiring against him and Trump: the “Deep State”, rootless cosmopolitans, globalists and liberal elites. We’re a long way from, as Lincoln said, “the last best hope of earth”.
Betsy DeVos's definition of freedom as 'what we ought', that is, what she determines, is more Orwellian than Lincolnian
Ivanka Trump has turned to Lincoln for the occasional non-sequitur defense of her father. Her vacant voice and immobile expression augment the surprise effect of her inapt citations. After Attorney General Barr issued a deceptive characterization of the Mueller Report to mislead the public about its actual content, Ivanka rushed to support Barr’s falsehood. She tweeted a quote: “Truth is generally the best vindication against slander – Abraham Lincoln.” The difference between Barr and Lincoln was that Barr covered up the truth.
During the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s withholding of nearly $400m in military aid to Ukraine, to coerce its government to launch an investigation that would smear Joe Biden with fabricated accusations of corruption, Ivanka leaped to protect her father. She claimed the incontrovertible facts were nothing but a partisan attack contrived to malign him, originating from a whistleblower within the intelligence community who was “not particularly relevant”.
“Basically since the election,” she said, “this has been the experience that our administration and our family has been having. Rather than wait, under a year, until the people can decide for themselves based on his record and based on his accomplishments, this new effort has commenced.” Once again, she reached for Lincoln as her father’s model. “This has been the experience of most,” she observed with the sagacious tone of a student of history. “Abraham Lincoln was famously, even within his own cabinet, surrounded by people who were former political adversaries.” Ivanka’s smug confusion was complete. She had mistaken the whistleblower whose memo triggered the impeachment process with Lincoln’s “team of rivals”.
On 23 January, Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of education, a billionaire heiress and funder of rightwing causes, spoke at the Museum of the Bible in Washington to a group from the Colorado Christian University, to claim Lincoln as the imaginary leader for the anti-abortion movement.
“He too contended with the ‘pro-choice’ arguments of his day,” she said. “They suggested that a state’s ‘choice’ to be slave or to be free had no moral question in it.” According to DeVos, women asserting their reproductive rights are engaged in a “vast moral evil”, equivalent to slavery.
“Lincoln was right about slavery ‘choice’ then, and he would be right about the life ‘choice’ today,” she said. “Freedom is not about doing what we want. Freedom is about having the right to do what we ought.”
DeVos’s mangling of Lincoln, who was an early advocate of women’s rights and suffrage but never said a word about abortion, is intended to legitimate the anti-abortion agenda of granting personhood rights to fetuses, which she and other zealots equate to enslaved African Americans. Her definition of freedom as “what we ought”, that is, what she determines, is more Orwellian than Lincolnian. Historically, claiming that law should be rooted in theological dogma is in the tradition of the southern theologians Lincoln condemned, who justified slavery by biblical references and divine sanction.
Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president, a former rightwing radio host, travelled in January to Ripon, Wisconsin, site of the founding of the Republican party in 1854, garrulously to praise Trump as the true heir to Lincoln in “the advancement of our highest ideals”. Once again, Pence explained, we are at a “crossroads of freedom”. Trump, the Lincoln manqué, is all that stands between America and the threat of Joe Biden and “socialism and decline”. Months before the murder of George Floyd and the wave of Black Lives Matter demonstrations that swept across the country, Pence charged, “Joe Biden believes America is, in his words, systemically racist. And despite historically low crime rates prior to this pandemic, Joe Biden believes that law enforcement in America has a, quote, ‘implicit bias’ against minorities.” In conclusion, the evangelical Pence declared, “The Bible says, ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’, and “with President Donald Trump in the White House for four more years, we’ll make America great again, again.”
In the long-ago days when there was only one “again”, during the 2016 campaign, Pence defended Trump’s shout-out to Vladimir Putin to hack and release Clinton campaign emails: “Russia if you’re listening …”
“You know,” Pence explained, “Abraham Lincoln said, give the people the facts, and the republic will be saved. I mean, I think that’s the point that [Trump is] making. He’s not encouraging some foreign power to compromise the security of this country.” Bowdlerizing a dubiously sourced Lincoln quote, Pence portrayed Trump as the simple protector of facts and denied he was “encouraging” Russian intervention. Pence’s statement was a cover-up in real time. We now know from the Senate intelligence committee report that Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime political operative and dirty trickster, was directly in touch with Trump on the theft of the Clinton emails by Russian intelligence and their release by WikiLeaks. To quote Marx – Groucho – “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” If Trump has a faithful servant, it is Mike Pence.
Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state and yet another evangelical crusader, has raised Lincoln to justify his own brand of dogma. In a speech entitled “Being a Christian Leader”, to the American Association of Christian Counselors at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel at Nashville on 11 October, he explained how God directs him to be humble, forgiving and thrifty.
“I know some people in the media will break out the pitchforks when they hear that I ask God for direction in my work,” he said. “But you should know, as much as I’d like to claim originality, it is not a new idea. I love this quote from President Lincoln. He said … quote, ‘I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.’”
Unfortunately, in their Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln, the historians Don and Virginia Fehrenbacher rate the words Pompeo spoke with a grade D: in other words, bogus. Lincoln is in fact recorded to have referred to “knees” only three times, all involving jokes. The Fehrenbachers also give a D to another well-used “Lincoln” quotation: “You can fool all the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior adviser, originator of the Muslim ban and separating migrant children from their families, author of the cancel culture speech at Mount Rushmore, is impatient for the apocalypse. Observing the protests at Portland before the federal courthouse that were met with a show of armed force, Miller went on Tucker Carlson Tonight to explain why this was Fort Sumter.
“The Democratic party for a long time historically has been the party of secession,” he said. “What you’re seeing today is the Democratic party returning to its roots.”
In his compact and inverted analogy, the protest against police violence was a battle in a new civil war and the ragtag shifting bands of protesters including the “Wall of Moms” were the restoration of the pro-secession Southern Democratic party, which would of course transform Trump into Lincoln. The identity of the enemy may change – Muslims, Mexicans or Moms – but Miller is prepared to draw the sword for whatever clash of civilization may come. He’s just not prepared for a virus.
An Abraham Lincoln statue with a face mask in Sioux City, Iowa. Photograph: Jerry Mennenga/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock
During his 2016 campaign, Trump plagiarized not only Reagan’s slogan, “Make America Great Again”, but also Nixon’s appeal to “the silent majority”. He also boasted: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Trump’s attorney, asked about “the Fifth Avenue example” by the judge presiding in the case of the Manhattan district attorney seeking Trump’s tax returns, argued that Trump would have legal immunity if he killed somebody.
Since March, more than 170,000 Americans – the New York Times estimates more than 200,000 – have died of coronavirus. On 20 June, Trump kicked off his campaign with a rally at Tulsa. Campaign workers tore stickers off the seats that encouraged social distancing. In the sparse but closely packed crowd sat Herman Cain, proudly grinning, not wearing a mask. For a brief moment in 2012 the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and fast-talking Tea Party advocate had been the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. Disillusioned after he quit the race when accused of sexual harassment, he called for a third party. Then came Trump.
For 2020, the man who said his Secret Service code name as president would be “Cornbread” became chairman of Black Voices For Trump. A month later, he was dead of coronavirus. Cain would miss his speaking slot at the Republican convention. He had joined what the ancient Greeks called “the silent majority”. Yet 20 days after Cain’s death, on 19 August, his Twitter account posted Trump’s latest ad: “Boy, it sure looks like Joe Biden is losing his mental faculties.” In death, nobody, not even Mike Pence, could claim greater devotion to the party of Trump.


theguardian--2020-08-23--Fire and pestilence, flood and wind, the personal is political: Trump must go | Robert Reich

My wife and I have been warned we may need to evacuate our cabin in the hills north of San Francisco , because of fires ravaging the Bay Area .
Climate change is largely to blame for these fires , which are growing in number and intensity every year .
It ’ s also to blame for the increasing number and virulence of hurricanes hitting the Gulf and south-east , flash floods along the eastern seaboard , and fierce winds across middle America .
Two tropical storms are developing in the Gulf of Mexico .
The Gulf has never before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Both are moving toward Louisiana .
In early August , Illinois and Iowa were hit with winds of up to 110mph .
Homes were leveled .
At least 10 million acres of crops were destroyed .
Many are still without power .
Trump isn ’ t singularly responsible for climate change , of course .
But he ’ s done nothing to stop it .
In fact , he ’ s done everything he can to accelerate it .
This coming week , he ’ ll be nominated for a second term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Republican convention will mention his abandonment of the Paris agreement , his rollback of environmental regulations or his boundless generosity to the fossil fuel industry .
Yet I ’ ll be thinking about all this , and in a newly personal way .
So will many others , including , I suspect , some who voted for Trump last time , who reside in the Gulf states , the eastern seaboard and the Midwest .
It ’ s one thing to understand climate change in the abstract .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently got an email from a woman living in North Carolina whose house was destroyed in a flash flood .
She describes herself as a lifelong Republican who ’ s now a “ born-again environmentalist ” .
She said she ’ ll be voting for Joe Biden .
It ’ s much the same with the coronavirus .
The gross numbers tell a horrible story .
Last Thursday alone , the virus killed 1,090 Americans .
Only five died from the virus in Canada the same day , six in the UK , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 16 in Spain and 10 in Germany .
Yet not even these numbers hit home the way it does when you know someone who has perished or nearly perished from this disease .
I know two who have died .
A good friend came close .
Like me , a growing number of Americans are experiencing the coronavirus personally .
Trump isn ’ t solely responsible .
America ’ s public health system was never up to the task of dealing with a pandemic .
But Trump ’ s stream of lies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have allowed the disease to ravage America .
If he mentions the pandemic at all during the Republican convention , he ’ ll probably blame China and claim the official numbers are exaggerated .
Many of his followers will believe him .
But just as with the floods and windstorms and fires , an increasing number who have experienced Covid-19 personally have become hardened against his lies .
So , too , with the economic devastation that has come in the wake of the pandemic .
Tens of millions are unemployed .
Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ someone who has lost a job , or whose wages have been cut .
There ’ s an old saying that “ the personal is political ” .
People understand politics most profoundly when it ’ s connected to their own lived experience .
At the Republican convention , Trump and his enablers can be expected to claim Democrats want to turn America into a socialist state .
They ’ ll issue racist dogwhistles about “ rioters and looters ” in American cities .
They ’ ll conjure up “ deep state ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden .
Some Americans will believe this drivel , but I suspect the lived experience of most others – including many who voted for Trump in 2016 – will be more convincing .
After almost four years , we ’ ve felt the consequences of his rotten presidency first-hand .
Trump ’ s malfeasance is now more palpable than his fearmongering .
The personal is political .
• None Robert Reich , a former US secretary of labor , is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Many , Not the Few and The Common Good .
His new book , The System : Who Rigged It , How We Fix It , is out now .
He is a columnist for Guardian US

My wife and I have been warned we may need to evacuate our cabin in the hills north of San Francisco, because of fires ravaging the Bay Area.
Climate change is largely to blame for these fires, which are growing in number and intensity every year. It’s also to blame for the increasing number and virulence of hurricanes hitting the Gulf and south-east, flash floods along the eastern seaboard, and fierce winds across middle America.
Two tropical storms are developing in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf has never before had two hurricanes at the same time. Both are moving toward Louisiana.
In early August, Illinois and Iowa were hit with winds of up to 110mph. Homes were leveled. At least 10 million acres of crops were destroyed. Many are still without power.
Trump isn’t singularly responsible for climate change, of course. But he’s done nothing to stop it. In fact, he’s done everything he can to accelerate it.
This coming week, he’ll be nominated for a second term. I doubt he or anyone else at the Republican convention will mention his abandonment of the Paris agreement, his rollback of environmental regulations or his boundless generosity to the fossil fuel industry.
Yet I’ll be thinking about all this, and in a newly personal way. So will many others, including, I suspect, some who voted for Trump last time, who reside in the Gulf states, the eastern seaboard and the Midwest.
It’s one thing to understand climate change in the abstract. It’s another to live inside it.
I recently got an email from a woman living in North Carolina whose house was destroyed in a flash flood. She describes herself as a lifelong Republican who’s now a “born-again environmentalist”. She said she’ll be voting for Joe Biden.
It’s much the same with the coronavirus. The gross numbers tell a horrible story. Last Thursday alone, the virus killed 1,090 Americans. Only five died from the virus in Canada the same day, six in the UK, 12 in France, 16 in Japan, 16 in Spain and 10 in Germany.
Yet not even these numbers hit home the way it does when you know someone who has perished or nearly perished from this disease. I know two who have died. A good friend came close. Like me, a growing number of Americans are experiencing the coronavirus personally.
Trump isn’t solely responsible. America’s public health system was never up to the task of dealing with a pandemic. But Trump’s stream of lies, denials and refusals to take responsibility have allowed the disease to ravage America.
If he mentions the pandemic at all during the Republican convention, he’ll probably blame China and claim the official numbers are exaggerated. Many of his followers will believe him. But just as with the floods and windstorms and fires, an increasing number who have experienced Covid-19 personally have become hardened against his lies.
So, too, with the economic devastation that has come in the wake of the pandemic. Tens of millions are unemployed. Many are growing desperate. Almost everyone knows someone who has lost a job, or whose wages have been cut.
There’s an old saying that “the personal is political”. People understand politics most profoundly when it’s connected to their own lived experience.
At the Republican convention, Trump and his enablers can be expected to claim Democrats want to turn America into a socialist state. They’ll issue racist dogwhistles about “rioters and looters” in American cities. They’ll conjure up “deep state” conspiracies. They’ll lie about Biden.
Some Americans will believe this drivel, but I suspect the lived experience of most others – including many who voted for Trump in 2016 – will be more convincing.
After almost four years, we’ve felt the consequences of his rotten presidency first-hand. Trump’s malfeasance is now more palpable than his fearmongering. The personal is political.


theguardian--2020-08-23--Trump announces emergency authorization for coronavirus plasma treatment – as it happened

Donald Trump has been to his golf club in Virginia today but not long ago , according to the White House pool report , he left it .
In the words of the same report : “ The president ’ s schedule shows no public events today but Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted last night to expect a 6pm press conference with the president , ‘ concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus ’ .
“ She indicated health secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Stephen Hahn will attend.
” On Saturday , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the deep state or whoever over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics .
They ’ re hoping to delay the answer until after 3 November .
Most- must focus on speed.
” Chief of staff Mark Meadows backed the president up on the Sunday shows , of course , while on CBS ’ s Face the Nation , a former FDA commissioner , Scott Gottlieb , was asked about Trump ’ s remark .
“ Well , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s talking about , ” he said , speaking for the nation , before defending the FDA ’ s honour .
Gottlieb also said he thought Trump ’ s tweet may have been “ about plasma … I think the president scoped into that tweet a comment on vaccines ” and said of the trailed announcement on Sunday : “ I would guess it ’ s the emergency use authorization for plasma.
” He expanded : “ What plasma is is basically taking the antibodies from people who ’ ve recovered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ product , and infusing them in people who are sick .
And if you use it early enough in the course of the disease , there is some precedent for it being beneficial in the treatment of viruses .
And so it is a good therapeutic to have in the overall armamentarium .
“ But the bottom line is it ’ s widely available right now , patients are getting it .
The EUA , the emergency use authorization , will enable probably easier access in certain settings , but it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gains are important here .
”

Bryan Armen Graham (now); Tom Lutz and Martin Pengelly (earlier)

23 Aug 2020 23.09 BST More a campaign-style press announcement than traditional news conference, Trump abruptly ends the proceedings after taking only three questions, including one from One America News Network. The US president insisted today’s announcement, which comes one day after he accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at” the FDA of deliberately slowing coronavirus vaccine and therapy development, “has nothing to do with politics” despite its conspicuous timing on the eve of the Republican national convention. CNN notes that convalescent plasma has already been used in the treatment of more than 60,000 Covid-19 patients and while “promising signs” have resulted from some studies, “there is not yet randomized clinical trial data on convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19”.
23 Aug 2020 22.37 BST Trump announces emergency authorization for coronavirus plasma treatment As Donald Trump took the podium for tonight’s news conference in the James S Brady Briefing Room, the FDA sent out a press release saying it has said it issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for investigational convalescent plasma for the treatment of Covid-19 in hospitalized patients as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to fight Covid-19. Trump hails the 100-year-old treatment strategy as a “historic breakthrough”. “This is a powerful therapy that transfuses very, very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection. It’s had an incredible rate of success.”
US president Donald Trump speaks alongside FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn and Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar during Sunday night’s press conference at the White House. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Updated at 22.59 BST
23 Aug 2020 21.58 BST The US has crossed the threshold of 176,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, just seven months after the first cases were diagnosed in China and with the outbreak far from under control. The American death toll is the highest in the world by a significant margin and reached 176,645 on Sunday, according to the Johns Hopkins University world coronavirus tracker. The total includes cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. But a CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday found Americans view the severity of the pandemic and the effectiveness of the government’s response through a partisan lens. According to the poll, a 57% majority of registered Republican voters consider the number of coronavirus fatalities “acceptable” when “evaluating the US efforts against the coronavirus pandemic”, compared with 31% of voters overall. That’s in stark contrast with the 90% of Democrats and 67% of independents who said the death toll was “unacceptable”.
23 Aug 2020 21.11 BST Top Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for stalled talks on coronavirus aid legislation, a day after the House of Representatives approved $25bn in new funds for the US Postal Service. But Saturday’s vote failed to shift a stalemate over the next phase of coronavirus aid since 6 August, when talks between the White House and Democratic congressional leaders broke down over funding levels and unemployment benefits. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said the Republican-controlled chamber would “absolutely not pass” the postal bill. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday criticized the Democratic vote as “a largely messaging bill” and blamed house speaker Nancy Pelosi for failing to agree on broader legislation that included supplemental unemployment benefits. “And Trump gives bread and circuses without the bread. So we’ll see the circus this week with his convention.” “I haven’t heard from the speaker yet. I am going to make a phone call to her today,” Meadows said on ABC’s This Week. “My challenge to the speaker this morning would be this: If we agree on five or six things, let’s go ahead and pass those.” Pelosi shot back on CNN’s State of the Union, saying Trump was stalling needed coronavirus relief for cities and children for political gain, signaling that negotiations were likely to make little progress during the Republican national convention, which gets underway this week. “This is like ancient Rome. Trump fiddles while Rome burns, while America burns,” she said.
23 Aug 2020 20.41 BST Amanda Holpuch One of the only Democrats on the list of speakers for the Republican national convention is Georgia state representative Vernon Jones, whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as “a polarizing figure in Georgia politics”. Jones endorsed Donald Trump in April, prompting other Democrats in the state to call him an “embarrassment” and “traitor”. Jones told the newspaper he endorsed Trump because the president‘s policies helped black voters, veterans and farmers. In response to backlash against the endorsement, Jones said he would resign. A day later, he said he would not resign. Jones posted social media messages supportive of Trump in the past and has leaned Republican on many issues through his career. Jones champions increased access to guns, more aggressive immigration restrictions and limited government. In 2004, he endorsed Republican George W Bush for president.
In 2008, Jones backed Barack Obama and attempted to use the president’s image in his own race for the state senate that year. Jones’s campaign sent a campaign mailer featuring a photo edited to make it look like he and Obama attended an event together. The Obama campaign had to clarify it had not endorsed Jones’s candidacy in the race, which he ultimately lost. After the RNC announced Jones would be speaking at the convention, Georgia state representative Scott Holcomb, a Democrat, said Jones’s political weight was not equivalent to that of the many Republicans who turned out to support Joe Biden at the Democratic national convention last week. “The Democratic convention included heavyweight Republicans who support Joe Biden out of principle and love for country,” Holcomb told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The Republicans have a washed-up state representative who yields no influence in his home state. Good luck with that.”
23 Aug 2020 20.20 BST Donald Trump will announce the emergency authorization of convalescent plasma for Covid-19, a treatment that already has been given to more than 70,000 patients, the Washington Post has reported, citing officials familiar with the decision. The action will be highlighted at a news conference later on Sunday afternoon, the newspaper said.
According to the Post: Many scientists and physicians believe that convalescent plasma might provide some benefit but is far from a breakthrough. It is rich in antibodies that could be helpful in fighting the coronavirus, but the evidence so far has not been conclusive about whether it works, when to administer it and what dose is needed. On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the blood product – derived from patients who have survived Covid-19 – is “probably beneficial” for covid-19 patients. The issuance of an emergency authorization would make it easier to get in some settings. But he also said it already is widely available, so the change would be “incremental”. The announcement comes as Trump has put extraordinary pressure on federal agencies to test and approve treatments and, especially, a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, which has already killed more than 170,000 Americans. The president’s political advisers believe that having a vaccine by Election Day is key to his prospects for winning.
Updated at 20.22 BST
23 Aug 2020 19.58 BST Donald Trump is back at the White House after spending the morning at his private golf club in Sterling, Virginia. As has become customary for Trump’s regular weekend trips to the Loudoun county property, groups of supporters and protesters gathered outside the entrance awaiting his departure. A White House pool report described the scene: As pool was holding just outside the club prior to departure a short pro-Trump parade of three Jeeps and a pickup was driving back and forth repeatedly, flying American flags and Trump 2020 banners with slogans such as “Latinos for Trump” and “Women for Trump.” Several had “Trump National Rapid Response Team” signs attached to them as well. A big rig (without trailer) seemed to be part of the group and would blow its horn as it passed by. A string of pro-Trump and pro-Biden folks were on foot along the sidewalks near the entrance of the club expressing their various opinions as well. Since arriving at the White House at 1.45pm, America’s most prominent media critic has turned his Twitter fingers toward Fox News anchor Chris Wallace: “Next we’ll turn to people of the Biden inner circle”, said by Chris Wallace of @FoxNews after unsuccessfully GRILLING Mark Meadows. Then all softball questions to a group of Biden lightweights, including Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2020 Chris Wallace “forgot” to ask a very weak and pathetic Schumer puppet, Senator Chrisie Coons, why Biden fought me when I put an extremely early BAN on people coming into our Country from heavily infected China. Biden later admitted I was right! But why no question? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2020 Today marked Trump’s 274th day he’s spent at a golf course he owns in the 1,312 days since he’s taken office. Supporters and protesters react on Sunday as US president Donald Trump’s motorcade departs the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. Photograph: Erin Scott/Reuters A protester holds a sign referencing the number of US deaths from Covid-19 outside Trump National on Sunday in Sterling, Virginia. Photograph: Erin Scott/Reuters
23 Aug 2020 19.29 BST The Trump administration is considering fast-tracking an experimental Covid-19 vaccine for use in the US ahead of the 3 November elections, according to the Financial Times. One option being explored would involve the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) awarding “emergency use authorisation” in October to the potential vaccine, which was developed by Oxford University and licensed to AstraZeneca, the newspaper reported. The AstraZeneca study has enrolled 10,000 volunteers, whereas the US government’s scientific agencies have said that a vaccine would need to be studied in 30,000 people to pass the threshold for authorisation. AstraZeneca is also conducting a larger study with 30,000 volunteers, although the results from that will come after the smaller trial. Making a vaccine available before the election could allow US president Donald Trump to claim he has turned the tide on a virus that has killed more than 170,000 Americans following widespread criticism of his handling of the pandemic. In his convention speech on Thursday night, Joe Biden, Mr Trump’s Democratic opponent, said that the US response to the virus was the “worst performance of any nation”. However, if the Trump administration does rush through emergency authorisation ahead of the election by skirting normal government guidelines, it could dent already shaky public confidence in the safety of vaccines ahead of one of the largest mass-immunisation programmes in US history. FT: Trump eyes fast tracking UK Covid 19 vaccine before election #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/dNhcxAnJLY — Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) August 23, 2020
Updated at 21.32 BST