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anonymous

Biden News Conference: President On Vaccines, Immigration : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...s-conference-of-his-presidency

shared by anonymous on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • President Biden is doubling his original COVID-19 vaccination goal to 200 million shots in arms by his 100th day in office — which is just over a month away.
  • When he entered office, Biden said his goal was 100 million vaccine doses in 100 days — a target many observers thought was not ambitious enough. According to federal health officials, that 100 million figure was hit on Biden's 58th day in office.About 2.5 million vaccine doses are being administered every day in the United States.He detailed his new goal Thursday, during the first news conference of his presidency.
  • Biden is also sticking to a goal of having a majority of K-8 schools open full time — in person, five days a week — by that same 100-day mark. So far, he said, roughly half of them are open full time.
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  • When it comes to the influx of migrants at the southern U.S. border, Biden said the Pentagon is making 5,000 beds available at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, to increase capacity.
  • He blamed the Trump administration for decreasing capacity and said his administration is building back up the systems that, he said, should have been maintained and built upon but that the former president "dismantled."
  • A solution to the immigration situation at the southern border has been elusive through Congress. When asked whether he would back eliminating or weakening the filibuster to facilitate his agenda, he delivered a potential threat.
  • He stressed that a parent's decision to send their child to the United States unaccompanied on a dangerous journey shows desperation with their circumstances. Biden has assigned Vice President Harris to head up efforts to work with Mexico and Central American countries to stem the flow of migrants.
  • The Biden administration has changed policy from the Trump hard-line action of refusing to admit unaccompanied minors during the pandemic. Biden defended taking that action, saying what former President Donald Trump did broke from prior practice of past presidents and was, essentially, inhumane.
  • If Republicans continue to make it a requirement for 60 votes to proceed to an up or down vote, "We'll have to go beyond what we're talking about," he said obliquely. Biden has in the past signaled openness to dismantling the filibuster if Republican opposition refuses to relent.
  • Biden also reiterated that he is in favor of bringing back the "talking filibuster," making it necessary for senators who want to hold up legislation to hold the Senate floor and speak.
  • Asked about gun violence following two high-profile mass shootings in the past week, Biden pivoted and said his next push will be on infrastructure. That's something he said he will announce in more detail Wednesday in Pittsburgh.
  • His answer indicated that Biden, who in recent days urged lawmakers to pass firearm legislation, may not believe the political will is there now to pass substantive gun restrictions. Congress has been unable to pass strong gun legislation over the past two decades despite countless mass shootings in that time. Biden, who's 78 years old, also said he plans to run for reelection in 2024.
  • It's advantageous for a president to say he expects to seek reelection or he becomes a lame duck too quickly. In other words, if a president says he is not going to run for reelection, Congress begins to look past that president's authority, reducing his political capital.
  • Biden also touted his early successes, including work to expand the COVID-19 vaccination program and the $1.9 trillion relief package enacted by Congress.
  • His remarks come a little over halfway through his first 100 days in office — a typical benchmark used to measure a president's early progress. Before this news conference, Biden had taken questions intermittently from reporters, but nothing at this length.
kaylynfreeman

Meghan and Harry interview: Prince William says royals are 'very much not a racist fami... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Politics

shared by kaylynfreeman on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • London (CNN)Prince William has denied the royal family is racist in his first public remarks since his brother Prince Harry, and his wife Meghan, made explosive claims in a TV interview.
  • Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, made a series of damning accusations against the royal family in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired in the UK on Monday night.
  • In the interview, Meghan said that the skin tone of the couple's child, Archie, was discussed as a potential issue before he was born. The couple would not reveal who had made the remarks, but said it wasn't Queen Elizabeth II or her husband, Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. close dialogDo you want the news summarized each morning?We've got you.Please enter aboveSign me upBy subscribing you agree to ourprivacy policy.Success!See you in your inbox.close dialog/* effects for .bx-campaign-1271788 *//* custom css .bx-campaign-1271788 *//* custom css from creative 53617 */.bx-custom.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-row-input.bx-row-validation .bx-vtext { font-size: 11px; color: #ee2924;}@keyframes bx-anim-1271788-spin { 100% { transform: rotate(360deg); }}/* rendered styles .bx-campaign-1271788 */.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative:before {min-height: 185px;}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative {border-color: #c1c1c1;border-style: solid;background-size: contain;background-color: white;border-width: 1px 0;border-radius: 0;}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative> *:first-child {width: 780px;padding: 10px;vertical-align: middle;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative> *:first-child {width: 340px;padding: 15px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788.bx-active-step-1 .bx-close {stroke: rgb(193, 193, 193);stroke-width: 2px;width: 24px;height: 24px;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788.bx-active-step-1 .bx-close {width: 30px;height: 30px;padding: 0 0 10px 10px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-group-1271788-PGhroUO {width: 135px;text-align: left;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-group-1271788-PGhroUO {text-align: center;display: none;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-LHjAYNs {width: 100%;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-LHjAYNs {width: 45px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-group-1271788-eWRqNk4 {width: 505px;padding: 2px 0 0 25px;text-align: left;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-group-1271788-eWRqNk4 {width: 100%;padding: 5px 0 0;text-align: left;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Sk3p2Hs {width: 100%;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Sk3p2Hs {width: 100%;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Sk3p2Hs> *:first-child {font-family: CNN,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Utkal,sans-serif;font-weight: 400;font-size: 21px;color: #282828;line-height: 1em;letter-spacing: -.015em;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Sk3p2Hs> *:first-child {font-size: 22px;min-width: auto;padding: 0;line-height: 1.1m;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Gs3ScAY {width: 100%;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Gs3ScAY {width: 100%;}}@media all and (min-width: 1025px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Gs3ScAY {width: 500px;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Gs3ScAY> *:first-child {font-family: CNN,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Utkal,sans-serif;font-weight: 400;font-size: 21px;padding: 6px 0 0;color: #ee2924;line-height: 1.1em;letter-spacing: -.015em;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-element-1271788-Gs3ScAY> *:first-child {font-size: 18px;padding: 8px 0 0;}}.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-group-1271788-kw4VbV5 {width: 640px;padding: 10px 0 0;min-width: 550px;}@media all and (max-width: 736px) {.bxc.bx-campaign-1271788 .bx-group-1271788-kw4VbV5 {min-width: auto;width: 100%;padding: 10px 0 0;}}@media all and (min-width: 737px) and (max-wi
rerobinson03

Crime and Qualifications at Issue in Heated N.Y.C. Mayoral Debate - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...mayoral-debate-nyc.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The Democratic candidates for mayor of New York City forcefully attacked their opponents’ records and ethics in starkly personal terms on Wednesday night, tangling over how they would address growing concerns over rising violent crime and the city’s economic recovery.In their first in-person debate of the campaign, the eight leading contenders battled over crime, justice and the power of the police, questions of education and charter schools and, in the debate’s most heated moments, the issue of who is qualified to lead the nation’s largest city.
  • The candidates took the stage at a moment of extraordinary uncertainty in the race, even as the contest nears its conclusion.
  • Those three candidates all have distinct bases, but they are in direct competition over some moderate white voters, and Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams have both criticized Ms. Garcia in recent weeks in a sign of her emerging strength — and a sharp departure from their previous friendly postures toward her.
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  • The first hour of the debate, co-hosted by WABC-TV, aired on broadcast television and may have been the biggest stage yet for the mayoral candidates,
  • Ms. Wiley, who defended her tenure, slammed Mr. Yang’s record leading Venture for America, the nonprofit he ran before running for president, over its record of job creation and how, records show, he failed to recruit many participants of color. And in one of the most revealing exchanges of the night, she and Mr. Adams had an extended back-and-forth over remarks he made about guns.
  • Mr. Adams stressed that he saw a distinction between off-duty officers carrying guns and the proliferation of illegal guns, describing an incident that occurred when he was a transit police officer, and he stopped an anti-Asian hate crime on a subway train.
  • Ms. Wiley is working to assemble a coalition of both voters of color and white progressives, and she has increasingly billed herself as “the progressive candidate that can win this race,” as she seeks to emerge as the left-wing standard-bearer in the race.
  • Mr. Stringer is a well-funded candidate with significant labor support, but an accusation that he made unwanted sexual advances 20 years ago — which he denies — sapped his momentum and appears to have complicated his ability to grow beyond his Upper West Side base. Onstage, though, he was one of the most vigorous combatants.
  • In different ways, both Mr. Donovan and Mr. McGuire sought to cast themselves as city government outsiders with serious executive experience who can fix the problems that have daunted others more closely tied to the current administration.
aleija

Opinion | My Ears Might Never Be Bored Again - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...music-streaming.html

Culture opinion technology

shared by aleija on 05 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Something unexpected happened to me during lockdown: I gained deeper appreciation for my ears. I don’t mean aesthetically, (though I’ve got no problem in that department, believe me), but rather functionally.
  • he other day I realized that I’ve taken to popping my AirPods Pro in just after I wake up, sometimes at the same time I put in my contact lenses. From there my ears are usually occupado all day, often until I sleep, sometimes even during.
  • Streaming has turned me into a musical butterfly, flitting between moods and genres in whatever way my tastes happen to lean. Indeed, in the last half decade I have explored more kinds of music than in the decades before — and I keep finding more stuff I like, because thanks to endless choice, there’s never nothing to listen to.
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  • Streaming services are often said to have “saved” the music industry, which is no doubt true, notwithstanding persistent complaints from artists about the paltriness of their streaming paychecks. Revenue from the sale of recorded music in the United States declined for almost two decades before streaming services began turning the business around in 2016. In 2020, recorded music grew to $12.2 billion in sales, the vast majority from streaming (still well below the industry’s peak sales year, $14.6 billion in 1999).
  • For me, the clearest way that streaming has altered my relationship to music is in its steady blurring of the boundaries between genres. I
  • If you’re under 35 or so, my paean to the mind-altering magic of ubiquitous digital audio might sound more than a bit outdated; Farhad, do you also get goose bumps when considering the TV remote?
  • The number of artists in the service’s most-played 10 percent of streams keeps growing — that is, there are many more artists at the top. “Gone are the days of Top 40, it’s now the Top 43,000,” Spotify crowed.
  • But you don’t need stats to show that music is increasingly breaking through staid genre boundaries — you can tell in the music itself.
  • What’s not going to change is the pre-eminent role audio now plays in our days. Once, I thought of my headphones as a conduit for music, and then they were for music and podcasts, but now they are something else entirely: They are the first gadget to deliver on the tech industry’s promise of “augmented reality” — the mashing up of the digital and analog worlds to create a novel, enhanced sensory experience.
  • Now that sound has been liberated from time, place and physical media — now that I can fly from the Nashville studio where Dylan recorded “Blonde on Blonde” to Taylor Swift’s Tiny Desk concert to the comforting, indistinct background murmur of a crowded coffee shop, all while on a walk in my suburban California neighborhood — my ears might never be bored again.
ethanshilling

N.F.L. Signs Media Deals Worth Over $100 Billion - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nfl-tv-contracts.html

pandemic nfl

shared by ethanshilling on 18 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The N.F.L. signed new media rights agreements with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and Amazon collectively worth about $110 billion over 11 years, nearly doubling the value of its previous contracts.
  • The contracts, which will take effect in 2023 and run through the 2033 season, will cement the N.F.L.’s status as the country’s most lucrative sports league.
  • “Along with our recently completed labor agreement with the N.F.L.P.A., these distribution agreements bring an unprecedented era of stability to the League and will permit us to continue to grow and improve our game,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.
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  • The jump in revenue will not initially change the fortunes of players, who are locked into a 10-year collective bargaining agreement narrowly ratified in March 2020
  • Each of the broadcasters’ deals include agreements for their respective streaming platforms, while Amazon will show Thursday night games on its Amazon Prime Video service.
  • It will be the first major expansion to the N.F.L. season in more than four decades, when teams began playing 16 games, up from 14, in 1978
  • The league was able to fully complete its 2020 season on schedule in part because it worked hand-in-hand with the N.F.L. Players Association to hammer out Covid-19 protocols and a raft of other rules.
  • Before the coronavirus pandemic, many television and digital media executives said the N.F.L. had the upper hand in negotiating major increases in rights fees because the league had a long-term labor deal in place and because its programming took less of a ratings hit than other broadcasts of U.S.-based sports during the pandemic.
  • N.F.L. games are also the most watched programming on television by far, making up 76 of the 100 most watched television programs in 2020.
katherineharron

The most surprising vote for impeachment came from this Republican - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

impeachment

shared by katherineharron on 14 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • When Tom Rice voted "yes" on the impeachment of Donald Trump over the President's role in inciting the riot that led to the storming of the US Capitol, most close congressional watchers assumed he had made a mistake.
  • After all, there was little to indicate that the reliably conservative South Carolina Republican would join nine other colleagues in breaking with the President (and the party) to back impeaching Trump.
  • Rice hadn't been an outspoken critic of Trump.
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  • Rice doesn't represent a swing district.
  • "Compared to the often raucous members of the state's congressional delegation, Rice has been more low-profile and focused on his legislative work,"
  • But Rice hadn't made a mistake or accidentally pressed the wrong button. His vote to impeach was real -- and without question, the most surprising of the 10 Republicans who bucked the President.
  • "Once the violence began, when the Capitol was under siege, when the Capitol Police were being beaten and killed, and when the Vice President and the Congress were being locked down, the President was watching and tweeted about the Vice President's lack of courage.
  • "... It has been a week since so many were injured, the United States Capitol was ransacked, and six people were killed, including two police officers. Yet, the President has not addressed the nation to ask for calm. He has not visited the injured and grieving. He has not offered condolences. Yesterday in a press briefing at the border, he said his comments were 'perfectly appropriate.'"
  • The combination of Trump's incitement of the crowd, his attacks on Vice President Mike Pence during the riot itself and his total lack of remorse over his role in the overrunning of the Capitol added up to be more than Rice could take.
  • While Rice did vote in favor of the Electoral College objections raised by Republicans in Arizona and Pennsylvania, he expressed some misgivings about doing so in the wake of the Capitol violence. "I am incredibly disappointed in the President," Rice told a local TV station last Wednesday. "The President needs to step up right now and say this election is over. I'm tired of it. He needs to concede. He needs to say that this election is over and tell these folks to calm down."
  • "Donald Trump was backed by an overwhelming majority in my district and in South Carolina," Rice said. "And while I don't necessarily agree with his tactics, I agree with 95% of his policies."
  • "People don't pay me for smiling," Rice said. "They pay me to get results."That's not the typical quote from a politician. And as Rice showed with his vote on Wednesday, he's no normal politician.
Javier E

'Game of Thrones' Finale Sets HBO Ratings Record - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...-3-million-viewers-11558382378

tv audience culture us history commonality

shared by Javier E on 21 May 19 - No Cached
  • HBO spared no expense for “Game of Thrones,” with episodes typically costing $10 million to make and some hitting the $15 million mark
  • The 19.3-million figure for Sunday night is likely to grow during the week, as fans who missed the finale catch up. This season, “Game of Thrones” averaged nearly 44.2 million viewers per episode when delayed viewing, video on demand and streaming platforms are factored in.
  • The audience for Sunday night’s finale is even more impressive given that HBO is in only 35 million of the country’s 120 million television homes.
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  • In the epic’s first season, episodes averaged 9.3 million viewers
  • it pales in comparison to the final episodes of other iconic shows such as “M*A*S*H,” which drew 105.9 million viewers, and “Cheers,” which attracted 80 million viewers.
  • More recently, the CBS hit sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” ended its 12-season run with 18 million tuning in for the final episode.
  • The political comedy “Veep” ended its run last week with a season-high 1.1 million viewers
johnsonel7

'Believe women' is being cheapened to score political points. That will backfire | Jess... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...lizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders

politics US Warren Sanders

shared by johnsonel7 on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • It’s a familiar scenario. An exchange occurs in private. Only the two figures involved – a man and a woman – know what truly transpired. But once they leave that room and start to tell their version of events, the man is given the benefit of the doubt and the woman faces intense scrutiny and skepticism.
  • This is the basic set-up for any number of high-profile cases, stories of rapists and other sexual offenders evading legal prosecution or other consequences for years as their accusers were painted as gold diggers, political operatives, and compulsive liars
  • But “believe women” is getting thrown around by political strategists and official opinion-havers to support the Elizabeth Warren’s claim that Bernie Sanders told her, in a private meeting with no witnesses and no evidentiary support, that a woman could not win the presidency in 2020. This is not only a grotesque distortion of what “believe women” is supposed to mean, it undermines the good work the phrase’s use was doing.
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  • The goal is to put the offense on a higher level than one of just lying. That way, if the Sanders campaign decides to point to all of the lies Warren has told throughout her career – that her father was a janitor, that she is Native American – her lies won’t matter as much because she’s just electioneering while his lies are rooted in misogyny. It’s a trick that still works for Hillary Clinton, who has repeatedly complained about the lack of support Sanders gave to her campaign, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. (Clinton, after losing the primary to Obama in 2008, appeared at two rallies with Obama and did 10 solo campaign appearances to help him get elected. Sanders, after losing the primary to Clinton in 2016, did three events with Clinton and 37 solo events.)
  • Early accusers of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were deemed golddiggers, looking for an easy settlement to shut them up. Even when there’s some form of evidence, such as when photographs show Donald Trump with E Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, even while he insists he doesn’t know her, supporters are still willing to take his word for it.
brookegoodman

Trump, who wanted a TV legal team, is 'distracted' by impeachment trial, source says - ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

trump politics

shared by brookegoodman on 19 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • (CNN) Donald Trump has appeared "distracted" by the impeachment trial that begins on Tuesday, according to a source close to the White House who speaks to the President regularly.
  • "President Donald J. Trump used his official powers to pressure a foreign government to interfere in a United States election for his personal political gain, and then attempted to cover up his scheme by obstructing Congress's investigation into his misconduct," the managers wrote in the brief. "The Constitution provides a remedy when the President commits such serious abuses of his office: impeachment and removal. The Senate must use that remedy now to safeguard the 2020 U.S. election, protect our constitutional form of government, and eliminate the threat that the President poses to America's national security."
  • The response argued both substantively, against the charges in the articles, and procedurally, against the House's impeachment inquiry.
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  • The legal team argues that the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, "alleges no crime at all, let alone 'high crimes and Misdemeanors,' as required by the Constitution." The team cited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's repeated denials that he felt any pressure from Trump as evidence that Trump did not abuse his power during the July 25 phone call.
  • Starr, the hard-charging prosecutor whose work led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment, and Dershowitz, the constitutional lawyer, will join Robert Ray, Starr's successor at the Office of Independent Counsel during the Clinton administration, on the defense team, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said earlier in a statement.
  • The President was especially fixated on having controversial defense attorney Dershowitz on the legal team. But Dershowitz has been telling his own associates he didn't want to participate in the President's trial, the source who is familiar with these conversations said. White House officials have applied a lot of pressure over the last several weeks to convince Dershowitz to join the team, sources familiar with the attorney's appointment said.
  • Sekulow has a long history working with Starr, going back to when Starr was solicitor general and Sekulow argued to the Supreme Court. Starr was a partner Cipollone's at Kirkland and Ellis.
  • Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump's longtime personal counsel Jane Raskin and attorney Eric Herschmann will also supplement the President's impeachment legal team, Grisham said. All are expected to have speaking roles, people familiar with the matter told CNN.
  • When the President was presented with his final team by his lawyers, he was pleased with it and gave the ultimate sign off, but he had also previously been looped in on the idea of Starr and the others.
  • The legal team has been strategizing on how to make what are typically dry legal arguments more interesting by changing up who is delivering the message, in part to appease the President who has said privately he wants a show fit for television.
katherineharron

Voting in Georgia US Senate race in Hancock County is more about fight to vote than rig... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

voting

shared by katherineharron on 05 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • In 2015, after a failed attempt to shutter almost every polling location in a county three times the area of Atlanta, the Hancock County Board of Elections and Registration tried to remove 174 voters, almost all of them African American, ahead of a Sparta city election. The board even sent deputies to homes, summonsing voters to prove eligibility.
  • The city's roll at the time included only 988 voters, so it meant about one in five potential ballots.
  • many county residents could have been disenfranchised, he said last month.
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  • With Georgia voters set to decide control of the US Senate in Tuesday's runoffs, the challenges to the voting rolls in Hancock County, whose residents have long fought for their right to vote, remain under the supervision of a court-appointed examiner. Legal experts say the US Supreme Court pulling teeth from the Voting Rights Act is to blame.
  • Black households had a median income of $22,056 ($37,083 for White); almost 34% of Black residents lived in poverty (22% for White); and 26% of Black households received food benefits (6% for White).
  • Ahead of the 2015 Sparta elections, the lawsuit said, BOER Vice Chairwoman Nancy Stephens, who is White, began filing voter challenges as a citizen, then voting on them as a board member. When concerns were raised, a local resident began filing challenges "in a format that closely resembled the format of those filed by the Vice Chair," the lawsuit said.
  • The challengers "consistently failed to provide credible evidence based upon personal knowledge that the challenged voters were not qualified to vote," the lawsuit said.
  • The BOER, responding to the lawsuit, "vigorously" and "strenuously" denied illegally targeting Black voters or violating state laws.
  • Thornton can't understand why the BOER would claim he didn't live in the county, or why the board would try to remove him from the rolls. His catfish farm is in unincorporated Mayfield, 20 minutes outside Sparta, and he wasn't eligible to vote in the city elections.
  • "Sitting after two of the meetings, I thought, 'What would they do if someone challenged some White voters?'" recalled Webb, who is Black.
  • He went through the 2014 voting roll and pulled voters he knew were dead or had moved and submitted 14 challenges.
  • BOER members didn't take Webb's challenges seriously and defended White voters.
  • The BOER determined before the hearing that four of Webb's challenged voters were dead and removed them from the rolls. Of the remaining challenges, the board nixed one voter from the rolls and moved another to inactive status. Both were Asian American, the lawsuit said.
  • "What they did was beyond voter suppression. If something is wrong with your voter registration, they should call you and tell you what's wrong. What they were doing is taking you off the rolls, and you wouldn't find out until the election," Webb told CNN. "They were making Black votes disappear."
  • Since the death of the Georgia civil rights icon US Rep. John Lewis, politicians and activists have called for Congress to honor Lewis by crafting an updated coverage formula, as permitted by the high court, but it hasn't come to pass.
  • Julie Houk with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who worked on the Hancock County case, disagrees with the Supreme Court's finding "that the conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions."
  • In Macon-Bibb County, Georgia, Houk said, elections officials moved a Black voting precinct -- in a community that had rocky relations with law enforcement -- to the sheriff's office, which she called "very problematic" as it threatened to dissuade African Americans from voting.
  • The Lawyers' Committee has also challenged restrictive absentee ballot rules and fought voter purges, redistricting decisions and efforts to limit ballot drop boxes -- which tend to burden minorities the most.
  • In 2015, Georgia's then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp cited Shelby in informing counties they were "no longer required to submit polling place changes to the Department of Justice."
  • The ACLU of Georgia reported in September that of 313,243 voters removed from the state rolls in 2019, almost 200,000 were likely erroneously purged.
  • Two weeks before the November general election, ProPublica, in collaboration with public broadcasters, reported, "The state's voter rolls have grown by nearly 2 million since the US Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, but polling locations have been cut by almost 10%, with Metro Atlanta hit particularly hard."
  • This is why preclearance was so important: Discriminating against Black voters would've been rejected
  • The truth about 2015 "depends on what side you talk to," he said. No candidate could win in the city, now estimated at 89% African American, without securing a swath of the Black vote, said Haywood, who is White and is certain he was elected on his promise of reform, he said.
  • "We are way past problems with Black and White here," Haywood said. "Now, people are excited things are getting fixed."
  • Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it had no Black elected officials until John McCown -- an activist more in the mold of Stokely Carmichael than Martin Luther King Jr. -- came to town, luring investment and ushering Black residents to power.
  • McCown remains revered among many Black residents, despite investigations into his alleged misspending of grant money and other improprieties. They consider his achievements landmarks, including an affordable housing project and job creators like a cinder block factory and Thornton's now-defunct catfish farm. McCown's antebellum home still stands, abandoned and in need of upkeep.
  • A 1976 plane crash killed McCown, and a federal investigation into his fundraising killed the county's resurrected prosperity, but his legacy survived in the Black leaders succeeding him. "He created a political strategy, and African Americans voted themselves into power," Thornton said. "It has come to a point where (Hancock County) is one of the most impoverished in America. There is a wives' tale -- I don't know if it's true or not -- that some political leaders in Georgia have always said that if we can't vote the people of Hancock County out, we'll starve them out -- and there's been a disproportionate lack of growth to this particular community."
  • The BOER "strenuously denied" that it was illegally targeting Black voters with its challenges but agreed to enter the consent decree and abide by the standards and procedures the decree lays out. The court also ordered the defendants to pay more than $500,000 in attorneys' fees and other expenses, court documents show.As part of the consent decree, the BOER agreed to "not engage in discriminatory challenges to voters' eligibility," and to adhere to certain procedures in such challenges, according to court documents. It also restored certain voters to its rolls and agreed not to take action on other voters restored to the rolls for at least two federal election cycles.
  • "It had a chilling effect on voters," she said. "A lot of folks decided voting wasn't worth it."
  • "It will affect several elections down the road because people will say that I'm not going to be bothered by this ever again. I'm not going to vote," Warren said. "You have virtually destroyed their whole trust in the system altogether."
  • The county has submitted voters it wants removed, as instructed, and during the November election, the NAACP "seemed to think everything went OK," he said. Spencer's team is "always concerned," he said, and events happening at the state and national level, including Georgia's secretary of state calling to end no-excuse absentee voting and President Donald Trump challenging elections results, only exacerbate his worry.
  • "I am definitely worried that once the consent decree ends that the BOER will start its same antics again," he said. "They can say, 'Hey, we'll get everybody except Johnny Thornton, and the other people that we go for might not have the legal means or expertise to push back or to fight against the system.'"
  • Warren, in addition to previously serving as Sparta's registrar, is a Black county resident who began filming BOER meetings in 2015 when he learned of the challenges. He had trouble last year, he said, when applying for a mail-in ballot. A county elections official told him his home wasn't his registered address, he said. He isn't alleging any misbehavior -- he was able to sort it out before the general election -- but such a county notice might have been enough to deter a less-resolute voter from casting her or his ballot. In poor, rural areas like Hancock County, minor hiccups such as a rainy day or a washed-out road can have major effects on voting.
Javier E

As the US descends into chaos, what better time for Britain to go the same way? | US Ca... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...tain-fox-news-trump-presidency

fox news insurrection media uk history crisis Culture

shared by Javier E on 09 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • It was nice to hear from Mark Zuckerberg, who grandly announced he’d blocked Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. This is not so much a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted as doping the horse, whipping it into a frenzy, encouraging it to bolt, fostering a world in which humans are subjugated by horses, monetising every snort and whinny, allowing the very existence of “humans” and “horses” to become just one of a bunch of competing opinions, and then – only when that one particular horse has outlived its usefulness and seems destined for the glue factory – gently closing the stable door with a self-satisfied little “click”.
  • there would never have been a Trump presidency without Fox News, with the channel spending years before his election pushing his birtherism, boomer-bait and belief that the news is really just another TV show whose ratings were his primary obsession. Doubling down on all its worst instincts from the moment Barack Obama was elected, Fox News terrified and radicalised with wild disinformation, creating a post-fact black hole so powerful that even previously mild-mannered rivals got sucked into it.
mimiterranova

Powerful Typhoon Goni Slams The Philippines, Leaving At Least 10 Dead And 3 Missing : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...g-at-least-10-dead-and-3-missi

philippines storm dead missing

shared by mimiterranova on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Recovery efforts are underway in the Philippines after Super Typhoon Goni brought flooding, mudslides and strong winds to its largest island early Sunday morning. The storm, whose maximum wind speeds earned it the distinction of the year's most powerful cyclone, left at least 10 people dead and three missing.
  • Ahead of the storm, the international airport in Manila closed for 24 hours starting on Sunday. And nearly one million residents were preemptively evacuated, a process further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic — Johns Hopkins University puts the number of confirmed cases in the hard-hit Philippines at more than 383,000.
  • The storm intensified rapidly on Friday, adding 80 miles per hour to its maximum sustained winds in just 24 hours. Peak winds were estimated at 195 mph prior to landfall, which is equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Goni was the 18th tropical cyclone to hit the country this year, which faces an average of 20 typhoons annually. And number 19 could come later this week: Tropical Storm Atsan, officials said, entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility early Sunday.
  • The AP reports that in one Albay community, the typhoon triggered volcanic mudflows that "engulfed" about 150 houses.
  • Citing local officials, Reuters reported that the 10 recorded fatalities and three people reported missing were all in the region of Bicol, which encompasses the southern part of Luzon. Nine of those deaths were in the province of Albay.
  • Philadelphia officials issued a citywide curfew on Wednesday after consecutive nights of protests — which at times turned violent — following the fatal police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr. He was holding a knife when police shot him.
  • "By looting, people are not only hurting retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they're doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,"
  • City officials said Wednesday afternoon that 81 people had been arrested during the previous night's demonstrations, including 53 for burglary, seven for disorderly conduct and eight accused of assaulting police.
  • Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage
  • City officials urged residents in certain districts to remain indoors Tuesday night due to "widespread demonstrations that have turned violent with looting."
  • A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.
  • The gathering featured speeches and preceded a march, Philadelphia member station WHYY reported, adding that one speaker noted there were "far too many comfortable white people here tonight."
  • "Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN. "It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.
  • Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police
  • A police spokesperson said Monday that officers were responding to a report of a man with a knife. They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers." Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
mimiterranova

Philadelphia Issues Curfew Amid Protests Over Police Shooting Of Walter Wallace : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...lice-shooting-of-walter-wallac

protests police shooting violence Culture

shared by mimiterranova on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • following the fatal police shooting of a 27-year-old Black man, Walter Wallace Jr. He was holding a knife when police shot him.
  • "By looting, people are not only hurting retail businesses that have struggled in the midst of the pandemic, but they're doing a great disservice to the many others who want to exercise their First Amendment rights by protesting,"
  • City officials said Wednesday afternoon that 81 people had been arrested during the previous night's demonstrations, including 53 for burglary, seven for disorderly conduct and eight accused of assaulting police.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Police will soon release 911 tapes, body camera footage
  • Community members gather in West Philly
  • A racially diverse crowd came together Tuesday evening at Malcolm X Park, not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhood where Wallace was killed.
  • "far too many comfortable white people here tonight."
  • "Stop this looting and stop and stop burning our city down," the elder Wallace told CNN.
  • "It's not going to solve anything," he said. "I don't want to leave a bad scar on my son and my family with this looting and chaos stuff." Wallace's killing was captured on cellphone video and posted to social media, where it went viral.
  • Family reportedly called for an ambulance, not police
  • Wallace's wife told the officers when they arrived that her husband had bipolar disorder and urged the officers to stand down.
  • They ordered Wallace to drop the weapon, saying that he "advanced towards officers."
  • Both officers fired their guns at Wallace. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
  • mimiterranova on 02 Nov 20
     
    another one about Walter Wallace Jr. because it's making me very mad. He should not have been shot to death and I understand the anger of these protesters. While I don't agree with their violent actions, we have to remember a company can be rebuilt but a life can't be taken back.
mariedhorne

News Networks Prepare for Election That Goes Beyond Election Day - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...eyond-election-day-11604352441

election voting pandemic

shared by mariedhorne on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • TV news networks have honed a playbook for election-night coverage over the years. Anchors analyze what each side needs to do to win. Experts zoom in on touch-screen maps to show how votes are coming in. Everyone is cautious for a few hours until a winner is declared.
  • “We’re going to try to avoid predictions,” said NBC News President Noah Oppenheim. “We’re going to try to avoid clinging to any kind of narrative story line.”
  • A “red mirage,” a potentially misleading lead for President Trump, could occur in states that count in-person Election Day votes first, while a “blue mirage” would be a potentially misleading lead for Democratic candidate Joe Biden in states that started counting mail-in ballots before Election Day.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • NBC News and CNN said they would fact-check statements about the voting results or allegations of election fraud.
  • The Associated Press, whose election calls are used by a range of news organizations, is gathering data on voting with NORC at the University of Chicago using a methodology developed with Fox News.
  • He said the network is preparing for an election that could go well beyond Election Day. CNN has anchors, producers and digital journalists scheduled in shifts to cover the election round-the-clock for several days, if necessary.
kaylynfreeman

Texan Who Appears To Boast Of Being 'Trump Train' Basher Also Drove Through BLM Protest... - 0 views

www.huffpost.com/...ion_n_5fa0a09cc5b686950031a1b2

politics US trump

shared by kaylynfreeman on 04 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • A Texas man who appeared to claim on social media accounts to be the “Trump train” driver who rammed a vehicle last week in a Joe Biden campaign caravan also had been videotaped driving through Black Lives Matter protesters in Texas this summer.
  • President Donald Trump has hailed the harassing drivers as “patriots.” Cisneros retweeted Trump’s message “I love Texas” over a video of the highway confrontation.
  • The black Ford F-150 pickup that collided with the Biden campaign car appears to be the same one Cisneros drove through a group of Black Lives Matter protesters in San Antonio in June. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • He drove slowly, and no one was injured. Demonstrators yelled at him and  accused him of putting their lives at risk.
  • Asked then when he would use his firearm, he told San Antonio’s WOAI-TV that he and his partner would “push” vandals off, but “once bricks start flying or being threatened with our lives, yeah.”
leilamulveny

Inside the Week That Shook the Trump Campaign - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...the-trump-campaign-11603320724

campaign politics

shared by leilamulveny on 22 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Polls would soon show the performance had cost the president support.
  • The other was the fallout from the Supreme Court nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett he had held the previous weekend at the White House. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, would soon describe the event as a “superspreader” of Covid-19 and within days, Mr. Trump would test positive for the disease.
  • Some advisers have urged him to rethink his debate-preparation strategy, but, as of Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump hadn’t attended any prep sessions for Thursday’s debate, formally or informally, people familiar with the matter said.
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  • “Trump is still the political outsider, while Biden is the ultimate insider,” Mr. Murtaugh said.
  • Mr. Trump is publicly optimistic, but privately appears aware that he is trailing in the race, people familiar with the matter said.
  • A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken in the days after the first debate, but before Mr. Trump tested positive, found that Mr. Biden’s lead over the president had grown to 14 points from 8 in September, with voters by a 2-to-1 margin saying Mr. Biden had outperformed Mr. Trump in the debate.
  • “We had a superspreader event in the White House, and it was in a situation where people were crowded together and were not wearing masks,” Dr. Fauci said in an Oct. 9 CBS News Radio interview.
  • Mr. Trump eschewed traditional practice debate sessions in favor of more informal discussions with his team, advisers said. At one point during practice, he asked the group, “Why are you guys in here? Why aren’t you out there defending me on TV?”
  • Mr. Trump told aides afterwards that he blamed Mr. Wallace for his own interruptions. His performance stunned advisers, one of whom later described the president’s performance as “one of the most incredible self-inflicted wounds of all time.”
leilamulveny

How Trump's Cash Crunch is Affecting the Campaign's Final Weeks - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-campaign-money.html

campaign new york trump

shared by leilamulveny on 22 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • President Trump’s campaign has far less money than advisers had once anticipated for the final stretch of the presidential election, as rosy revenue projections failed to materialize, leaving aides scrambling to address a severe financial disadvantage against Joseph R. Biden Jr. at the race’s most crucial juncture.
  • Despite raising more than $1.5 billion in tandem with the Republican Party since 2019, Mr. Trump is now in the same financial straits as he was four years ago, when Hillary Clinton had roughly double the money he did
  • Republican allies, meanwhile, are wondering where all the money went
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Perhaps nothing underscores how acute and unexpected the budget situation is for Mr. Trump as much as his television ad budget. His cash on hand entering October was $40 million less than the $104.4 million he had previously reserved in television ads for the final five weeks, according to Advertising Analytics data
  • Over all, the data show Mr. Trump’s TV ad spending has shrunk by $23 million since Sept. 20. In that same time period, Mr. Biden has expanded his reservations by $99 million.
  • Mr. Trump’s campaign is not broke. The $63.1 million he had on hand entering October is nearly what Mrs. Clinton had four years ago. The campaign said no loans or deferrals had occurred this time. The problem is that his campaign initially presumed it would have far more money, and Bill Stepien, who replaced Brad Parscale as campaign manager over the summer, has spent recent months imposing cost-control measures to prevent a bigger shortfall.
Javier E

Raiders of the Lost Past review - Janina Ramirez proves history isn't a man's world | T... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ost-past-review-janina-ramirez

history

shared by Javier E on 19 Feb 21 - No Cached
  • Janina Ramirez is coming up on the inside.
  • Her new series of Raiders of the Lost Past (BBC Two) opens with an account of the discovery of the Palace of Knossos on Crete by Sir Arthur Evans that emphasises how very much easier it was to do these sorts of things when you were a very, very rich white man born into every advantage halfway through the 19th century in the land where the sun never set.
  • Evans beat various competitors in the race to procure a licence to excavate and spent the next 30 years unearthing evidence that showed ancient Greek civilisation had begun a thousand years earlier than previously thought. And he discovered an entirely unknown, forgotten culture – he called the Minoan – which preceded even ancient Greece. He wrote it all up in a series of six volumes, and that was that. History made!
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Except, that was then, this is now, and a lot has happened in between. And a lot of that has been deconstructing what the Victorians thought they knew and wrote down to teach others. It has been noticed, for example, that Evans’s records entirely omit the fact that he had been shown the findings of excavations at Knossos that had taken place 20 years before he got there by a man called Minos Kalokairinos, who had hoped to use them to improve the vexed relations between Crete and mainland Greece.
  • It has also been noticed that once you don’t see everything through a Christian monarchist lens, the 1,000-room network looks a lot less like a palace or temple and much more like an administration centre for the thriving commercial empire the Minoans had going. And that the art unearthed suggests their society was – and if this remains hard to believe now, it was inconceivable to Arthur – one that considered women to be perhaps wholly equal to men. I know. Excavate THAT.
Javier E

'He is a destroyer': how the George Floyd protests left Donald Trump exposed | US news ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...onald-trump-black-lives-matter

trump protests crisis culture politics carnage

shared by Javier E on 01 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • “He is obviously in way over his head,” said LaTosha Brown, a civil rights activist and co-founder of Black Voters Matter.
  • “He doesn’t have a clue. He’s a TV personality. He has a cult following that’s centred around this white power broker persona rooted in white supremacy and racism. Wherever he goes, he carries that role and that kind of persona, but ultimately right now with what we’re looking for in this country is real leadership. He is incapable of providing that because that’s not who he is.”
  • “He didn’t create hostility and division, but he incites it. He creates incentives for it to thrive. He has elevated and put people around him that do that as well.”
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • “He’s willing to kill democracy. He is willing to kill any sense of real respect or trust in his government. He is willing to kill America’s international and global relationships. He is a destroyer.”
  • “He’s a personality. He’s used to these dog whistles and, instead of trying to uproot division and seeing that the citizens are actually in pain and hurting, he doesn’t have the capacity to address that. He actually adds fuel to the flames and shows how fundamentally intellectually disconnected he is from what is happening and also how ill-prepared he is as a leader to respond to that.”
  • “Get tough Democrat Mayors and Governors,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, even as protesters gathered outside the White House for the third straight day. “These people are ANARCHISTS. Call in our National Guard NOW. The World is watching and laughing at you and Sleepy Joe. Is this what America wants? NO!!!”
  • Biden has billed the election as a battle for the soul of the nation – the potential to lurch deeper into disarray with a second Trump term, or to reset, rebuild and plot a new direction. The stakes keep getting higher by the day.
  • “The problem here is that we can focus this simply on Trump or we can also focus on all of those folks that have enabled Trump: the Republican leadership, the corporation that may make statements in support of this work but, on the other hand, do all sorts of things to prop up, support, donate to Donald Trump. You don’t get Trump and Trumpism without a whole host of institutions and individuals that support and enable him.”
  • Trump’s unconventional inaugural address in January 2017 is best remembered for a single phrase: “American carnage”. His entire presidency may be remembered for it too.
Javier E

Trump's GOP is Increasingly Racist and Authoritarian-and Here to Stay - The Bulwark - 0 views

thebulwark.com/authoritarian-and-here-to-stay

trump gop analysis 2020 election trumpism

shared by Javier E on 29 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • he inflicted on us a presidency which was ignorant, cruel, reckless, lawless, divisive, and disloyal.
  • Mendacity and bigotry became the mode of communication between America’s president and his party’s base.
  • Not only did he worsen a deadly pandemic—by immersing an angry and alienated minority in his alternate reality, he is sickening our future.
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • He rose from a political party bent on thwarting demographic change by subverting the democratic process; a party whose base was addicted to white identity politics, steeped in religious fundamentalism, and suffused with authoritarian cravings—a party which, infected by Trumpism, now spreads the multiple malignancies metastasized by Trump’s personal and political pathologies.
  • Since the civil rights revolution triggered an influx of resentful Southern whites, the GOP has catered to white grievance and anxiety.
  • Trump’s transformative contribution has been to make racial antagonism overt—a badge of pride that bonds him to his followers in opposition to a pluralist democracy that threatens their imperiled social and political hegemony.
  • Take the poll released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) measuring the attitudes of “Fox News Republicans”—the 40 percent of party adherents who trust Fox as their primary source of TV news. The survey found that 91 percent oppose the Black Lives Matter movement; 90 percent believe that police killings of blacks are “isolated incidents”; and 58 think that whites are victimized by racial discrimination, compared to 36 percent who think blacks are.
  • He comprehends his audience all too well
  • Their animus toward immigration is equally strong. Substantial majorities believe that immigrants consume a disproportionate amount of governmental services, increase crime in local communities, and threaten our cultural and ethnic character.
  • In 2016, Vox reports, Trump carried whites by 54 to 39 percent; in 2020, by 57 to 42 percent (per the raw exit polls)
  • Another key subgroup of the GOP base, white evangelicals, harbors similar attitudes. The poll found that the majority adamantly disbelieve that the legacy of racial discrimination makes it difficult for African Americans to succeed
  • The head of the PRRI, Robert P. Jones, concludes that Trump arouses white Christians “not despite, but through appeals to white supremacy” based on evoking “powerful fears about the loss of White Christian dominance.”
  • That sense of racial and cultural besiegement pervades the 73 percent of Fox News Republicans who, the survey found, believe that white Christians suffer from “a lot” of societal discrimination—more than double the number who say that blacks do
  • Tucker Carlson serves as a cautionary tale. When Carlson dismissed, as gently as possible, the crackpot allegations of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell about a sweeping conspiracy using rogue voting machines, he was savaged across the right-wing echo chamber as a spineless quisling. Lesson learned.
  • fear of displacement helps explain the profound emotional connection between Trump and Republican voters. Their loyalty is not to the political philosophy traditionally embraced by the GOP, but a visceral sense of racial, religious, and cultural identity—and the need to preserve it—which is instinctively authoritarian and anti-democratic.
  • Bartels surveyed respondents regarding four statements which, taken together, read like a blueprint for Trump: The traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it. A time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands. Strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done. It is hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout.
  • Support for Trump’s wall is nearly unanimous (96 percent); two-thirds (66 percent) favor barring refugees from entering the United States; and a majority (53 percent) support separating children from their parents when a family enters the country without permission.
  • This lies at the heart of Trump’s appeal: his shared sense of victimization by an insidious elite; his unvarnished denunciation of white America’s supposed enemies; and his promise to keep them at bay—if necessary, by force. For many in the Republican base, he fulfills a psychic longing for an American strongman.
  • In the New York Times, Katherine Stewart describes the growth of “a radical political ideology that is profoundly hostile to democracy and pluralism, and a certain political style that seeks to provoke moral panic, rewards the paranoid and views every partisan conflict as a conflagration, the end of the world.”
  • “Christian nationalism is a creation of a uniquely isolated messaging sphere. Many members of the rank and file get their main political information not just from messaging platforms that keep their audiences in a world that is divorced from reality, but also from dedicated religious networks and reactionary faith leaders.”
  • As Republican strategists well appreciate, a party whose appeal is confined to conservative whites is, over the demographic long term, doomed to defeat. The GOP’s design is to postpone as long as possible their electoral day of reckoning.
  • In launching his naked attempt to disenfranchise the majority of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin through assertions of fraud unprecedented in their speciousness and scope, Trump took the GOP’s distaste for free and fair elections to its logical conclusion: the abrogation of American democracy at the highest level.
  • Trump justified his anti-democratic sociopathy by proliferating a plethora of groundless and preposterous falsehoods calculated to delegitimize our electoral processes. He claimed that millions of phony mail-in ballots had been cast for Biden; that voting machines had been re-engineered to exclude millions more cast for him; and that Republican election observers had been excluded from many polling places by a host of local officials bent on serving a labyrinthine conspiracy to purloin the White House.
  • Never once did he or his lawyers cite a shred of evidence supporting any material impropriety. Rather his purpose was to convince the Republican base that they were being cheated of their leader by the insidious “other.” Numerous polls confirm that it’s working; typical is a Politico/Morning Consult survey showing that 70 percent of Republicans don’t believe the election was fairly conducted.
  • As Trevor Potter, a Republican who formerly headed the Federal Election Commission, told the New York Times, Trump “is creating a road map to destabilization and chaos in future years. . . . What he’s saying, explicitly, is if a party doesn’t like the election result they have the right to change it by gaming the system.”
  • Reports Bump: “Most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents agreed with the first statement. . . . Nearly three-quarters agreed that election results should be treated with skepticism.” Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were also “significantly more likely to say they agreed with the other two statements than that they disagreed.”
  • Ultimately, this otherworldly obduracy stems from Trump’s manifest psychological illness: his imperishable narcissism; his ineradicable drive to be noticed; his relentless need to dominate; his comprehensive carelessness of all considerations save what pleases him in the moment. Television turned this moral pygmy into a mythic figure—and he cannot let go.
  • Republican elites want very much to turn the page on Donald Trump following his loss. But . . . they do not have any say in the matter, because their party now belongs to him. And the party belongs to Donald Trump because he has delivered to Republican voters exactly what they want.
  • a notable phenomenon of Trump’s presidency is the degree to which financially embattled working-class whites imagined, contrary to observable reality, that their economic situation had improved—or soon would. There are few better examples of how politics mirrors psychology more than lived experience.
  • This fidelity is why some Republican gurus remain committed to Trump’s strategy of maximizing support among middle-class and blue-collar whites. After all, they argue, despite Trump’s defeat the GOP did better than expected in senatorial and congressional races. Why risk tinkering with his formula?
  • Finally, economic populism is antithetical to the donor classes who, in truth, did better under Trump than did anyone else. They got their tax cuts and their judges—the GOP’s pipeline for judicial nominees, the Federalist Society, is dedicated to advancing pro-corporate jurisprudence. This is not the prescription for worker-friendly policies.
  • For the foreseeable future, Trumpism will define the GOP. The path to regeneration runs not through reform but, one fears, must proceed from self-destruction. The wait time will be painful for the party, and fateful for the country.
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