Americans On The Edge Of Politics

Untethered from partisan politics and uninterested in keeping up with political news, here is how some Americans view the current state of U.S. politics.

In a fractious political environment often dominated by the loudest voices on the left and right, some people are saying: Count us out.

Last year, we talked to a group of people who, while they may vote, are not strongly attached to either political party. They don’t closely follow news about politics or government, though some feel guilty when they don’t. By and large, they look at the nation’s politics as a topic better avoided than embraced.

With the first votes of the 2024 election about to be cast, these are people whose voices are largely overlooked. Last May, we conducted six focus groups of adults who have soured on politics and political news. Here’s what they told us.

They have a sense that politics is everywhere – and often in a bad way. They find themselves overwhelmed by how much information they confront in their day-to-day life.

Many – but not all – of these people vote. While they acknowledge they could be more engaged with following politics, many say they have no desire to, or say it’s important to avoid the topic to protect their mental health.

Most are frustrated with the two parties. They often don’t feel represented by either party or feel that the parties are too extreme. And while some would prefer for there to be no parties at all, others wish there were more than two.

Many of the participants pointed to the vitriol and negativity in politics today, noting that there is too much fighting and not enough progress being made on issues that are important to everyday people.

How would these people change politics? Their ideas run the gamut: While some discussed changes to the Electoral College, term limits or reducing the role of money in politics, others said they simply would like more choices, less negativity and more progress on important issues.

Note: This essay is designed to be a snapshot of how some Americans who are not particularly engaged with politics feel about the system. These focus group participants do not necessarily represent the broader population of all less engaged Americans.

This publication is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals: Carroll Doherty, Jocelyn Kiley, Hannah Hartig, Gabe Borelli, Rebecca Leppert, David Kent, Andrea Caumont, Claire Dannenbaum, Andy Cerda, Shanay Gracia and Katy Lin (former intern).

Illustrations by Christian Northeast. Design, production and web development by Alissa Scheller, Reem Nadeem and Chris Baronavski. -Pew Research

School Board Pulls Dictionaries

School district officials say that the dictionary contains terms, references, and description of “sexual conduct.” 

By Evy Kwong

A school district in Florida has pulled 1,600 books including dictionaries and encyclopedias from their shelves after school board members said the books violated a law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP’s ongoing war on education.

Escambia County School District officials say that the dictionary, along with books like The Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley’s Believe it or Not, contain terms, references, and description of “sexual conduct.” 

The law, HB 1069, which went into effect on July 1, 2023, aims to limit sexual education by banning topics like sexual health, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Because of this, the school district said they decided to remove the dictionary from school libraries over the summer break, as they contain terms that fall under those banned topics.

In May 2023, PEN America, an organization fighting for freedom of speech and access to literature, along with publisher Penguin Random House and several authors, filed a federal lawsuit against the school board for impeding free speech. This week, a judge ruled that the suit could move forward.

“Ensuring that students have access to books on a wide range of topics and that express a diversity of viewpoints is a core function of public education—preparing students to be thoughtful and engaged citizens,” PEN America wrote. It added that the removal of the books violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution “because the books being singled out for possible removal are disproportionately books by non-white and/or LGBTQ authors.”

In a statement, Escambia County School District said that the books weren’t actually banned from schools, but just pulled for “further review” to determine whether they violate DeSantis’s legislation.

According to a 2022 poll by the American Library Association, the vast majority of parents in America are against Republican-led efforts to ban books in schools. “Three quarters of parents of public school children (74%) express a high degree of confidence in school librarians to make good decisions about which books to make available to children,” the ALA wrote in its findings. Florida schools have the highest percentage of book removals and restrictions in the country, according to PEN America. -Vice 

Politics

 

Majority of Americans Think Being 'Woke' Is a Good Thing: Poll

Republicans are casting being “woke” as a bad thing, but a majority of Americans don’t see it that way, according to a new poll.

In a USA Today/Ipsos Poll that asked respondents to choose between two definitions of the term, 56 percent chose “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustice.”

“That includes not only three-fourths of Democrats but also more than a third of Republicans,” USA Today reports.

Thirty-nine percent opted for the negative definition, “to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.” Fifty-six percent of Republicans chose that.

Respondents’ age made a difference. Among those aged 50 to 64, 48 percent chose the “overly politically correct” definition. Only 33 percent of those aged 18-34 did, and 37 percent of those aged 35-49.

However, respondents were divided on whether being called woke was a compliment or an insult. Overall, 40 percent considered it an insult, 32 percent a compliment. Sixty percent of Republicans and 42 percent of independents thought it was an insult. In contrast, 46 percent of Democrats deemed it a compliment. Younger respondents were more likely than older ones to see it as a compliment.

“Most Americans understand that to be woke is to be tuned in to injustices around us,” Cliff Young of Ipsos told USA Today. “But for a key segment of Republicans who make up the Trump-DeSantis base, ‘woke’ is a clear trigger for the worst of the politically correct, emerging multicultural majority.”

The term dates from the early 20th century, when Black American activists urged people to “wake up” to the reality of injustice. It came back into wide use after the police killing of Black man Michael Brown in Missouri. It has come to mean being aware of not only racism but also homophobia and transphobia.

But Republicans are using “woke” to describe everything they see as wrong with the U.S. They see being woke as undermining conservative values and making white people feel guilty. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Stop WOKE Act into law last year; it “essentially prohibits instruction on race relations or diversity that imply a person’s status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex,” according to a press release from Florida state Sen. Bobby Powell, a Democrat.

Several speakers at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference denounced what they see as “woke” policies, including moves to support transgender people. Donald Trump recently released a social media post saying President Joe Biden was engineering a “woke takeover” of the federal government by calling for equity and inclusion. When DeSantis won a second term in November, he proclaimed, “We will never surrender to the woke mob.”

“Even South Carolina’s Sen. Tim Scott, a Black man who discusses how racism has affected his life, has derided ‘woke corporations’ and ‘woke prosecutors’ as negative forces in American life,” USA Today notes. Scott, a Republican, is a potential presidential aspirant.

The poll also asked respondents about school lessons on racism, book bans, and the use of gender-neutral pronouns. The response on school instruction depended on how it was asked. Half of those surveyed were asked if they favored teaching about “the ongoing effects of slavery and racism in the United States,” and 72 percent said yes, including large majorities of Democrats and independents as well as nearly half of Republicans.

But the other half were asked if they support the teaching of critical race theory, “which holds that systemic racism is institutionalized in America to the advantage of white people,” as USA Today puts it. Fifty-three percent opposed it, with 41 percent supportive. Among Republicans, 81 percent opposed it.

Among all respondents, 76 percent opposed book bans by state governments. That included 86 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of independents, and 66 percent of Republicans.

A majority opposed the use of gender-neutral pronouns; the margin was 61 percent to 36 percent. Respondents opposed the use of a choice other than “man” or “woman” on government documents by the same margin.

But 61 percent of Democrats supported the use of gender-neutral pronouns, and 60 percent favored having a gender-neutral identity option. Republicans were overwhelmingly opposed, 87 percent on pronouns and 88 percent on the identity option.

The poll was conducted among 1,023 people last Friday through Sunday on the Ipsos online platform. There is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. -Advocate

DeSantis Is Engaged In ‘Fascism’

The youngest member of Congress, who hails from Florida, calls out that state’s governor’s targeting f the LGBTQ+ community as fascist.

By Christopher Wiggins

With all the grievance-based legislating that has gone on in Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Florida, one Democratic rising star who represents parts of the state in Congress has had enough, and he’s calling the Republican’s activities out as “fascism.”

In a Sunday CNNNewsroom With Jim Acosta interview, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the Florida Democrat and Generation Z’s first congressman, criticized the governor for supporting legislation that negatively impacts Black and trans people. Frost spoke with The Advocate on Monday evening to discuss his weekend appearance.

“What we see coming from Tallahassee is scary,” Frost says. “It’s an abuse of power. And when you look at the definition of what fascism is — far-right ideology, usually with a head figure, an authoritarian figure using their power to essentially suppress opposition, suppress people who are critical — when you look at what DeSantis is doing right now, it is the book definition of fascism.”

In Florida, DeSantis has aimed at the LGBTQ+ community with full force.

“This is what we’re up against in Florida right now. And it’s hard to keep track of because it seems like there’s a new victim. There’s a new bill every day,” Frost said on CNN.

“He’s talking about targeting queer students, targeting LGBTQ+ kids. It’s not just the broader community. He’s going for the kids.”

A new Republican proposal is making its way through the Florida Senate that would give the state “emergency jurisdiction” over children receiving or “at risk of receiving” gender-affirming care.

“It’s important when we’re seeing dangerous actions from politicians to be able to define exactly what is going on in a way that is truthful, makes sense, and also does a good job of explaining the stakes,” Frost tells The Advocate.

According to Senate Bill 254, introduced Friday by state Sen. Clay Yarborough, the courts could take emergency custody of children under the same laws protecting them against domestic violence and abuse.

“They talk about freedom. They talk about liberty, yet they want to kidnap children,” Frost says. “They want to state to seize children for loving who they want to love and being who they want to be.”

Frost, whose district includes Walt Disney World’s western half, says DeSantis is scapegoating vulnerable communities for his administration’s failures instead of improving matters.

Republicans have introduced a spate of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in GOP-controlled legislatures nationwide.

“But we have to call it for what it is. He is abusing his power and using the state to target political opponents and political enemies. And there’s a word for that, and it’s fascism,” he told Acosta. “And We have to be honest about it.”

While the term is often tossed around improperly, Frost says he knows what it means, and that’s why he’s using it.

He has vowed that he would not stop.

“I’ve had people tell me to stop using the word fascist in talking about Gov DeSantis and what’s going on in Florida. I won’t stop. This is what’s going on. I won’t tone down my language when we are actively being oppressed. This is my home,” he tweeted.

POLITICS

Florida’s Gen Z Congressman Says DeSantis Is Engaged in ‘Fascism’

With all the grievance-based legislating that has gone on in Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Florida, one Democratic rising star who represents parts of the state in Congress has had enough, and he’s calling the Republican’s activities out as “fascism.”

In a Sunday CNNNewsroom With Jim Acosta interview, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, the Florida Democrat and Generation Z’s first congressman, criticized the governor for supporting legislation that negatively impacts Black and trans people. Frost spoke with The Advocate on Monday evening to discuss his weekend appearance.

“What we see coming from Tallahassee is scary,” Frost says. “It’s an abuse of power. And when you look at the definition of what fascism is — far-right ideology, usually with a head figure, an authoritarian figure using their power to essentially suppress opposition, suppress people who are critical — when you look at what DeSantis is doing right now, it is the book definition of fascism.”

In Florida, DeSantis has aimed at the LGBTQ+ community with full force.

“This is what we’re up against in Florida right now. And it’s hard to keep track of because it seems like there’s a new victim. There’s a new bill every day,” Frost said on CNN.

A new Republican proposal is making its way through the Florida Senate that would give the state “emergency jurisdiction” over children receiving or “at risk of receiving” gender-affirming care.

“It’s important when we’re seeing dangerous actions from politicians to be able to define exactly what is going on in a way that is truthful, makes sense, and also does a good job of explaining the stakes,” Frost tells The Advocate.

According to Senate Bill 254, introduced Friday by state Sen. Clay Yarborough, the courts could take emergency custody of children under the same laws protecting them against domestic violence and abuse.

“They talk about freedom. They talk about liberty, yet they want to kidnap children,” Frost says. “They want to state to seize children for loving who they want to love and being who they want to be.”

Frost, whose district includes Walt Disney World’s western half, says DeSantis is scapegoating vulnerable communities for his administration’s failures instead of improving matters.

Republicans have introduced a spate of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in GOP-controlled legislatures nationwide.

“But we have to call it for what it is. He is abusing his power and using the state to target political opponents and political enemies. And there’s a word for that, and it’s fascism,” he told Acosta. “And We have to be honest about it.”

MOST RECENT ACROSS EQUAL PRIDE

While the term is often tossed around improperly, Frost says he knows what it means, and that’s why he’s using it.

He has vowed that he would not stop.

“I’ve had people tell me to stop using the word fascist in talking about Gov DeSantis and what’s going on in Florida. I won’t stop. This is what’s going on. I won’t tone down my language when we are actively being oppressed. This is my home,” he tweeted.

Frost tells The Advocate that Republican obsession with drag queens is another outgrowth of fascism within the governor’s governing philosophy.

He says that Plaza Live, an Orlando event space, is one example of the governor interfering with a city-owned entity.

“They had a drag show in December. DeSantis doesn’t like drag shows, so he made an example of them, and now he’s moving to revoke their liquor license,” Frost says.

The Democratic freshman says he will continue highlighting Republican ills as they present themselves.

“I need people to understand that Florida’s problem now can become the country’s problem in a year, and everyone should know that,” Frost says. “We should all be battle-hardened and ready to take our values to the plate for queer folks, for trans folks, for Black folks, for immigrants, for poor working-class Americans who will suffer the most from these culture wars.”

DeSantis’s targeting of transgender kids, Black people, and other marginalized communities is a bit that the opportunistic politician is perpetrating because it’s polling well for Republicans.

“That’s more than a culture war,” he says. “It’s not just a talking point. This is real legislation that will end up resulting in harm and, in many cases, death.” -Advocate 

How Donald Trump Could Destroy Himself

 

Why Republicans Aren’t Likely To Budge On Gun Control

 By Harry Enten

The political script following the recent mass shootings in Boulder, Colorado, and Atlanta feels all too familiar. Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, want Congress to pass gun control legislation, most notably universal background checks, while Republicans are balking.

The motions are so familiar that I wrote an article three years ago, explaining why Republicans were unlikely to change their minds and why there was little backlash to them opposing a measure that some polls indicate is supported by more than 80% of Americans.

While the party of the president is different now, a look at the polling and election results shows us why it’s still unlikely that Democrats will be able to convince enough Senate Republicans to break through a filibuster for universal background checks.

1. Americans don’t think Democrats reflect their views on guns

If the public was that upset with the GOP’s stance on guns, then they’d trust Democrats more to deal with gun policy.

A Pew Research Center poll last year didn’t show that was the case. Instead, 46% of respondents actually said the Republican Party reflected their views on gun policy, while 42% said Democrats reflected it better.

To be clear, these numbers are close, and no party has a consistent edge on the issue over the last decade. Still, it’s inconsistent with the belief that the public stands behind Democrats on guns.

2. Stricter gun control broadly isn’t all that popular

Earlier this year, Gallup asked Americans whether they were satisfied with current gun laws, and, if they were dissatisfied, whether they wanted stricter or less strict gun laws.

Just 41% were dissatisfied and wanted stricter gun laws. A plurality (50%) were either satisfied (42%) or dissatisfied and wanted looser gun laws (8%). The percentages on this question from Gallup have been relatively steady over the last two decades.

Now, I will say the polling on these broader questions can be conflicting. A 2020 Gallup question, which was phrased slightly differently, discovered that 57% wanted stricter gun control, 34% wanted laws kept the way they are now and 9% wanted less strict gun control.

We can’t be sure why these two similar but different questions came up with fairly different results. At a minimum, it shows how gun opinion isn’t as tightly held as you might believe.

It also seems likely that some who may support more gun control measures are largely satisfied with our country’s gun laws and don’t feel strongly about the issue.

3. Passion remains on anti-gun control side

The people for whom gun control was a big issue in the 2020 election were more likely to favor the Republican presidential ticket.

According to Ipsos polling from the fall of 2020, voters who listed gun control as a top three problem favored Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Joe Biden by about a 20-point margin. This is fairly in-line with Pew polling from earlier in the cycle in which Trump voters were 10 points more likely to say gun policy was very important to their vote than Biden voters.

The fact that the passion was on the anti-gun control side is something we’ve seen in the polling almost every year. With a few exceptions, those who favor looser gun control are more willing to vote on the issue and more likely to spend time on the cause than those who are in favor of stronger gun control.

4. Background check ballot measures don’t consistently outperform the Democratic baseline

When individual measures for gun control are actually on the ballot, they often perform far closer to an issue in which people hew slightly more to the right than the Republican baseline in a state.

Over the past five years, ballot measures for background checks of different types (sometimes matched with other measures) have appeared on ballots in California, Maine, Nevada and Washington.

In all four cases, the pro-gun control side’s margin was worse in the state than the Democratic baseline in the state in a given year (i.e., Hillary Clinton’s margin in 2016 and the House Democrats’ margin in 2018). In 2016, Clinton won California by 30 points, while gun control won by 27 points. In Maine, Clinton won by 3 points, while gun control lost by 4 points. In Nevada, Clinton won by 2 points, while gun control passed by a single point. Lastly, Washington passed its gun control law by a little less than 19 points in 2018, but House Democratic candidates in Washington won by more than that the same year.

You have to go back to Washington in 2014 for a background check ballot measure that did better than the Democratic baseline in that year in that state. In that case, the yes to the background check still got less than 60% of the vote – far less than you might expect in a blue state when background checks nationally poll at greater than 80%.

The bottom line is that Republicans have no reason to change their tune on gun control based on polling and election results. Unless something dramatic changes, we’re likely looking at the same no action on gun control from Congressional Republicans. -CNN 

‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law

Florida’s bill seems to have inspired a flurry of similar anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in statehouses around the country.

By Jacob Ocles

Could Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law Go Nationwide?

Florida Sen. Rick Scott and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott

Florida’s bill seems to have inspired a flurry of similar anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in statehouses around the country.

Portions of a newly proposed federal bill bear similarities to the controversial "don't say gay" law in Florida, and could introduce restrictions even in states where legislatures remain supportive of LGBTQ+ youth.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, both Republicans, introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate that would similarly attack educators for respecting students’ gender identity, affecting the entire country.

“I have long believed that parents, not the government, know what is best for their children,” said Sen. Rick Scott. “It is time for schools to stop pushing these woke ideologies on our kids and let them focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic. I am proud to stand with my colleagues in supporting the PROTECT Kids Act to stop the indoctrination and ensure parents have a say in what happens at their kids’ school.”

The justification for the law echoes many complaints about what spurred Florida’s Republican Legislature to pass a so-called ‘parental rights in education’ statute signed last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis. That law forbids instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade and requires “age-appropriate” handling of the matters throughout grade school. Critics argue it also could lead to educators having to out students in non-supportive homes by disclosing to parents when children come out as LGBTQ in school but not at home.

States control curricula for school systems, and Florida’s bill seems to have inspired a flurry of similar anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in statehouses around the country.

The Senate legislation from the Scotts aims to impose its will even in states that won’t consider such legislation by tying the agenda to federal funding for schools. The Parental Rights Over the Education and Care of Their (PROTECT) Kids Act would restrict funding for any elementary or middle schools that “change their pronouns, gender markers, or sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms and bathrooms, without the consent of their parents.”

Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, is expected to introduce a similar bill in the House.

By including bathrooms in the bill, which is not part of the Florida law, the proposal flies in the face of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The high court in 2021 upheld the right for trans and nonbinary students' rights to use bathrooms and other facilities that match their gender identity.

The federal legislation, though, recasts treatment of LGBTQ+ recognition in schools as an issue about parental input but would allow parents of cisgender students to object to what bathroom facilities transgender students can access.

“Far too often, parents are pushed out of their child’s education—and kids are paying the price,” Sen. Tim Scott said. “As the party of parents, Republicans are committed to ensuring that parents are always in the driver’s seat when it comes to their child’s upbringing. I am proud to stand for parental rights and put forth my PROTECT Kids Act to ensure parents remain the lead decision maker in their child’s life.” -Advocate 

Trump Vows to Gut Transgender Rights

 Trump even said that he'd ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that there are only two genders.

By Alex Cooper

Former President Donald Trump said in a video on Tuesday that if he is reelected president in 2024, he will dismantle transgender rights. That would include stopping access to gender-affirming care and using the government to go after transgender people.

Posted on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump called access to gender-affirming care “child abuse” and “child sexual mutilation.”

The former president, who has been impeached twice, said he’d forbid government agencies from promoting “the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.”

In the pledge, Trump said he’d cut off federal funding to doctors and health care groups providing gender-affirming care to minors. He also said that if teachers or school officials “suggest to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body,” then “they will be faced with severe consequences including potential civil rights violations.”

Trump said that his administration would push for “positive education about the nuclear family” as well as celebrate “rather than [erase] the things that make men and women different and unique.”

He added, “I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth.”

Trump, who announced his presidential candidacy in November and has seen his influence weaken in the Republican Party, then went on to say that transgender people didn’t exist until “a few years ago.”

“No serious country should be telling its children that they were born with the wrong gender, a concept that was never heard of in all of human history. Nobody's ever heard of this,” he said.

The Trevor Project recently released a report that showed that anti-LGBTQ+ discourses negatively affect the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth.

“An overwhelming majority of LGBTQ youth have been negatively impacted by recent debates and laws around anti-LGBTQ policies and that many have also experienced victimization as a result,” the organization said when it released the report last month.

Leading medical associations have voiced support for gender-affirming care for youth.

The threats Trump made in the video go even beyond what many state Republican lawmakers have attempted to do to LGBTQ+ rights over recent years with moves to replicate Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, banning books that discuss gender and sexual orientation, targeting drag shows, banning trans girls from competing in school sports, and trying to restrict access to gender-affirming care.

Earlier this week, Utah’s GOP governor signed into a law a bill that bans most gender-affirming care for youth. Other states that have taken action against gender-affirming care include Alabama and Arkansas, where bans enacted by legislators are temporarily blocked while court challenges proceed; Florida, where medical boards have banned this care for most minors and the state has banned all Medicaid funding for it, regardless of the patient’s age; and Oklahoma, where a major hospital ceased providing the care because the state would have withheld funding otherwise. Bills restricting such treatment are pending in 20 other states.

During his administration, Trump rolled back transgender rights by removing Title IX protections over bathroom access and ending protections for transgender people under the Affordable Care Act. -Advocate

Desantis Is More Polished And Less Bombastic?

By Annika Brockschmidt

The midterms proved an abysmal disappointment for the Republican Party. Instead of the promised red tsunami, it was more of what many are calling a red ripple. Instead of winning the House by a large margin, they appear to have just scraped by—and have failed to gain control of the senate. However, there is one person who has emerged as the triumphant winner from this otherwise extremely underwhelming election night for Republicans: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.  

And while the Democrats’ surprisingly strong performance has bought American democracy some time, it doesn’t mean that the Right’s attack on democracy is over just because Republicans have become—at least privately—increasingly disgruntled with Trump. And herein lies the danger of DeSantis becoming Trump’s successor, or even being lauded by Never Trumpers and some media outlets as a less authoritarian version of Trump whose rise indicates a return to normal, a return to the “real” Republican Party. 

This view is based on the assumption that Trump was a bug, not a feature of American conservatism; that he’s a freakish aberration and not the result of a decades-long fostering of an increasingly anti-democratic and aggressive base. It fails to account for the fact that the American Right is, at its core, a project of minority rule, and has been for a long time. 

The views within the movement of how this minority rule should look might differ—with some, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, dreaming of executing her political enemies, and others supporting a heavily restricted form of something that looks like democracy on the surface, but keeps marginalized people in check and old power hierarchies in place through voter suppression and gerrymandering.

DeSantis is a chance for the GOP to win back people like Conor Friedersdorf, the right-leaning libertarian writer at the Atlantic, who already seems quite comfortable with the idea of DeSantis:  

“DeSantis frustrates and disappoints me within normal parameters. He hasn’t yet frightened me, as Trump does, as being superlatively incompetent, divisive, morally degenerate, or authoritarian.”

The reasoning is often completely untethered from reality. Friedersdorf wrote in October 2021: 

“(DeSantis) remains a plausibly acceptable candidate for anti-Trump conservatives, in part because winning narrowly in a purple state has all but forced him to moderate his populism.” 

I’m not sure in which world DeSantis threatening companies with state sanctions, should they take a stand against his discriminatory policies, passing anti-LGBTQ legislation and policing what universities and schools teach—again, threatening repercussions through use of state power—is a “moderate” form of “populism.” 

DeSantis is Trumpism without Trump. A less untethered, more disciplined, more intelligent form of Trumpism—equally mean-spirited, but with a sheen of respectability. He’s already been portrayed by Never Trumpers like David Frum as a more acceptable version of Trump who merely seeks to appease the base with culture wars rhetoric, but always returns to the mythical “center.” Frum claims that his style of politics is:

“a form of political judo that works by employing judicious but limited provocation, followed by a deft, just-in-time retreat to the center (…) the Florida governor has figured out that Republicans love a culture-war brawl, but that overdoing it can alienate a general-election electorate.” 

It’s unclear just what “center” DeSantis has ever returned to—he has a clear track record of implementing culture wars rhetoric into actual legislation that discriminates against LGBTQ people, he’s spread hate and lies about trans people, peddled the “anti-woke” and “anti-CRT” moral panics, sent a group of refugees across the country in an act of what seems to constitute human trafficking which has earned him a criminal investigation.

He represents the Glenn Youngkin model of politics: The same racist fear-mongering, White Christian nationalist rhetoric, dehumanizing policies, and authoritarian use of state power to threaten those who refuse to toe the line—including the threat of financial ruin and legal repercussions—but all of it with more polish and less incoherence and bombast. 

And yet, the pundit class has already turned to what many feared might be the outcome should Democrats buck the odds in the midterms: They’ve declared the threat to democracy over. Democracy has prevailed, Trumpism is defeated, no need for alarmism anymore! Takes like these express one thing in particular: that the person in question is completely uninformed on the nature of the political project of the American Right. In the wake of the midterms, journalist Jeff Sharlet, who’s been chronicling the fascist symbols of Trumpism in recent months, tweeted:

“Saying ‘MAGA failed’ is similar to the way the press has declared fundamentalism (Christian nationalism in current terms) dead every 5-10 years since Scopes ‘monkey trial’ of 1925.” 

It’s not certain yet that Republicans will actually break with Trump, although the shift in conservative media seems to be an indicator. Republicans have complained about Trump in private before—the question is whether they can convince the base to move on from Trump and whether they’ll be willing to say out loud what they’re now telling journalists anonymously. 

Even if DeSantis were to replace Trump, it wouldn’t be cause for celebration because, as Sharlet correctly observes:

“DeSantis doesn’t represent a break with fascism. He doesn’t even represent a break with Trumpism. Trump, the person? Perhaps. But ‘Trumpism’ is what we’ve been calling this particular American version of fascism, which DeSantis embodies as much as anyone.”

As a trained historian and scholar of fascism, I have bad news for those who believe fascism will wither and die after being “defeated at the ballot box”: fascism doesn’t care for the will of the electorate. The Christian Right doesn’t think in election cycles, they think in decades—even centuries. This setback is humiliating for them—but in the long run, it won’t deter them from trying to implement their goal: White Christian minority rule. 

If you think that a GOP under a Ron DeSantis would be less fascist, you’re fooling yourself. Fascism isn’t just the open thuggery of a Donald Trump—it can just as easily be found behind the bourgeois facade of a “family man” who portrays himself as the messiah sent by God. -Religious Dispatches

The Impeachment Of Joe Biden

And possibly Kamala Harris, and Merrick Garland, and Alejandro Mayorkas, and Antony Blinken

By Barton Gellman

Sometime next year, after an interval of performative investigations, Republicans in the House are going to impeach Joe Biden. This may not be their present plan, but they will work themselves up to it by degrees. The pressure from the MAGA base will build. A triggering event will burst all restraints. Eventually, Republicans will leave themselves little choice.

This prediction rests, of course, on the assumption that Republicans will win control of the House next month, which appears likely: Democrats would need to win an improbable number of toss-up races to keep their majority. And an impeachment resolution requires just a simple majority to pass the House.

Nothing in the public record offers the slightest reason to believe that the Senate, even if it is under Republican control, would convict and remove Biden from office. Still, House Republicans will come to see plenty of advantages in impeaching Biden—and, possibly, several other top administration officials.

Already, there is enormous demand for impeachment. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll in May found that 68 percent of Republican voters think the House should impeach Biden. A majority expect that it will impeach him. Thwarting those expectations would be dangerous for any House Republican.

The poll numbers for impeachment correspond closely to the belief among Republicans that Biden is an illegitimate president. This is no coincidence: Impeachment is the corollary of election denial—the invincible certainty that Biden cheated in 2020 and Donald Trump won. If you truly believe that and haven’t joined a militia, impeachment is the least of the remedies you will accept.

Election denial is the core position of the GOP today. Two-thirds of the Republican caucus in the House voted to overturn the presidential election in 2020—including Kevin McCarthy, who is likely to become the next speaker. A new cohort of incoming members, Republican nominees in safe red districts, has campaigned as election deniers. After a number of forced retirements and establishment defeats in primaries this year, very few party members will publicly concede that Biden won a free and fair election.

“The impeachment buzz will be at the backdrop of every conversation about a Republican agenda,” Kevin Madden, a former top GOP spokesperson and strategist, told me. MAGA true believers think establishment Republicans “for too long allowed Democrats to play hardball, and now’s the time to really sort of fight fire with fire.” Trump’s supporters, he said, want “retribution.”

McCarthy has so far equivocated on the question of impeachment. His allies tell me he will instead try to channel this energy into congressional investigations of the president, his family, and his administration. The prospective chairs of the relevant committees, Oversight and Judiciary, have already laid the groundwork for these probes in planning meetings and public pronouncements. But taking the next step toward impeachment is risky, and could backfire with voters. McCarthy wants to oversee subpoenas and Benghazi-style hearings to weaken the president ahead of the 2024 election, not issue a call for Biden’s removal. (McCarthy and his staff did not respond to a request for comment.)

But there is little reason to think that McCarthy can resist the GOP’s impulse to impeach once it gathers strength. He is a notably weak leader of a conference that proved unmanageable for his predecessors Paul Ryan and John Boehner. If he does in fact reach the speakership, his elevation will be a testament to his strategy of avoiding conflict with those forces.

Donald Trump remains the strongest influence on McCarthy’s caucus. Anytime he cares to intervene, he will be the dominant figure in setting Republican priorities in the House. “Trump has the ability to get a message out, to motivate the grassroots base of the Republican Party,” a close McCarthy ally told me. “And then that then turns around and motivates all these members.”

And what will Trump want? Doug Heye, another McCarthy ally and former member of the House leadership staff, says the answer is obvious.

“Donald Trump’s going to want to impeach everybody,” he said.

We tend to think of presidential impeachment proceedings as rare. The Constitution defined the power to impeach in 1787. Nearly a century passed before Congress picked up that weapon, impeaching and (barely) acquitting Andrew Johnson in 1868. Another hundred years passed before Richard Nixon resigned ahead of certain impeachment in 1974. Then came Bill Clinton, impeached in 1998 and acquitted the following year, and Donald Trump, impeached twice—in 2019 and 2021—and acquitted twice.

Five times, then, even if you count Nixon, in 235 years. But there is a lesser known and more extensive history. Twelve presidents—including all but one since Jimmy Carter—have been subject to impeachment resolutions. Amazingly, given the animus he attracted, the exception was Barack Obama.

“In the 21st century,” the presidential historian Barbara A. Perry told me, impeachment “is now routine.”

But while most attempts at impeachment have been symbolic gestures that had no chance to win a majority in the House, the coming Biden impeachment will not be that kind. Its prospects of passing and going to the Senate for trial will be substantial.

On January 21, 2021, Joe Biden’s first full day in office, Marjorie Taylor Greene filed the first article of impeachment against him. At the time, House Resolution 57 was no more than a sneer at a president whom Greene called illegitimate. With the House under Democratic control, Greene had to know she would get no floor vote or committee referral. The House leadership did not even acknowledge the submission.

But the threat that Greene posed to Biden was not empty. In the long term, it will prove to be very real.

Greene—for all her history of anti-Semitic, racist, and ludicrously conspiratorial remarks—holds a position of growing influence in her party. Unlike Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker, McCarthy cannot ignore Greene’s next impeachment resolutions, which she has promised in the new year.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to have, if not more of, as much a say in the message and political focus of a Republican House conference than Kevin McCarthy will,” Madden said. “That’s just a very real pressure Kevin McCarthy is going to face.”

Greene’s day-one impeachment maneuver set the tone for the Republican conference. In August of 2021 she offered three more resolutions, gathering eight co-sponsors, including fellow bomb-throwers and election deniers Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar. Soon other members of the Freedom Caucus caught on.

Another resolution was introduced the following month. Yet another less than two weeks after that. Three days later, Lauren Boebert introduced a pair of resolutions against Biden and Kamala Harris. (In a nice piece of recursive logic, one of the charges against Harris was failing to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to remove Biden.) The barrage continued with another impeachment resolution in April, and still another—from Greene again—last month.

None of these resolutions will be the one that gets Biden impeached. They all expire shortly after the new year, when the 117th Congress draws to a close. When the next Congress gavels in, Republicans will likely control the committees, the floor, and the rules. At some point in 2023, momentum for impeachmWhat charge could republicans use on Biden?

Advocates will have to come up with something that a majority of the House will endorse, and that will take time.

I talked with a lot of Republicans for this story, and the subject they mentioned most often was the president’s son Hunter Biden. “Hunter” is an all-purpose emblem of scandal in the GOP, and to some extent that is justified. He has admitted to abusing drugs; he was thinly qualified for his position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company, which he held while his father was vice president; and he is reportedly under federal investigation for alleged tax crimes and for lying about his drug use on an application to buy a gun. (He has said that professional advisers helped him with his tax affairs and is confident they were handled legally.)

The problem for those who want to impeach is how to connect the president to his son’s alleged misadventures. Republicans who mentioned “the Hunter issue”—even those who predicted that it would be the central predicate for impeachment—grew vague when I asked them how it demonstrated wrongdoing by the president. One said it showed “a pay-to-play scheme,” but did not specify who paid whom for what corrupt purpose.

The only formal accusation against Biden in connection with his son came in Greene’s first impeachment resolution. The evidence she cited was scant. The best Greene had was a 2011 email in which a business associate told Hunter Biden: “We need to get these guys to an event or something where they get to just formally meet your Dad.” Greene concludes from this that Biden “allowed his son to trade appointments with his father … in exchange for financial compensation,” but no evidence suggests that Hunter agreed to arrange such a meeting, much less that it happened.

A former House leadership aide close to McCarthy said an impeachment charge against the president based on his son’s conduct would be politically effective only “if it was discovered that Joe Biden had been very significantly involved in making money for Hunter … and he had done something clearly illegal.”

Another oft-mentioned reason for impeachment is Biden’s immigration policies and border enforcement. One impeachment resolution offered last year alleged that Biden “has allowed illegal aliens to enter the United States in violation of immigration law, admitted aliens who have tested positive for COVID-19 into the United States, countered the will of Congress by not completing the southern border wall, [and] deprived border agents of the sufficient manpower and resources needed to secure the border.” This is a policy dispute, but Congress gets to define high crimes and misdemeanors any way it likes.

The botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year offers another potential basis for impeachment. A resolution backed by eight Republicans said Biden “failed to secure the extraction of thousands of American civilians and Afghan allies before and during the withdrawal.” The resolution also said, accurately, that Biden “armed our enemies by leaving numerous weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment which could be used against American citizens, allies, and other civilians in Afghanistan.”

Republicans have also offered the federal government’s temporary ban on evictions as grounds for impeachment. According to three members of the Freedom Caucus, Biden showed “disrespect for Congress” and disregard for a (nonbinding) concurring Supreme Court opinion that cast doubt on the CDC’s authority to halt evictions.

Last month, in her latest impeachment charge, Greene accused Biden of “endangering, compromising, and undermining the energy security of the United States by selling oil from the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve to foreign nations.”

None of these rises to impeachable conduct by historical standards. But the GOP will find some new cause for outrage. Some leading Republicans say the details won’t even matter.

Senator Ted Cruz, speaking on his podcast in December, opined that Biden’s impeachment, “whether it’s justified or not,” will come in revenge for Trump’s. “The Democrats weaponized impeachment. They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that … is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

As George Conway, an establishment Republican turned Trump critic, put it, “This is a party that basically lives off of false equivalences now.”

For months, house republicans and conservative think tanks have been meeting to game out an aggressive agenda of hearings and investigations for the coming term. Much of the action will center on the Oversight and Judiciary Committees, expected to be chaired by James Comer and Jim Jordan, respectively. The overarching purpose will be to inflict political damage on the president in the run-up to the 2024 election. But Biden will not be the only target of these investigations.

Mike Howell, who leads the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and took part in a May planning retreat with senior congressional staffers, told me that oversight will quickly lead to impeachment debates—beginning with the Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. “Impeachment comes up in virtually every conversation you have about what to do when the next conference gavels in,” he said. “And I’m talking about the impeachment of Mayorkas.”

Last year, an impeachment resolution against Mayorkas won 31 co-sponsors, including Scott Perry, the chair of the Freedom Caucus. This year, Heritage published what amounts to a draft impeachment resolution against him. And Republicans have already introduced articles of impeachment against Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

All of this momentum, Howell said, could naturally lead to the president. “I think the arguments are there” to impeach Biden, he told me. “You have your pick of multiple different types of impeachable conduct across the board.”

For die-hard Trump allies, impeaching Biden is good politics no matter what. But for McCarthy and the rest of the prospective House leadership, there are pitfalls. “There are lots of reasons not to go on an impeachment bonanza,” says Brendan Buck, who was a top aide to both Boehner and Ryan, “not the least of which is that it could politically be viewed as overreach and make House Republicans look crazy and make Joe Biden, by contrast, look better.”

But McCarthy’s equivocation on impeachment carries the seeds of its own collapse. He wants to mollify angry voters and zealous members of his conference by orchestrating aggressive investigations of Biden, but hopes to stop short of calling for the president’s removal. That strategy has two likely outcomes, either of which spells trouble for McCarthy. If the investigations don’t damage Biden, the party’s base will insist on stronger medicine. If they do, the bThe tipping point may be Jim Jordan. He is a co-founder and leading member of the Freedom Caucus, and no stranger to extreme rhetoric about Biden. But his looming chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee will nudge him toward institutional prerogatives and the orderly execution of McCarthy’s plans. So far he has been carefully ambiguous about impeachment, saying, “That’s definitely a discussion we have to have,” but raising the bar for proceeding: “The conference has to decide. You have to have complete buy-in from the entire conference and the leadership of our conference.”

So Jordan is with McCarthy’s program for now, but he has long made sure to position himself on the front lines against Democrats. He will not allow himself to be outdone by zealots like Greene and Gaetz once momentum for impeachment builds. He will want to be sure that his committee is the primary venue for confronting Biden. When he embraces impeachment, the die will be cast.

More than anything, my confidence that impeachment is coming relies in the end on a firm belief that Trump will demand it. His own impeachments humiliated him, and losing to Biden was an injury from which his ego has yet to recover. He is obsessed with revenge. His lifelong survival technique is to turn every accusation back on his opponents. And when he is on the defensive, as he is now on multiple legal fronts, he is especially prone to deflect attacks elsewhere.

In the new year, there will come an event that triggers all those instincts. Given his reaction to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, and his barely veiled warnings about violence if he is indicted, that event might well be the revelation of criminal charges against him. Trump’s explosive reaction, amplified by his followers and enablers, will change every Republican’s calculus on impeachment.

Gradually, and then suddenly, impeachment will become as much a litmus test for Republican House members as the Big Lie. McCarthy—“my Kevin,” as Trump styles him—will not hold back that tide. In the end, he will not even try. -The Atlantic

Racism Is Part Of Republicans’ Ideological DNA

 By Jae C. Hong

Tell us something we don’t know.

Maybe that’s an ungenerous way to respond to a study on an important social issue by a respected, non-partisan think tank. But, if you’ve been paying any attention at all, that may be your instinctive reaction to last week’s report from the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute quantifying that Republicans, as a corporate body, are the most racist folks there are.

In other news, water is necessary for life and Aretha Franklin was a pretty good singer.

Indeed, it’s amusing — or maybe “appalling” is the better word — to note that the report was issued only days after a white man appointed by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis as a commissioner in the state’s only majority-Black county, abruptly resigned when pictures surfaced that seemed to show him wearing the white robe and pointy hood of the Ku Klux Klan. It also came just after Rolling Stone, citing “Confidence Man,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s new book about Donald Trump, reported an episode in which the 45th president, while hosting a reception for congressional leaders, “turned to a row of racially diverse Democratic staffers” and asked them to bring the hors d’oeuvres.

In other words, an ordinary week for the GOP.

The study used 11 questions to tease out respondents’ racial attitudes and construct what it called a “Structural Racism Index” scale. The median score on that scale, which runs from 0 to 1, was 0.45. For Democrats, it was 0.27, for independents, 0.45. But for Republicans, it leaped to 0.67. In fact, no matter how they diced up the respondents by party and race, no other group ranked nearly as high. “Republicans” and “white Republicans” — terms that are functionally redundant — tied for the lead. In second place at 0.58? “Republicans of other races.”

Again, this is hardly shocking. From the party’s scramble to keep Black people from voting, to its performative cruelty toward South American refugees, to its embrace of the most brazenly racist president since Woodrow Wilson, Republican bigotry has long been self-evident.

It is past time for the rest of us to face it, yet one still hears people, even at this late date, even in the face of multiple studies to the contrary, ascribe its descent into its current madness to economic stress. But that just ain’t so.

They have become what they are specifically because some of us are panicked at the thought of Black people, brown people, LGBTQ people, Muslim people and other historically disfavored people coming to visibility and power, and the GOP realized that catering to that resentment was a way to win votes. And also because there is no principle they will not abandon in doing so.

Muscular foreign policy? They make kissy faces at totalitarian regimes.

Support for law enforcement? Not when the laws are being enforced against Trump.

Street riots? They hate them — unless the street is Pennsylvania Ave. and the rioters are MAGA.

The one principle they will not compromise is the protection of straight, white hegemony. That’s why, in the words of a satirical old Randy Newman song, “keepin’ the n------- down” is pretty much the whole Republican platform. This is something the rest of us need to face promptly and squarely if we are to have any hope of understanding — much less fixing — what’s wrong with this country. What the PRRI report quantified is damning and sad, yes. But here’s one thing it isn’t.

It isn’t surprising in the least.

-Extra Good Shit

Trump Running For President In 2024

By Kenneth Niemeyer

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that former President Donald Trump running for office again in 2024 would be "bad news" for the US. 

Pelosi's comment came on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday when the host asked Pelosi if Trump deciding to run again would be "good news" for democrats. 

"I think it's bad news for the country, let's put it that way," she said. "Because this is a person who has undermined the integrity of our elections, has not honored his oath of office, who has encouraged people, strange kind of people to run for office, who do not share the values of our democracy. They've said it very clearly in their statements."

Pelosi continued that she thinks Trump is "not been a force for good, so I don't think his candidacy is a force for good for our country."

Trump announced that he would be holding a "professional, very buttoned-up announcement," on Tuesday, which is widely expected to be about his 2024 candidacy. -Insider 

Russia Announces Plan To Extend ‘Gay Propaganda’

By Maggie Baska

Russia lawmakers have proposed extending the country’s existing “gay propaganda” law to include people of all ages later this year. 

The existing legislation was signed by Vladimir Putin in 2013 and banned any “promotion” of “non-traditional sexual relationships” among minors. Anyone found guilty under the law can be sentenced to heavy fines or imprisonment.

The hateful measure has been used to clamp down on LGBTQ+ advocates, prevent kids from accessing inclusive literature and stop minors from watching LGBTQ-themed content on streaming platforms.

But Alexander Khinshtein, chairman of the State Duma’s information committee, said the 2013 law for minors is now “insufficient”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. He said lawmakers would consider pushing the legislation further to ban depictions of the LGBTQ+ community for “audiences of all ages” in the media and online.

“We propose to fully extend the ban on that sort of propaganda among audiences of all ages (offline, media outlets, the Internet, social media, as well as in cinema theaters),” Khinshtein wrote on Telegram.

Under the proposed changes, any event or act seen as an attempt to promote the LGBTQ+ community could incur a fine, Reuters reported. 

Khinshtein said his committee will consider the proposed amendments and even imposing stricter punishments for any violations of the so-called “gay propaganda law” when they are back in session in the fall.

Russia’s parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the country would be banning the promotion of “non-traditional value” since it broke ties with the Council of Europe, the continent’s foremost human rights watchdog.

“Demands to legalise same-sex marriages in Russia are a thing of the past,” Volodin said. “Attempts to impose alien values on our society have failed.”

Russia withdrew from the Council of Europe in March in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

LGBTQ+ advocacy group IGLA-Europe ranked Russia among the least queer-friendly nations in Europe. In this year’s “Rainbow Europe” index, Russia came in 46th out of the 49 European countries – edging slightly above Armenia, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

LGBTQ+ Russians previously told PinkNews that hopes for change in the country have diminished as the war in Ukraine continues, and many have fled the country in hopes they will find a better future elsewhere. 

Maria – an LGBT+ activist in Russia whose name was changed to protect her identity – said queer people recognised that, if the “system is getting oppressive”, then it probably meant the government is “going to come after minority groups, vulnerable groups”. 

“We don’t know if tomorrow we’re going to wake up in a world where it’s back to before the 90s where LGBT+ relations are punishable by the law and criminal again,” Maria said. “I think people are fearful of that and that’s why they’re leaving.”

Mari felt “desperate” at times and said she didn’t know if she believed it was still “possible to be an LGBT+ activist in Russia anymore”. –Pink News

What FBI Raid Means for Trump

 By Ewan Palmer

Donald Trump could face years in prison and be banned from running for office again if he's found to have destroyed classified records, with legal experts suggesting the Department of Justice must have some "pretty rock-solid evidence" to approve the FBI raid at his home.

Trump announced on Monday that his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida was "under siege, raided, and occupied" by federal agents taking part in an "unannounced raid."

The FBI conducted the raid and searched for documents at Trump's home as part of an ongoing investigation into the former president's potentially unlawful removal and destruction of classified White House records after he left office in January 2021.

The National Archives and Records Administration confirmed in February that it had found 15 boxes containing classified material in Trump's Mar-a-Lago home which had been taken from the White House.

In a statement to Newsweek, trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said the raid implies Trump is at risk of facing charges under Section 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which states anyone who "conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies or destroys" official government documents must be prosecuted.

If convicted, a defendant faces up to three years in prison. The law states those found guilty must also forfeit their office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.

"His lawyers told him about the law requiring that he preserve White House documents, so he was on notice and that will bolster the case and help prove intent if prosecutors charge Trump," Rahmani said.

Rahmani said that the "unprecedented" decision to conduct a search at the home of a former president must have been signed off at the highest level of the Department of Justice, in this case Attorney General Merrick Garland.

"There's no way the FBI raids Trump's home without a sign off from the attorney general, because that's not a decision even the deputy attorney general is empowered to make," Rahmani said. "We're talking about the former president, so it's a political powder keg."

Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Joshua Ritter said that a former president having his home searched by federal authorities is "staggering from a historic perspective," adding that the decision to approve such a raid would not have been taken lightly.

"This isn't happening in some small county with a gunslinger sheriff—this is the federal government," Ritter told Newsweek.

"To make this kind of an earth-shaking move in advancement of their investigation, you have to venture a guess that they have some pretty rock-solid evidence somewhere," Ritter said.

"This is a further sign that there is a very robust investigation into the former president, significant enough that they have reason to search his home, and to get a federal judge to authorize it.

"To think of the number of internal conversations and memos, going through the entire chain of command, that would have had to have preceded the decision to go ahead and do this, it's immense," Ritter said. "They have to take all of the political ramifications into account, but they must believe they have something significant to make the decision to make a move like this."

Ritter said it is also important to keep in mind that the raid does not mean that criminal charges are imminent, as the burden of proof required to sign a search warrant is lower than the burden of proof required to bring criminal charges.

In his statement, Trump accused the raid at his Mar-a-Lago resort of being "prosecutorial misconduct," a "weaponization of the Justice System," and an "attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024."

"Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before," Trump said.

"They even broke into my safe! What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrats broke into the home of the 45th President of the United States."

Trump also accused the raid as being a politically motivated "witch hunt" against him, an accusation he has repeatedly made towards a number of probes and inquiries into him, including the investigation into alleged Russian collusion during the 2016 election, both his impeachment trials, and the January 6 hearings. –News Week

Even Before the FBI Search, MAGA World Was Saying It's at War

At CPAC, the conservative conference of the summer, the rhetoric was heated and entirely tipped towards Donald Trump and the most extreme elements in the GOP.

By Tess Owen

“I’m more of a red-meat conservative, and this feels like popcorn and cotton candy.” 

That was how one attendee of CPAC—who refused to give his name and identified himself only as “Joe America”—characterized his time at America’s largest gathering of right-wing activists this past weekend. “This feels like a Trump crowd.” 

This season’s CPAC took place at the opulent Hilton Anatole in Dallas last weekend, with regular tickets costing nearly $300 a pop. Attendees were promised a heavy dose of culture warmongering and the opportunity to be in the same room as their favorite culture warriors. 

The ambience often felt a little like MAGA Disneyland. Attendees had shelled out significant amounts of money to revisit their favorite storylines—Trump being the true winner of the 2020 election, Anthony Fauci masterminded coronavirus as part of a plot to derail Trump’s presidency, the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 was a set-up, and so on. And much like beloved characters Mickey Mouse and Cinderella pop up for grip-and-grin photos at America’s favorite theme park, glossy, coiffed MAGA VIPs such as Rep. Matt Gaetz, Kimberley Guilfoyle, and Steve Bannon would materialize among the plebeian masses to snap selfies and shake hands with fans wearing light-up cowboy hats. 

But in the auditorium, under signs saying “FIRE PELOSI” and “AWAKE NOT WOKE”, CPAC attendees were getting a dose of angry rhetoric and told repeatedly that they were at war with their fellow Americans. (This rhetoric has only intensified since CPAC, after the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property Monday, sparking calls for “civil war” from some prominent MAGA and far-right personalities.) 

The event was bookended by two strongmen: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and the “MAGA King” himself, former President Donald Trump. Orban (fresh off the heels of a controversy in which he delivered a “pure Nazi” speech back in Hungary, according to one of his longtime advisors) treated the crowd to a spiel of unapologetic Christian nationalism and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in a prime speaking slot on Thursday, the first day of the convention. 

“We are at war,” former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told attendees on Thursday evening. “A political and ideological war.” He also described President Joe Biden as an “illegitimate, imposter” and warned the crowd that they were living in an “authoritarian state.” 

“This is truly a battle between those who want to save America and those who want to destroy her,” Republican nominee for Arizona governor Kari Lake told the crowd. “That’s where we are at the moment. My question to you is: Are you in this fight with us?”

By Saturday afternoon, the crowd was buzzing with excitement ahead of Trump’s speech. People started lining up to get into the auditorium at 3 p.m., hours before he was due to talk. Uniformed members of the Proud Boys, a far-right street-fighting gang, made an appearance at the convention that day.

“You are the loyal defenders of our heritage, our culture, our liberty, and our constitutional god-given rights,” Trump told the crowd to rapturous applause, as he proceeded to brag about approval ratings, peddle election lies, and rile up the crowd. “We are confident that the tyrants we are fighting stand little chance,” he said. “Because we are Americans, and Americans kneel to God and God alone.” 

Meanwhile, in the exhibition space, vendors were leaning heavily into culture wars and national divisions. 

Two vendors were selling their own takes on a “Stop the Steal” board game. In one of those games, with the tagline “Get your Hoax on - Lie… Cheat, .. and still win”, players make their way around the board Monopoly-style, and are asked to answer questions revealing key “facts” about the 2020 election. 

Brave Books, a right-wing children’s book publishing company founded last summer, seemed to be a particularly big hit with the crowd. Its debut book remains its “most controversial,” employees told VICE News. It’s titled Elephants Are Not Birds and is meant to teach children “gender reality.” 

The star of Brave Books this year was Kash Patel, who is among those former Trump intelligence and Homeland Security staffers whose missing text messages from Jan. 6 are now the subject of a congressional investigation. 

Patel, in his post-Trump career, has penned a children’s book titled The Plot Against the King. The story is about a witch from Arkansas named “Hillary Queenton,” who along with her subjects, spreads lies that “King Donald” cheated to ascend to the throne. Patel, who was also selling socks at his booth that featured Marvel’s “The Punisher” logo and his name, was doing photo ops all weekend at the Brave Books booth but ultimately declined to speak with VICE News. 

Also on offer was an entire alternate ecosystem of services that cater specifically to “patriots.” Patriot security systems, a patriot mobile provider, patriot cryptocurrency. 

There was even a “CPAC Metaverse,” which was meant to showcase how people could attend the convention via virtual reality headset. While CPAC itself was chaotic, crowded, and at times, hostile, the metaverse version was tranquil and welcoming. 

In the metaverse, I was warmly greeted by a CPAC staffer who ushered me into the auditorium. There, a diverse crowd of attendees sat, socially distanced. Walking around the CPAC Metaverse, you had an opportunity to engage with other attendees. Disagreements didn’t result in name-calling but rather a percentage sign telling you how closely you were aligned in your political views. 

But the most controversial feature of real-world CPAC was the January 6 cage, assembled in a far corner of the exhibition hall, next to the booth operated by #WalkAway, a social media campaign founded by “former liberal” Brandon Straka, which encourages Democrats to abandon their party for the GOP. 

Straka, who received a light sentence of home confinement for his role in the Capitol riot in exchange for extensive cooperation with the FBI participated in a panel Rep. Biggs, titled “Rise of the American Gulag” in which he berated the right-wing congressman and the rest of the GOP for failing to do enough to help January 6 defendants. After that panel, Straka changed into an orange jumpsuit and a MAGA hat, and starred in a bit of political theater involving the cage. 

CPAC attendees were given headphones with the word “Silence” on them and invited to listen to audio testimony from Jan. 6 prisoners. Straka meanwhile sat inside the cage and sobbed, writing things on the chalkboard like “Where is Everyone?” Members of the crowd wept and threw money at him. On Friday afternoon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared, led through the crowd by security and let into the “jail cell.” She hugged Straka, sank to her knees, and prayed along with the crowd who were gathered around the cage. –Vice

Why Trump Must Go on Trial

The insurrectionists whom the President directed to the Capitol have, in a sense, been redeployed in an effort to secure impunity for him.

By Amy Davidson Sorkin

Among the more striking aspects of the Republicans’ response to last week’s historic second impeachment of Donald Trump, for “incitement to insurrection,” were their warnings that holding the President to account for his role in the assault on the Capitol, on January 6th, would only lead to more violence. On Wednesday night, just hours after the House vote, Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, told Sean Hannity, on Fox News, that the impeachment was itself an incitement. Graham, who had flown with Trump to Texas the day before, said that President-elect Joe Biden should tell Chuck Schumer, the incoming Senate Majority Leader, and Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, to call off the proceedings ahead of a trial in the Senate: “If you want to end the violence, end impeachment.”

In light of the events at the Capitol, which left five people dead, the possibility of violence can’t be regarded lightly. But bending to that threat would mean acting as if the Capitol were still in the hands of the mob. The insurrectionists whom Trump directed to prevent the tallying of Electoral College votes have, in a sense, been redeployed in an effort to secure impunity for him. That menace lies behind Republican complaints about how “divisive” it would be to convict Trump. It is why members of the National Guard have been camped in the halls of Congress, using their backpacks as pillows; why more than a dozen major Metro stations in Washington are closed; and why Airbnb will not book rooms in the city until after Biden has been inaugurated.

It is also why the Senate must proceed undeterred with Trump’s trial, which will begin, as the Constitution requires, the day after Pelosi sends to the Senate the single article of impeachment approved by the House. (In a signing ceremony after the vote, Pelosi used the lectern that a member of the mob had taken from her office.) The case is solid: the article encompasses not only the incendiary rally before the attack, at which Trump told his supporters to head to the Capitol and fight, but his earlier calls to battle and his blatantly illegal demand that Georgia officials “find” votes for him—or else. Although no other President has been tried after leaving office, there is a precedent in the 1876 case of William Belknap, the Secretary of War, who was unable to head off impeachment by resigning.

A conviction, which could result in Trump’s being barred from ever again holding federal office, would require sixty-seven votes. That means at least seventeen votes would have to come from Republicans; so far, just a handful seem ready to convict. (Among them is Mitt Romney, the only Republican who voted to convict in Trump’s last trial, for the attempted extortion of the President of Ukraine.) The outgoing Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, has said that he is waiting to hear the legal arguments; he and other senators are also doubtless gauging their own vulnerability.

Meanwhile, Graham is hardly alone in trying to scare his colleagues into going easy on the President. In the House debate on Wednesday, Jason Smith, of Missouri, said that impeachment would “bring up the hate and fire more than ever before”; Bob Good, of Virginia, cautioned that it would “further offend” Trump voters; and Andy Biggs, of Arizona, told his colleagues in a frantic address, “Yours will be a Pyrrhic victory,” because “you will have made him a martyr!” The effort to hold Trump accountable, Biggs said, would “douse the remaining burning embers of this movement with gasoline.”

Biggs is part of a cohort of representatives who have falsely insisted, in particularly florid terms, that the election was stolen. Madison Cawthorn, of North Carolina, and Mo Brooks, of Alabama, addressed the rally where Trump spoke and the mob gathered—Brooks told those present to “stop at the Capitol” and begin “kicking ass.” Then again, two-thirds of the House Republican caucus voted to reject electors; the Republican side of the debate was a pageant of extremists and loyalists. Democrats have openly raised the possibility that Republican legislators or their staff members abetted the assault—a stunning allegation that warrants serious investigation. (There are also questions about the role of some law-enforcement officers, despite the heroism of others.) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, said she believes that certain House Republicans “would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, etc.”

Peter Meijer, of Michigan, one of only ten Republicans who voted for impeachment, said that he knew of members of Congress who were acquiring body armor. One rattling spectacle last week was the near-hysteria of some Republicans at the placement of magnetometers at the entrance to the House chamber, to prevent guns from being brought in. Many walked around them, or pushed their way past Capitol police after setting off the alarm. Lauren Boebert, of Colorado, has said that she should be able to carry her Glock onto the floor of the House. Trumpism and America’s gun pathology have become intertwined.

Yet it was the Democrats who were told, in the words of Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, that they needed to “think about this more soberly.” Other Republicans said that the assault on the Capitol was actually the Democrats’ fault, because they had countenanced the Black Lives Matter movement, cancel culture, and people bothering Trump officials in restaurants. Republicans complained about a “double standard,” as if Trump were the real victim. (If they were looking for a double standard, they could have found it in the tolerance afforded to a mostly white mob, even as its members broke down the Capitol’s doors.)

In the end, it is the Republicans who seem frightened—“paralyzed by fear,” as Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, put it. Some may be afraid that Trump will lash out and that his base will turn against them—as it already has turned against, among others, Vice-President Mike Pence and Representative Liz Cheney. Trump still has that power, in part, because elected Republicans have functioned as his willing hostages. Some are true believers; others opportunistically colluded with him, feeding panic about election fraud, race, immigration, class, and the media, as well as promoting QAnon conspiracy theories. All of them may be wary of a trial that will expose what their party has become.

But fear is its own trap. A trial—and other investigations that allow the country to plainly face what happened on January 6th—can help those in its grasp to break out of it. To borrow Lindsey Graham’s formulation, the way to end this violent chapter is, indeed, for impeachment to end—with a trial and a conviction. –New Yorker

Georgia Has A Very Strong Case Against Trump

To see the most compelling evidence of the former president’s criminality, look to the Peach State.

By David French

Yesterday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis sent a letter to the chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court requesting to empanel a special grand jury “for the purpose of investigating the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the State of Georgia.”

The request was triggered by the reluctance of key witnesses, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to cooperate without being subpoenaed to testify. The special-purpose grand jury wouldn’t have the power to bring indictments, but it “may make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution as it shall see fit.”

With this letter, Willis brought back to the fore the actions surrounding the 2020 election contest by former President Donald Trump that are most suspect under both state and federal criminal law. The district attorney seeks a special grand jury with good reason, as Trump appears to have crossed the line into outright illegality, and that behavior merits a serious and thorough criminal investigation.

Since last winter, the public has focused much of its attention on the violent right-wing terror attack on the Capitol on January 6. And this is understandable. But the truth is that the most compelling evidence of Trump’s criminality lies in his actions before that day. And nowhere is his misconduct more clearly documented than in the state of Georgia.

A brief refresher is in order. At 3 p.m on Saturday, January 2, 2021, Trump called Raffensperger and attempted to push him to intervene in the counting of Georgia’s presidential votes. “I have to find 12,000 votes,” Trump said. Trump was joined on the call by his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and a team of lawyers including Cleta Mitchell. At the beginning of the call, Trump declared, “I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia.”

Read: Trump’s revenge begins in Georgia

During the call, Trump made a series of spurious claims of voter fraud and announced that he had “probably” won by half a million votes. And then he said the following, words that should be front and center in any criminal investigation of the former president:

And you’re going to find that they are—which is totally illegal, it is more illegal for you than it is for them, because you know what they did, and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. And that’s a big risk … I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.

Ominously, these rambling demands that Raffensperger change the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia contained the threatening assertion that if Raffensperger didn’t yield, he could face criminal sanctions more severe than the sanctions for those Trump accused of casting illegal ballots.Trump, in a statement distributed by email yesterday, said that his call to Raffensperger “was perfect, perhaps even more so than my call with the Ukrainian President, if that’s possible,” and repeated his false claim that “massive voter fraud” occurred in Georgia.

As astonishing as the details of that phone call are, the call represents but one part of Trump’s efforts to influence the outcome of the Georgia vote. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s majority staff report, released on October 7, found that Trump also forced the resignation of the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, Byung Jin Pak, after Pak investigated and “did not substantiate” Trump’s claims of election fraud in Georgia.

Indeed, that same report indicates that Trump’s designs on changing the outcome of the election in Georgia played a key role in his repeated demands that the Department of Justice investigate and take action on a number of wholly false claims of electoral fraud and illegality.

Georgia also figured prominently in a December 27, 2020, phone call with then–Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, during which Trump allegedly told Rosen, “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the [Republican] congressmen.” Jeffrey Clark, the former acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, separately threatened Rosen’s job if he didn’t use the DOJ to coerce Georgia and other states to certify a new slate of electors.

Of course, the efforts regarding Georgia were elements of a much larger effort to undermine and reverse the entire election. Most notably, we know that both behind the scenes and right out in the open Trump was demanding that Vice President Mike Pence take action to, at the very least, unlawfully delay the counting and certification of the Electoral College votes on January 6.

But the question remains: Were Trump’s attempts to reverse the outcome in Georgia (and nationally) criminal? There is compelling evidence that they were, under both Georgia state law and federal criminal statutes.

Perhaps the best guide to why is a Brookings Institution report, published in October, that assessed Trump’s actions in light of Georgia criminal law. Among the seven lawyers and scholars who wrote the report was Gwen Keyes Fleming, an experienced former Georgia prosecutor and the former DeKalb County district attorney. The report concluded that “Trump’s post-election conduct in Georgia leaves him at substantial risk of possible state charges predicated on multiple crimes.” The crimes include “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud” and “conspiracy to commit election fraud,” among others.

I highlight those two statutes because they most plainly apply on their face. Georgia’s conspiracy-to-commit-election-fraud statute makes it a crime when one “conspires or agrees with another” to violate Georgia’s election laws and, crucially, states that “the crime shall be complete when the conspiracy or agreement is effected and an overt act in furtherance thereof has been committed, regardless of whether the violation of this chapter is consummated.” In other words, the scheme does not have to succeed to be criminal.

Georgia’s relevant criminal-solicitation statute is also both straightforward and deeply problematic for Trump. Its first provision states:

A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.

And what is the precise violation of Georgia election law that Trump was conspiring to commit and soliciting others to commit? His demands implicate a number of laws, but among the most applicable is Georgia Code Section 21-2-566, which prohibits willfully tampering “with any electors list, voter’s certificate, numbered list of voters, ballot box, voting machine, direct recording electronic (DRE) equipment, electronic ballot marker, or tabulating machine.”

As the Brookings report notes, Trump’s demands to Raffensperger appear to represent a “clear request” that “Raffensperger alter the final vote tallies so that Trump would appear to have won the election.” If Raffensperger had done so, he’d have tampered “with lists of voters, voting machines, ballot records, DRE equipment, tabulating machines, or voter/ballot data uploaded to the secretary of state website from tabulating machines and DRE equipment.”

Although Willis is investigating violations of state law, federal laws may apply as well, most notably a broad federal statute, 18 U.S. Code Section 241, that prohibits “conspiracy against rights.” The relevant language makes it unlawful for two or more people to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

As with many federal criminal statutes, broad language is narrowed and defined by precedent, and the precedents under Section 241 are problematic for Trump. The scope of the statute was outlined in a December 2017 guidebook, and its words are instructive.

First, it is unambiguous that the right to vote in federal and state elections is among the rights protected by the statute. Even though the misconduct may have been aimed at the election of Georgia’s slate of presidential electors, federal criminal law still applies.

Second, a number of past cases are directly relevant to the actions and intent of the Trump scheme. For example, previous cases have held that it’s unlawful to prevent the counting of ballots, fail to count votes, alter votes already counted, or change votes cast at voting machines. The Trump plan depended on changing outcomes by failing to count votes or adding votes until the totals tipped over in Trump’s favor.

Third, just as with Georgia law, the conspiracy does not have to succeed for criminal liability to attach. Moreover, the guidebook states, “Section 241 reaches conduct affecting the integrity of the federal election process as a whole, and does not require fraudulent action with respect to any particular voter.”

From the January/February 2022 issue: Trump’s next coup has already begun

Other statutes may also apply, including 18 U.S. Code Section 610, which makes it unlawful for any person to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce federal employees to engage in political activities, including working for candidates, and 52 U.S. Code Section 20511(2), which makes it a crime when someone “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process.” But these lack the voluminous precedent of Section 241 and might present a more difficult path for the prosecution.

The Georgia investigation is a consequential victory for the rule of law in this country. Its very existence signals that no man or woman is above the law, a concept foundational to the American experiment. When you walk through the evidence of Trump’s brazen effort to bully, threaten, and command subordinates and state officials to steal an election, his actions quite obviously demand a close criminal inquiry.

For a sitting American president to seek to engineer a coup is unprecedented, but our law contains ample precedents that punish other citizens for similar misconduct. The law is not just for the little people. Trump is not a king. He does not enjoy sovereign immunity. He is presently nothing more than a private citizen, and if President Trump broke the law, then Citizen Trump should face the consequences. -The Atlantic