Category Archives: Republican

President Biden is in a tough spot: He campaigned on the ideas that he had the team to manage a pandemic and that his five-decade career as a Washington deal maker was just the ticket to overcome the countrys political polarization.

Thats not happening, not even a little.

Not only are Republicans resisting Mr. Bidens push to end the pandemic, some of them are actively hampering it. Republican governors slow-walked vaccination efforts and lifted mask mandates early. In Washington, G.O.P. leaders like Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican who himself didnt get vaccinated until about two weeks ago mocked public health guidance that even vaccinated people should wear masks indoors as government control.

Theres little Mr. Biden can do. Nearly a year and a half of pandemic living has revealed precisely who will and wont abide by public health guidelines.

Just in the last week, in my Washington neighborhood, which has among the highest vaccination rates in the city and voted 92 percent for Mr. Biden, people began re-masking at supermarkets and even outdoors in parks.

In places like Arkansas, hospitals are over capacity with Covid patients and vaccination rates remain stubbornly low. The anti-mask sentiment is so strong that the states General Assembly passed legislation forbidding any mandate requiring them. On Thursday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, declared a special session of the legislature to amend that anti-mandate law he signed in April so that schools would be allowed to require masks for students too young to receive a vaccine. Good luck with that, his fellow Republicans in the legislature replied.

That leaves the president in a pickle. As the Delta variant shows itself to be far more contagious and dangerous than previous iterations of the virus, the people he most needs to hear his message on vaccines and masks are least likely to.

Six years of Donald J. Trump largely blocking out all other voices in his party have left Republicans without a credible messenger to push vaccines, even if they wanted to. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, may be using his campaign money to air pro-vaccine ads in his native Kentucky, but he is hardly a beloved figure within the party and is viewed by its base as just another member of the Washington establishment.

Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Life Expectancy

There are certainly other communities of vaccine resisters, including demographics of people who have historically been mistreated by the federal government (and also a small-but-vocal minority of professional athletes and Olympians), but it is Republicans and Republican-run states that have emerged as the biggest hurdle in Americas vaccination efforts.

With little ability to persuade the vaccine-hesitant and little help from the party he had pledged to work with, Mr. Biden and the federal government were left with a move he had resisted for weeks: make life more difficult for the unvaccinated, to try to force them to change their minds.

Which brings us to the presidents news conference on Thursday. Mr. Biden said that, for the first time, all federal employees would have to show proof that theyve been vaccinated (or else wear a mask at work), submit to weekly testing and maintain social distance.

He stopped short of a vaccine mandate, saying such a requirement was a decision for local governments, school districts and companies. He said that if things got worse, and those resisting vaccines were denied entry from jobs and public spaces, maybe then things would get better.

My guess is, if we dont start to make more progress, a lot of businesses and a lot of enterprises are going to require proof for you to be able to participate, Mr. Biden said.

This maneuver essentially a shifting of responsibility away from the federal government is consistent with the way that Mr. Biden often tries to project a hopeful tone while airbrushing the reality of a starkly divided nation.

Aug. 1, 2021, 3:54 p.m. ET

The market for disinformation in America is larger than ever, with Mr. Trump, despite starting the program that has led to the full vaccination of 164 million Americans, leading the charge to discredit the same program during the Biden administration.

But it wasnt Mr. Trump and Republicans who ran last year on ending the pandemic it was Mr. Biden and Democrats who successfully made the election a referendum on managing a once-in-a-century global public health crisis.

Now, just weeks after he celebrated the great progress made against the pandemic, Mr. Biden faces a new wave. And it probably wont be long before Republicans who have done all they could to resist measures to combat it start to blame the president for not getting the country out of the crisis he pledged to solve.

SO EXCITED. SO PROUD, Ka Lo, a Marathon County Board member, wrote in a series of jubilant text messages on Thursday. ITS SOOOOOO GOOD!!!

How much of a boost Ms. Lees triumph gives to local efforts for Hmong recognition in Wisconsin remains to be seen. Both Marathon County and Wausaus City Council have rejected Community for All resolutions, leading to a proliferation of Community for All yard signs and yet another effort to pass the measure at the county board.

The next vote of the county boards executive committee is scheduled for Aug. 12.

Sometimes even presidents get some schmutz on their chin.

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Biden, Republicans and the Pandemic Blame Game - The New York Times

For months, Republican leaders have downplayed the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. But on Tuesday, ahead of the first hearing of a special committee to investigate the riot, they took their approach to new and misleading extremes, falsely blaming Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the violence.

The American people deserve to know the truth that Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility as speaker of the House for the tragedy that occurred on Jan. 6, said Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York and the partys No. 3 leader.

It amounted to an audacious attempt to rewrite the history of the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries and pre-empt the damning testimony of four police officers who were brutalized by the mob of Donald J. Trumps supporters. Heres how Republicans twisted the facts.

Looking past the motivations of the mob or Mr. Trump, Republicans said it had been up to Ms. Pelosi and her leadership team to protect the Capitol from the attack, particularly given that intelligence gathered in the weeks before it occurred pointed to the potential for violence against Congress.

On Jan. 6, these brave officers were put into a vulnerable, impossible position because the leadership at the top has failed, said Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader.

Ms. Pelosi has considerable influence as the speaker, but she is not responsible for the security of Congress. That is the job of the Capitol Police, an agency Ms. Pelosi only indirectly influences. Most decisions about securing the Capitol are made by the Capitol Police Board, a body that consists of the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the Architect of the Capitol.

Ms. Pelosi shares control of the Capitol with the Senate majority leader, who at the time was Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky. Republicans have made no attempt to blame Mr. McConnell for the security breach or for failing to prepare for attack.

That charge also contradicts a bipartisan report produced by a pair of Senate committees that found evidence of systematic failures across American intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies, which misjudged the threat leading up to Jan. 6 and were not properly trained to respond to it.

It also flatly contradicted congressional testimony, news reports and public accounts of that day, when Ms. Pelosi herself was one of the prime targets of the rioters, some of whom stalked the halls of the Capitol chanting ominously, NancyWhere are you Nancy?

Mr. McCarthy and others said that Ms. Pelosi had refused pleas by the Capitol Police to provide backup, like the National Guard, ahead of Jan. 6.

But the speaker of the House does not control the National Guard. And while Congress could have requested support in advance, that decision lies with the Capitol Police Board, not the speaker.

Members of the Capitol Police board have provided conflicting accounts of a debate that occurred on Jan. 4 over whether to request the help in advance. Steven A. Sund, then the chief of Capitol Police, has said he asked the board for the pre-emptive assistance but was rebuffed.

Among the reasons cited, Mr. Sund said, was a concern by the House sergeant-at-arms, Paul D. Irving, about the optics of bringing in reinforcements. Ms. Stefanik falsely attributed that concern to Ms. Pelosi, whose aides have said she only learned of the request days later.

A Times investigation detailed why it took nearly two hours to approve the deployment on Jan 6. After rioters breached the Capitol, Chief Sund called Mr. Irving at 1:09 p.m. with an urgent request for the National Guard. Mr. Irving approached Ms. Pelosis staff with the request at 1:40 p.m., and her chief of staff relayed it to her at 1:43 p.m., when she approved it. But it would be hours more before Pentagon officials signed off on the deployment and informed the District of Columbia National Guard commander that he had permission to deploy the troops.

Republicans repeatedly said that Ms. Pelosi had been warned as early as mid-December that demonstrations were being planned for Jan. 6 around Congresss joint session to count the electoral votes.

That appeared to be a reference to early intelligence reports and warnings that began to circulate inside the Capitol Police on Dec. 14, which were evidently never shared widely enough to be acted upon.

But Ms. Pelosis aides say she was not briefed at the time about the threat, and the Senates joint report found that the warning signs were mixed at best until just days before the attack.

Senators Republicans and Democrats alike instead said the blame was with the Capitol Police and intelligence agencies for failing to properly assess and warn about the threats.

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Republican Insurrection Claims That Blame Pelosi: Fact Check - The New York Times

Less than a year after a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol, nearly half of Republican voters (47%) say that "a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands," per a new nationwide survey by George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.

Only about 29% of Americans agreed with this statement on some level, the poll found, including just 9% of Democrats. And 49% said they disagree or strongly disagree.

The poll also found that a majority of Republicans (55%) say "the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast we may have to use force to save it." About 15% of Democrats agreed with this statement, but more Americans disagreed (46%) than agreed (34%).

More Republicans (27%) than Democrats (18%) said that "strong leaders sometimes have to bend the rules in order to get things done."

The poll also found extremely low levels of trust among Republicans when it comes to elections 82% said it's "hard to trust the results of elections when so many people will vote for anyone who offers a handout." Only 15% of Democrats were on the same page.

Echoing other recent polls on the 2020 election, the survey found that just 20% of Republicans were confident in the 2020 election results as compared to over 90% of Democrats.

The survey of of 1,753 registered US voters was conducted by YouGov from June 4 to 23.

Over the course of the Trump era, experts on democracy repeatedly raised concerns about the GOP's slide into authoritarianism. Democracy scholars have continued to raise alarm as the GOP-led legislatures in states across the country push for restrictive voter laws, employing similar justifications to President Donald Trump's baseless claims of mass voter fraud after he fairly lost the 2020 election. Along these lines, an ex-Trump administration official recently referred to the Republican party as the top national security threat to the US.

More than one quarter of Americans qualify as having right-wing authoritarian political beliefs, according to polling from Morning Consult released in late June.

Though Trump provoked an insurrection at the Capitol and stands as the only commander-in-chief in history to be impeached twice, he continues to be the leader of the Republican party. GOP leaders in Congress have also railed against a House investigation into the January 6 insurrection.

During a hearing on Tuesday held by the House select committee running the probe, four police officers testified about the violence they were subjected to by Trump's supporters at the Capitol. One officer referred to the insurrections as "terrorists," and another said the Capitol riot amounted to an "attempted coup."

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Most Republicans say force may be required to save 'traditional' America: poll - Business Insider

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After nearly a year and a half of telling their constituents that its their constitutional right to ignore coronavirus guidelines and public health restrictions, it seems to be dawning on leaders in the Republican Party that letting a deadly and very infectious disease run rampant through their states and localitiesnot to mention the rest of the countryis actually a terrible idea.

So now, as the highly contagious Delta variant is creating a new surge of infections, the time has come to reverse course. But theres an obvious problem: After feeding a large swath of the country a steady diet of potentially fatal misinformation, distrust in the government, and demonization of the other, while insisting that individual freedom is more important than the collective good, its nearly impossible to convince the true believers to do otherwise. For decades now, the conservative ethos has been predicated on a selfish individualism that informs everything from social and tax policies to medical care. And of course, this ideology, further amped up by a deranged president, has plagued the US response to COVID-19 since the beginning. Now, were all paying the price.

Unlike the early days of vaccine distribution, the US has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to vaccine supply, which has been scientifically proven to prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death. Yet, according to the Washington Post, as of Julyonly 49 percent of eligible people in the US are fully vaccinated. And theres one major reason for this: GOP leadershipfrom state and local politicians to members of Congress to the conservative media amplification machine. So now, as 41 percent ofconservatives choose not to get vaccinated,cases are up nationwide but especially in states where vaccine rates are low. The repercussions are dire. In Florida and Arkansas, every county is recording high transmission rates. In Alabama, doctors describe dying patients begging for the vaccinebut its too late.

None of this is surprising. From encouraging lockdown proteststo eschewing masksand downplaying the severity of the virus, the GOP followed the lead of its president and underplayed science. Even when its standard bearer, former President Donald Trump, contracted the virus and was hospitalized, nothing changed. Trump had a particularly contradictory stance: at once whining about not getting enough credit for the vaccine, opting to get quietly vaccinated before he left office, and doing nothing to encourage his supporters to get their shots. He just further added to the politicization of it all by making fun of mask-wearing andinsisting the virus wasnothing to be afraid ofeven after his hospitalization.

Republican governors have had to contend with the tragic surge of cases firsthand. Last week, Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey begged her constituents to get vaccinated. Since it is crucial to cast blame for rising COVID ratesnew infections are up 84 percent in her stateat anyone but Republicans, she targeted unvaccinated people. Its time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks, she said. Its the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down. (And not the people who encouraged them.) But even though Ivey declared a state of emergency in her state in March 2020, shes been pushing the personal responsibility narrative, signaling that the danger has passed. Evidence clearly indicates that the worst is behind us, Ivey saidway back in May 2020,when she announced the lifting of restrictions.

In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on CNNs State of the Union that he blames the resistance to getting vaccinations on myths and false information. Not that he has any responsibility for the crisis unfolding in hisstate. I made the decision that its really not what the government can tell you to do, he told host Jake Tapper, but it is the community and their engagement and citizens talking to other citizens and trusted advisers. Hutchison does,however, believe the state government can tell you what to do when it comes to mask-wearing. Earlier this year, he approved a statewide ban on mask mandates. The law, which was introduced in March, does not allow any local jurisdictions to require masks.

Earlier this week, 16 of the 27 members of Tennessees GOP Senate caucus released a letter urging the public to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, efforts to get more people vaccinated have been hampered by politicization of COVID-19, the letter said. This should not be political. But earlier this week, under pressure from GOP lawmakers, the states health department halted all vaccine outreach to minorsfor all diseases, not just COVID-19.Only about39 percent of Tennesseans have received a COVID vaccine. As my colleague Hannah Levintova reported, a beloved Nashville conservative talk radio host was recently hospitalized with severe COVID and begged his listeners to ignore his previous skepticism and get the shot.

But perhaps most egregious of all is Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is not even an elected official. Sanders, who is known for being former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabees daughter and Trumps press secretary for two years, is challenging Hutchison to be Arkansas next governor. So, naturally, she had to weigh in on the surge in her state in an op-edplacing the blame on none other thanPresident Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! If President Biden, Vice President Harris, and others on the left truly care about increasing the vaccination rate and saving lives, she wrote, they should admit they were wrong to cast doubt on Operation Warp Speed and give President Trump and his team the credit.

When Trump was still in charge and downplaying the virus, he was also bragging about Operation Warp Speed, a government program that fast-tracked the vaccine. At presidential debates, Harris and Biden both said that they would take a vaccine, only if it had been approved by scientists and public health officialsnot the former president. (After all, Trump had once wondered aloud about ingesting bleach to kill the virus.) But Sanders took their comments out of context and said that because Harris and Biden had cast doubt on the vaccine, people in Arkansas are hesitant. Never mind the mind-blowing premise here. Does Sanders really expect us to believe that Republican voters are taking their cues from Biden and Harris?

The latest coronavirus surge has led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reissue a mask recommendation even for vaccinated individuals in states where there has been a surge of infections of the new variant. The current state of the public health crisis now feels eerily similar to summer 2020, when no vaccines were available. After all, Republican governors like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott yet again will contort that narrative in the most destructive way.

On a personal level, it can be frustrating to see so many people choose not to get vaccinated. Theyve made things more dangerous for everyone. But railing against them, as Ivey did, is misguided. The idea that personal freedom is more important than public health has become a do-or-die tenet for Republicansliterally. Theres something obscene about seeing them act surprised by what their own voters truly believe. The GOP leadership has turned masks, lockdowns, and now vaccines into a culture war. Conservatives spent so much time owning the libs, they forgot to care about the lives of their constituents. The increase in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths is indeed tragic for everyone. But Republican leaders have no one to blame but themselves.

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The Obscene Hypocrisy of Republicans Blaming Everyone But Themselves: The COVID Edition Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Just as striking as the officers testimony today is GOP lawmakers refusal to engage with it.

All along the hallways of the Capitol complex today, members of the Capitol Police stared at their phones and nearby TV screens. Four of their fellow officers were testifying before Congress for the first time about the treatment theyd endured on January 6. They described being beaten with metal flagpoles, sprayed in the eyes with wasp repellent, and shocked with their own Tasers. One of the men cried while he spoke; a colleague patted his back. Their hands shook as they took careful sips of water.

This mornings testimony was the first time Americans have heard such a vivid and agonizing account from the front lines of the attackthe officers growing panic as the mob surrounded them, how the rioters called them traitors and threatened to kill them with their own guns, the realization that they might die right there on the marble steps of the Capitol. But just as striking as the officers testimony is Republican lawmakers refusal to engage with it. The GOP response has been to minimize or even scoff at what occurred.

Early in the hearing, the officers who testified watched as the select committee chair, Bennie Thompson, played a compilation of footage and police recordings that stitched together the days events: the frantic calls between officers; the ominous sound of rioters banging on the glass outside the east entrance of the Capitol; Officer Eugene Goodman urging Senator Mitt Romney to flee the mob. A few minutes into the video, the C-SPAN camera panned away to capture Officer Daniel Hodges looking at himself on the screen, which showed him crushed against a door and struggling for air as a rioter pried off his gas mask. While he watched, Hodgess face was inscrutable, but his cheeks were flushed.

Read: How a rising Trump critic lost her nerve

As Hodges was preparing to relive what was perhaps the most traumatic day of his life, the Republican House conference chair, Elise Stefanik, was outside hosting a rival event: a press conference during which she blamed the January 6 violence on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is a fact that the U.S. Capitol Police raised concerns, and rather than providing them with the support and resources they deserved, she prioritized her partisan political optics over their safety, Stefanik said. (Pelosi does not oversee the operations of the U.S. Capitol Police.)

Stefaniks was only one excuse of many. Shortly after January 6, Donald Trumps allies spun up a story accusing antifa of infiltrating the mob and instigating the assault. In May, the GOP lawmaker Andrew Clyde of Georgia described the riot that threatened the lives of his colleagues as a normal tourist visit. Just this morning, a contributor to the far-right American Greatness magazine characterized the testifying officers as crisis actors, playing victims for liberal political ends.

Republicans would like nothing more than to stop talking about this day. Its why they voted to oust Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a fierce Trump critic, from her leadership position earlier this summer, and its the reason so many GOP lawmakers voted against establishing an independent committee to investigate January 6. In a recent interview, the freshman Republican Nancy Mace offered a tidy summation of her partys broader feelings: I want to be done with that, she told me. I want to move forward.

Read: Republicans meet their monster

But the GOPs sweep-it-away approach will be difficult to sustain. According to Cheney, the select committee plans to investigate every phone call, every conversation, every meeting leading up to, during, and after the attack, which will keep the issue in the headlines for the coming weeks or months. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthys decision to pull his appointees from the committee after Pelosi refused to seat Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana seems like it might have been a political miscalculation. Now the GOP has no one on the panel to counter or challenge the investigation. The only two Republicans on the panel are Trump detractors appointed by PelosiCheney and Adam Kinzinger of Illinoiswhich will underscore that there are still members of the party who hold the former president and many of their colleagues responsible for the insurrection.

During the hearing, the officers took turns recounting the days events. Sergeant Aquilino Gonell said hed been more frightened on January 6 than he was during his entire deployment in Iraq. Officer Harry Dunn said he was called the N-word. Officer Michael Fanone recounted being dragged into the crowd of rioters, beaten, and tased: Im sure I was screaming, but I dont think I could even hear my own voice. Hodges described how a man had hooked his finger into his right eye and tried to gouge it out.

By late morning, theyd finished making their statements, and the question-and-answer portion of the panel was about to begin. Televisions across the Capitol complex flashed with hearing coverage. A CNN reporter asked Clyde, the Republican whod described January 6 as a normal tourist visit, what he made of their testimony. I have not heard anything yet today, he responded.

With reporting from Christian Paz

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The GOP Ignored the Hearing on the Capitol Attack - The Atlantic

One Democrat in the Mississippi Senate Hob Bryan of Amory represents a district that does not have a majority African American population.

Republicans hold 36 of the seats in the 52-member chamber. There are currently 14 Democrats. Two Democrats resigned this summer and special elections have not been held to replace them. Those two vacant Senate seats as well as 13 other districts represented by Democrats not named Bryan have a Black population of more than 50%.

In the coming months, as U.S. Census data comes in, legislators will begin the task of redrawing the 52 Senate districts and 122 House districts to match population shifts found by the decennial census. Legislators on the committee tasked with overseeing the drawing of both state legislative districts and the four U.S. House seats will hold nine public hearings across the state, starting at 6 p.m. Aug. 5 at Meridian Community Colleges McCain Theatre, to garner public input. Then in the 2022 session, legislators will try to complete the redistricting process.

Presumably, Republicans who control the Senate could redraw the districts in a manner to increase their numbers, but at this point that would be just running up the score.

There are past federal court precedents that would seem to prevent the Legislature from reducing the number of Black majority districts. But in recent court rulings, the federal courts particularly the U.S. Supreme Court have seemed less willing in the eyes of some to protect minority voting rights.

Still, it is safe to assume the Senate leadership would have little interest in garnering national attention by reducing the number of African American districts.

And as far as Bryan is concerned, a district in northeast Mississippi most likely could be drawn to reduce his re-election chances. But it also is unlikely the Senate leadership is inclined to do that. Most senators have at some point cursed Bryans occasional outbursts and eccentricities. At the same time, most senators, including members of the leadership, have made no secret of their respect for his intellect and knowledge of the legislative process.

Perhaps that is best exemplified by the fact that Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann placed Bryan on the committee charged with redrawing the districts.

Over in the House, the situation is much the same. There are five Democrats who represent districts that were majority white when they were drawn in 2012.

Like in the Senate, the House Republicans, who control all the power with their 76 members, could increase their numbers through redistricting to the extent they would not be blocked by federal courts, but at some point such an effort might just look like poor sportsmanship.

There are currently 40 Black members in the House.

The point being that in the redistricting after the 2010 Census there was an urgency by both Republicans and Democrats to redistrict in such a manner to ensure their respective partys control of the Legislature. That fight is over. The Republicans won, and they won big.

If Democrats had prevailed in the 2011 election and controlled redistricting in the 2012 session, they could have drawn districts in a manner to give members of their party more of a fighting chance, particularly in the House.

But House Democrats, who held the majority before they lost the 2011 election by a narrow margin, lost the ability to control the redrawing of the districts in the 2012 session. The result was Republicans drew districts where they had significant advantages. For instance, before the redrawing of the districts in 2012, when Democrats controlled the House, there were 13 House districts drawn with significant but not dominant African American influence a Black population of more than 35% but less than a majority.

Conventional wisdom has been that such districts give white Democrats the best chance to win in Mississippi. During the last redistricting, after Republicans had wrestled control, that number dropped to two districts with a Black population of more than 35% but less than a majority. In the Senate, the change went from 11 districts with a Black population of more than 35% but less than a majority to three.

In other words, Republicans did their redistricting work in 2012 to ensure their legislative dominance. Redistricting this time will be more about maintaining.

But even if Democrats had won the House in the 2011 elections, there would have been no guarantee that they could have drawn districts that would have ensured their continued control of the House. The bottom line continues to be that in Mississippi the vast majority of white people vote Republican and most African Americans vote Democrat.

And any amount of legislative redistricting will not change that voting pattern and give Democrats a fighting chance to regain control of the Mississippi Legislature in the foreseeable future.

Central to our mission at Mississippi Today is inspiring civic engagement. We think critically about how we can foster healthy dialogue between people who think differently about government and politics. We believe that conversation raw, earnest talking and listening to better understand each other is vital to the future of Mississippi. We encourage you to engage with us and each other on our social media accounts, email our reporters directly or leave a comment for our editor by clicking the button below.

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by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today August 1, 2021

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Will Republicans run up the score when redistricting? - Mississippi Today

The Democrats are rolling out a counterintuitive new messaging strategy in anticipation of the 2022 elections: Republicans are defunding the police. Its an attempt by Democrats to counter attacks from the GOP about being weak on law enforcement; liberal lawmakers hope they can flip the right-wing narrative and argue that the legislative record shows the Democratic Party is in fact the fiercest ally of the police.

Liberal lawmakers hope they can flip the right-wing narrative and argue that the legislative record shows the Democratic Party is in fact the fiercest ally of the police.

Unfortunately this playbook is too cute by half to work well. In all likelihood it won't have the power to change minds. And by giving credence to what has always been a bad faith line of attack from the Republicans, it could make future internal debates over the scope of criminal justice reform all the more difficult.

Akela Lacy reported in The Intercept on Wednesday that Democrats have already started embracing the narrative that the GOP is to blame for defunding the police because every Republican in Congress voted against the American Rescue Plan the massive coronavirus relief bill passed in March that provided billions of dollars for funding local police departments. Democrats are also arguing that the GOPs attempt to avoid responsibility for the Capitol riot an attack that resulted in brutal injuries and death for Capitol Police officers reflects apathy toward law enforcement.

Democrats have accused Republicans of hypocrisy on defending police funding in the past, but the messaging is looking increasingly systematic. Several Democratic members of Congress like Reps. Ted Lieu of California, Val Demings of Florida and Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania have been pushing this new message, as has the Democratic National Committee.

Republicans have spent an entire year essentially lying about what Democrats support and what Democrats have voted for, a Democratic aide told The Intercept. The fact that Democrats have really settled on a line here to push back on it, and to really go on offense, excites Democrats.

But as the Democrats prepare to double down on their new line of attack on Republicans, they should ask themselves two questions: Will this work, and is it worth it? On both fronts, there is good reason for skepticism.

The notion that Democrats can wrest the pro-police mantle from Republicans is far-fetched. The contours of the debate right now have little to do with staffing levels during economic recessions or how much police officers lives are respected or honored as they navigate their very difficult jobs. In reality, the debate is about what role the police should play in our society and what communities they're meant to be protecting.

The heart of the matter is a racialized culture war over law and order a reactionary concept with deep roots in American history that was popularized by Richard Nixons 1968 presidential run. Under the law-and-order ethos, aggressive policing represents a bulwark against social change and struggles for racial equality, and is seen as a way to deal with poverty and social dysfunction through imprisonment and surveillance. The law-and-order ethos was a critical tool in the Southern Strategy toolkit, an electoral strategy that sought to win over white voters in the South by appealing to racism against Black Americans.

Democrats simply cannot win the whos more aligned with the police debate unless they want to lean into the kind of white racial resentment politics that Republicans have mastered to monopolize the white conservative vote. That would mean giving up any ambition of reforming policing, dropping their commitment to multicultural democracy and turning their backs on anti-poverty programs as a way to deal with inequality. Fortunately, the Democrats are not going to do that. But thats bad news for this new pro-police pivot.

The other reason the Democrats strategy is unlikely to be effective is the fact that Republican narratives about liberal positions on policing were never grounded in reality in the first place. Its unclear how countermessaging or accusations of hypocrisy can overcome such an entrenched partisan mythology.

After the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the Democratic establishment called for reforms but swiftly disavowed any association with defund the police movements, and as an analyst for Data for Progress noted in The Appeal, the movement to defund the police went essentially unrepresented at the ballot box. In fact, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., implied that police should be given more funds.

But that had no bearing on the messaging surrounding the presidential race: During the run-up to the 2020 elections, then-President Donald Trump and the Republicans consistently lied about the Democrats position on policing and portrayed them as radical police abolitionists. In other words, its hard to see Democrats changing Republican voters minds when the GOP and right-wing media conflate any criticism of police with abolitionism.

In addition to all this, though, the Democrats should consider the potential costs they could incur by playing this game.

In addition to all this, though, the Democrats should consider the potential costs they could incur by playing this game. While its understandable that mainstream Democrats wanted to avoid being associated with the defund slogan in the run-up to the election, the ideas the movement stands for reallocating some funding from the police to other social services and delegating many police duties to other agencies are good ones that have already been adopted to some extent by the growing left wing of the Democrats. And its safe to say these ideas are going to keep coming up each time viral incidents of police brutality spur debates about how policing should change.

Democrats dont have to adopt any defund-type slogan, but they should take the ideas seriously if they want to eventually create a more humane criminal justice system. Theyll be best-positioned to do that if they stake out a real progressive position on policing instead of replicating the GOPs bad faith playbook in an unconvincing style.

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Democrats want to flip 'defund the police' on Republicans. It could backfire. - MSNBC

The term Republican was adopted in 1792 by supporters of Thomas Jefferson, who favoured a decentralized government with limited powers. Although Jeffersons political philosophy is consistent with the outlook of the modern Republican Party, his faction, which soon became known as the Democratic-Republican Party, ironically evolved by the 1830s into the Democratic Party, the modern Republican Partys chief rival.

The Republican Party traces its roots to the 1850s, when antislavery leaders (including former members of the Democratic, Whig, and Free-Soil parties) joined forces to oppose the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories by the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. At meetings in Ripon, Wisconsin (May 1854), and Jackson, Michigan (July 1854), they recommended forming a new party, which was duly established at the political convention in Jackson.

At their first presidential nominating convention in 1856, the Republicans nominated John C. Frmont on a platform that called on Congress to abolish slavery in the territories, reflecting a widely held view in the North. Although ultimately unsuccessful in his presidential bid, Frmont carried 11 Northern states and received nearly two-fifths of the electoral vote. During the first four years of its existence, the party rapidly displaced the Whigs as the main opposition to the dominant Democratic Party. In 1860 the Democrats split over the slavery issue, as the Northern and Southern wings of the party nominated different candidates (Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge, respectively); the election that year also included John Bell, the nominee of the Constitutional Union Party. Thus, the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was able to capture the presidency, winning 18 Northern states and receiving 60 percent of the electoral vote but only 40 percent of the popular vote. By the time of Lincolns inauguration as president, however, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, and the country soon descended into the American Civil War (186165).

In 1863 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared slaves in rebelling states to be forever free and welcomed them to join the Unions armed forces. The abolition of slavery would, in 1865, be formally entrenched in the Constitution of the United States with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. Because the historical role played by Lincoln and the Republican Party in the abolition of slavery came to be regarded as their greatest legacy, the Republican Party is sometimes referred to as the party of Lincoln.

The prolonged agony of the Civil War weakened Lincolns prospects for reelection in 1864. To broaden his support, he chose as his vice presidential candidate Andrew Johnson, a pro-Union Democratic senator from Tennessee, and the Lincoln-Johnson ticket subsequently won a landslide victory over Democrat George B. McClellan and his running mate George Pendleton. Following Lincolns assassination at the end of the war, Johnson favoured Lincolns moderate program for the Reconstruction of the South over the more punitive plan backed by the Radical Republican members of Congress. Stymied for a time by Johnsons vetoes, the Radical Republicans won overwhelming control of Congress in the 1866 elections and engineered Johnsons impeachment in the House of Representatives. Although the Senate fell one vote short of convicting and removing Johnson, the Radical Republicans managed to implement their Reconstruction program, which made the party anathema across the former Confederacy. In the North the partys close identification with the Union victory secured it the allegiance of most farmers, and its support of protective tariffs and of the interests of big business eventually gained it the backing of powerful industrial and financial circles.

The 1860 election is today regarded by most political observers as the first of three critical elections in the United Statescontests that produced sharp and enduring changes in party loyalties across the country (although some analysts consider the election of 1824 to be the first critical election). After 1860 the Democratic and Republican parties became the major parties in a largely two-party system. In federal elections from the 1870s to the 1890s, the parties were in rough balanceexcept in the South, which became solidly Democratic. The two parties controlled Congress for almost equal periods, though the Democrats held the presidency only during the two terms of Grover Cleveland (188589 and 189397).

In the countrys second critical election, in 1896, the Republicans won the presidency and control of both houses of Congress, and the Republican Party became the majority party in most states outside the South. The Republican presidential nominee that year was William McKinley, a conservative who favoured high tariffs on foreign goods and sound money tied to the value of gold. The Democrats, already burdened by the economic depression that began under President Cleveland, nominated William Jennings Bryan, who advocated cheap money (money available at low interest rates) based on both gold and silver.

Presidential campaign ribbon for William McKinley, c. 1896.

The assassination of President McKinley in 1901 elevated to the presidency Theodore Roosevelt, leader of the partys progressive wing. Roosevelt opposed monopolistic and exploitative business practices, adopted a more conciliatory attitude toward labour, and urged the conservation of natural resources. He was reelected in 1904 but declined to run in 1908, deferring to his secretary of war and friend, William Howard Taft, who won handily. Subsequently disenchanted with Tafts conservative policies, Roosevelt unsuccessfully challenged him for the Republican nomination in 1912. Roosevelt then bolted the Republican Party to form the Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party) and ran for president against Taft and the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson. With the Republican vote divided, Wilson won the presidency, and he was reelected in 1916. During the spectacular prosperity of the 1920s, the Republicans conservative and probusiness policies proved more attractive to voters than Wilsons brand of idealism and internationalism. The Republicans easily won the presidential elections of 1920, 1924, and 1928.

The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed had severe consequences for the Republicans, largely because of their unwillingness to combat the effects of the depression through direct government intervention in the economy. In the election of 1932, considered the countrys third critical election, Republican incumbent Pres. Herbert Hoover was overwhelmingly defeated by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Republicans were relegated to the status of a minority party. Roosevelts three reelections (he was the only president to serve more than two terms), the succession of Harry S. Truman to the presidency on Roosevelts death in 1945, and Trumans narrow election over New York Gov. Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 kept the Republicans out of the White House for two decades. Although most Republicans in the 1930s vehemently opposed Roosevelts New Deal social programs, by the 1950s the party had largely accepted the federal governments expanded role and regulatory powers.

Button from Herbert Hoover's 1928 U.S. presidential campaign.

In 1952 the Republican Party nominated as its presidential candidate World War II Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, who easily defeated Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson in the general election. Despite Eisenhowers centrist views, the Republican platform was essentially conservative, calling for a strong anticommunist stance in foreign affairs, reductions in government regulation of the economy, lower taxes for the wealthy, and resistance to federal civil rights legislation. Nevertheless, Eisenhower did dispatch federal troops to Arkansas in 1957 to enforce the court-ordered racial integration of a high school in Little Rock; he also signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960. Moreover, his moderate Republicanism led him to oversee an expansion of social security, an increase in the minimum wage, and the creation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with Richard Nixon (left) and Arthur Summerfield, at his campaign headquarters in Washington, D.C., September 1952.

In the early 1950s Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin became the partys most ardent anticommunist, taking the limelight while attempting to expose communists who he claimed were in the American government. In the interest of party unity, Eisenhower chose not to criticize McCarthys demagogic red-baiting and occasionally appeared to support him; privately, however, the president did not hide his enmity for McCarthy, worked to discredit him, and pushed Republican senators to censure him.

The party retained the traditional support of both big and small business and gained new support from growing numbers of middle-class suburbanites andperhaps most significantlywhite Southerners, who were upset by the prointegration policies of leading Democrats, including President Truman, who had ordered the integration of the military. Eisenhower was reelected in 1956, but in 1960 Richard M. Nixon, Eisenhowers vice president, lost narrowly to Democrat John F. Kennedy.

The Republicans were in severe turmoil at their 1964 convention, where moderates and conservatives battled for control of the party. Ultimately, the conservatives secured the nomination of Sen. Barry M. Goldwater, who lost by a landslide to Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedys vice president and successor. By 1968 the partys moderate faction regained control and again nominated Nixon, who narrowly won the popular vote over Hubert H. Humphrey, Johnsons vice president. Many Southern Democrats abandoned the Democratic Party to vote for the anti-integration candidate George C. Wallace. Importantly, the 1964 and 1968 elections signaled the death of the Democratic Solid South, as both Goldwater and Nixon made significant inroads there. In 1964, 5 of the 6 states won by Goldwater were in the South; in 1968, 11 Southern states voted for Nixon and only 1 voted for Humphrey.

Richard M. Nixon (right) accepting the Republican Party's U.S. presidential nomination in 1968. At left is Gerald Ford, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives.

Although Nixon was reelected by a landslide in 1972, Republicans made few gains in congressional, state, and local elections and failed to win control of Congress. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974 and was succeeded in office by Gerald R. Ford, the first appointed vice president to become president. Ford lost narrowly to Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. In 1980 Ronald W. Reagan, the charismatic leader of the Republican Partys conservative wing, defeated Carter and helped the Republicans to regain control of the Senate, which they held until 1987.

Reagan introduced deep tax cuts and launched a massive buildup of U.S. military forces. His personal popularity and an economic recovery contributed to his 49-state victory over Democrat Walter F. Mondale in 1984. His vice president, George H.W. Bush, continued the Republicans presidential success by handily defeating Democrat Michael S. Dukakis in 1988. During Bushs term, the Cold War came to an end after communism collapsed in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. In 1991 Bush led an international coalition that drove Iraqi armies out of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War. Congress continued to be controlled by the Democrats, however, and Bush lost his bid for reelection in 1992 to another Southern Democrat, Bill Clinton. Partly because of Clintons declining popularity in 199394, the Republicans won victories in the 1994 midterm elections that gave them control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954. They promptly undertook efforts to overhaul the countrys welfare system and to reduce the budget deficit, but their uncompromising and confrontational style led many voters to blame them for a budget impasse in 199596 that resulted in two partial government shutdowns. Clinton was reelected in 1996, though the Republicans retained control of Congress.

In 2000 Texas Gov. George W. Bush, son of the former president, recaptured the presidency for the Republicans, receiving 500,000 fewer popular votes than Democrat Al Gore but narrowly winning a majority of the electoral vote (271266) after the Supreme Court of the United States ordered a halt to the manual recounting of disputed ballots in Florida. Bush was only the second son of a president to assume the nations highest office. The Republicans also won a majority in both chambers of Congress (though the Democrats gained effective control of the Senate in 2001 following the decision of Republican Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont to became an independent). A surge in Bushs popularity following the September 11 attacks of 2001 enabled the Republicans to recapture the Senate and to make gains in the House of Representatives in 2002. In 2004 Bush was narrowly reelected, winning both the popular and electoral vote, and the Republicans kept control of both houses of Congress. In the 2006 midterm elections, however, the Republicans fared poorly, hindered largely by the growing opposition to the Iraq War, and the Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate. In the general election of 2008 the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama, and the Democrats increased their majority in both houses of Congress. The following year the Republican National Committee elected Michael Steele as its first African American chairman.

U.S. Pres. George W. Bush delivering the 2002 State of the Union address, in which he described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an axis of evil.

With a gain of some 60 seats, a swing not registered since 1948, Republicans recaptured control of the House and dramatically reduced the Democrats majority in the Senate in the 2010 midterm election. The election, which was widely seen as a referendum on the Obama administrations policy agenda, was marked by anxiety over the struggling economy (especially the high unemployment rate) and by the upsurge of the Tea Partya populist movement whose adherents generally opposed excessive taxation and big government. Tea Party candidates, some of whom had displaced candidates favoured by the Republican establishment during the primaries, had mixed success in the general election.

In the 2012 general election, the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was unable to unseat Obama. The situation in Congress remained relatively unchanged, with Republicans retaining their hold on the House of Representatives and Democrats successfully defending their majority in the Senate. The Republicans regained control of the Senate during the 2014 midterm elections.

The 2016 presidential election was a watershed moment for the Republican Party. The partys nomination was captured by businessman and television personality Donald Trump, who easily defeated more-mainstream Republican candidates such as Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz in the primaries. Trumps far-right social positions and outspoken hostility toward immigrants made a number of mainstream Republicans concerned that he was setting the party up for a Goldwater-esque landslide electoral defeat. But, to the surprise of most political pundits, he won the electoral college despite amassing almost three million fewer popular votes than Democrat Hillary Clinton, giving Republicans the presidency for the first time in eight years to go alongside the partys retention of power in both chambers of Congress. Trump continued to defy political norms after taking office, and his presidency was plagued by controversy, especially allegations that his campaign had colluded with Russia to secure his election. Although he enjoyed solid support among Republicans, some believed that he was causing irreparable harm to the party. His overall approval ratings were typically low, and in the 2018 midterms Democrats retook control of the House.

Donald Trump speaking at a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a month after winning the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Excerpt from:

Republican Party | Definition, History, & Beliefs | Britannica

Jake Ellzey of Texas won a US House seat on Tuesday night over a fellow Republican rival backed by Donald Trump, dealing the former president a defeat in a test of his endorsement power since leaving office.

Ellzeys come-from-behind victory over Susan Wright, the widow of the late Representative Ron Wright, in a special congressional election runoff near Dallas is likely to be celebrated by Trump antagonists who have warned against his continued hold on the GOP. Trump backed Wright from the start and had made one last attempt to give her a boost with a telephone rally on Monday night.

Ellzey was carrying more than 53% of the vote in Texass 6th congressional district with results from almost all precincts reported.

One of things that weve seen from this campaign is a positive outlook, a Reagan Republican outlook, for the future of our country is what the people of the 6th district really, really want, Ellzey said to supporters following his victory.

Ellzey is a Republican state legislator who finished second to Wright in May, and who only narrowly made the runoff over a Democrat. The seat opened up following the death of Ron Wright, who in February became the first member of Congress to die after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

Far from running on an anti-Trump platform, Ellzey did not try distancing himself from the twice-impeached former president. He instead sought to overcome the lack of Trumps backing by raising more money and showing off other endorsements, including the support of the former Texas governor Rick Perry.

Trump had endorsed Susan Wright early in the special election and recorded a robocall for her late in the runoff. Make America Great Action, a political action committee chaired by the former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, also made a $100,000 ad buy over the weekend.

But the outcome may show the limits of his influence with voters. Republicans have continued making loyalty to Trump paramount since his defeat in November, even as Trump continues to falsely and baselessly assert that the election was stolen.

The north Texas district won by Ellzey who narrowly lost the GOP nomination for the seat in 2018 has long been Republican territory. But Trumps support in the district had also plummeted: after winning it by double-digits in 2016, he carried it by just three percentage points last year, reflecting the trend of Texass booming suburbs shifting to purple and, in some places, outright blue.

Ron Wright, who was 67 and had lung cancer, was just weeks into his second term when he died. Susan Wright had also been diagnosed with Covid-19 and at one point was hospitalized with her husband.

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Voters reject Trump-endorsed Republican in Texas special election - The Guardian

Republicans in Georgias General Assembly have requested a performance review of the top election official in Fulton County, the first step in a possible takeover of the countys electoral process that could give the Republican-led legislature more control over an area with the largest concentration of Democratic voters in the state.

The request, submitted in a letter on Tuesday by State Senator Butch Miller and signed by about two dozen other Republican state senators, calls for a panel review of Richard Barron, the county election director, over what the lawmakers described as a failure to properly perform risk-limiting audits, a process that helps ensure the correct results and security, after the 2020 election.

We do so as a measure of last resort, having failed to adequately assuage the concern that we, as elected officials, have regarding the integrity of the Fulton County elections process, Mr. Miller wrote in the letter.

Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, has a record of problems with its elections. Most recently, its June 2020 primary contest was marred by voting machine difficulties that were exacerbated by the small size and poor training of its staff, causing lines to stretch for hours across the county.

But the November general election and the January runoff elections in the county ran relatively smoothly on each Election Day, with few reports of lengthy waits or other complications. There were no legitimate questions about the accuracy of the results in any of the three recent elections. In the presidential race, President Biden carried the county with more than 72 percent of the vote and more than 380,000 votes.

The review process for local election officials is a newly critical element to Georgia elections after state Republicans passed a sweeping new voting law in April. It includes several provisions that lay the groundwork for an extraordinary takeover of election administration by partisan lawmakers.

Under the new law, the State Elections Board is permitted to replace county election board members after a performance review or investigation. But the new law also restructures the state board, stripping the secretary of state of his authority and giving the legislature the ability to appoint members, including the chair.

The letter, which was earlier reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was signed by three Republican members of the Fulton County delegation in the State Senate. The letters authors said they expected members of Fulton Countys House delegation to join them, which would automatically begin the review.

State Representative Chuck Martin, a Republican member of the Fulton County House delegation, said he supported the request for the performance review. Jan Jones, the speaker pro tempore and another member of the delegation, said that she would send a letter on Friday to the State Elections Board requesting a performance review of Fulton County elections officials, and that it would be signed by four members of the Fulton delegation.

Mine is not with an eye on taking over elections, Mr. Martin said in an interview on Thursday. This just seems to be the only way we can get data to get answers for the people we represent.

Mr. Barron, the Fulton County election director, did not respond to requests for comment.

Democrats quickly denounced the move, warning that it undermined the sanctity of future elections.

After giving themselves unprecedented power under Senate Bill 202, Republicans wasted no time in waging an anti-democratic, partisan power grab, attempting to seize control of elections in Georgias largest county, home to the greatest number of voters of color in the state, said Lauren Groh-Wargo, the chief executive of Fair Fight Action, a Democratic voting rights group based in Georgia. Their partisan efforts risk election subversion.

Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state, supported the review.

I have called repeatedly for change in Fultons elections leadership, so Im glad Republican legislators are joining me in this effort, he said in a statement. After Fultons failures last June, I required Fulton to accept a monitor during the general election and runoffs, and forced the county into a consent agreement to start fixing their management problems.

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Georgia G.O.P. Edges Toward Election Takeover in Fulton County - The New York Times