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A look at the history of US voting rights and what the changing demographics of the country mean for Republicans
Black and Latino voters overwhelmingly favoured the Democrats in the 2020 US election. Without their huge margins in key states, Joe Biden could not have won, the journalist Gary Younge tells Anushka Asthana. By 2045, white voters will be in the minority. These changing demographics are a concern for the Republican party. In 2013, just a year after turnout rates for black voters surpassed those for white voters for the first time, the supreme court gutted the Voting Rights Act, which affected poor, young and minority voters.
It’s important to remember, Gary tells Anushka, that the US was a slave state for more than 200 years; and an apartheid state, after the abolition of slavery, for another century. It has only been a non-racial democracy for 55 years. And that now hangs in the balance. If Biden does not produce something transformative, the disillusionment among voters may grow and people may once again look for someone who can disrupt the status quo, which is how Donald Trump won in 2016.
John Bolton: Trump is ‘throwing rocks through windows’
HR McMaster: Trump’s actions sowing doubt among electorate
Donald Trump faced growing pressure from Republicans on Sunday to drop his chaotic, last-ditch fight to overturn the US presidential election, as victor Joe Biden prepared to start naming his cabinet and a Pennsylvania judge compared Trump’s legal case there to “Frankenstein’s monster”.
Despite Republican leadership in Washington standing behind the president’s claims that the 3 November election was stolen from him by nationwide voter fraud, other prominent figures, including two of his former national security advisers, were blunt.
Scaled-down inauguration celebration expected because of risks of spreading coronavirus, says incoming White House chief of staff
US president-elect Joe Biden will announce the first names chosen for his cabinet on Tuesday, the incoming White House chief of staff said – and is expecting a scaled-down inauguration celebration because of the risks of spreading coronavirus.
In a sign that his transition team is pressing ahead swiftly – despite Donald Trump’s failure to concede the election and ongoing attempts to thwart the transition process – Ron Klain said on Sunday that the appointments were moving at a faster pace than the previous two administrations.
The president-elect knows that he will always be able to call on his old boss for advice – but he has big shoes to fill and could suffer by comparison
He’s back with a vengeance. After four years lying low as Donald Trump occupied the White House, Barack Obama is suddenly everywhere again – on TV, on radio, online and in bookshops.
President-elect currently has 79,823,827 votes as he continues to rack up the highest number of votes in US history
Joe Biden’s popular vote lead over Donald Trump has now stretched to more than 6m as he continues to rack up the highest number of votes in American history.
The Democratic challenger, and now president-elect, currently has 79,823,827 compared to the president’s 73,786,905 – itself a record for a losing candidate in terms of sheer number of votes cast.
President’s desperate efforts include pleas to Republican state lawmakers as states certify election results
Desperate efforts by Donald Trump and his Republican allies to overturn the result of the American election are facing an ever narrowing range of options as court cases and recounts have repeatedly failed to make any dent in the convincing victory of Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Now that states are certifying their election results, it appears the president’s last-ditch efforts will entail desperate pleas to Republican state lawmakers in hopes they will ignore their state laws and somehow skew the election to favor his reelection in the all-important electoral college.
Lying, paranoia and conspiracy are defining features of a totalitarian society. What hope is there for a brand new era, in the aftermath of an administration that has relied on all three?
“I WON THE ELECTION!” Donald Trump tweeted in the early hours of 16 November 2020, 10 days after he lost the election. At the same time, Atlantic magazine announced an interview with Barack Obama, in which he warns that the US is “entering into an epistemological crisis” – a crisis of knowing. “If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false,” Obama explains, “by definition our democracy doesn’t work.” I saw the two assertions juxtaposed on Twitter as I was finishing writing this essay, and together they demonstrate its proposition: that American democracy is facing not merely a crisis in trust, but in knowledge itself, largely because language has become increasingly untethered from reality, as we find ourselves in a swirling maelstrom of lies, disinformation, paranoia and conspiracy theories.
The problem is exemplified by Trump’s utterance, which bears only the most tenuous relation to reality: Trump participated in an election, giving his declaration some contextual force, but he had not won the election, rendering the claim farcical to those who reject it. The capital letters make it even funnier, a failed tyrant trying to exert mastery through typography. But it stops being funny when we acknowledge that millions of people accept this lie as a decree. Their sheer volume creates a crisis in knowing, because truth-claims largely depend on consensual agreement. This is why the debates about the US’s alarming political situation have orbited so magnetically around language itself. For months, American political and historical commentators have disputed whether the Trump administration can be properly called “fascist”, whether in refusing to concede he is trying to effect a “coup”. Are these the right words to use to describe reality? Not knowing reflects a crisis of knowledge, which derives in part from a crisis in authority.
I’m not obsessed with Doug, but he could probably be my pub quiz subject
There is much to say about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s historic win, but I’d like to focus on a man called Doug. Doug Emhoff is a lawyer and – more relevantly to your interests and mine – Harris’s husband, and unless you are part of the #DougHive, Doug’s devoted (and, one suspects, mainly female) fans, it’s likely you don’t know much about him.
This in itself is astonishing, given that women are generally discussedthrough the prism of their personal lives. I didn’t realise until last month that the young adults with whom Harris is occasionally photographed are not, as I’d assumed, her children, but rather Doug’s children and her stepchildren. Having children, or not, once defined a woman’s public image, as Theresa May could tell you, but I don’t recall a single discussion of Harris’s parental status during this campaign. Before we all celebrate this too ecstatically, Harris remains an anomaly; just try to find a single article about Amy Coney Barrett that doesn’t mention how many kids she has, and then imply that this has some bearing on her fitness for the supreme court. That Harris has largely swerved this is mainly down to her, but also down to Doug. (I know newspaper style dictates I should refer to him as Emhoff, but, really, he is such a Doug.)
That’s all from me for the night. Here’s where the news stands as we head into the weekend.
Trump’s futile last stands to cling to claims of winning are getting even more futile
After Georgia officials certified the state’s recount on Friday, confirming Joe Biden as the winner of the state, Michigan also stuck to its election results, making it impossible for Donald Trump to win the presidency.
US president-elect Joe Biden says Donald Trump will go down in history as one of the ‘most irresponsible presidents in American history’, labelling his challenges to the election results ‘incredibly damaging’. Biden said he was not concerned that Trump’s refusal to concede the election would prevent a transfer of power, but added it ‘sends a horrible message about who we are as a country’.
Rising Biden tally and his popular vote lead overshadowed by Trump escalating his false insistence that he actually won
Joe Biden is approaching a record 80m votes, with ballots still being counted and having already recorded the highest number of votes for a US presidential election winner, as Donald Trump persisted on Thursday in denying the result and trying to overturn it.
When you serve in the executive branch, you are required to take an oath of office on your first day. Your oath is not to the president of the United States but to the Constitution and the American people. When Emily accepted this leadership role, she also accepted the responsibility to make the tough choices. This is one of those times.
Make no mistake, I absolutely want the Trump campaign to expose fraud, if it is there. As a father, small business owner and lifelong Republican, I do not want a Joe Biden presidency. I simply do not agree with Joe Biden on how to move America forward. But, as an American, I know elections have consequences and my support of our Constitution outweighs my distress at who will be in the Oval Office.
New claims for unemployment benefits in the US rose to 742,000 last week. It is the first increase since early October, as a surge in coronavirus cases keeps a tight check on the US economic recovery.
More than 21 million Americans are currently claiming some form of unemployment insurance.
Even with news of two promising vaccines, the consumer spending that powers the nation’s economic growth could shrivel amid extended business closures.
While the holiday season traditionally brings enormous sales volume for retailers, restaurants, and movie theaters, many are facing a challenging season. Travel is at a near-standstill, consumers’ wallets are already tightly squeezed, and extended pandemic unemployment assistance is set to expire by the end of December.
The economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic continues. The U.S. Department of Labor just reported that another 742,000 unemployed Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits just last week. Meanwhile, there’s still no badly needed Covid-19 economic stimulus package.
Red flag: 4.4 million Americans are receiving "Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation," up from 1.4 million in August.
That's the program for people who have been unemployed for months and exhausted their regular UI.
Climate advocates urge Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond to leverage his new position to help bring attention to their plight
As Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond takes a senior role in the incoming Biden administration, climate advocates and leaders in the fight against toxic air pollution in his district have warned of his history of poor engagement with vulnerable communities and his ties to the oil and gas industry.
But they also have urged him to leverage his new position to help direct attention to their plight.
The new administration has promised to undo Trump’s discriminatory policies, but advocates want to see bold support for queer and trans rights
Joe Biden has promised to undo years of anti-LGBTQ+ policies by Donald Trump’s administration, but advocates and civil rights leaders are urging the president-elect to go further in expanding protections and opportunities for queer and transgender people.
In its four years in office, the Trump administration systematically attacked the fundamental rights of LGBTQ+ people, stripping away safeguards enacted in the previous administration in education, immigration, healthcare, housing and criminal justice.
The US coronavirus death toll has now surpassed 250,029, representing a higher death toll than any other country in the world.
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, x number Americans have now died of coronavirus, more than eight months after the start of the pandemic.
Walmart, McDonald’s and Uber are among the companies that have the most employees on food stamps and Medicaid, according to a report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO looked into the matter at the behest of Bernie Sanders. “These giant corporations pay starvation wages – wages so low their workers have to rely on Medicaid and food stamps,” Sanders said, pointing to several fast food and other companies whose workers have to rely on benefits because they do not make enough money to survive.
These giant corporations pay starvation wages—wages so low their workers have to rely on Medicaid and food stamps to survive:
Walmart McDonald’s Dollar Tree Uber Burger King FedEx Wendy's
This is what a rigged economy is about. We need a $15 living wage and Medicare for All. https://t.co/GFzfK9ERae
Senior House Democrat says Trump ‘views truth as his enemy’
Campaign seeks recounts and investigations in key states
Donald Trump was condemned by opponents on Wednesday for firing the senior official who disputed his baseless claims of election fraud, as the president pressed on with his increasingly desperate battle to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
When Jill Biden, 69, heads to the White House in January, she will be the first to continue her career while in the role
Jill Biden has gone to great lengths to keep her status as a political spouse under the radar from her students, to whom she is known simply as “Dr B”.
In an interview marking the launch of his memoir A Promised Land, Barack Obama tells Oprah Winfrey that the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will help lead the US back to the 'competent, caring government we so badly need'.
He lamented the standard of governance over the past four years, saying Biden and Harris will 'level set' and show that the presidency will not label journalists 'enemies of the state' or 'routinely lie'
According to Trump, votes were illegitimate by dint of where they were cast. “Detroit and Philadelphia are known as two of the most corrupt political places anywhere in our country – easily,” he said. “They cannot be responsible for engineering the outcome of a presidential race.”
This was a new twist in the racial logic of the American right, which has gone from blocking Black people from voting to allowing them to vote as long as their votes don’t all get counted.
In his report on the situation with Iran just now, Patrick Wintour mentioned those reports that Donald Trump is intending to make a significant troop withdrawal from Afghanistan before vacating the White House in January. Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has issued a warning about that this morning.
Associated Press report him saying “We now face a difficult decision. We have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years, and no Nato ally wants to stay any longer than necessary. But at the same time, the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high,” in a statement.
How Republicans applied old school racism to new demographics, and lost
In March 1965, ABC interrupted a showing of its Sunday-night movie – Judgment at Nuremberg, a courtroom drama about Nazi war crimes – to show shocking footage from Selma, Alabama, where mostly Black protesters were being beaten bloody by mounted police with billy clubs as they tried to cross Edmund Pettus bridge into the city, demanding the right to vote.
John Lewis, then just 25 years old, led the way. “I can’t count the number of marches I have participated in in my lifetime, but there was something peculiar about this one,” he wrote in his memoir, Walking With the Wind. “It was more than disciplined. It was somber and subdued, almost like a funeral procession.”