Conservatives See Soft Spot in Trumps Populist Armor: Handling of COVID  RealClearPolitics

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Conservatives See Soft Spot in Trumps Populist Armor: Handling of COVID - RealClearPolitics

The defeat of a ballot initiative in Kansas and coming ballot questions in Arkansas raise a larger question about whether the people in Arkansas are at risk of being shut out of the democratic process by an autocratic legislature, supported by the business lobby.

Context:

MARIJUANA: A group promoting legalization of marijuana for adults has gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot and will go before a state commission today for certification of the ballot title. But David Couch, the Little Rock lawyer who works in initiative campaigns, notes some significant facts about that petition drive.

Responsible Growth submitted 193,000 signatures, needing about 89,000 signatures of registered voters. The secretary of states office checked 159,961 signatures before certifying the drive had 90,375 legitimate signatures, leaving 30,000 uncounted. That means the canvassing validity rate was only around 56 percent. Using professional canvassers from out of state in previous petition campaigns such as medical marijuana and minimum wage amendments Couch said the validity rate was around 75 percent. Responsible Growth has spent about $3 million to gather signatures, a million or so more than past years, he said. Couch figures the lower rate is directly related to anti-petition law changes in the last legislature to prohibit pay per signature and to ban canvassers from out of state.

MAKING PETITIONS EVEN HARDER: A legislatively proposed constitutional amendment, Initiative 2, would require a 60 percent supermajority vote for proposed constitutional amendments or initiated acts to be adopted. This is simply anti-democratic. As Couch also notes, it is not a liberal/conservative issue. The conservative Family Council has used the petition process to successfully attack abortion and same-sex marriage. Big business paid for the drive to expand casino gambling in Arkansas. And so on. But the minimum wage amendment still rankles big business. And Republicans fear good government amendments, such as a non-partisan redistricting commission.

Couch thinks there will be an organized campaign to fight Initiative 2, but Koch types have deep pockets, too, if they chose to engage. The measure was sponsored by a one-time Koch head political worker.

AND SO WHAT ABOUT ABORTION? Couch thinks there will be a future drive related to abortion in Arkansas. Anything would be better than what we have. But the obstacles, particularly if Issue 2 is approved, are daunting. Couch believes as I do and as poll after poll has shown that the majority of Arkansans, though willing to restrict abortion in many ways, do not want to see it totally outlawed. A vote on a sensible measure certainly wouldnt hit the 75 percent mark in opposition. It always hits that level whenever the word abortion is uttered in the Arkansas legislature.

SPEAKING OF BALLOT INITIATIVES: The legislature has put two other stinkers on the ballot Issue 1 lets the legislature call special sessions for whatever awfulness currently moves them. Its now an executive prerogative, one of few remaining. Issue 3 is Christofascist demagoguery. It amends the state constitution to provide that government shall not burden a persons freedom of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. In other words, anybody can discriminate against LGBTQ people whenever and wherever.

Funny thing. The religion amendment could come back to bite its supporters in the butt. Example: The state abortion ban burdens the freedom of religion of many people in Arkansas. Their religious faith (or lack of) permits abortion. As I noted earlier today, the question is already before federal courts, but without the added weight of a sovereign states own express declaration of freedom of religion.

Also this year, we are still waiting for word from the secretary of state on the petition drive aimed at blocking a casino in Pope County. A petition drive financed by the Choctaw Nation to prevent competition for its Fort Smith casino turned in about 100,000 signatures at the outset. If the validity rate was 55 percent, it wont qualify for a cure period to add additional signatures. 75 percent of initially submitted signatures must be legitimate to qualify for additional signature gathering.

Originally posted here:

Can the people rule in Arkansas? Defeating an anti-populist amendment this year is key - Arkansas Times

Populism is a buzzword of our time and has attracted the attention of politicians, commentators, and scholars alike. In democratic contexts, populist politics focuses on charismatic leaders, such as Donald Trump in the U.S., Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Geert Wields in the Netherlands, and Marine Le Pen in France, etc. Except for these charismatic leaders, we also witness the rise of populist parties, which gradually move from marginalized positions to mainstream politics. Populist politics in democratic contexts can be viewed as a top-down phenomenon in which charismatic leaders and populist parties act as mediators, pitting the people against corrupt elites and established institutions. Except for this top-down understanding of populism, there is also a bottom-up approach to populism, which is demonstrated in social movements, such as theOccupy Movement,the Umbrella Movement,the Arab Spring, and theIndignados Movement. The dynamics between online connective actions and offline collective actions further mobilize the majority of people as underdogs to participate and engage in these bottom-up populist social movements. For example, in the Occupy Movement, the commonly used slogan is "We are the 99%." This slogan attempts to evoke the emotional resonance of normal people as underdogs who are facing systematic social and economic inequality. Here, people's emotions are stirred by the fact that the gap between the 1% and the 99% is getting bigger and bigger.

Due to the distinctive social-cultural background, the Chinese political system seems relativelyimmune to the rise of populist leaders and populist parties. However, China, indeed, has also witnessed the rise of populism in the past two decades. It is defined asonline bottom-up populism. The rise of online bottom-up populism is closely related to the popularity of the internet and digital media. The affordances of digital media provide people an unprecedented channel to express their voices, emotions, discontents, and appeals online. The people, covered by the semi-anonymous features of digital media, become netizens and express their concerns online directly, thus raising further public concerns and public discontent. In online bottom-up populism, the netizens serve as the mediators between the people and the elite, appealing in the name of the people. This distinctive bottom-up nature of Chinese populism offers a novel perspective on populism, particularly in the context of digitalization and platformization, both of which are driving forces in today's world.

Online populist protests in China do not depend on resource mobilization or political opportunities, but on emotional mobilization. Emotional mobilization here refers to the process of organizing collective activism by contentious groups who experience the same issues of social injustice, economic inequality, arousing public sense of grievance, indignation, and relative deprivation. In contrast to bottom-up populist social movements in democratic contexts, populist protests in China are limited to online, as offline movements are normally under strict restrictions. As a consequence, emotional mobilization has become an important strategy for online populist protests. AsGuobin Yang argues, the emergence of online protests is a process of emotional mobilization, which heavily depends on "those expressive forms and content that may produce among internet users such emotional responses as joy, laughter, anger, sadness, and sympathy."The aim of emotional mobilization is to stir up the emotions of "disadvantaged" groups and create a unified group feeling in order to get netizens to do or get involved in a certain act, like reposting, commenting, or advocating for official investigations to be open and accountable to the public.

Indignation is one of the main emotions that drives people to engage in online populist protests in China. The widening gaps between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, the privileged and the underprivileged, evoke peoples indignation towards the corrupt elite. For example, on January 17, 2020, aSina Weibouser posted several photos, posing in front of a luxury car inside the Palace Museum (center of Beijing) with the flaunting words, "On Monday, the Palace Museum was closed, so I hurried over, hid from the crowds, and went to play in the Palace Museum." The Palace Museum, as one of the most important historical heritage sites, has banned vehicles from entering its grounds since 2013 and is closed for routine maintenance on Monday. The woman violated the car-driving ban, which is in sharp contrast to another incident that occurred in 2013 when the former French PresidentFrancois Hollandeand his girlfriend visited the Palace Museum and their car was stopped from entering its grounds.Shan Jixiang, who was the curator of the Palace Museum at the time, explained that the car-driving ban was a matter of cultural dignity. He pointed out that the Buckingham Palace in the United Kingdom and the Versailles Palace in France both prohibit cars from entering their grounds.

The woman drivers post soon went viral, and the flaunting behaviour ignited publicdiscontent and indignation. This is an exemplar online populist case in China as it allows us to explore how netizens online connective actions and how their discourse pitted against the rich, privileged elites builds pressure. In order to mobilize more people to participate in an online protest against the privileged elite group, netizens connectively exposed the personal background of the woman driver. Asmore background was exposed, such as that she failed in her master's degree defense, resigned from Air China as an employee, and owns a luxury mansion in the United States, netizens became more indignant towards the corrupt elites. The narrative outlined how a member of the rich elite, who is not well educated and not hardworking, has the privilege of visiting the Palace Museum on Monday with a luxury car, while normal people have to get in by waiting in a long queue on working days. This sharp contrast sets off a public outcry and forms an emotional antagonism. Despite the Palace Museumresponded quickly, informing that stricter management will be implemented to prevent similar incidents from happening again. This vague responsefueled more public indignation, as it failed to address public concerns. Why was she allowed to drive into the Palace Museum? Is this a loophole in management or a flaunting of privilege?

Online bottom-up populist protests in China serve as a pressure valve, allowing the people as underdogs to express their indignation and concerns about key social issues, as this may release the pressure of Chinese social volcano. In particular, the punishment of the culpable elites, to some extent, assuages and compensates for public indignation. The punishment of individualized corrupt elites comforts and compensates public indignation, avoiding online populist protests appeal for institutional changes. In this case, in order to calm public outrage, thecurator of the Palace Museumapologized to the public and said two senior managers were suspended for investigation. Once the public's emotional demands have been partially satisfied, online populist protests will gradually calm down.

The Palace Museum is located in the Forbidden City (center of Beijing). It used to be the palace of the emperors of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644-1911) and a symbol of royal power. The Palace Museum is one of the most important historical imperial palaces and world heritage sites in China /Shot by Peiyuan Zhou.

/Kun He, Alice News

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Emotional Mobilization in Chinese Online bottom-up Populism - Novinite.com

Lucas Kunce thinks populism has been given a bad name. Its outrageous, he says, that people call the Josh Hawleys, the Eric Greitens, the Donald Trumps of the world populist. Populism is about everyday people coming together to have power in a system thats not working for them. So do that, Josh Hawley. I mean, good Lord, what a charlatan.

Kunce is running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Missouri, in the fight to take the states second seat in Washington, alongside Hawley. The primary is on Tuesday.

Kunces main challenger is Trudy Busch Valentine, a prominent donor from the Anheuser-Busch brewing dynasty. Kunces fundraising has been hugely successful but polling is tight.

Kunce has attacked Busch Valentine for representing the donor class, but in conversation he focuses more on attacking Republicans. Hawley, he says, is always talking about masculinity this, that, the other meanwhile, he skitters out of the Capitol from a riot he essentially started. The guy votes for every corporate judge that comes up in front of him. He doesnt do anything that would actually empower everyday people.

And Donald Trump, I mean, he put the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, in charge of our economy. Thats not populism. What they do is divide people based on race, religion, where you come from, in a way that doesnt give everyday people power. They make sure folks are divided so that they dont have power as a whole against the system thats not working.

And so I just think its a tragedy that we give sort of any sort of populist label to these guys because they dont want to change the system.

Now 39, Kunce is a Yale grad who joined the US marines, went to Iraq and Afghanistan and worked in international arms control. Hes a persuasive speaker, even over Google Meet, laptop camera on the fritz.

He is for gun control but he is running in gun country. That in part explains an ad in which Kunce holds an AR-15-style assault rifle, makes as if to fire it and then says that unlike potential Republican opponents including Mark McCloskey, the lawyer who infamously pointed such a gun at protesters for racial justice, he doesnt need to indulge in such macho posturing.

Kunce is also for abortion rights, in a state with a post-Roe v Wade trigger law.

He grew up in Jefferson City, in what would be considered a pro-life house and pro-life neighbourhood. Thats what I knew. And then I joined the Marine Corps. I went out and saw what it was like for these countries where they have oppressive Big Brother governments, where women have no rights. I saw what it was like to live in countries where theres this two-tiered system of rights, where if you have wealth, access and power, the worlds literally your oyster.

And then I see what they did in Missouri here, how these country club Republicans passed the countrys first trigger law, saying abortion is not even available in cases of rape or incest. Its like theyre willing to do that because they know its not going to affect them. Because theyre gonna go out of state, they have the wealth and the means. And so I think thats messed up. People in my old neighborhood, thats whos not gonna have access. Were gonna have a two-tier system here.

And Ive seen people from from my life go through very hard pregnancies I dont think they should ever have to be forced to go through. People should be able to have that right and opportunity And so my position is that I will vote to end the [Senate] filibuster and codify Roe v Wade. I think we need to make that happen.

The Republican primary in Missouri is certainly messy, an all-in scrap in which Greitens, a pro-Trump ex-governor who quit in disgrace and is accused of sexual and physical abuse, could yet come out on top.

Polling suggests a Missouri US Senate seat remains a stretch for any Democrat. All the same, Kunce has attracted national attention. He says that was a surprise.

I had no expectations going into this. I was a guy nobody knew. I wanted to run a campaign where I rejected corporate Pac money, federal lobbyists money, big pharma executive money, big fossil fuel executive money. People basically said that wasnt possible and that was stupid.

And we just decided wed do it the right way anyway. To actually stand for something and to win and to make sure you only represent people like the ones who took care of me growing up, rather than these folks who are buying off politicians and using them to strip our communities for parts.

Im thrilled weve gotten the attention that weve gotten for what were doing and how Democrats can win in the midwest again if they take a real straightforward populist message.

Kunce talks of big, bold investment in the midwest, of spending the sort of billions previously spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on building the next generation of energy technology right here, to build out manufacturing, research and development, were talking wind and solar but were also talking hydrogen, distributed nuclear or modular nuclear, battery technology [and] good union jobs.

Such aims are part of the Green New Deal and Build Back Better, progressive and Democratic plans fiercely opposed by big business and the right. Kunces description of a Marshall plan for the midwest, a reference to US aid for postwar Europe under a Missourian Democratic president, Harry Truman, seems in part a repackaging. He isnt big on progressive labels. Asked about identity politics, he prefers to talk about class.

My focus is on top-bottom, as far as identity politics go. There are a lot of people who are being used as targets, usually the most vulnerable people in our society, by the shareholder class, these massive corporations who are funding campaigns against trans youth, against gay people, against minority communities. They do whatever they can to fund divisive campaigns in order to make it so we dont have a top-bottom race.

This is what I was talking about earlier with these charlatans who pretend to be populist but theyre actually dividing people as much as they can. Im absolutely for protecting communities that are vulnerable. I just dont want to lose sight of this top-bottom dynamic thats really killing us and making it so everybody is fighting for crumbs underneath the table rather than actually having to sit at it.

Kunce has been presented as a representative of progressive masculinity, a type of Democrat who might appeal away from the coasts. He connects the issue back to Republican posturing.

Its crazy. I mean, Mark McCloskey on his AR-15, frightening people who are walking by his house. You dont even hold it right. He would have burned himself up with hot brass if hed shot a round. The fakeness here is just incredible. Josh Hawleys right there too.

Real men arent a bunch of posers. They are people like my dad who sacrifice for their family, sacrifice for their community, stay in the first job they ever took out of school for their entire life, even when theyre miserable, because they needed their little girl to have health insurance so that she would survive. People that invest in their community, in their families.

Its like the guy who inspired me to join the marines. This guy named Al. When I was a kid, we always volunteered at the church soup kitchen. Twice a month wed go down there and this guy who ran the kitchen, he was always like, OK, what chores do all the kids want to do? And my little sister and I were always like, Oh, we want to do the dishes. And Al was always confused about why two kids wanted to do the dishes.

But at my house with a big family, doing the dishes, man, it was like 40 minutes of standing at the sink, hurting your back, scrubbing hard and drying. Well, the church kitchen had a dishwasher. So doing the dishes was a scam there. You just threw a bunch of stuff in and walked away. I was like, This guys an idiot, he thinks were doing a chore. And so Al figured that out.

And two years later, when he renovated the kitchen in his house, he took his old dishwasher, put it in his pickup truck, drove it to our house and installed it for us, because he remembered that and he wanted to do something for somebody.

Thats what a real man does. Thats masculinity. Al was a marines officer in Vietnam. Never talked about it. Just, you know, quiet fortitude. Thats what I think being a man is and its why I joined the Marine Corps and its why I think these [Republican] guys are just a bunch of posturing peacocks.

My last question is in part prompted by Kunces mention of quiet fortitude. Kunce is a fan of Clint Eastwood movies. Which is his favorite?

Unforgiven. Because Unforgiven was such a comeback for the western brand. It brought it back in the early 90s. And I thought that was really cool. I mean, I watch all the old ones. Pale Rider, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly but I think Unforgiven was just, it was a real comeback story for the genre which I love.

Im for In the Line of Fire. If Kunce wins on Tuesday, the Republicans will be too.

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Lucas Kunce: Populism is about everyday people coming together - The Guardian US

The truth is that the two coexisted within Podemos, and the creative tension between these two realities accounted in part for its initial success. But the two souls have fought a very unequal war to the death, ending up with defeat for one of them as well as the original project.

Podemos emerged in 2014 after a cycle of social struggles that began with the emergence of the Indignados movement in 2011. This process of popular mobilization had shown that large sections of the population were breaking with the two major traditional parties, and it expressed a rejection of the economic policies that had developed after the 2008 crisis. The movement, which was part of a global cycle of mobilizations, also allowed thousands of people to experiment with new forms of participation and political and social action: occupations of squares, popular assemblies, use of social networks as a means of expression and organization and so on. We have also seen the emergence of slogans and demands with broad popular support: against corruption, against neoliberal economic policies, for the renewal of the political system, defence of public services including education and health.

Podemos set itself the goal of giving electoral political expression to this movement. But, even if it has often been perceived as its emanation, in fact it has never been organically linked to the Indignados movement and originated rather from the initiative of a small group of activists who, in alliance with Izquierda Anticapitalista (now Anticapitalistas), launched the project.

The initial launch of Podemos in January 2014 presented itself as a citizens initiative which, in continuity with the struggles of 2011-2014, intended to make the voice of the social majorities heard in the political field. It therefore presented itself as an organization different from all political parties, a kind of democratic tool with horizontal functioning, allowing a kind of direct democracy in the electoral context. Podemos took up the most popular slogans of the period, with a clearly radical program of rupture with neoliberalism and the regime of the 1978 Constitution.

The call to form circles or self-managed rank-and-file committees, to build the electoral campaign from below, was a remarkable success and made it possible to launch a fairly massive campaign with extremely limited resources. Podemos success was also based on the popularity of its spokesperson, Pablo Iglesias, who became known for his participation in televised political debates, first organized by himself and then as a guest of right-wing media. The popularity of Iglesias made it possible to give a visible figure to the project, with which people could easily identify.

However, this aspect also carried the risk of centralization around one person of the future organization. Indeed, Iglesias and those around him used it to ensure full control of all formal decision-making processes, adopted by electronic voting by the mass of members. From the beginning, the possibility of joining Podemos without even paying a membership fee or attending a meeting made it possible to reach hundreds of thousands of people interested in the project. But this massive membership also created a party base much broader than that of activists organized in circles, but far less active and less involved in party-building debates.

These contradictions exploded in the preparation of the first congress, or citizens assembly according to the language of Podemos. Debates on forms of organization give rise to various proposals on how to build a new force allowing a radical democracy with a certain degree of centralization and efficiency. Anticapitalistas worked with many others to synthesize these proposals, federating local groups with diverse ideas, but animated by the common project of a democratic activist force.

In reaction to this, Iglesias followed a quite simple tactic: he presented a firm position with a system of organization designed to remove any role from the rank-and-file assemblies and give the secretary general unlimited power in the election of local councils, done by electronic vote. His argument was reduced, as the vote approached and the result seemed uncertain, to simple blackmail: if this system was not validated, he would withdraw as spokesperson for the future organization.

These two proposals clashed at the congress. While in face-to-face meetings things seemed equal, the final decision was made online by the hundreds of thousands of members that Podemos already had at the time (November 2014). Iglesiass project was adopted, that of a party with disproportionate power for the executive, validating its orientations by internal plebiscites, and with an intermediate structure which was virtually non-existent and built from above.

This congress will be remembered for the phrase in Iglesias speech that he used to attack the alternative position: Heaven is not taken by consensus, it is taken by assault. Against the inclusive deliberative processes that animated most Podemos activists, the authority of the leader imposing himself internally was invoked, based on the prospect of a rapid (electoral) victory. It was also an implicit break with the spirit of the Indignados movement, which had privileged horizontal, consensual methods, expressed in the slogan of the Puerta del Sol plaza: We go slowly because we go far.

Since these methods of debate led to moments of inefficiency and frustration, the principle of consensus as the only means of decision-making had often been replaced in assemblies by broad majority voting procedures. But the spirit of Podemos presented by Iglesias was a drastic break with all this. With the objective of winning the general elections quickly, made credible by good scores in the polls, the choice of an electoral war machine party was made, which completely eliminated any deliberative and inclusive process. In fact, the construction of the party after the founding congress involved a fierce struggle against the self-managed circles and their activists, and their replacement by local councils effectively chosen from above and validated by electronic vote. This war against the circles often hid behind a war against Anticapitalistas, with a half-sincere half-feigned paranoia about our infiltration into the rank-and-file assemblies (fortunately for the circles, they were much bigger than us and we had extremely limited means to influence them locally).

Podemos was soon transformed into an empty shell, focused on its parliamentary and institutional apparatus with all power emanating from the Secretary General and his entourage. Years later, Iglesias acknowledged the mistake" of killing the circles, and they tried to rebuild a party structure with activist participation. But the possibility of creating a new force, which would integrate the most active and dynamic elements of our social camp, had long been wasted.

The bitter outcome of the founding congress forced Anticapitalistas to rethink its role in Podemos, which bore no resemblance to the new force we had imagined, a party-movement, radically democratic and militant. However, we chose to stay, based on the progressive role that Podemos continued to play in Spanish politics, the expectations of millions of workers in this new project, and a certain degree of agreement with the leadership on the need for a break with the Spanish political and economic system and the need for a constituent process. It was clear to us that we had a quite different idea about what form such a process should take, and that these strategic differences would lead to a break at some point, but we chose to continue working together trying to make our ideas and methods heard.

The lack of internal democracy of the new organization has made even more obvious to us the need to combine participation within it with our own construction as an independent revolutionary organization, with its own political profile and total autonomy, including financial autonomy, in relation to Podemos and the institutional positions obtained by participating in the lists presented in the elections.

At the beginning of 2020, when Iglesias and his followers joined the coalition government with the Socialist Party, we decided to leave Podemos definitively. We waited for a moment of historical inflection, understandable by the masses, which effectively showed that Podemos had become incapable of embodying a project of rupture. Anticapitalistas came out strengthened from this experience, both numerically and by the experience of having led this battle unitarily.

The irruption of Podemos into the parliamentary institutions made possible a generational renewal of elected representatives, illustrated by the famous image of the deputy with dreadlocks in front of the sluggish gaze of President Rajoy. Some of these new deputies were originally representatives of social struggles or left-wing activists linked to them. This has undoubtedly allowed a greater visibility of workers struggles, feminists, for public services or for the rights of immigrants, who have thus been able to make themselves heard in the institutions.

However, the strategy of the Podemos leadership was based on a strong principle of delegation, which transferred all activist efforts to the electoral level, and placed all hopes on the importance of the leaders, who became parliamentary representatives, then government representatives. This consolidation of Podemos has therefore also contributed to a great demobilization and the end of the cycle of struggles.

The integration of Podemos into the coalition government has only accentuated this phenomenon: once all autonomy has been lost due to agreements within the government, Podemos is even less able to represent an alternative voice and express the more radical expectations of change that emanate from social struggles and movements.

Translated by International Viewpoint from lAnticapitaliste la revue.

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Podemos: party of struggles or populist operation from above? - International Viewpoint

anc politics As the ANC tries to arrest any further electoral decline, its taken a turn to populism in rhetoric, at least. Its tying itself in knots in the process

04 August 2022 - 05:00 Carien du Plessis

One of the most gruesome events in recent years cast a long shadow over the ANCs policy conference, which started at Nasrec on Friday. Hours before, eight young women were raped and robbed by a group of men in Krugersdorp. The details were still unclear, yet the incident featured early in proceedings, in President Cyril Ramaphosas opening speech.

Not much later, the police arrested dozens of foreign nationals. While some were in possession of documents allowing them to be in SA legally, most werent. But it wasnt immediately clear how or if they were linked to the crime. That didnt stop the ruling party from using the horrific incident to defend a populist proposal to clamp down on immigration. ..

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All aboard the populist bandwagon - BusinessLIVE

Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan sat down with the Daily Caller News Foundation to discuss the growing populist sentiments occurring within the Republican party and how the shift may affect the 2022 midterm elections.

For Jordan, the future of the GOP lies in embracing a more populist form of conservatism, which focuses on hyper-nationalism, deep skepticism of elites and a deep distrust of the government. Jordan applauded the transition in the party and credited former President Trump for being the catalyst of the change.

We are now a populist party rooted in conservative principle, Jordan told the DCNF. And I think thats a good thing.

Jordan said that the GOP has become the party of the working man, the average American, and those not represented by the coastal elite. He also said the move is essential to minimize the growing leftist threat in politics and culture nationwide.

Right-leaning populists make up 23% of Republicans, making them a growing sect in the GOP, according to a poll conducted by Pew Research. Populists support traditional conservative values, like tougher policies on illegal immigration, but tend to hold different values on issues such as taxes on corporations.

However, this shift could open the door to more government intervention in certain areas that traditional conservatives normally would reject, including the recent push to permanently ban abortion at the federal level and using Congress to undercut big tech in the name of creating an environment for free speech.

Because its populist, well yeah, then there is a little more government than we would traditionally like as conservatives who were [like] Buckley or Reagan and that is the modern Republican party, Jordan said.

CINCINNATI, OH MAY 3: Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance arrives onstage after winning the primary, at an election night event at Duke Energy Convention Center on May 3, 2022 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Vance, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, narrowly won over former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, according to published reports. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

When asked why Republican candidates who are embracing this new realignment were underperforming in their polling and fundraising, he seemed to dodge the question, instead emphasizing that most GOP candidates will win in November. He argued that with the election 100 days away, it was too hard to predict the outcome coupled with general disdain towards Democrats and their policies. (RELATED:Weak Candidates Threaten GOPs Hopes To Retake Senate)

Despite failing to acknowledge the current shortcomings of GOP senatorial candidates, Jordan did warn Republicans not to take anything for granted. He argued that even though it appears 2022 will be a good year for the party, they need to work hard in their campaign efforts to remind voters of the Democrats shortcomings.

Republican Ohio senatorial candidate J.D. Vance has campaigned on this new form of populist conservatism, but its success in a general election remains to be seen. Polling and fundraising data has shown that the populist conservative Vance trails far behind his Democratic competitor, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan.

Ryan has raised over $15 million in a state that Trump won by 8 points in the last two presidential elections, leaving many GOP insiders concerned.

Jordan asserted that if the GOP is to take back the House they would focus on passing legislation regarding energy independence, border security, economic relief and the embrace of a more populist mindset. He emphasized that if the House flips red, he believed the GOP should launch constitutional investigations into the origins of COVID-19, the Department of Justice, and Hunter Bidens.

Jordan told the GOP to tee-up for the 2024 election and place the partys nominee in a good position to win.

I think there is time to win, Jordan told the DCNF. Remember 9 out of 10 Americans think the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

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Jim Jordan Tells GOP To Tee Up And Embrace Populism For 2024 - Daily Caller

PERSONAL CHOICE - I want to talkabout Kansas.

Not about its corn as high as an elephants eye, nor about Dorothy and Toto trying to find their way home, but about Kansas as the geographic and Republican center of America, Kansas as the vintage Norman Rockwell core of America, Kansas as what the Republican Party was before being hijacked by Newt Gingrich and then mugged by a New York real estate con artist.

Im moved to do so because on Tuesday the good people of Kansas voted against a ballot measure that would have stripped from their state constitution a womans right to choose, and they did it by a whopping18-point margin.

For decades, the Republican Party has exploited social fissures in America from immigration to race as its means of deflecting attention from the immutable fact that most Americans, especially those without college degrees and depending on an hourly wage, have been on a long downward escalator, and an ever-larger portion of the economic gains have been going to the top. Republicans have had no economic response to this except to promote the gonzo fiction that tax cuts for the rich somehow trickle down.

For much of this time, Democrats have unwittingly aided this Republican strategy by eschewing the populist-progressive economic policies that attracted downwardly mobile voters in the 1930s and 1940s, and before that, in the 1880s and 1890s. Instead, modern Democrats have substituted a neoliberal stew of free trade, privatization, and deregulation (until big banks or corporations need to be bailed out). The stew has helped corporate Democrats to prosper but, as Ive argued elsewhere, has left the working class in the dust.

But something has now happened that few predicted. The Republicans culture war has come back to bite the Republicans in their incidentals. The GOP has ventured into territory that even Kansans apparently decided was a dangerous overreach. A womans right to choose tipped the scales but the scales were already tipping as the GOP began to encroach on many aspects of private life: contraception, same-sex marriage, transgender bathroom rights, books, and religion.

Kansans, like most Americans, know the difference between what should be left to personal choice and what should be public. But in its ardor to fuel the culture war, the GOP forgot.

In addition, prairie populism lies just under the surface of the Kansas topsoil, as it does in much of the Midwest. Over the last several decades the giant corporations that supply Kansans with seed and fertilizer, and that turn the livestock and crops Kansans produce into food products, have grown much larger and more powerful. They are now among Americas biggest monopolies, siphoning off money from farmers as well as from consumers. If theres one thing Kansans dislike as much as government intruding on their freedom, its big predatory corporations intruding on their meager profit.

Perhaps Kansas, as well as much of the rest of America, is ready for a dose of economic populism. If so, the Democrats pending Inflation Reduction Act with its healthcare subsidies, declining pharmaceutical costs, and boosts for solar and wind power -- may prove more popular in the hinterlands than anyone expected.

As William Allen White, the famed progressive editor of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette in the first half of the twentieth century, once wrote:

Democracy is an experiment, and the right of the majority to rule is no more inherent than the right of the minority to rule; and unless the majority represents sane, righteous, unselfish public sentiment, it has no inherent right.

(White also wrote: My advice to the women of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.)

(Robert Reich, is the Chancellors Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now. This article was featured in Common Dreams.)

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The Very Good People of Kansas - City Watch

Kari Lake declares herself winner in GOP primary for governor

Kari Lake said she won the Republican nomination for Arizona Governor's Office on Aug. 3, 2022. The race has yet to be called.

Samantha Chow, Arizona Republic

Former television news anchor Kari Lake has won the Republican nomination for Arizona governor, climbing past her opponents early lead and rounding out the victory for Trump-backed candidates in the swing state.

The Associated Press called the race for Lake just after 7 p.m. Thursday. Lakewon with a narrow advantage, just shy of 3 percentage points over opponent Karrin Taylor Robson.

Having never held elected office before, Lake turned her more than two-decade career as a newscaster for Fox 10 in Phoenix into political success in part by attacking the news industry that made her locally famous.

Lakeran a campaign that furthered stolen election lies and in many ways echoed former President Donald Trump's brash and populist approach.

Along the trail, she pledged to secure the state's southern border using an untested legal theory and eradicate homelessness through a combination of providing more resourcesand criminalizing those who didn't take advantage of them. Though Lake had already declared victory a day prior, she did so again in a statement Thursday evening, and raised further doubts about the election process.

"Though the results took longer than they should have, Arizonans who have been forgotten by the establishment just delivered a political earthquake," Lake said. It is typical that election results can take several days as counties tally mailed, dropped off and in person ballots.

Taylor Robson, the real estate developer and former member of the Arizona Board of Regents, had a commanding lead among early voters. But Lake, who has spent months lambasting early voting and believes all voting should happen on a single day, picked up two election day voters for each one that cast a ballot for Taylor Robson.

Ultimately, those voters helped push Lake to win the Republican nomination. Lake now will campaign against Democrat Katie Hobbs, Arizonas secretary of state, in the November general election. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who is in his eighth year in office, has reached a term limit and cannot run again.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, when she first declared victory, the 52-year-old Lake said she hoped Taylor Robson, who had put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this battle," would support her bid for governor.

Asked how Lake might court Taylor Robsons support following the bitter attacks of the campaign, Lake offered a personal story from growing up as the youngest of nine siblings in Iowa.

"You have good times, you have bad times, you have fights, and you have some dysfunction, but at the end of the day, you're still brothers and sisters, and you're still family," Lake said. And we are family in this Republican Party. We don't maybe agree on every single thing. but I think we agree on the most important issues of the day. And I believe that Karrin will come in because I know for a fact Karrin loves this state.

Though she had said just a week prior that she had detected "stealing going on" in this year's election, Lake has refused to provide evidence. In declaring victory, she said her supporters "out-voted the fraud."

Lakes narrow victory comes after a 15-month campaign that saw unprecedented spending to defeat her and controversies over shadowy fundraising groups working to support her victory. The race quickly became viewed as the latest test of Trumps power within the Republican Party, and his endorsement last fall certainly helped boost Lake.

Trump-endorsed candidates seeking statewide office had a banner night in Arizona on Tuesday, with each winning their partys nomination in sometimes crowded fields.

A late-in-the-race campaign rally Trump held in Prescott Valley also helped energize support for Lake, and happened to fall on the same day Ducey and former Vice President Mike Pence held events elsewhere in the state for Taylor Robson. The duel brought more attention to Arizona, a battleground state that political observers say either party could win in November.

In nominating Lake, Republican voters showed they are still allegiant to Trump and ready for a departure from Duceys establishment arm of the party that rallied behind Taylor Robson.

While Taylor Robson painted Lake as a phony conservative because of her past support of Democratic President Barack Obama, Lake attacked Taylor Robson as akin to electing Ducey for another four years. On policy, the two leading candidates had many similar priorities, including securing the states southern border, expanding school choice and improving teacher pay.

The Republican field featured two other candidates, and a third, former Congressman Matt Salmon, who ended his bid for governor in June but did so late enough he still appeared on ballots. Salmon and Mesa businessman Scott Neely each drew votes that could have made the difference between a Lake and Taylor Robson victory. Former businesswoman Paola Tulliani-Zen of Scottsdale trailed the race leaders significantly.

With each partys nominees for governor locked in, candidates are now focusing on November and drawing in Arizonas independent and moderate voters.

Lake and Hobbs have differences that go beyond their party and policy priorities.

Lake is one of the states loudest voices furthering Trumps false claims that he won the election in 2020. Dozens of lawsuits across the nation and the Arizona Senates ballot review have found no evidence of widespread, outcome-changing fraud. Hobbs, meanwhile, has defended the election that was her constitutional duty to oversee.

Hobbs has called for Arizonans to look forward instead of staring back to 2020, but that is likely impossible given the role false claims have played in Lake's campaign.

"This race for governor isnt about Democrats or Republicans," Hobbs said in a statement late Thursday. "Its a choice between sanity and chaos. And its about electing a leader who will govern with vision and strength. Im confident Arizonans will reject Lake and her embarrassing sideshow, and we will win in November.

A lingering question is who more traditional Republicans, those who have supported the late Sen. John McCain and align with Ducey, will support or whether they will sit out the race altogether.

The Arizona Democratic Party has already signaled it will court those voters to support Hobbs, releasing a list of all the insults Lake has lobbed at her fellow Republicans, calling them Republicans in name only and lords of the swamp.

Will the same Republicans that Lakes insulted hold their noses to support her? Josselyn Berry, a party spokesperson, said.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669. Follow her on Twitter@sbarchenger.

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Kari Lake wins Republican nomination for Arizona governor - The Arizona Republic

Opinion: The tenor and direction of the Arizona House and Senate changed in the primary, with consequences that could overshadow whatever the next governor does.

Editorial board| Arizona Republic

The spotlight remains on the November matchup for Arizona governor.

But state House and Senate races could have a more directimpact on voters lives.

Sure, the next governor can use her bully pulpit to voice an agenda.

But the Legislature will decide whether to go along with it.

And most of those races have already been decided.

Flipping the House or Senate in the general election remains a longshot. Both are likely to remain in Republican hands.

Meanwhile, primary voters sent the message that they prefer a united and far more populist GOP setting the Legislatures tenor and direction.

The America First slate of candidates was widely victorious in the House and Senate. Rusty Bowers, Joanne Osborne, Tyler Pace and Joel John, conservative lawmakers who faced these opponents because they periodically balked the party line, were resoundingly defeated.

Good for Trump, so far: What to know about Arizona's primary results

Next years Legislature also will be missing some of the lawmakers who could compel compromises including Michelle Udall, who was trounced in her bid for education superintendent, and Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who was trounced in her bid for secretary of state.

Meanwhile, Sen.-elect Jake Hoffman is pushing membership in a newly formed Arizona Freedom Caucus, a multistate effort to get lawmakers to vote as a bloc on red meat issues for populists, including election integrity and critical race theory.

Hoffman says nearly a thirdof returning House Republicans have already signed on, with more to come in the Senate. Its likely that most, if not all, of those newly elected America First candidates will join as well.

Depending on how large that caucus grows and it might be difficult to know, because members wont have to declare it publicly its likely that the next session will be like the last one on steroids (not the cross-party budget compromise that ended it, but the heavily partisanideology fest that led up to it).

Expect even more focus on what schools teach without subject matter experts like Udall, who chaired the Houses education committee, and Paul Boyer, the Senates education committee chair who, after repeatedly balking the party, figured it was safer not to run for reelection.

We already knew, no matter the outcome on Aug. 2, that there would be a giant loss of institutional knowledge in key issues like education and water, particularly among the Republicans who will be calling the shots, when the next Legislature takes its oaths of office.

But thats still a problem.

Because as tempting as it may be to distill education into a matter of what teachers can or cannot say, that oversimplifies the debate.

If the goal is to improve student achievement, especially after a pandemic that decimated the progress most schools were making …

Or to address chronic teacher shortages so all classrooms have a highly qualified instructor at the helm …

Or to revise archaic spending limits and funding formulas to ensure money gets where it is most needed, those are far more complex and nuanced issues. Ones that require deep subject-matter knowledge and a willingness to consider multiple sides, if we have any hope of tackling them.

Ditto with water policy another issue that voters say is of utmost importance to them.

And for good reason. Arizona is sitting on a ticking time bomb. Deep cuts along the Colorado River will further strain groundwater, a finite resource governed by state laws with holes so big you could wedge a troubledGlen Canyon Dam into them.

The next Legislature will be forced to do a lot more to protect this critical resource, even if its predecessors just made a major investment in water augmentation and conservation projects.

Bowers, who as House Speaker played a major role in those efforts,wont be around to shepherd negotiations, and few lawmakers that remain have the deep, nuanced knowledge necessary to make sense of competing proposals.

Add to that an expectation to vote first as a bloc and ask questions later (or, more likely, to not ask questions at all), and these could be perilous times indeed.

Not just for water and education but for other hot-button issues like abortion and voting access that could directly impact lives.

Witness what happened this past session when Republicans ram-rodded a fix on precinct committeemen that ended up angering just about everyone, putting everything else on hold while lawmakers scrambled to undo what they just did.

The legislative process is supposed to be about asking questions, about thinking critically about how bills are worded and making compromises to address constituents concerns. The bills that pass with this back-and-forth are typically stronger, better and stacked with fewer unintended consequences than those that are bulldozed through with no real debate.

But thats what we could be in for, regardless of who takes over theGovernors Office in November.

Kari Lake received top billing on the America First slate; its unlikely for her to balk her legislative compatriots. If Republican Karrin Taylor Robson wins, shed have an equally difficult time rejecting the populist playbook, particularly when all that gets you is a nasty challenge in the next primary election.

As a Democrat, Katie Hobbs might be more willing to use the power of a veto pen. But that could quickly derail the legislative session. And she doesnt have enough compatriots in the House or Senate to block bills or compel major changes before they reach her desk.

Republicans must be willing to ask questions and vote no if valid concernsare ignored.

Time will tell if anyone steps up to fill that role.

This is an opinion ofThe Arizona Republic's editorial board.

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Arizona House and Senate lineup could impact your life more than the governor's race - The Arizona Republic

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are taking part in the Sky News leadership debate. Photograph: PA

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak will take part in a live televised debate tonight at 8pm.

Sky News The Battle for Number 10 will see the two leadership hopefuls field questions from a studio audience comprising Conservative party members.

Truss and Sunak will then be interviewed by Kay Burley.

The 90-minute live broadcast can be watched on among others Sky News and viewed on Sky News YouTube channel and here.

Updated at 15.00EDT

Key events

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Here is a summary of todays events:

Also during the debate, Truss was asked whether integrity has been lost in the Westminster bubble?

Truss said: I would make sure we had zero tolerance for bad behaviour and also offer support to MPs.

She said she would look at the role of the ethics advisor.

I slightly worry about outsourcing ethics to somebody else, she added.

During the debate, there was a question on trust. Nadine Dorries says you cannot be trusted, Burley directed to Sunak.

Boris Johnson deserves enormous credit for what he achieved at the time, he replied. It got to a point when it got too difficult for me to stay. It is simply impossible for a chancellor and PM not to be on the same page on economic policy.

He added that the government was on the wrong side of an ethical problem and enough was enough.

Sunak referred to the Chris Pincher scandal.

It wasnt OK to defend it because it was wrong. We need to bring trust and integrity and decency back into politics.

George Parker, political editor of the Financial Times, has picked up on Truss response to the windfall tax.

Updated at 17.10EDT

Ian Birrell has criticised Sunak for playing the populist card during the debate.

The is Paul Waugh on Kay Burleys question: Will the real Liz Truss please stand up? It will be revisited, and often, he says.

Full Fact has posted on Twitter regarding Liz Truss comments tonight about going to fight in Ukraine.

After technology to measure who the studio audience would vote for between the two candidates crashed, Burley resorts to a show of hands. The vast majority would vote for Sunak.

Updated at 16.41EDT

Some more from tonights debate, Burley asked Sunak why so many people have come out in support of Liz Truss and not him?

Plenty of people who sat around the cabinet table are supporting me, he said.

He said the Conservative party are all one team, all one family and will come together after the leadership election.

Updated at 17.12EDT

Burley asks if he is too rich to be prime minister?

I think the British public judge people by their character and actions, not by their bank account, he says.

Updated at 16.43EDT

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Truss and Sunak face Sky grilling as Bank warns of long recession as it happened - The Guardian