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Progressives would do well to try to understand how millions of Americans turned to him because he offered real hope of prosperity, security and fewer warsHow can anyone vote for someone so... fill in the blank... racist, sexist, unconstitutional, hateful, unhinged? This is the question asked frequently in the UK and here in the States, where I have spent the past three weeks trying to understand the Trump phenomenon.Behind the question is an implied superiority; that we, the clever people, have identified the monster that is Donald Trump, but the deluded masses are too stupid to see it. But what I have found at the Trump rallies I've been to is not stupidity, but frustration, pain and a longing for respect.

Trump refused to welcome Biden in 2021 after his defeat by the Democratic nominee, insisting he had won the election

Tallies are 83% complete, with Trump at 52.7%, but 602,000 uncounted votes give Harris a chance to catch up

The Republican's second presidential term heralds a more inward-looking US where resentment has replaced idealism and nobody wins without someone else losingA dozen years ago - an eternity in American politics - the Republican party was reeling from its fourth presidential election loss in six tries and decided that it needed to be a lot kinder to the people whose votes it was courting.No more demonising of migrants, the party resolved - it was time for comprehensive immigration reform. No more demeaning language that turned off women and minorities - it needed more of them to run for office. Continue reading...

American Exchange Project helps high school seniors travel and meet youths from different sociopolitical backgroundsFor Baltimore native Jessica Osei-Adjei, a week-long trip to Anchorage, Alaska, last summer was more than just her first time traveling solo.I went hiking on a glacier, camping and paddleboarding for the first time," she says. I'm not really an outdoorsy person but doing that was definitely worth it."Trump wins the presidency - how did it happen?With Trump re-elected, this is what's at stakeAbortion ballot measure results by stateA masculinity researcher on the Democrats' fatal miscalculation'Election deniers use Trump victory to sow more doubt over 2020 resultWhat a second Trump presidency means for big US tech firmsWho could be in Trump's new administration Continue reading...

This election has blown a hole in the worldviews of both leftists and centrists. The pandemic may be a more important factorDonald Trump has won, and most shockingly, he won the popular vote. Unlike in 2016, which could be explained as a rejection of Hillary Clinton concentrated in the crucial midwestern states, this year he won convincingly. He has increased his share of the vote, as a percentage of the overall national popular vote, in each of the three elections he has run.Who voted for Trump and why? Many analysts of all political stripes have ready-made explanations for what happened, explanations that usually conveniently reflect the exact beliefs of the analyst. Unfortunately for them, the most common narratives do not stand up to scrutiny. The election results have blown a hole in the worldview of both the center and the left.Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC Continue reading...

Experts say president-elect's bombastic attitude and economic messaging helped flip traditionally blue countiesThe raucous early morning celebration in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood was of a magnitude not seen since the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro died eight years previously. In the immigrant-saturated suburb of Westchester, too, Latinos partied beyond daybreak as Donald Trump's return to the White House was confirmed.Wednesday morning's revelry in south Florida reflected a stunning victory for Trump in the previously solid blue, Hispanic-majority county of Miami-Dade that had not been won by a Republican presidential candidate in more than 30 years. Continue reading...

The masks were never exactly on to begin with - social media was a hotbed of bigotry long before Trump's victory. But winning has emboldened his followersWell that didn't take long, did it? As soon as it became clear that Donald Trump had won the election, social media saw a major spike in gleeful misogyny. And it seems Trump's army of angry incels have found a favourite new catchphrase to taunt women with: Your body, my choice."Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Trump's courting of Arab American voters and the Biden-Harris Gaza policy turned votes away from the DemocratKamala Harris received at least 22,000 fewer votes than Joe Biden did four years ago in Michigan's most heavily Arab American and Muslim cities, a Guardian analysis of raw vote data in the critical swing state finds.The numbers also show Trump made small gains - about 9,000 votes - across those areas, suggesting Harris's loss there is more attributable to Arab Americans either not voting or casting ballots for third-party candidates.Trump wins the presidency - how did it happen?With Trump re-elected, this is what's at stakeAbortion ballot measure results by stateA masculinity researcher on the Democrats' fatal miscalculation'Election deniers use Trump victory to sow more doubt over 2020 resultWhat a second Trump presidency means for big US tech firmsWho could be in Trump's new administration Continue reading...

Study explains THC can help young adults with depression or anxiety but otherwise could worsen sleep problemsMany insomniacs swear by cannabis as a way to help them sleep - while many scientific studies have found that THC actually exacerbates sleep problems.A new study published last week in Addiction might explain why. Continue reading...

Americans voted for the far right without necessarily wanting to endorse a far-right mandate. Trump will claim one anywayThe blame game's in full swing. Armchair campaign strategists just know that Kamala Harris should have thrown Joe Biden under the bus, or gone on Joe Rogan, or - the perennial favorite among self-declared centrists - trashed identity politics. Of course, it matters a great deal to find out why people who voted for Democrats in 2020 failed to turn out; of course, there needs to be an explanation (not freewheeling speculation) about Trump's gains among Latino men in particular.Yet one larger question deserves at least as much attention: why does anything recognizable to international observers as a center-right option seem to have disappeared from our politics? Why was the only 2024 choice between the far right and a vaguely progressive (not progressive enough for progressives, to be sure) center party?Jan-Werner Muller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Carre Otis speaks after court reverses decision and rules lawsuit accusing Gerald Marie of rape in Paris can proceedThe American model Carre Otis has said she is elated" her sexual assault lawsuit against the former modeling agency boss Gerald Marie and New York talent agent Trudi Tapscott was revived by a federal appeals court more than two years after a crushing dismissal.Definitely mixed feelings and really elated," Otis told the Guardian in her first interview since the ruling earlier this week, when asked how she felt about the US second circuit court of appeals reversing a lower court's decision. Continue reading...

We must lay up our supplies - of love, care, trust, community and resolve - so we may resist the stormHere we are in a crisis in which almost everything we love is going to be under siege in the US in ways that will affect the world in many ways. Most of all this will be because a Trump administration is going to go to war on climate action domestically and internationally - on nature itself and the ways we protect it and thereby protect the systems on which human life depends.I was asked to talk about hope. First of all, hope does not mean saying this is not bad, and it does not mean saying that we can defeat it. It just means saying we will keep showing up. That we will not give up. That we will assess our powers and weaknesses and recognise that the future we face looks grim, but we do not know how it will unfold, and neither do those we oppose. How it will unfold depends in no small part on what we do. People too often think hope is smiles and sunshine, when it's fury in the face of danger and oppression, and pressing on in the storm. Continue reading...

After some big roles in Donald Trump's last administration, here are those likely to feature this time roundDonald is not the only Trump back in the picture after his election win.On Tuesday night, members of the former and future president's family posed with him at his Florida estate in celebration of his re-election. Dad, we are so proud of you," wrote Tiffany, Trump's younger daughter, posting the photo on X. It was also shared by his 17-year-old granddaughter, Kai, captioned: The whole squad." Continue reading...

The right funding now can protect the frontlines of the climate crisis from the worst effects of extreme weather eventsAs we approach Cop29 in Baku, world leaders are due to set a new climate finance goal - a sum set aside to help poor countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of the climate crisis. Their negotiations take place against a backdrop of increasingly severe weather events. This year alone, we have witnessed deadly heatwaves across north Africa, Mexico, India and Saudi Arabia; a historic drought across southern Africa; catastrophic wildfires in the Brazilian Pantanal wetlands; record-breaking hurricanes in the Caribbean and the US; and plenty more. The climate emergency knows no borders and spares no one.These events serve as stark reminders of the pressing need for world leaders and all of us to protect vulnerable communities on the frontline of the climate crisis. For many developing countries, particularly in Africa, the cost of climate impacts is staggering. African nations are losing up to 5% of their GDP because of climate extremes, while some are diverting as much as 9% of their national budgets to overcome the fallout from them. The latest report by the World Meteorological Organization estimates that Africa south of the Sahara alone will need $30bn-$50bn annually over the next decade just to meet the costs of protecting communities facing unprecedented climate-related disasters. We will not be able to reduce poverty, eliminate hunger and build a prosperous and resilient global community without addressing the climate crisis.Ban Ki-moon is a former secretary general of the United Nations and co-chair, Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens Continue reading...

President-elect wants to end the wars in Ukraine and Middle East to focus on China. How he will try to get there is unclearIn the first Trump term Richard Moore, then the political director of the UK Foreign Office and now the head of MI6, admitted half of Britain's diplomats woke up each morning dreading what they might read on the president's Twitter feed.The sheer unpredictability of Trump's caprice, and his faith in his quixotic charisma, made it hard for diplomats to operate. It would often taken feverish consultations with Trump's senior aides, including some in the Pentagon, before a plan - such as a premature withdrawal of 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan - could be finessed. Continue reading...

Shifts in production' expected if baseline tariffs on imported goods are imposed to benefit US auto manufacturingIn 1964 the new US president was angry about European trade. Specifically about chickens. In response to Europe's poultry trade barriers, Lyndon B Johnson imposed a 25% tariff on light trucks.That chicken tax" is still in place 60 years later. The rules have contributed to the Ford's F-Series pickup truck's unbroken 42-year run as the bestselling vehicle in the US, and have locked European manufacturers out of a hugely profitable market for two generations. The chicken tax could also serve as a model for Donald Trump's second term in the White House. Continue reading...

Trump has promised to turn back migrants at the southern border, but US law generally prohibits active-duty troops from being deployed for law enforcement purposes

Five people wounded on Friday in stabbings in Chinatown and police suspect other stabbings on Thursday are linkedSeattle police have arrested a man following a two-day spate of random stabbings that injured 10 people, including five on Friday, authorities said.Police made an arrest following a series of attacks on Friday and said it is plausible they are connected" to several other stabbings that unfolded on Thursday, Eric Barden, the city's deputy police chief, told reporters at the scene. Continue reading...

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Trump appointee Stephen McGlynn rules that ban enacted in wake of deadly Highland Park attack is unconstitutionalA federal judge in Illinois who was appointed during Donald Trump's first presidency has struck down the state's assault weapons ban as unconstitutional.Judge Stephen McGlynn also issued an order barring the state from enforcing the ban, though Illinois has time to appeal the ruling after he stayed it for 30 days. Continue reading...

Two men had also planned to go to Texas and kill asylum seekers as well as border agents who would try to stop themTwo men who co-founded a militia group have been convicted of attempting to murder federal agents ahead of a trip to Texas where they intended to shoot people attempting to cross the US-Mexico border.Jonathan S O'Dell, 34, of Warsaw, Missouri, and Bryan C Perry, 39, of Clarksville, Tennessee, also planned to shoot any federal agents who tried to stop them as they targeted migrants, according to the prosecution. Continue reading...

Vice-president Kamala Harris's running mate Tim Walz says the 2024 US election outcome is 'hard to understand'. The governor of Minnesota vowed to 'keep fighting' Donald Trump's 'hateful agenda'. Walz appeared to choke up during the speech in his home state. Harris and Walz lost by a landslide to the Republicans in the election on 5 November

A network of organised disinformation sows doubt, kills policy reform and keep us at odds as we debate Trump-maniaHistorians will long scratch their heads that a Republican candidate who - despite an inability to string a coherent sentence together, being grossly underqualified and rife with extramarital affairs - would go on to not only win election but become one of the most popular presidents in US history.The first candidate to grasp how to use new media" in a presidential campaign effectively and who - rather than getting to work in Washington after the election, as expected, immediately took off on vacation to play golf. Continue reading...

Congress likely not to renew extended ACA coverage next year and Trump's concepts of a plan' for US healthcare are unknown

The gender gap among young people was predictably vast. But the numbers still defied expectations, as the political scientist Melissa Deckman explains

Wildfires in southern California have destroyed more than 130 structures in two days. Firefighters have been working to contain the flames fanned by fierce gusts of winds. About 100,000 people remain under evacuation orders as the fire threatens 3,500 structures in suburban neighbourhoods, ranches and agricultural areas around Camarillo, about 50 miles north-west of Los Angeles

FBI investigating after people report texts saying they were selected to pick cotton and go to nearest plantationJust hours after Donald Trump's election win on Tuesday, Black people across the US reported receiving racist text messages telling them that they had been selected" to pick cotton and needed to report to the nearest plantation". While the texts, some of which were signed a Trump supporter", varied in detail, they all conveyed the same essential message about being selected to pick cotton. Some of the messages refer to the recipients by name.A spokesperson for the president-elect told CNN that his campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages". It is not yet clear who is behind the messages, nor is there a comprehensive list of the people to whom the messages were sent, but social media posts indicate that the messages are widespread. Continue reading...

Immigration advocates say ruling could separate families for years, while Mexico vows to continue measures to stop migrants from reaching US borderA federal judge has struck down a Biden administration policy that aimed to ease a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to US citizens.The program, lauded as one of the biggest presidential actions to help immigrant families in years, allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of US citizens to apply for a green card, the right to permanent legal residency, without first having to leave the country. Continue reading...

President-elect's plan to quash undocumented migration through mass deportations met with Democratic resistanceDonald Trump's vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants has no price tag", the president-elect has said, setting the scene for a confrontation between his incoming administration and Democratic officials across the US.As Democratic state governors and mayors signalled their determination to resist the most extreme elements of his agenda, Trump promised that his campaign pledge to expel an estimated 11 million people - though Trump himself has given a figure as high as 21 million - would be implemented come what may. Continue reading...

Clear links to president-elect and rightwing document emerge after his attempts to distance himself from project

Democrats remain hopeful of gaining razor-thin majority as more than two dozen races yet to be called

Rob Bonta vows to defend state from president-elect's policies threatening immigrants, abortion rights and moreCalifornia was considered a leader in fighting the most extreme policies of Donald Trump's first administration, and after the Republican's decisive win this week, officials in the Golden state say they are more prepared to resist Trump's expected agenda for his second term.Rob Bonta, California's attorney general, will be a crucial figure in that effort, tasked with spearheading litigation and defending vulnerable Californians' rights in the courtroom. It's a tall order as the president-elect has promised policies that could threaten the state's immigrant population, LGBTQ+ residents, climate initiatives, gun safety measures, healthcare programs and abortion rights. Continue reading...

The last time was awful, but now that seems a mere dress rehearsal. From a public health crisis to the end of Nato, the threats are clearAre you ready for Trump unbound? You may have thought the former and future president was already pretty unrestrained, not least because Donald Trump has never shown anything but brazen disrespect for boundaries or limits of any kind. And you would be right. But, as an earlier entertainer turned president - and Trump combines the two roles - liked to say: You ain't seen nothing yet.That's because the 47th president will enter the Oval Office free of almost all constraints. He will be able to do all that he promised and all that he threatened, with almost nothing and no one to stand in his way.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

In an exclusive interview the first American woman to sailboat alone and nonstop around the globe discusses her mission to break down barriersAt only 30 years old she has already conquered the world. Petite, upbeat and outspoken, Cole Brauer recently sailed alone non-stop around the globe in just 130 days, closely documenting her trip on social media. As the only woman to take part in the Global Solo Challenge and the youngest participant, she came second out of 16, behind Frenchman Philippe Delamare.After a lot of chasing, the Guardian caught up with her for an exclusive interview at the Annapolis Sailboat Show on the Eastern Shore. Continue reading...

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz had an opportunity to win a demographic that swung toward Trump - but they didn't fight for it, says the authorIn the months leading up to election day, pollsters were fixated on one demographic: young men. This group, often elusive in political data, was showing signs of a notable swing toward Donald Trump and away from the progressive viewpoints of young women.Traditionally a policy wonk, Richard Reeves became an unlikely media mainstay this election cycle, sought after by those trying to decode the concerns and motivations of these gen Z male voters. Reeves is president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, which he started in 2023 to create research-based approaches to bettering the education, mental health, and work and family life of men. Many of the institute's policy proposals were outlined in Reeves's 2022 book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. Continue reading...

Project 2025 and other far-right groups have outlined a blueprint for Trump's second termAs Donald Trump prepares to move back into the White House, he'll have a host of rightwing groups trying to influence his staffing choices and policy proposals, including the group behind Project 2025, despite Trump's insistence they won't be involved.Democrats repeatedly ran attacks on Trump over Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that its writers want to guide a second Trump administration. Trump tried to distance himself from it and from the group behind it, the Heritage Foundation, one of DC's biggest thinktanks. Continue reading...

Also this week, Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg change their mailing address to Donald Trump's RectumLooking back to Monday, the world seemed a quaint place - but by the end of the week it had become a lot darker. On Tuesday night, Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States, having served as the 45th (Grover Cleveland set the precedent for serving two non-consecutive terms in the White House), and in the first 48 hours there were new norms and proprieties to straighten out. For example: was it productive in the aftermath of the election to call the 72 million Americans who voted for Trump a bunch of idiots? Continue reading...

Russian leader expresses admiration for Trump as race for control of the House intensifies. Plus, why a movement calling for celibacy among straight women is going viral after Trump's winGood morning.Vladimir Putin has congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory and said Moscow was ready for dialogue, in a development that will deeply concern Kyiv and dial up unease across Europe.What has Trump said on Ukraine? He has claimed, with little substantiation, that he could bring peace to Ukraine within 24 hours" - leading to fears within Nato that his plan may just be to order Ukraine to surrender.Where are we up to in the House? The Democrats have 199 seats, while the Republicans are ahead at 211. There are still 25 races to call at the time of writing - but either side only needs 218 for a majority. Continue reading...

The whole horror show seems so predictable now, doesn't it? Just like it did the last time ...My husband knows masses more about US politics than me, so do imagine how much he enjoyed me spending the best part of the past two years telling him Trump's going to win", simply because I felt it in my vibes. However, earlier this year, he started to agree with me, which I had to concede meant a lot because he was basing it on actual information, and had the first clue what he was talking about. Scrolling back through my text messages to him, I am reading things such as: Sorry, Harris is selling joy'???? Please tell me the election anywhere in history that was won on joy because I would LOVE to hear about it." (Sidenote: I can see from reviewing the data that I've really over-leaned into the sassy question mark this year.)Anyway, there's plenty more in this vein. I don't believe all this polling, I just think it's all some massive cope?" Yet when I was asked on the afternoon of election day who I predicted would win it, I promptly said Kamala Harris?" Later that night, on the phone, my husband wondered mildly why I had abandoned the conviction of long months of kitchen rants and annoyingly punctuated text messages. I don't know," I replied. I guess I just ... forgot?"Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The Democrats must learn to speak to voters who don't believe in the politics of old and aren't interested in returning to itThe ever-splenetic HL Mencken once wrote that democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard". He was no liberal, but it's a line many Democrats today would be taken with. On Tuesday, the first wave of election postmortems have lamented, the American people took the full measure of Donald Trump - oaf, cheat, bigot and fascist - and re-elected him under no illusions, in full cognizance of what another Trump term would mean for the country.One can quibble with this just a bit: there's a lot that emerged over the course of this campaign that most voters probably didn't know much about, from a plan to invade Mexico that Trump may well have forgotten himself to late breaking news on the depth of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Still, frustrated Democrats are directionally correct here on the whole. Trump won this election fairly, squarely and soundly as a well-known quantity - a former president and the most widely discussed man in the world, who will return to the White House in his 10th year at the center of American life.Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Move follows church's 2020 bankruptcy filing, hundreds of allegations and a standoff with survivorsIn a gesture of reconciliation to victims of its decades-old clergy molestation scandal, the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans has tentatively agreed to publicly release the confidential personnel files of priests and deacons faced with substantial allegations of child sexual abuse.Church officials on Thursday announced the plan to disclose clergy files as one of several non-monetary commitments in the US's second-oldest Catholic archdiocese efforts to settle a costly federal bankruptcy reorganization first filed in 2020. Continue reading...

The party, increasingly divorced from workers, leaned too much on an activist base instead of a voting baseI turned on MSNBC after the election results came in and this, verbatim, was the commentary I heard: This really was a historic, flawlessly run campaign. She had Queen Latifah [who] never endorses anyone! She had every prominent celebrity voice, she had the Taylor Swifties, she had the Beyhive. You could not run a better campaign in that short period of time." Democrats, it seems, are already blaming their defeat this week on a host of contingent factors and not on their own shortcomings.It's, of course, true that inflation has hurt incumbents across the world. But that doesn't mean that there was nothing that Joe Biden could have done to address the problem. He could have rolled out anti-price-gouging measures early, pushed taxes on corporate super profits and more. Through well-designed legislation and the right messaging, inflation could have been both mitigated and explained. That's what president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador offered his supporters in Mexico and his governing coalition enjoyed commanding support. Continue reading...

Revealed: new book by far-right Kevin Roberts calls for conservatives to burn away the rot' of US institutionsA new book by the chief architect of Project 2025, a hugely controversial policy plan for a second Trump term, repeatedly employs imagery of fire and burning, including calling for rightwingers to burn away the rot" of American institutions and organizations deemed opposed to conservative aims.The news comes after a White House address on Thursday, two days after Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in the US presidential election, when Joe Biden called on Americans to bring down the temperature" after months of heated political battle. Continue reading...