UK
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY

Angela Rayner poses for British Vogue in an outfit worth £3,570

AND SHE WEARS IT WELL

the clothes are not her own and were just borrowed for the Vogue feature.


Dominic Penna
Tue, 21 November 2023 

Angela Rayner said: 'I didn’t go to Eton. People don’t expect me to be in the room. I’ve always had to earn my place' -

 TOBY COULSON/See the full feature in the December issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 21 November

Angela Rayner has told Vogue magazine she has “earnt her place” in Westminster as she wore an outfit worth £3,570.

The deputy Labour leader claimed she has been subject to classism throughout her time as an MP and that some Tory politicians cannot empathise with the problems facing less wealthy voters.

She posed in a photoshoot for the fashion magazine wearing a £1,995 oversized coat and £880 pink shirt, both from the independent label Emilia Wickstead, paired with Jimmy Choo calf leather shoes worth £695.

A source close to the frontbencher confirmed the clothes are not her own and were just borrowed for the Vogue feature.

Angela Rayner said: 'I get compliments but a huge amount of abuse' - TOBY COULSON/See the full feature in the December issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 21 November

Ms Rayner recalled a row last year with Dominic Raab, during his time as deputy prime minister, in which he made a dig at her attendance at the Glyndebourne opera festival, calling it “champagne socialism”.

“It frustrates me – it’s not just what [Raab] thinks of me, but people like me,” she said. “How can you be in the second-highest position and think that way about half the electorate? How can you understand the challenges they face?

“I didn’t go to Eton. People don’t expect me to be in the room. I’ve always had to earn my place.”

Noting she had been called “thick as mince” on social media and compared to Vicky Pollard – a caricature of a “chav” in the comedy series Little Britain – Ms Rayner added: “My team dread it when I’ve been on television or PMQs.

“I get compliments but a huge amount of abuse. It’s become part of the job.”

Ms Rayner also insisted her working relationship with Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, had improved over the years after a number of reported disagreements between the pair, including his alleged attempts to demote her during 2021 only for her to end up with a promotion.

“I think we complement each other because we’re very different,” she said. “If I was just ‘yes, everything you say is wonderful’, you wouldn’t get feedback. Same with him to me.

“Our leadership has evolved, like any team when you’re thrown together. Whatever the office politics is like... We understand each other now.”

See the full feature in the December issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday Nov 21.

British Vogue December 2023

‘Breakthrough battery’ from Sweden may cut dependency on China

Northvolt says new lithium-free sodium-ion battery is cheaper, more sustainable and doesn’t rely on scarce raw materials

Alex Lawson

GUARDIAN

Tue 21 Nov 2023

Europe’s energy and electric vehicle industries could reduce their dependency on scarce raw materials from China after the launch of a “breakthrough” sodium-ion battery, according to its Swedish developer.

Northvolt, Europe’s only large homegrown electric battery maker, has said it has made a lower cost, more sustainable battery designed to store electricity which does not use lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt.

Britain and Europe’s electric battery industry is reliant on raw materials, or completed batteries, sourced from China and other Asian nations.

Northvolt said its new battery, which has an energy density of more than 160 watt-hours per kilogram, has been designed for electricity storage plants but could in future be used in electric vehicles, such as two wheeled scooters.

“Using sodium-ion technology is not new but we think this is the first product ever completely free from critical raw materials. It is a fundamental breakthrough,” said Patrik Andreasson, Northvolt’s vice-president of strategy and sustainability. “This provides an option that is not dependent on certain parts of the world, including China.”

Asked if Northvolt would open operations in the UK, Andreasson said: “We have our hands full. We have a clear path of where we are going.”

The prototype battery has been developed at the company’s labs in Västerås, Sweden, and will be shown to customers next year. The company has not decided where the battery will be manufactured in larger quantities.

Storing electricity in batteries on an industrial scale is seen as crucial to decarbonising national electricity grids. Battery projects store energy from wind and solar panels which can be used when the wind drops or sun is not shining.

MPs have long voiced concerns over the dependence on China’s scarce resources for critical minerals amid deteriorating Anglo-Sino relations and a carmaking industry swiftly switching towards electric vehicles. Battery makers have looked to diversify their supply chains and use alternative technologies in an attempt to combat this.

Britain and its neighbours hope to develop homegrown electric battery industries with varying success. Britishvolt, which had hoped to build a £3.8bn gigafactory in northern England, collapsed earlier this year, but the sector was given a boost by Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata’s decision to build a £4bn specialist factory in the UK.

Andreasson said: “When you think about energy security, it’s inconceivable to think about operating without leaders. The impact of creating jobs it can bring cannot be underestimated. You need to have local or regional champions.”

Northvolt produced its first lithium ion battery cell at a plant in northern Sweden in late 2021.

Andreasson said that the energy density of the new battery was lower than most lithium equivalents but it would aim to build that up in the new product, while keeping costs low.

Northvolt said the battery, which is based on a high-sodium Prussian white cathode and hard carbon anode, is safer than alternatives at high temperatures. As a result, the company is targeting markets such as the Middle East, India and Africa.

Northvolt, which counts Volkswagen as an investor and Volvo and BMW among its customers, has been tipped to float on the stock market but has no immediate plans to do so.

UK
Reasonable for protesters to call Iain Duncan Smith ‘Tory scum’, court rules


Andrew Popplewell
Daniel Boffey Chief reporter
Updated Tue, 21 November 2023

Photograph: Jon Super/AP

Two protesters were “reasonable” in calling Iain Duncan Smith “Tory scum” outside the Conservative party conference, the high court has ruled, in a rejection of an attempt to overturn their acquittal.

Lord Justice Popplewell and Justice Fordham said no fault in law was made by a senior district judge last November in finding Ruth Wood, 52, and Radical Haslam, 30, not guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent.

In response to a request for a judicial review from the director of public prosecutions, the high court found that Judge Goldspring, who is also described as a chief magistrate, had made the important finding that “the use of Tory scum was to highlight the policies” of Duncan Smith, and that this was relevant to the “reasonableness of the conduct” in relation to the rights of freedom of expression and assembly.


There was nothing to undermine Goldspring’s conclusion that criminalising the words “Tory scum” would be a disproportionate interference in the two protesters’ rights, the high court ruled.

Tom Wainwright, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers representing Wood and Haslam, said the judgment represented an important defence of the right to freedom of expression.

He said: “Just the idea that someone can be convicted for saying this is bizarre in the first place. The director of public prosecutions was trying to put the burden on the defendants to show that they hadn’t crossed the line – the crucial question of when free speech crosses the line into something that is criminal.

“What this judgment confirms is that it is not for the defence to show that, but it is for the state to show that there is a good reason to restrict free speech and that a conviction is the only way that could be done.”

Wood and Haslam were outside the Midland hotel in Manchester, where the Conservative party annual conference was taking place in October 2021, when Duncan Smith, a former welfare secretary, emerged to walk to the Mercure hotel for a conference about Brexit. He was accompanied by his wife, Betsy Duncan Smith, and her friend Primrose Yorke.

As Duncan Smith crossed the road, an individual ran up behind him and placed a traffic cone on his head. The former Tory leader removed the traffic cone, called the protesters “pathetic” and continued on his way.

Haslam and Wood had followed Duncan Smith from a short distance. They separately called him “Tory scum”. Wood added: “F**k off out of Manchester.”

Wood defended her comments on the grounds that her job working with homeless people in her local community meant she felt very strongly about the impact that Conservative party policies were having on people’s lives.

Haslam’s comments were made in a speech in which he cited child poverty homelessness, and a lack of action over the climate emergency as reasons “why people hate you, why people call you scum”. He added: “It doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from what you have done to ordinary people’s lives … shame on you, Tory scum.”

Neither of the protesters had been aware of or encouraged the act of putting a traffic cone on Duncan Smith’s head.

Their comments came after Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, had been recorded at her party’s conference describing the Conservatives as “homophobic, racist, misogynistic … scum”.

The high court ruled that the defence needed to set out the facts for a “reasonable conduct defence” in relation to the freedom of expression and assembly rights in the European convention on human rights, but that it had been up to the prosecution to demonstrate the proportionality of an interference with those rights, which it had not done.

UK

Jeremy Hunt confirms pay boost for nearly 3 million workers as living wage rises to more than £11 an hour (13.78 US Dollars)

IT'S A MINIMUM WAGE UNDER $15 PER HR

Kate Devlin
Tue, 21 November 2023 

Jeremy Hunt confirms pay boost for nearly 3million workers as living wage rises to more than £11 an hour
In this article:

The national living wage is to increase to more than £11 an hour from next April, Jeremy Hunt has announced.

The chancellor said move would “end low pay in this country” as he said nearly three million workers would receive an hourly wage of £11.44, as he prepares to unveil the autumn statement on Wednesday.

The move will benefit nearly three million of the lowest paid.

The government had set a target for the national living wage to reach two-thirds of median hourly pay by October next year.

Announcing last month that he wanted the rate rise to “at least” £11 an hour, Mr Hunt said he wanted to “complete another great Conservative reform, the national living wage.”

The rate is currently £10.42 for workers aged over 23, but the new figure will apply to 21 and 22-year-olds for the first time.

The National minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds will also increase by £1.11 to £8.60 per hour, the government has said.

Apprentices will have their minimum hourly rates boosted. An 18-year-old in an industry like construction will see their pay increase by more than 20%, from £5.28 to £6.40 an hour.

Mr Hunt hailed the rise and said it would “end low pay in this country, delivering on our manifesto promise”.

Further measures will be set out by Mr Hunt in the autumn statement.

Nye Cominetti, principal economist of the Resolution Foundation, said: “The more than £1 an hour increase in the National Living Wage next year is huge – the third biggest rise ever in both cash and real terms. At least 1.7 million workers across Britain will benefit from this latest rise, and many more will see their wages boosted indirectly. “

She added: “The minimum wage is one of Britain’s greatest ever policy triumphs – playing a key role in reducing low pay to a record low, and benefitting women and younger workers in particular. But it can’t be the only tool we use to improve people’s working lives. We now need to build on its success to drive up wider working conditions for low earners in terms of job security and access to holiday and sick pay.”

Heather Rogers, leading media and defamation lawyer who acted for Deborah Lipstadt against David Irving – obituary

Telegraph Obituaries
Mon, 20 November 2023 

Heather Rogers, KC: Deborah Lipstadt praised her 'uncanny ability to put her hands on the precise document at precisely the right time' - Alamy

Heather Rogers, KC, who has died from a pulmonary embolism aged 64, was one of the most talented media and defamation lawyers of her generation and appeared in a string of high profile cases, most memorably as junior defence counsel to Richard Rampton (her longtime friend and mentor) in the Lipstadt/Irving libel trial in 2000.

In her book Denying the Holocaust (1993), the American historian Deborah Lipstadt had called the English author David Irving “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial”. Choosing to represent himself at the High Court trial after suing Lipstadt and her publishers Penguin for libel, Irving got himself into several spectacular tangles, once inadvertently addressing the judge, Sir Charles Gray, as “Mein Fuhrer” during his closing submissions, prompting gasps of disbelief from the rest of the courtroom.

Gray’s devastating judgment against Irving was based on Heather Rogers’s synthesis of the historical evidence and was widely considered a tour de force, destroying Irving’s credibility as a historian of the Third Reich and leaving him with a £2 million bill for costs.

David Irving ducking eggs as he arrives at the High Court to hear the verdict in his libel case - MARTYN HAYHOW


In her subsequent account of the case, History on Trial (2005), which was later made into the film Denial (written by David Hare), Deborah Lipstadt paid tribute to Rogers’s “down-to-earth, no-nonsense quality”; her “calm but determined manner and evident empathy”; and her “uncanny ability to put her hands on the precise document at precisely the right time”.

The film’s focus could never be Rogers’s painstaking and vitally important analysis of the documents but the outcome of the case (and indeed of all her cases) was always far more important to her than any credit she might or might not receive.

Heather Rogers was born on June 3 1959 in Wolverhampton, where her father George worked as a carpenter and her mother Olga (nee Ingram) as a secretary. After Wolverhampton Girls’ High School she read Law at the London School of Economics, graduating with a First.

Inspired to become a barrister by watching TV courtroom dramas and determined “to fight for truth and justice”, she later came top of her year in her Bar exams with what was said to be the highest ever mark.

Called to the Bar in 1983, she was taken on as a tenant at Dr Johnson’s Buildings, where she had been Geoffrey Robertson’s first pupil, before moving in 1985 to 10 South Square, the set now known as 5RB. There would be several more moves between leading media sets in the years to come.

In 2000 she was one of the founders of Matrix Chambers, where she stayed until she joined Doughty Street Chambers in 2009, then 1 Brick Court (Richard Rampton’s set) in 2015, and when that set folded in 2019 she returned to Doughty Street, where she remained.

Heather Rogers as a junior, when she was 'the skilful pen behind many a libel silk’s sword', according to George Carman's son and biographer Dominic - Matrix Chambers

A specialist in libel defence work, Rogers cut her teeth as a young barrister working as an in-house lawyer on Robert Maxwell’s London Daily News. Her pre-publication advice was considered second to none.

In 1988 she apologised to the Queen on behalf of the Sun newspaper for publishing a leaked royal family photograph of Princess Beatrice and agreed that it would pay £100,000 to four charities chosen by the Queen in settlement of the case.

She was junior counsel to notable QCs such as George Carman – whose son and biographer Dominic Carman later described her as “the skilful pen behind many a libel silk’s sword” – and Charles Gray, who led her in the case of Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspapers (1993), in which the House of Lords ruled that governmental bodies can not sue for libel as they should be open to uninhibited public criticism.

Gray also led Heather Rogers in Esther Rantzen v Mirror Group (1994), in which they succeeded in getting the damages awarded reduced from £250,000 to £110,000, and in Elton John v Mirror Group (1997), in which the Court of Appeal said it was legitimate to draw juries’ attention to standard tariff awards in personal injuries cases as a means of limiting the size of libel awards.

Led by Carman defending Mohammed Al Fayed against Neil Hamilton, it was Heather Rogers who devised the famous characterisation of Hamilton as being “on the make and on the take”.

Christine and Neil Hamilton, the former MP for Tatton, arriving at the High Court to hear Mohammed Al Fayed finish his evidence, 2000 - Rob Bodman

Obeying the Bar’s cab rank rule, she occasionally acted for libel plaintiffs, appearing as junior counsel to Richard Rampton for George Galloway in his successful action against the Telegraph in 2006 over reports that had been in the pay of Saddam Hussein. And she was led by John Kelsey-Fry for Roman Polanski in his successful case against Condé Nast over an article in Vanity Fair claiming he had tried to seduce a Scandinavian model on his way to Sharon Tate’s funeral by claiming he could make her “another Sharon Tate”.

In 2003 Heather Rogers again found herself in the media spotlight as counsel to the journalist Andrew Gilligan at the Hutton Inquiry, set up to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, the former UN weapons inspector in Iraq who committed suicide after being named as Gilligan’s source for his BBC Today programme report that the government had “sexed up” the dossier into Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.

After taking Silk in 2006, Rogers defended the Sunday Times over allegations that the cyclist Lance Armstrong had cheated by taking performance enhancing drugs, an unusual case in which damages were paid to the plaintiff but later returned after he confessed his guilt.

In 2010 she was the co-architect of Lord Lester’s draft Defamation Bill, which was hailed by the government as “the most significant driver of reform” and which greatly informed the subsequent Defamation Act (2013).

More recently she had acted for the nephews of Sir Frederick Barclay over allegations that they had planted listening devices to spy on him and his daughter at the Ritz hotel, and for the Media Lawyers’ Association in Serafin v Malkiewicz, the Supreme Court case which confirmed the reduced burden on journalists advancing a “public interest” defence to publication, as introduced by the Defamation Act.

She had been due to represent the Stonewall trustee Simon Blake and the drag artist Crystal (Colin Seymour) in their libel action against the actor and political activist Laurence Fox over his tweets calling them “paedophiles” and his counterclaims against them for describing him as a “racist”.

Heather Rogers’s clarity of expression and ability to make the right point at the right time made her highly effective when speaking on her feet, when she was apt to kick off her shoes beneath the table, out of sight of the judge.

Ferociously clever but also notably warm, kind, generous and unpretentious, she enjoyed the arts, literature, theatre and music, but, always loyal to her working class roots, preferred Greggs to Pret a Manger and was as happy listening to cheesy pop as she was to anything classical.

She is survived by her wife, Julie Edwards, the film and television producer whom she married four years ago after more than 20 years together, and by her younger brother Paul and nephew Jason.

Heather Rogers, born June 3 1959, died October 18 2023

Trump's holy crusade: Christian evangelicals flock to his version of a "final solution"

Heather Digby Parton

SALON
Mon, November 20, 2023 

Donald Trump Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Iowa caucuses are right around the corner and even Donald Trump has deigned to appear in the state recently despite his obvious belief that it's beneath him to have to compete for the nomination he, and everyone else, knows is already his. But he does enjoy his rallies. So he's clearly decided that it's time to gather the flock just to make sure they all know what's expected of them.

Here's a sample of what he's talking about on the campaign trail these days:

Hannah Knowles of the Washington Post reported from this weekend's rally:

Children wandered around in shirts and hats with the letters “FJB,” an abbreviation for an obscene jab at President Biden that other merchandise spelled out: “F—- Biden.” During his speech inside a high school gym in Fort Dodge, former president Trump called one GOP rival a “son of a b——,” referred to another as “birdbrain” and had the crowd shrieking with laughter at his comments on Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who he called “pencil neck” before asking, “How does he hold up that fat, ugly face?”

He brought the house down while mocking Biden, at one point baselessly suggesting Biden is using drugs and can’t get offstage “by the time whatever it is he’s taken wears off.” ... And outside the packed venue, vulgar slogans about Biden and Vice President Harris were splashed across T-shirts: “Biden Loves Minors.” “Joe and the Ho Gotta Go!” One referred to Biden and Harris performing sexual acts.

Yes, they're all just letting their freak flags fly, no holds barred. Not that this is entirely new. Republican gatherings like CPAC going back decades used to feature racist and misogynist merchandise, and there were many speakers who made crude comments about their Democratic rivals. But it is unprecedented for the candidate himself to wallow around in the gutter with them.

He's also been posting more Nazi-esque statements on his social media platform. This weekend he seemed to be proposing a "final solution" for his enemies:

Meanwhile, in another town in Iowa, Trump skipped out on what would have been required attendance in Iowa GOP presidential primaries in the past: A meeting with Christians to talk about the issues that are important to them. This one was called the Family Leader's Thanksgiving Family Forum. Florida Gov. Ron Desantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy were there to go through the motions and pretend that they might have a chance to win. (A recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa poll found 43% of likely Republican voters choose Trump compared with 16% each for Haley and DeSantis.) The forum convener, Bob Vander Plaats, was once considered an Iowa kingmaker but he's broken with Trump and it doesn't appear that he has the juice to bring anyone else over the line. He opened the forum by beseeching the candidates to "raise the bar" — and by comparison to Trump, they managed to do that.

Mostly, they talked about their faith and abortion with both Ramaswamy and DeSantis discussing their wives' miscarriages and Nikki Haley making news by saying that she would happily sign a 6-week abortion ban. (She issued her standard disclaimer that she doesn't think that's possible on a federal basis right now, as if that somehow qualifies as a moderate position.) It was all pretty standard Republican evangelical pandering.

But it's quite clear from the polling that most conservative evangelical Christians like the libertine, gutter-snipe Donald Trump even more than the rest of the Republican Party. They are the strongest pillar of his following. So attempting to pry them loose with appeals to decency is a waste of breath. There have been billions of pixels spent trying to figure out why they like him, and I suppose there are many reasons. But recent polling by the Public Religion Research Institute found that one-third of white evangelicals favor political violence so Trump's insurrection obviously holds major appeal to a lot of them. And no doubt they love his commentary about barring people who "don't like our religion" from entering the country:

“I will implement strong ideological screening of all immigrants. If you hate America, if you want to abolish Israel, if you don’t like our religion (which a lot of them don’t), if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don’t want you in our country and you are not getting in.”

And, as we know, Trump has lately taken to vowing to demolish, expel, drive out, cast out, and evict all the people they don't like from America as well. Apparently, it's all music to their ears.

Trump's recently been getting some big endorsements from important office holders and there's one in particular who represents conservative evangelicals in an extremely powerful position. That would be the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, whose affiliation with the most extreme forms of Christian Nationalism is only now coming into focus. According to NPR, Johnson is a leading member of the far-right New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement, which seeks to dissolve the separation between church and state by “any means necessary.” Johnson has spent his entire career as a lawyer and an elected official in service of that goal.

Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, took a look at his litigation history to see what it says about how he applies these beliefs to the constitution and you won't be surprised to learn that his legal principles are entirely inconsistent. In fact, the only thing consistent about his position is the idea that America is meant to be a Christian theocracy.

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For Christians like Johnson, Trump is just a blunt instrument to be used to advance his cause which he believes must be attained by any means necessary. Whatever else he represents is of no consequence.

It's actually a little different for the MAGA rank and file. The Post's Knowles spoke with some of them at Trump's Iowa rally:

“Joe’s gotta go,” said Lori Carpenter, 59, as she left the Fort Dodge event.“And the ho shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” The “ho” was Harris, she clarified, before offering another nickname for Harris that was even more vulgar. “It doesn’t bother me,” she said of Trump’s insults and crudeness.

Her relative, 71-year-old Marsha Crouthamel, agreed. "It doesn’t bother me either because his policies are strong,” she echoed, adding that Trump got a lot of laughs and added, “Sometimes you just gotta excite people a little bit.”

“We’re Christians, and we can look past that,” Carpenter said. “We see the good that he did our country when he was in.”

To these Trump-loving evangelicals, being a Christian means never having to say you're sorry. And that's one thing they definitely have in common with their Dear Leader Donald Trump.

Donald Trump dreams of an American Fourth Reich — and he's not kidding

Chauncey DeVega

SALON
Mon, November 20, 2023 

Donald Trump Alon Skuy/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s hate sermons are becoming even more intense and combustible. As he comes ever closer to openly quoting Adolf Hitler and the other 20th-century fascists, his behavior is clearly intentional and strategic.

Trump publicly admires and praises tyrants and demagogues and views them as role models. If he returns to power in 2025, he intends to create an American Fourth Reich. Consider Trump's speeches, interviews and social media posts over the last few weeks.

At a rally in Hialeah, Florida, last Wednesday, Trump painted a picture of a hellish (predominantly white) America overrun by serial killers and other human monsters from foreign (and predominantly nonwhite) countries, insisting that only he could save (white) America from the death and contamination caused by Democrats and “the left.”

“Anybody ever hear of Hannibal Lecter?” Trump asked the crowd. “He was a nice fellow. But that’s what’s coming into our country right now.”

The Atlantic’s John Hendrickson continues from there:

The leader of the Republican Party — and quite likely the 2024 GOP nominee — was on an extended rant about mental institutions, prisons, and, to use his phrase, “empty insane asylums.” Speaking to thousands of die-hard supporters at a rally in South Florida, Trump lamented that, under President Joe Biden, the United States has become “the dumping ground of the world.” That he had casually praised one of the most infamous psychopathic serial killers in cinema history was but an aside, brushed over and forgotten.

This was a dystopian, at times gothic speech. It droned on for nearly 90 minutes. Trump attacked the “liars and leeches” who have been “sucking the life and blood” out of the country. Those unnamed people were similar to, yet different from, the “rotten, corrupt, and tyrannical establishment” of Washington, D.C. — a place Trump famously despises, and to which he nonetheless longs to return.

Over the past seven or so years, I have watched many of Trump’s speeches. This was one of the most frightening and most disturbing I have seen. It was fascinating in much the same way as witnessing the aftermath of a horrible car accident or watching a horror movie.

Although many among the news media, pundit class and other professional politics-watchers avoid saying this, Trump’s dark charisma can be highly compelling. I'm convinced they feel its allure as well, even if they publicly deny it.

On Friday, in an interview with Univision, Trump threatened to use the Department of Justice to put his political enemies in prison: “They have done something that allows the next party … if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.” Trump also defended his regime’s cruel family separation policy (and by implication concentration camp system) that targeted millions of brown and Black migrants and refugees.

These white supremacist plans are part of a larger project to revoke birthright citizenship, invoke the Alien Enemies Act to imprison or deport (or worse) the Trump regime’s perceived enemies, and using the law more generally as a weapon to crush dissent and resistance.

Last weekend, on Veterans Day, Trump escalated his Nazi-style threats by declaring that his political enemies to be "vermin" or human poison to be purged from the system. That came at a MAGA rally in New Hampshire and also in a post on his Truth Social platform:

In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

At a fundraising event in San Francisco last Tuesday, President Biden spoke out against Trump’s antisemitism and white supremacy: “In just the last few days, Trump has said, if he returns office, he’s gonna go after all those who oppose him and wipe out what he called ... the vermin in America — a specific phrase with a specific meaning…. It echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the '30s.”

In a post on Truth Social that went largely ignored by the mainstream media, Trump continued to summon Nazi imagery by threatening to imprison “Radical Left Zealots" in a “mental institution”:

Deranged Jack Smith, Andrew Weissmann, Lisa Monaco, the “team of losers and misfits” from CREW, and all the rest of the Radical Left Zealots and Thugs who have been working illegally for years to “take me down,” will end up, because of their suffering from a horrible disease, TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME (TDS!), in a Mental Institution by the time my next term as President is successfully completed. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Declaring that the enemies of the regime and the Great Leader are mentally ill and then imprisoning them for "treatment" is a common practice in authoritarian states.

Predictably, the mainstream news media and responsible political class responded with performative shock and surprise at Trump’s week-long channeling of Hitler and Nazism. In fact, Trump’s hateful behavior and language are no surprise.

For at least the last seven years (and for decades before that), Trump has shown himself to be a casual antisemite. He reportedly once slept with a copy of Hitler’s speeches in a cabinet next to his bed. It is no coincidence that professed Nazis, white supremacists and other hate-mongers are among Trump’s strongest supporters, or that he refuses to publicly disavow or condemn them.

It appears that the American news media and political class, and by implication the mass public, have already forgotten that since at least September Trump has publicly spread conspiracy theories about being “stabbed in the back,” suggesting that the country is being “poisoned” by immigrants and that “good Jews” should support him while “bad Jews” will be punished for their “betrayals.”

But the mainstream media is bored with Trump's rhetoric and has now largely moved on. That irresponsible choice further normalizes Trump’s evil and the larger neofascist assault on the country’s democracy and civil society.

It is nearly incredible that the presumed nominee of one of the country’s two institutional political parties is explicitly channeling Hitler and the Nazis. That should be dominating the news. Trump's Fourth Reich aspirations constitute a national emergency. But America is an unhealthy society where all this will likely be normalized as just "culture war" tactics or political "polarization."

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If Donald Trump's American neofascist movement did not have tens of millions of followers, it would not pose an existential threat to democracy. History is full of examples of “good people” who become capable of doing horrible things to others once they are given permission and encouraged by fascist leaders, fake populists and demagogues.

In his book “Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself,” which examines mass suicides by Germans at the end of World War II, historian Florian Huber writes:

After leaving the German Reich in 1933 to run the Paris offices of the Daily Express, British newspaper correspondent Sefton Delmer returned in 1936. He found people transformed. Three years had been enough to put them under the Führer’s spell. “They were adoring his firm ruthless rule. They were in raptures at being told what to think, whom to hate, when to cheer.” … He knew, and knew how to galvanize, their feelings, yearnings and prejudices—how to transform depression into exhilaration. As a man of the people, he spoke their language. He was the faith healer they had been waiting for.” …

Silence in the arena, as his voice swelled. He spoke of victory over the past, of the present, and the future, work and happiness — and every member of the audience seemed to feel as if he we addressing them personally. ... [H]e transformed their vague but urgent feelings into something more tangible. People’s longings and resentments were laid out before them, on public view. Their most secret thoughts were no longer to be ashamed of; they belonged to everyone in the hall.

Trump has a similar power over his MAGA followers. Here is Hendrickson’s description of the scene at Trump’s Florida rally last week:

No other candidate has legions of fans who will bake in the Florida sun for hours before gates open. No one else can draw enough people to even hold a rally this size, let alone spawn a traveling rally-adjacent road show, with a pop-up midway of vendors hawking T-shirts and buttons and ball caps and doormats and Christmas ornaments. Voters don’t fan themselves with cardboard cutouts of Chris Christie’s head.

Multiple merchandise vendors told me that the shirts featuring Trump’s mug shot have become their best sellers. Some other tees bore slogans: ultra maga, ultra maga and proud, cancel me, trump rallies matter, 4 time indictment champ, super duper ultra maga, f*ck biden. “Thank you and have a MAGA day!” one vendor called out with glee. … In the hours before the night’s headliner, this felt less like a political event and more like a revival.

Trump’s Fourth Reich will not be an exact copy of its German counterpart from nearly a century ago. Instead, Trump’s Fourth Reich (or that of his successors) will be adapted to fit contemporary America’s cultural norms, values and institutions. The final horror is still evolving, but the threat and dangers are very clear. The American people are running out of time.