Insect infestation ravages North African prickly pear

Chebika (Tunisia) (AFP) – Amor Nouira, a farmer in Tunisia's Chebika village, has lost hope of saving his prickly pear cacti, ravaged by the cochineal insect spreading across North Africa.

Issued on: 21/07/2024 -

In Chebika, as in other rural areas in central Tunisia, many farmers' fields of prickly pear have been spoiled by the cochineal, which swept through North Africa 10 years ago © Sofiene HAMDAOUI / AFP

The 50-year-old has seen his half-hectare of cactus crops wither as the invasive insect wreaked havoc on about a third of the country's cacti after an outbreak in 2021.

"At first, I wanted to experiment with prickly pear production and gradually develop investments while looking for customers outside the country, especially for its natural oil," said Nouira.

"But... as the cacti became damaged, I abandoned the idea of investing and stopped thinking about it altogether."

Prickly pear is consumed as food and used to make oils, cosmetics and body-care products.

In Chebika, as in other rural areas in central Tunisia, many farmers' fields of prickly pear -- also known as Opuntia -- have been spoiled by the cochineal, which swept through North Africa 10 years ago, beginning in Morocco.

The insect, like the prickly pear, is native to the Americas and feeds on the plant's nutrients and fluids, often killing it.

Cochineal infestations have resulted in significant economic losses for thousands of farmers reliant on prickly pear, as authorities struggle to combat the epidemic © FADEL SENNA / AFP

The infestations have resulted in significant economic losses for thousands of farmers reliant on prickly pear, as authorities struggle to combat the epidemic in a country where its fruit is widely consumed as a summertime snack.

Livelihood

Tunisian authorities estimate that about 150,000 families make a living from cultivating Opuntia.

The North African country is the world's second-largest producer of its fruit, after Mexico, with about 600,000 hectares of crops and a yield of about 550,000 tonnes per year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Only production allocated for export -- about a third of overall crops -- has remained in good condition, said Rabeh Hajlaoui, head of the department of plant health at Tunisia's agriculture ministry.

"We're making every effort to save these plants, which are an important source of income to some locals," he explained, as one litre of extracted Opuntia oil can be sold for as much as $4,200.

Farmers also plant prickly pear cacti for their resistance to drought and desertification, and sometimes use them to demarcate and fence property in Tunisia and neighbouring Libya.

In Morocco, where the first cases of cochineal were found in 2014, Opuntia is cultivated over a total of 160,000 hectares.

In 2016, the Moroccan government issued an "emergency plan" to combat cochineal infestation by experimenting with various chemicals, burying infected cacti and conducting research on developing variants resilient to the insect.

One solution to cochineal infestations is spreading the Hyperaspis trifurcata ladybird -- also native to the Americas -- among the cacti, which preys on cochineal 

© FADEL SENNA / AFP

Despite the plan, by August 2022, about 75 percent of Opuntia crops in Morocco had been infested, according to Mohamed Sbaghi, a professor at Rabat's National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA) and the emergency plan coordinator.

In neighbouring Algeria, authorities recorded an outbreak in 2021 in Tlemcen, a city near the border with Morocco.

Prickly pear cultivation in the country covers around 60,000 hectares, and the fruit is so cherished that a festival dedicated to it is held every year in the eastern Kabylia region.

'Public safety'

Neither the plant nor cochineal is native to North Africa, but the region's dry climate helped them spread, said Tunisian entomologist Brahim Chermiti.

"Climate change, with increasing drought and high temperatures, facilitates their reproduction," he told AFP.

The region has experienced severe drought in recent years, with declining rainfall and intense heat.

Chermiti believes it's a matter of "public safety" to combat cochineal infestation, requiring "strict border crossing monitoring and public awareness".

In 2016, the Moroccan government issued an 'emergency plan' to combat cochineal infestation, including by experimenting with various chemicals 

© Sofiene HAMDAOUI / AFP

The researcher fears total contagion, as "sooner or later, it will spread, with the help of many factors such as the wind and livestock".

Hajlaoui, from Tunisia's agriculture ministry, said the issue could even cause social unrest if it spreads to farms in marginalised areas, such as Tunisia's Kasserine governorate, where Opuntia is nearly the only source of livelihood for many.

He said the "slowness of administrative procedure" during the first major outbreaks in Tunisia impeded efforts to stem the spread of cochineal.

At first, Morocco and Tunisia burned and uprooted infected crops, but authorities now aim for "natural resistance" to the insect, said Hajlaoui.

Last summer, Morocco's INRA said it identified eight cochineal-resistant Opuntia varieties that could potentially be cultivated.

The other solution, added the expert, is spreading the Hyperaspis trifurcata ladybird -- also native to the Americas -- among the cacti, which preys on cochineal.

Hajlaoui fears total contagion, as 'sooner or later, it will spread, with the help of many factors such as the wind and livestock' © FETHI BELAID / AFP

In Morocco, farmers began raising the ladybird "so that it is always ready" in case of outbreaks, said Aissa Derhem, head of the environmental association Dar Si Hmad.

Last month, Tunisia received 100 ladybirds along with an emergency budget of $500,000 to battle cochineal, allocated by the FAO.

© 2024 AFP

From money and politics to dirty water: Paris’s long and winding road to the Olympics

Paris's road to the 2024 Olympics has been anything but plain sailing. From political bickering, to last minute sponsors and nail-biting suspense over the cleanliness of the Seine river, the Games – held exactly 100 years since Paris last hosted the event – “must be a success”, an Olympic source confided.

Issued on: 21/07/2024 -

Paris has struggled to balance a city-centre Games with security. 

© Manan Vatsyayana, AFP

The seven-year odyssey of the Paris Olympics should reach shore after a spectacular but hopefully serene opening cruise down the Seine on Friday at the end of a voyage that has survived rocky political moments.

Following the horse-trading to win the Games, came the French infighting over how to host them.

Paris was not sure it wanted to risk another rebuff after losing its 2005 bid for the 2012 Games to a London bid that the French believed inferior.

After the 2015 terror attacks on the French capital, Anne Hidalgo, elected Paris mayor in 2014, decided the city needed to act to rebound from the trauma.

Just after his election as president in 2017, Emmanuel Macron promoted France's case to the International Olympic Committee.

Since 2005, France had built a national velodrome and a canoe-kayak venue near Paris.

"By missing the Games, we built all the facilities," said a former elected official.

After Los Angeles agreed to go for the 2028 Games, France was awarded the 2024 Games in September 2017.

France would host a "sober" Games, using existing facilities and temporary arenas in postcard Paris: the Eiffel Tower, the Invalides, Place de la Concorde. After testing the water with a cautious toe, it added politically-charged swimming in the Seine.

Hidalgo, a Socialist, dredged up an old and unfulfilled promise by Gaullist Jacques Chirac, when he was mayor, that Parisians that would be able to swim in their river.

On July 17, ten days before the Games, Hidalgo took a dip in front of a battery of cameras.

Behind the scenes, the waters were sometimes murky as the national government, local elected officials, and the organising committee (COJO) bickered.

"Deep down, we are pains in the ass," said one former local elected official to describe the relationship with COJO.

Paris organisers have made much of the planned legacy. A major beneficiary was to be the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, to the north of Paris, home of the main stadium and the Olympic village.

But the high price of tickets and elevated security mean the residents have difficulty feeling included in the mega-sports festival on their doorstep.

Saint-Denis has gained a swimming pool but the department was deprived of several promised events. When shooting, to the fury of local officials, was moved in 2022 to Chateauroux in central France, the early stages of the boxing was switched to suburban Villepinte to compensate.

Hidalgo sent ripples through COJO in 2019 when she vetoed France's oil and energy titan Total as a sponsor.

'Money's worth'

COJO did not plug its last big sponsorship hole until July 2023, when, after months of negotiations and "messages" from the Elysee Palace, French luxury goods behemoth LVMH signed.

"There are some bluffs in this kind of negotiation," said Antoine Arnault, son of company owner Bernard Arnault. "We wanted to get our money's worth."

There were also culture clashes between French bureaucracy and the glitz and hype of anglophone international sports administrators and marketers.

The head of COJO, Tony Estanguet, a French triple Olympic champion, straddled the cultures by talking of an Olympics which will "break the codes".

There was friction with the police when COJO and Paris decided to hold the opening ceremony on the Seine, breaking the tradition of Games beginning in the main stadium.

Originally planned as a people's party along the banks, the police have had their way and most spectators will sit in allocated seats in fenced-off areas.

The budget has led to time-honoured problems as it has ballooned.

Paris has been hit by inflation as well as the Covid pandemic and the knock-on effect of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The IOC, which is struggling to attract potential hosts, agreed to lower standards.

"The instructions to the IOC are to help Paris. The Olympics must be a success," one Olympic source told AFP.

Less than a week before the opening ceremony on the Seine, work was in progress on the Alexandre III above the route. © Gabriel Bouys, AFP

Evens so, in December 2022, COJO increased its predicted operating budget by 400 million euros, more than 10 percent. With infrastructure, the bill is close to 9 billion euros ($9.8 billion), 2 billion more than the 2019 estimate. That still makes Paris one of the cheaper recent Summer Games.

COJO has suffered a few bumps along the way. It was raided on suspicion of a conflict of interest, in particular in awarding "consulting contracts" and Estanguet's salary package has been subject to investigations by the national financial prosecutor's office.

There was a race to complete all the work, with finishing touches still being applied days before the start.

Nicolas Ferrand, in charge of the construction of the athletes' village, said he was in a "cold sweat" after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, fearing shortages of materials.

Whatever happens, "two weeks before everyone will say that 'it's a disaster' and in fact it's not," said a close friend of mayor Hidalgo.

(AFP)

With fires in east Canada 'under control,' evacuations ending

Montreal (AFP) – A forest fire in northeastern Canada that forced the evacuation of more than 9,000 people a week ago is now under control, allowing those displaced to begin returning home, authorities said Saturday.


Issued on: 21/07/2024 

A July 12, 2024 aerial view of a wildfire near Canada's northeastern town of Wabush 

© Simon Contant / AFP

The risk to the towns of Labrador City and Wabush is now "very low," Premier Andrew Furey of Newfoundland and Labrador province told reporters.

"We're breathing another sigh of relief here," he said.

"As a result, we're in the good position today to be able to partially lift the evacuation order" for what he called the "largest evacuation in provincial history."

For now, only workers deemed essential -- hospital employees, supermarket workers and government staff -- will be allowed back as they prepare for the return of the remaining evacuees beginning Monday, he said.

The evacuation had been challenging. Residents from this remote region had to travel 300 miles (500 kilometers) to reach safety on the lone available road.

While the fire situation in eastern Canada is improving, the country's west has seen more and more forest fires erupt in recent days.

More than 320 fires are now burning in British Columbia province on the Pacific coast, including three particularly large blazes. Several thousand people remain on alert, ready to evacuate if necessary.

And in Alberta province, more than 5,000 people from isolated Indigenous communities were under evacuation orders, with out-of-control blazes threatening the only road providing access to each community, officials said.

The federal Environment Ministry has issued several smoke-related air pollution advisories in the Rockies and the north, where Edmonton, the province's second-largest city, is impacted by the smoke.

Authorities blame a deadly combination of thunderstorms and extreme temperatures of 86 to 104 Fahrenheit (30 to 40 Celsius) for the outbreak -- conditions they expect to persist for several more days.

Experts say climate change has resulted in drier and hotter conditions in many regions, sharply raising the risk of major fires.

© 2024 AFP

WWIII

China and Philippines reach deal to avoid clashes at disputed reef

China and the Philippines have struck a deal aimed at stopping the two countries from clashing over the fiercely disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, the Philippine government said Sunday. In the past year, the territorial standoff at the reef has flared and came to a head in mid-June when Chinese forces seized and damaged two Philippine navy boats with machetes and improvised spears. Several Filipino navy personnel were injured in the incident.


Issued on: 21/07/2024

In this handout image provided by Armed Forces of the Philippines, Chinese Coast Guard hold knives and machetes as they approach Philippine troops on a resupply mission in the Second Thomas Shoal at the disputed South China Sea on June 17, 2024. 

China and the Philippines reached a deal they hope will end confrontations at the most fiercely disputed shoal in the South China Sea, the Philippine government said Sunday.

The Philippines occupies Second Thomas Shoal but China also claims it, and increasingly hostile clashes at sea have sparked fears of larger conflicts that could involve the United States.

The crucial deal was reached on Sunday, after a series of meetings between Philippine and Chinese diplomats in Manila and exchanges of diplomatic notes that aimed to establish a mutually acceptable arrangement at the shoal without conceding either side’s territorial claims. Two Philippine officials, who have knowledge of the negotiations, confirmed the deal to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity and the government later issued a brief statement announcing the deal without providing details.

“Both sides continue to recognize the need to deescalate the situation in the South China Sea and manage differences through dialogue and consultation and agree that the agreement will not prejudice each other’s positions in the South China Sea,” the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said.

China has disputes with several governments over land and sea borders, many of them in the South China Sea, and the rare deal with the Philippines could spark hope that similar arrangements could be forged by Beijing with other rival countries to avoid clashes while thorny territorial issues remain unresolved. It remains to be seen, however, if the deal could be implemented successfully and how long it will last.

Chinese coast guard and other forces have used powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel at Manila’s outpost at the shoal.

The yearslong territorial standoff at the shoal has flared repeatedly since last year between Chinese coast guard, navy and suspected militia ships and Philippine coast guard-escorted navy boats transporting food, water and fresh navy and marine personnel to an outpost on a long-grounded and rusting warship, the BRP Sierra Madre.

In the worst confrontation, Chinese forces on motorboats repeatedly rammed and then boarded two Philippine navy boats on June 17 to prevent Filipino personnel from transferring food and other supplies including firearms to the ship outpost in the shallows of the shoal, according to the Philippine government.

After repeated ramming, the Chinese seized the Philippine navy boats and damaged them with machetes and improvised spears. They also seized seven M4 rifles, which were packed in cases, and other supplies. The violent faceoff wounded several Filipino navy personnel, including one who lost his thumb, in a chaotic skirmish that was captured in video and photos that were later made public by Philippine officials.

China and the Philippines blamed each other for the confrontation and each asserted their own sovereign rights over the shoal, which Filipinos call Ayungin and the Chinese call Ren’ai Jiao.

The United States and its key Asian and Western allies, including Japan and Australia, condemned the Chinese acts at the shoal and called for the rule of law and freedom of navigation to be upheld in the South China Sea, a key global trade route with rich fishing areas and undersea gas deposits.

In addition to China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been locked in separate but increasingly tense territorial disputes in the waterway, which is regarded as a potential flashpoint and a delicate fault line in the U.S.-China regional rivalry. The U.S. military has deployed navy ships and fighter jets for decades in what it calls freedom of navigation and overflight patrols, which China has opposed and regards as a threat to regional stability.

Washington has no territorial claims in the disputed waters but has repeatedly warned that it is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

One of the two Philippine officials said the June 17 confrontation prompted Beijing and Manila to hasten on-and-off talks on an arrangement that would prevent confrontations at Second Thomas Shoal.

During final meetings in the last four days, two Chinese demands that had been key sticking points were removed from the draft deal.

China had previously said it would allow food, water and other basic supplies to be transported by the Philippines to its forces in the shoal if Manila agreed not to bring construction materials to fortify the crumbling ship, and to give China advance notice and the right to inspect the ships for those materials, the officials said.

The Philippines rejected those conditions, and the final deal did not include them.

(AP)

Hermes v Hermes: Turkey bookshop marks win in copyright fight

Ankara (AFP) – A bookseller in Turkey notched a victory over a French luxury house in a copyright battle to be able to call itself Hermes, the shop's lawyer said Tuesday, hailing an infrequent win against a major brand.

Issued on: 16/07/2024 -
Turkish bookseller Umit Nar has won a David v Goliath case to use the name Hermes against a French luxury giant © MERT CAKIR / AFP

An Ankara court ruling partially voided a decision by TurkPatent, Turkey's intellectual property authority, that prevented any brand other than Hermes Paris from using the name Hermes.

"Hermes is a god in Greek mythology who belongs to the cultural heritage of humanity. He should not be owned by a company. This is an important decision in that sense," the bookseller Umit Nar, whose shop is in the western city of Izmir, told AFP.

The shopkeeper pointed out that the deity is closely linked to the ancient history of Smyrna -- Izmir's old name -- on the Aegaen coast, where many Greek myths are set.

Hermes fashion house did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The court has not yet made its reasoning public, said the bookseller's lawyer, Hilmi Gullu, who added that the ruling was a "victory."

"Multinational firms like Hermes have an aggressive trademark registration policy, beyond their own industries. This verdict paves the way for saying no to these practices," Gullu said.

The case stretches back to December 2021, when the Turkish retailer sought to register a trademark for his 15-year-old bookshop.

A representative for the French company initiated legal proceedings against TurkPatent and took the case to court to ban the retailer from using "Hermes" in its brand name and any marketing materials.

Hermes fashion house emphasised the "similarity and risk of confusion" between the two names despite the different business sectors, arguing it is also active in publishing through its magazine.

"They would've been right if our sectors were similar, but that's absolutely not the case," said Nar.

The book dealer will still appeal the decision, as "the court has not ruled on the risk of confusion between the two brands in terms of audience and general impression," the lawyer said.

"I hope that this verdict will help set a precedent for cultural heritage and multinational firms," Nar said.

© 2024 AFP

What is Catholic Integralism?
The Conversation
July 20, 2024 

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance celebrate as he is nominated for the office of Vice President alongside Ohio Delegate Bernie Moreno on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Since his nomination as the Republican candidate for vice president, focus has intensified on J.D. Vance’s religious beliefs and how they connect to his politics.

Vance is a convert to Catholicism and seems to have the same policy positions that many American Catholic conservatives hold: opposition to abortion, support for the traditional family, skepticism regarding liberal immigration policies and efforts to combat climate change, and advocacy of economic tariffs.

Some news reports have also referenced Vance’s apparent association with Catholic Integralism, although Vance himself has not addressed the issue publicly.

So, now might be a good time to ask: What is Catholic Integralism?

What is Catholic Integralism?

The basic position of Catholic Integralism is that there are two areas of human life: the spiritual and the temporal, or worldly. Catholic Integralists argue that the spiritual and temporal should be integrated – with the spiritual being the dominant partner. This means that religious values, specifically Christian ones, should guide government policies.

Catholic Integralists disagree about how to achieve this integration between the spiritual and temporal. Some argue that Christians, particularly Catholics, should have advisory roles in government and lead by example. Other Catholic Integralists want a more comprehensive approach to organizing society along Christian principles.

Catholic Integralists share an opposition to liberalism. Generally, liberalism is understood as a political philosophy that supports limits on the government’s authority and constitutional protections for the rights of individuals and minorities. But Catholic Integralists argue that liberalism is incapable of establishing deep forms of human community because it values individualism and liberty above all things.

The irony, from the Catholic Integralist perspective, is that liberalism is not really that liberal. Instead, liberalism demands – and enforces – adherence to a certain set of values, like tolerance and pluralism, that prevents creating a social order in which human beings can realize a larger, God-given meaning for their lives.

Catholic critiques

There are strong criticisms of Catholic Integralism coming from both within the Catholic church and beyond.

The Vatican II document, “Dignitatis Humanae,” affirms that the state should protect religious liberty for all, not only Catholics. This is a position that some Catholic Integralists would find problematic.

Other critics have argued that Catholic Integralism is “unreasonable” and unworkable because society needs to rely on the cooperation of individuals who inevitably have different ideas and values.
Vance and Integralist views

When considering Vance’s current policy commitments, some certainly seem consistent with Catholic Integralist views. For example, Catholic Integralists might justify opposing immigration and migration because they believe that society needs to be more homogeneous in order to have a shared system of values.

Additionally, Vance has recently called to criminalize gender-affirming care for minors. In one sense, Vance is expressing the overall Catholic belief that sex and gender distinctions are willed by God – a point that Pope Francis has also made. But moving to enforce this religious belief by law might reflect a Catholic Integralist position that society must respect “natural law,” or the order of the universe as believed to be established by God.

Right now, Catholic Integralism is of interest to a distinct minority of Catholic academics and political conservatives in the the English-speaking world. But if Vance is elected vice president, it will be interesting to see what happens if he clarifies – or expands – his apparent Catholic Integralist connections.

Mathew Schmalz is a professor of religious studies at College of the Holy Cross. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

U$A

The Long Shadow of JD Vance’s Hillbilly Pathology

By Billy J. Stratton

July 19, 2024

Source: LA Progressive


Image by Don O'Brien, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

After Andy Beshear’s upset win over Matt Bevin in my home state of Kentucky’s 2019 gubernatorial race (which I wrote about then in History News Network), some pundits were quick to dismiss his upset victory as little more than an aberration. Others attempted to explain it away as a natural consequence of an incompetent or unpopular incumbent, or as a columnist for Louisville’s Courier-Journal claimed, because Bevin was just a “jerk.”

Ouch, lol, but since when did being unlikable become a detriment within a political party where spitefulness and belligerence have come to be worn like badges of honor by so many?

At the same time, commentators with more liberal leanings saw in Beshear’s victory a sign of the GOP’s vulnerability heading into the 2020 election. The outcome of which, as a whole, despite what all those well-funded insurrectionists, proud boys, and dishonest election deniers still claim, what? ahem, yeah still…,reinforced the validity of that perspective.

Despite the successes Democrats enjoyed in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, America has only seemed to have sank deeper into the mire of a toxic political culture. This is potently reflected at the level of ideas and policy. With outrage in response to a series of Supreme Court decisions issued over the last three years not abating any time soon, social divisions have become more deeply entrenched along ideological lines on issues from abortion, religion and its influence on government affairs and the Second Amendment, to the status of Native tribal sovereignty and the protection of the environment.

Moreover, the atmosphere in which it has become commonplace to baselessly question the most basic facts, scientific data and truth, if not disregarding them altogether, seems to be spreading. While this way of (un)thinking has now seemed to have seeped into practically every corner of American social life, it is, perhaps, most palpable in the aforementioned anti-democratic election denialism being bandied about by a significant portion of the populace regarding the results of the 2020 Presidential election.

That Joe Biden so soundly defeated Donald Trump for the presidency in the 2020 election by a margin of 74 electoral votes and over 7 million popular votes, and the results can still be so obstinately rejected by so many, remains not just a source of endless bafflement but also cause for serious alarm.

These broader national issues aside, Beshear’s two gubernatorial victories in Kentucky appear as a reason for optimism within this discouraging context. For this positive development to be best appreciated, though, we need to move beyond the shallow surfaces of conventional wisdom and recognize that there may be good reason to reconsider the blunt dividing lines that have been drawn between rural and urban voters, along with those separated by regional boundaries, as well.

It bears reminding that Beshear’s stunning win over Bevin, the incumbent Republican Governor, hinged on a vote difference of less than one half of one percentage point. To emphasize the razor-thin margin this result represents, that’s a mere 5,136 votes out of a total of 1,443,077 votes cast.

Beshear’s improved performance this time around against Kentucky’s current Attorney General, Daniel Cameron who was touting a law and order agenda in a region many continue to see as hostile to Democratic candidates is even more remarkable. As of the time of writing, Beshear’s margin is more than 5 points, translating to an advantage of more than 67,000 votes, with 98% of the ballots counted.

The scope of Beshear’s latest victory, and the strategy deployed to get him there, has even prompted some to start considering him as a viable presidential candidate for the Democrats in 2028. Although 2028 is quite a ways off, even as the crow flies, Beshear possesses some natural advantages over others already in this discussion, such as California’s Gavin Newsome, in having a lower profile and by virtue of not being associated with a state that so many conservatives have been conditioned to see as anathema.

However one looks at it, his victory is an impressive outcome in Kentucky, which Donald Trump carried by 30 points in 2016, and again by 26 points in 2020. Such a result, especially given the significant financial support Cameron received from Kentucky Senators Mitch McConnel and Rand Paul, along with an endorsement from Trump, reinforce the premise that there is something far more complicated at play here than red state/blue state predispositions and the assumptions they imply.

The assertion I previously advanced, that the ostensibly deep-red regions of rural America made up of areas such as Eastern Kentucky may not be as “reliable for Republicans and unwinnable for Democrats as conventional wisdom suggests,” are bolstered by this week’s results. In fact, the tally for Beshear this election cycle provides additional encouragement as he secured wins in six rural counties in the heart of coal country, including Knott, Breathitt, Magoffin, and my home county of Floyd, with the addition of two other counties he had previously lost to Bevin in Letcher and Perry.

While some may dismiss the significance of Beshear’s support in such places due to their relatively small and disempowered populations—something those living in Appalachia have long dealt with—Tuesday’s results, nonetheless, run counter to the widely accepted narrative that people who live in such communities have closed themselves off to Democratic candidates and the policies they advocate.

This is precisely the notion JD Vance, using Eastern Kentucky as his prime example, deceptively advanced in his New York Times best-selling book, Hillbilly Elegy, which was also adapted into a film for Netflix by Ron Howard. Bolstered by sympathetic commentary and interviewers, along with an inexplicable number of largely positive reviews as seen here, here, here, appearing in some of America’s leading literary venues, as well as a myriad of invitations to lecture and give commencement speeches at universities across the country, Vance was successful in pushing a thesis predicated on white working class anger at failed Democratic policies as a means to shift the discussion away from the racial discord long promoted within the conservative movement as a strategy designed to drive a wedge between lower and working class voters. An effort that surged into overdrive with Barak Obama’s candidacy for the 2008 presidential election.

According to the story Vance conjured, the disenchantment of rural, working class people in Eastern Kentucky—which also applies across America more broadly—traces all the way back to the early seventies, as he claims, “it was Greater Appalachia’s political reorientation from Democrat to Republican that redefined American politics after Nixon.” This sweeping assertion is what forms the ideological thesis of Hillbilly Elegy.

A pseudo-memoir that asserts itself as an object lesson on the social realities of white lower and working class frustration and anger that ushered in a new political map, and which should have twice doomed Beshear’s chances in 2019 and 2023, if accurate. It wasn’t.

When I read Vance’s book as a person born and raised in Eastern Kentucky myself, something just didn’t seem right. From my experiences growing up in Floyd County, Kentucky, just seventy miles east of the town of Jackson where Vance’s family was from, many of the claims he made just didn’t mesh with the reality I’d known. So, I did what anyone who values critical thinking and truth should do, I went looking for facts. What I soon found, and with not all that much effort, was that Vance’s central claim based on the stories he tells of Eastern Kentucky from which he derives his claim about the shift in the Appalachian electorate, was just plain wrong.

This judgement is born out in the presidential election results from the very place in which Vance bases his conclusions, Breathitt County, Kentucky, in which Jackson is located. Even a cursory review of the election results themselves, starting with the 1972 contest between Richard Nixon and George McGovern, and up through to the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, refute Vance’s claims.

In fact, the election data shows that in every presidential election from 1972 until, wait for it, 2008 and the candidacy of Barak Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate actually won Breathitt County by a margin ranging from a low for Walter Mondale of 9 points in 1984, to a high of 55 points for Jimmy Carter in 1976. That the actual shift in party allegiance from Democrat to Republican, which Vance attempts to rewrite, only happened in the first election in which an African American person stood as the Democratic candidate for president is suggestive of a correlation that is quite different from Vance’s.

This historical preference is emphasized by similarly wide margins of victory for Democratic presidential candidates across several Eastern Kentucky counties in 1980, 1992 and 2000. These results offer a much different take on Vance’s recollection of his Pawpaw’s “hatred” of “that son of a bitch Mondale.” Not as a reflection of the Eastern Kentucky hillbilly attitude he purports to celebrate, but that it was actually his grandfather who’d grown out of step from the place of his birth.

The successes Democrats enjoyed in Breathitt County are reinforced by the similarly large margins they scored in other Eastern Kentucky counties, including Floyd County. Here the margins were often wider, with Carter besting Reagan by 44 points in 1980, along with a pair of wins by Bill Clinton, who notched a 53-point margin over George H.W. Bush in 1992, followed by with a 45-point advantage over Bob Dole in 1996. In all these cases, the actual election data contradicts Vance’s claims of a great electoral shift dating back to Nixon. And speaking of Nixon, the results for Breathitt County also favored George McGovern—the winner of a paltry 17 total electoral votes—by an impressive 18%.

As this data makes clear, the thesis Vance, who has since parlayed the celebrity status brought by the success of his book into being elected to the US Senate in Ohio, offered as an alternative to the inconvenient reality of the conservative exploitation of racial conflict amounted to nothing less than the rewriting of the political and social history of the region. If only people like Ron Howard or the editors at HarperCollins, and many others who praised and lifted Vance’s story, because, perhaps, they really wanted to believe him or at least connect and sympathize with working class people, would have been more diligent in confirming the facts at the time, then maybe they would not be feeling so surprised and appalled by what they have been hearing from Vance since.

But, then, again, what happens to the people of Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia hardly ever impacts those so well insulated and distant from life in the hollows, mines and welfare lines. And that, of course, is another part of the problem.

While refuting the ideologically driven and objectively false claims Vance put forth in his book, the relevant facts also challenge much conventional political wisdom that has led the people of Appalachia to being unfairly dismissed, and often derided, as a monolithic assemblage of ignorant, close-minded, conservative voters. This is an assumption that Beshear’s initial win in the Kentucky Governor’s race and re-election serves to dispel.

The results reported from Tuesday’s contest between Beshear and Cameron by election boards in many of these same counties across Eastern Kentucky, including Breathitt, Macgoffin, Floyd, Knott, and others in an area that has been most impacted by the coal mining industry, give promise to the possibility that a region that was among the most consistently reliable Democratic strongholds in America throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century may not be a lost cause for Democrats after all. And that, in reality, lower and working class peoples who live in rural communities across America, more broadly, might not be as rigidly fixed in the red column as the current political maps would have us think.

As these facts, as well as common sense, tell us though, viewpoints built on hasty assumptions that cede the loss of whole populations and regions only act to reinforce simplistic and deeply flawed ways of perceiving America’s social reality. The danger therein, of course, lies in the way that the resultant ideas and expectations, when left unchallenged, can quickly transform into self-fulfilling prophesies. This is especially true when the concerns of such people and the problems they face are not attended to while their loyalties are taken for granted.

Unfortunately, the acceptance and even tolerance of what has become a default means of evaluating America’s voting population will simply continue to feed gas to the fire of the negative political and social feedback loops that debase public discourse and lead to the neglect and marginalization of people from regions and states written off by some strategists as unwinnable. It’s a process that, at the same time, will continue to hinder the success of Democratic candidates, while bolstering the feelings of alienation, isolation, hopelessness and fear conservatives have proven so adept at seizing upon.

Despite how deep such dissent and division has been sown among people who share a myriad of personal, economic and social interests, however, as the results on voter initiatives to protect the constitutional right to abortion and decriminalize recreational marijuana in Ohio show, for those who have a real concern for freedom and justice, there is still much to be optimistic about.

Ultimately, when set against the bogus narrative Vance spun, the lessons of Beshear’s election victories, as well as favorable results for Democrats in Ohio and Virginia, offer a refreshing counter to the trends in Kentucky, and other states like North Carolina and Ohio, that commentators lament as turning more and more red on those ubiquitous election maps over the last few election cycles. How this plays out in the future will depend not just on how much we learn from these lessons but also in our willingness to see and respect the agency and humanity of others instead of merely counting them as numbers.

J. D. Vance Wants to Crack Down Harder on Abortion Access

GOP vice presidential nominee J. D. Vance has pressured lawmakers to kill a rule that blocks police from accessing the medical records of people seeking abortions — an indication of the threat a Trump-Vance administration would pose to reproductive health.

Republican vice president candidate J. D. Vance during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)

BY VERONICA RICCOBENE HELEN SANTORO JOEL WARNER

JACOBIN
07.16.2024

Sen. J. D. Vance (R-OH), Donald Trump’s pick for vice presidential nominee, pressured federal regulators last June to kill a privacy rule that prevents police from accessing the medical records of people seeking reproductive services, according to documents reviewed by the Lever. The rule was designed to prevent state and local police in antiabortion states from using private records to hunt down and prosecute people who cross state lines in search of abortion services.

If the Trump-Vance ticket wins this year’s presidential election, the new administration could rescind the rule protecting abortion records from police investigation.

The Biden administration proposed the rule in April 2023 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended federal abortion protections. The proposed rule expanded upon the long-established Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s Privacy Rule, which requires appropriate safeguards to protect individuals’ health information.

While these privacy laws do not usually apply in the case of a criminal investigation, the proposed rule prohibited health officials from divulging records related to reproductive health care — including for fertility issues, contraception, and miscarriages — even if requested by law enforcement.

The following month, Vance and twenty-eight other conservative lawmakers sent a letter to Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra demanding the department withdraw the draft rule. They argued that the Biden administration had overstepped its constitutional bounds and unlawfully infringed on congressional power.

“Abortion is not health care,” they wrote. “It is a brutal act that destroys the life of an unborn child and hurts women.”

A Vance spokesperson did not respond when asked whether Trump would rescind the rule if he’s reelected.

Supporters of the rule said expanding the privacy laws was a welcome and necessary step in protecting those who seek or perform legal abortions from being prosecuted in outside jurisdictions. Planned Parenthood wrote that tightening medical privacy rules was an “essential element” to securing patient data and supporting patient confidentiality in the health care system.

Similarly, advocacy groups say that securing patients’ privacy is paramount, given the recent gutting of abortion rights at the federal level.

“Since the Dobbs decision, the specter of criminalization has increased significantly, for both patients and providers,” wrote a group of 125 reproductive health and justice organizations in response to the proposed rule. “People must feel — and actually be — safe while accessing health care, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade further erodes this very necessary trust between patients and providers.”

Research on people targeted for allegedly ending or helping to end a pregnancy found that they were most often reported to law enforcement by health care professionals. Once police got involved, the vast majority of cases led to arrests.

Researchers also argue that criminalizing abortion will increase preexisting racial disparities in incarceration rates. While more than 42 percent of women who get abortions in the United States are black, more than half of all black women aged fifteen to forty-nine years old live in states with abortion restrictions or plans to implement them.

Meanwhile, the number of people nationwide who are traveling across state lines for abortion care is rising: nearly one in five abortion patients traveled out of state to obtain this care in the first six months of 2023, compared with one in ten abortion patients during the same period in 2020.

This past April, the Biden administration issued the final rule protecting the medical records of people seeking abortion services, and it went into effect last month.

“The Biden-Harris administration is providing stronger protections to people seeking lawful reproductive health care regardless of whether the care is in their home state or if they must cross state lines to get it,” said Becerra at the time of the rules’ implementation. “With reproductive health under attack by some lawmakers, these protections are more important than ever.”

While he once compared abortion to slavery, Vance has recently tried to soften his public position on abortion — mirroring Trump and the Republican Party as they work to address the fact that many Americans, even in red states, oppose excessively restrictive abortion laws.

Earlier this month, Vance said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he agreed with a recent Supreme Court ruling protecting people’s access to the abortion drug mifepristone. And in June, the Daily Mail reported that someone with the username “Chuengsteven” — an apparent reference to chief Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung — slightly edited Vance’s Wikipedia page to say he believes “abortion laws should be set by states,” echoing Trump’s position.

Still, Vance has worked hard to undermine efforts to secure abortion access even in states where it’s legal. Last December, he cosigned a letter pressuring the Department of Health and Human Services to continue diverting federal funds meant for low-income mothers to crisis pregnancy centers, which researchers say often fail to adhere to medical and ethical standards to dissuade people from getting abortions.

Immediately after Trump named Vance as his running mate on Monday, President Joe Biden’s campaign began targeting Vance’s antiabortion positions.

“A Trump-Vance administration will jeopardize reproductive freedom in all fifty states,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of the lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All, during a Biden campaign call.

You can subscribe to David Sirota’s investigative journalism project, the Lever, here.

Veronica Riccobene is a producer based in Washington, DC. She has experience in live television, long form and vertical video, as well as reporting.

Helen Santoro is a journalist based in Colorado.

Joel Warner is managing editor of the Lever. He is a former staff writer for International Business Times and Westword.

Europe wary of Trump VP pick Vance’s opposition to Ukraine military aid

US presidential candidate Donald Trump's choice of Republican Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate for the November election has been met with alarm by some European politicians, who warn that his opposition to US military aid for Ukraine could force Kyiv to make substantial concessions to Moscow.

Issued on: 16/07/2024 - 

Republican presidential nominee and former US president Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance point to the stage during Day 1 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 15, 2024. 

© Elizabeth Frantz, Reuters

In February, Europe's political and foreign policy elite heard directly from Senator J.D. Vance on his opposition to military aid for Ukraine and his blunt warning that Europe will have to rely less on the United States to defend the continent.

If those comments at the annual Munich Security Conference were a first wake-up call, alarm bells are now ringing loudly across the continent after Republican Donald Trump picked Vance as his vice presidential candidate for November's U.S. election.

"His selection as the running mate is worrying for Europe," said Ricarda Lang, co-leader of the German Green party that is part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government, who took part in a panel discussion with Vance in Munich.

The pick stoked fears in Europe that if Trump returns to the White House, he will drop, or curb, U.S. support for Kyiv and push Ukraine into peace negotiations to end the war that would give Moscow a substantial slice of Ukraine and embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin to pursue further military adventures.

That view was bolstered by a letter to EU leaders from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who visited Trump last week. Orban, a Trump ally, said the ex-president will be "ready to act as a peace broker immediately" if he wins in November.

Lang said on X that Vance had made very clear in Munich how quickly he and Trump would "deliver Ukraine to Putin".

U.S. strategic priorities

At the Munich conference, Vance said Putin did not pose an existential threat to Europe, and Americans and Europeans could not provide enough munitions to defeat Russia in Ukraine.

He suggested the United States' strategic priorities lay more in Asia and the Middle East.

"There are a lot of bad guys all over the world. And I'm much more interested in some of the problems in East Asia right now than I am in Europe," he told the conference.

Speaking on a podcast with Trump ally Steve Bannon in 2022, Vance said: "I don't really care what happens in Ukraine one way or the other."

In Munich, he advocated for a "negotiated peace" and said he thought Russia had an incentive to come to the table.

Read moreFormer US president Donald Trump could ‘paralyse’ NATO if re-elected, specialist says

That stance is in stark contrast with the view of most European leaders, who argue the West should continue to support Ukraine massively with military aid and say they see no sign of Putin being willing to engage in serious negotiations.

Vance also voted against a U.S. funding bill for Ukraine that eventually passed in April. In a New York Times op-ed justifying his vote, he argued Kyiv and Washington must abandon Ukraine's goal of returning to its 1991 borders with Russia.

Nils Schmid, the foreign policy spokesperson of Scholz's Social Democrat party, said he had observed Vance in Munich and concluded the senator saw himself as Trump's mouthpiece.

"He takes an even more radical stance on Ukraine than Trump and wants to end military support. In terms of foreign policy, he is more isolationist than Trump," Schmid told Reuters.

Caution counselled

But some cautioned against jumping to conclusions about Vance, who was born into an impoverished home in southern Ohio.

"J.D. Vance is a devout Christian and the circumstances of his childhood give me great hope that he, like Speaker Mike Johnson, will conclude that U.S. support for Ukraine is the only option," said Melinda Haring, a senior adviser for Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based charitable organisation that advocates for Ukraine.

"While Vance has come out strongly against Ukraine, he hasn’t been in a top job and as vice president I expect to see his views evolve."

Some diplomats also cautioned that the U.S. election was far from over.

"We need to stop creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Trump hasn’t won and Biden hasn’t lost," said a French diplomat.

In Ukraine, politicians were wary of criticising Vance openly, as they may have to deal with him as U.S. vice president. But some acknowledged harbouring concerns.


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Oleksiy Honcharenko, a lawmaker from the opposition European Solidarity party, said he had met Vance at the Munich conference and found him to be "a very intelligent and cool-headed man".

"Is there any concern about Vance's statements? Of course. The U.S. is our biggest and most important ally," he told Reuters.

"We must remain allies and show the U.S. that Ukraine not only needs help, but can help itself."

Maryan Zablotskyy, a lawmaker for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Servant of the People party, argued Russia was harming U.S. interests on many fronts. He said any U.S. politician pursuing an America First agenda "will never be positive towards Russia".

(Reuters)

Choice of 'mega-MAGA-misogynist' J.D. Vance just one more step in Trump's war on women

Tom Boggioni
July 20, 2024 

Donald Trump's and J.D. Vance (AFP)

Appearing on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show," former GOP campaign consultant Tara Setmayer claimed the choice of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) should come as no surprise due to his attitude toward women's rights.

Speaking with the host, Setmayer pinned the label "mega MAGA misogynist" before documenting the Ohio Republican's history and what could happen if the Trump team wins in November.

According to both the host and Setmayer, the GOP convention was a decidedly anti-woman affair.

Pointingto the choice of Vance as a running mate, Setmayer stated, "This is the direction they are going in."

"It's a a big 'FU' to women whose rights are literally under assault," she continued. "This election is about life or death for women in America and the attacks on our freedom."

For her part, host Phang once again noted that the Trump campaign, with the selection of Vance" is treating American voters as if they are dumb, a point she took up earlier on MSNBC's "The Weekend."

Watch below or at the link.

Tara Setmayer on JD Vance: ‘You have a full mega-MAGA-misogynist ticket’youtu.be

 

J.D. Vance's brain 'pickled' by 'monstrous' conspiracies: MSNBC's Chris Hayes

Matthew Chapman
July 16, 2024


Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio in Detroit on June 16, 2024 (Gage Skidmore)


Former President Donald Trump's new running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), is emblematic of a deeper intellectual rot at the heart of the newer generation of Republican thinkers, wrote MSNBC's Chris Hayes in a scathing thread on X Tuesday evening.

Vance, a former venture capitalist who became famous for his "Hillbilly Elegy" memoir of growing up in western Ohio, started out as a never-Trump conservative who proclaimed Trump could become "America's Hitler" — but rapidly changed his tune when it came time to run for Senate in Ohio, going full-blown MAGA and now proclaiming he would help Trump overturn the results of elections.

That didn't happen by accident, wrote Hayes — and it's not entirely an act to win office, either.

"Something under appreciated in discussions of Vance and his ilk is the degree to which, yes, his ideological transformation is opportunistic, but also I think he and huge swaths of the modern right really have self-radicalized largely online and are constantly imbibing all kinds of genuinely monstrous, insane and bizarre ideas and have come to believe them," wrote Hayes.

Much ink has been spilled about how the far-right has established a following online, giving rise to the so-called "Groyper movement" seeking to inject white nationalism into mainstream political thought; the architect of this, Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, was catapulted into national awareness when Trump took a meeting with him at Mar-a-Lago. These are the kinds of ideologies that people like Vance are adjacent to as they harden their beliefs online, Hayes argued.

"A big part of modern right-wing culture is this frisson of the elicit, the reading of this or that writer or account who are outre in whatever ways (fascists, race-IQ obsessives, holocaust denial adjacent, people with very weird sexual fixations and pathologies they turn into their own philosophy, etc)" he wrote.

"A lot of them, and I think is true of Vance and definitely true of the creepy Silicon Valley MAGA weirdos, have simply pickled their brains," Hayes concluded.

Trump Was Shot With a Gun PA Republicans Refused to Ban

Just months before an assassin tried to kill Donald Trump, Pennsylvania Republicans blocked an attempt to ban the type of assault rifle used in the attack. It’s lunacy that these guns are on the streets — and that you can buy them at only 18.

Former president Donald Trump takes cover after an assassination attempt during his rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)


BY HELEN SANTORO
07.19.2024

JACOBIN

In the months before Saturday’s assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, the state’s legislature blocked a bill banning the sale of the type of assault rifle allegedly used in the attack.


Prior to that, at the federal level, nearly all of Pennsylvania’s Republican congressional delegation voted against a bill to reinstate a nationwide assault weapons ban, and the US Senate GOP blocked the legislation.

In January, a Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania House committee passed a bill banning the sale of assault weapons — against the unanimous opposition of Republicans on the panel. That legislation, however, was then tabled in the Pennsylvania assembly, facing stiff opposition from the state’s Republican lawmakers and the National Rifle Association (NRA).

On Saturday, Trump was wounded in the ear in a shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The suspected shooter, killed by Secret Service snipers, was identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, twenty, from nearby Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and an AR-15-type semiautomatic assault rifle was recovered at the scene. The gun was reportedly purchased by and registered to the shooter’s father.

When Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania opposed the assault weapons ban legislation earlier this year, they cited constitutional concerns as one of their reasons.

Yet even as the GOP made that legal argument, the Trump-packed US Supreme Court — the final arbiter on constitutional interpretation — was simultaneously allowing a similar ban to continue in a neighboring state.

“If we had banned assault weapons, this might have ended differently,” said a Pennsylvania lawmaker who asked for anonymity, citing safety concerns. “Whether or not you support Donald Trump is irrelevant in this conversation.”
Pennsylvania’s Battle Over Guns

In Pennsylvania, the minimum age for purchasing a rifle like the AR-15 that was apparently used in the attempted assassination of Trump is eighteen years old. The age requirement for purchasing a handgun is twenty-one.

After Democrats won control of Pennsylvania’s state assembly in 2023, they advanced an ambitious package of gun control legislation, including the proposed ban on future sales of assault weapons like the gun reportedly used in the assassination attempt. This legislation mirrored the 1994 federal assault weapons ban and would have prohibited semiautomatic and automatic guns with specific features like military-style grips and those capable of accepting large-capacity magazines. This legislation expired a decade later in 2004.

When the bill passed the House committee, the National Rifle Association (NRA) blasted it, declaring that “this bill would represent the most widespread gun ban in state history and almost certainly trigger its own legal challenge.”

Weeks later, the bill was tabled.

“Inside the capital there is zero political will to do anything on guns,” said the Pennsylvania lawmaker.

A 2016 study from University of Massachusetts researcher Louis Klarevas found that gun massacres fell 37 percent when the 1994 federal assault weapons ban was active and rose 183 percent after it expired in 2004.
“A Political Talking Point”

The AR-15 is a common weapon of choice for mass shooters in the United States: the 2016 anti-LGBT Pulse nightclub shooting, the 2017 shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, and the mass shooting at the 2017 Sutherland Springs church massacre all involved this semiautomatic rifle.

Yet along with blocking the assembly bill that would ban assault weapons, the Pennsylvania legislature shot down two other gun safety bills by a razor-thin margin that would have banned future sales of accelerated trigger activators, which increase the rate of fire, and streamlined the process of filing records of gun sales with the Pennsylvania State Police.

“There are all of these people on all sides of the aisle that say they care about this stuff that’s gun related, and nobody does anything,” said the Pennsylvania lawmaker who requested anonymity. “It’s become a political talking point that’s leveraged to gain momentum and then nothing happens.”

Outside of Pennsylvania, other states have successfully passed bans on assault weapons like automatic rifles. However, they have faced legal challenges while trying to maintain such laws. In Maryland, for example, a 2013 law limiting possession of weapons like machine guns enacted after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut survived a legal threat after the US Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the law from gun rights activists.
Trump’s Shift on Assault Weapons

Before his first presidential run, Trump wrote: “I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.”

However, as president, he and his party did not push to reinstate the nationwide ban on civilian use of certain semiautomatic weapons. Additionally, when an assault weapons ban passed the Democratic-controlled US House in 2022, eight of Pennsylvania’s Republican representatives voted against it, and the Senate GOP refused to allow it to come to a vote.

Earlier this year, Trump assured the NRA that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms” if he is elected president in 2024.

In 2018, Trump urged lawmakers to pass gun control reforms, including raising the age to buy rifles to twenty-one, referencing the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

“People aren’t bringing it up because they’re afraid to bring it up,” Trump told lawmakers “You can’t buy a handgun at eighteen, nineteen, or twenty. You have to wait until you’re twenty-one. You could buy the weapon used in this horrible shooting at eighteen.”

According to the New York Times, the statements “prompted a frantic series of calls from [National Rifle Association] lobbyists to their allies on Capitol Hill.”

The following month Trump changed his tune.

“On 18 to 21 Age Limits, watching court cases and rulings before acting. States are making this decision. Things are moving rapidly on this, but not much political support (to put it mildly),” Trump wrote on Twitter, now X, that March.

That same year, the National Rifle Association directly appealed to Trump to not raise the firearm age limit. Two years prior, in 2016, when Trump was elected, the NRA’s spending surged by more than $100 million, according to an audit filed with the state of North Carolina. This brought the association’s spending to more than $419 million, compared to $261 million in the 2012 election and $204 million in 2008.
Gun Politics in the Courts

In 2022, Trump-appointed judges struck down restrictions to limit firearm sales to young adults.

“America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army,” wrote Trump-appointed judge Ryan Nelson, alongside another Trump appointee, Judge Kenneth Lee, in a decision by the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. “Today we reaffirm that our Constitution still protects the right that enabled their sacrifice: the right of young adults to keep and bear arms.”

Furthermore, Trump’s three Supreme Court appointees have continued to shift the high court to the right on firearm issues after he left office. In 2022, the Court vastly expanded gun rights after a series of mass shootings that year, including ruling that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, invalidating many states’ tighter gun restrictions.

Just last month, the Supreme Court struck down a Trump-era ban on rapid-fire bump stocks, allowing semiautomatic guns to fire even more rapidly, even as they upheld a Maryland law banning assault weapons like AR-15s.

Last year, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that a law banning dealers from selling handguns to adults under twenty-one violates the Second Amendment.

And in Pennsylvania, where Saturday’s assassination attempt took place, a circuit court earlier this year lowered the age to carry a firearm in public in certain circumstances from twenty-one to eighteen, relying on the Supreme Court’s previous 2022 decision on this issue. The ruling relaxed open-carry laws around the country.

Consequently, any future effort to raise the minimum age for firearm purchase — even by Trump — could run up against significant legal barriers.

These legal decisions are happening amid an increased risk of violence during the 2024 election, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security. The report noted Americans “motivated by conspiracy theories and anti-government or partisan grievances” could try to disrupt the election, which may include violence or threats aimed at voters, election workers, and government officials.

You can subscribe to David Sirota’s investigative journalism project, the Lever, here.

CONTRIBUTOR
Helen Santoro is a journalist based in Colorado.