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(Damon Winter | The New York Times)A congressional staffer works late on Capitol Hill as lawmakers voted on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. The current GOP attempts at extortion are both more naked and less rational than what happened during the Obama years, Paul Krugman writes.

By Paul Krugman | The New York Times

| Dec. 6, 2021, 8:00 p.m.

With everything else going on the likely imminent demise of Roe v. Wade, the revelation that Donald Trump knew he had tested positive for the coronavirus before he debated Joe Biden, and more I dont know how many readers are aware that the U.S. government came close to being shut down last weekend. A last-minute deal averted that crisis, but in any case another crisis will follow in a couple of weeks: The government is expected to hit its debt ceiling in the middle of this month, and failure to raise the ceiling would wreak havoc not just with governance but with Americas financial reputation.

The thing is, the federal government isnt having any problem raising money in fact, it can borrow at interest rates well below the inflation rate, so that the real cost of servicing additional federal debt is actually negative. Instead, this is all about politics. Both continuing government funding and raising the debt limit are subject to the filibuster, and many Republican senators wont support doing either unless Democrats meet their demands.

And what has Republicans so exercised that theyre willing to endanger both the functioning of our government and the nations financial stability? Whatever they may say, they arent taking a stand on principle or at least, not on any principle other than the proposition that even duly elected Democrats have no legitimate right to govern.

In some ways weve seen this movie before. Republicans led by Newt Gingrich partly shut down the government in 1995-96 in an attempt to extract concessions from President Bill Clinton. GOP legislators created a series of funding crises under President Barack Obama, again in a (partly successful) attempt to extract policy concessions. Creating budget crises whenever a Democrat sits in the White House has become standard Republican operating procedure.

Yet current GOP attempts at extortion are both more naked and less rational than what happened during the Obama years.

Under Obama, leading Republicans claimed that their fiscal brinkmanship was motivated by concerns about budget deficits. Some of us argued even at the time that self-proclaimed deficit hawks were phonies, that they didnt actually care about government debt a view validated by their silence when the Trump administration blew up the deficit and that they actually wanted to see the economy suffer on Obamas watch. But they maintained enough of a veneer of responsibility to fool many commentators.

This time, Republican obstructionists arent even pretending to care about red ink. Instead, theyre threatening to shut everything down unless the Biden administration abandons its efforts to fight the coronavirus with vaccine mandates.

Whats that about? As many observers have pointed out, claims that opposition to vaccine mandates (and similar opposition to mask mandates) is about maintaining personal freedom dont stand up to any kind of scrutiny. No reasonable definition of freedom includes the right to endanger other peoples health and lives because you dont feel like taking basic precautions.

Furthermore, actions by Republican-controlled state governments, for example in Florida and Texas, show a party that isnt so much pro-freedom as it is pro-COVID. How else can you explain attempts to prevent private businesses whose freedom to choose was supposed to be sacrosanct from requiring that their workers be vaccinated, or offers of special unemployment benefits for the unvaccinated?

In other words, the GOP doesnt look like a party trying to defend liberty; it looks like a party trying to block any effective response to a deadly disease. Why is it doing this?

To some extent it surely reflects a coldly cynical political calculation. Voters tend to blame whichever party holds the White House for anything bad that happens on its watch, which creates an incentive for a sufficiently ruthless party to engage in outright sabotage. Sure enough, Republicans who fought all efforts to contain the coronavirus are now attacking the Biden administration for failing to end the pandemic.

But trying to shut down the government to block vaccinations seems like overreach, even for hardened cynics. Its notable that Mitch McConnell, whom nobody could accuse of being a do-gooder, isnt part of the anti-vaccine caucus.

What seems to be happening instead goes beyond cold calculation. As Ive pointed out in the past, Republican politicians now act like apparatchiks in an authoritarian regime, competing to take ever more extreme positions as a way to demonstrate their loyalty to the cause and to The Leader. Catering to anti-vaccine hysteria, doing all they can to keep the pandemic going, has become something Republicans do to remain in good standing within the party.

The result is that one of Americas two major political parties isnt just refusing to help the nation deal with its problems; its actively working to make the country ungovernable.

And I hope the rest of us havent lost the ability to be properly horrified at this spectacle.

Paul Krugman | The New York Times(CREDIT: Fred R. Conrad)

Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, is a columnist for The New York Times.

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Paul Krugman: How saboteurs took over the Republican Party - Salt Lake Tribune

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Hello, and Happy Thursday,

Over the last few months, weve seen lawmakers in several states draw new, distorted political districts that entrench their political power for the next decade. Republicans are carving up Texas, North Carolina and Georgia to hold on to their majorities. Democrats have the power to draw maps in far fewer places, but theyve also shown a willingness to use it where they have it, in places like Illinois and Maryland.

But something uniquely disturbing is happening in Ohio.

Republicans control the legislature there and recently enacted new maps that would give them a supermajority in the state legislature and allow them to hold on to at least 12 of the states 15 congressional seats. Its an advantage that doesnt reflect how politically competitive Ohio is: Donald Trump won the state in 2020 with 53% of the vote.

Whats worse is that Ohio voters have specifically enacted reforms in recent years that were supposed to prevent this kind of manipulation. Republicans have completely ignored them. It underscores how challenging it is for reformers to wrest mapmaking power from politicians.

Its incredibly difficult to get folks to say, OK, were just gonna do this fairly after years and years and decades and decades of crafting districts that favor one political party, Catherine Turcer, the executive director of the Ohio chapter of Common Cause, a government watchdog group that backed the reforms, told me earlier this year. I did not envision this being as shady.

In 2015 and 2018, Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved two separate constitutional amendments that were meant to make mapmaking fairer. The 2015 amendment dealt with drawing state legislative districts and gave a seven-person panel, comprised of elected officials from both parties, power to draw districts. If the panel couldnt agree on new maps, they would only be in effect for four years, as opposed to the usual 10.

The 2018 amendment laid out a slightly different process for drawing congressional districts, but the overall idea was the same. Both reforms also said districts could not unfairly favor or disfavor a political party.

Something started to seem amiss earlier this fall when the panel got to work trying to create the new state legislative districts. The two top Republicans in the legislature wound up drawing the maps in secret, shutting their fellow GOP members out of the process. After reaching an impasse with Democrats, Republicans on the panel approved a plan that gives the GOP a majority in the state legislature for the next four years.

When it came time to draw congressional maps, things did not go much better. The panel barely even attempted to fulfill its mission, kicking mapmaking power back to the state legislature. Lawmakers there quickly enacted the congressional plan that benefits the GOP for the next four years.

The new map benefits the GOP by cracking Democratic-heavy Hamilton county, home of Cincinnati, into three different congressional districts, noted the Cook Political Report. It also transforms a district in northern Ohio, currently represented by Democrat Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress, from one Joe Biden carried by 19 points in 2020 to one Trump would have carried by 5 points.

The maps already face several lawsuits, and their fate will ultimately be decided by the Ohio supreme court. Republicans have a 4-3 advantage on the court, though one of the GOP justices is considered a swing vote. Well soon see if voter-approved reforms will be completely defanged.

Reader questions

Please continue to write to me each week with your questions about elections and voting at sam.levine@theguardian.com or DM me on Twitter at @srl and Ill try to answer as many as I can.

Few places better encapsulate the new Republican effort to undermine American elections than Wisconsin. Some Republicans there are calling for the removal of the non-partisan head of the states election commission.

Georgia saw a jump in the percentage of rejected mail-in ballot requests in one of the first elections after Republicans imposed new requirements. Many of those who had their ballot requests rejected didnt ultimately vote in person, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a statement of interest in voting rights lawsuits in Arizona, Texas and Florida. All three filings significantly defend the power and scope of section two of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most powerful remaining provisions of the 1965 civil rights law.

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A Republican power grab in Ohio might be the GOPs most brazen yet - The Guardian

Senator Josh Hawley is worried about men. In a recent speech at the National Conservatism Conference, he blamed the left for their mental health problems, joblessness, obsession with video games and hours spent watching pornography. The crisis of American men, he said, is a crisis for the American republic.

The liberal reaction was flippant. A CNN analysis mocked the speech, contrasting the decline of masculinity with real issues like the pandemic and inflation. The ReidOut Blog on MSNBCs website declared, Josh Hawleys crusade against video games and porn is hilariously empty. But the contempt and mockery his speech received was, at least in part, misplaced.

Mr. Hawley is not alone in sensing that masculinity is a popular cause; around the world, male politicians are tapping into social anxieties about its apparent decline, for their own ideological ends. The Chinese government, for instance, has declared a masculinity crisis, and it is responding by cracking down on gaming during school days and by investing in gym teachers and school sports.

There can be a homophobic and fascistic component to such calls: China has also barred sissy men from appearing on TV; in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has said that masks are for fairies; and Mr. Hawley, in his speech, fueled anti-transgender prejudice by alluding to a bogus war on womens sports. Nothing justifies this hateful nonsense. But Mr. Hawley, for all his winking bigotry, is tapping into something real a widespread, politically potent anxiety about young men that is already helping the right.

American politicians have long fanned popular flames of masculine panic to advance their own agendas, and Mr. Hawley is a scholar of this tradition. In 2008, two years after graduating from Yale Law School, he wrote a smart, compelling book about a historical figure who also worried about masculinity. In Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness, published by Yale University Press, Mr. Hawley described how Roosevelt sought to imbue men with the fortitude the country needed to drive big national projects like war and territorial expansion.

Foregrounding the iconic virility of the cowboy and the soldier, he set out to inspire civic virtue in a citizenry that, he believed, had lost traditional manly virtues when people moved from farms to cities. Conquest would allow American men to shed the temptations of the slothful life and become a more manful race. Mr. Hawley seeks to carry on this tradition.

He is right about some things. Deindustrialization has stripped many men of their ability to earn a decent wage, as well as of the pride they once took in contributing to prosperous communities. Boys are sometimes overdisciplined and overmedicated for not conforming to behavioral expectations in school. And while more women than men are diagnosed with anxiety or depression, men are more likely to commit suicide or die of drug overdoses.

None of these problems are caused by liberals. But liberalism hasnt offered a positive message for men lately. In the media, universities and other liberal institutions, it sometimes seems that every man is potentially guilty of something. As Mr. Hawley puts it, men are being told by liberals that theyre the problem. Our side the progressive side has struggled to articulate what a nontoxic masculinity might look like, or where boys might look for models of how to become men.

This has set up an existential crisis for the left, threatening its ability to win elections. For years, young men have been flocking to the far right, finding its messages and disgruntled virtual communities on YouTube and Reddit. In 2016, Donald Trump won the male vote by 11 percentage points. And with his attacks on pornography and video games, Mr. Hawley could appeal to mothers, too, who know that, in excess, these arent signs of healthy social adjustment.

Like Roosevelt, Mr. Hawley knows how to exploit the cultural anxieties of ordinary people to advance his brand of politics. But he hasnt offered solutions to this masculinity crisis because neither he nor his party has any.

Men and boys need good jobs, affordable access to team sports, an education system sensitive to their social and emotional development, public parks, mental health support, access to substance abuse treatment and paternity leave. All of this requires public funding, which is far more likely to come from the left than the right. To thrive, many men also need the freedom not to be men at all, but rather to become sissies, scrawny historians or even women, a cultural evolution Mr. Hawley and his conservative ilk adamantly oppose.

In his book, Mr. Hawley rightly condemned Roosevelts racism and commitment to violent conquest, but he also wanted to salvage from Roosevelts legacy a vision of the common good, an insistence that we can live nobler and more meaningful lives. In his speech, Mr. Hawley tapped into this legacy: To each man, I say: You can be a tremendous force for good. Your nation needs you. The world needs you.

I dont hate this message, taken alone, for our sons. Who would? But that vision of shared purpose and civic virtue wont come from Mr. Hawley any more than funding for more public baseball fields will. He, after all, has opposed just about every common public project recently proposed, from the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the Build Back Better Act to the Green New Deal.

Meanwhile, the left will need to find a better way to talk to men; half of the population is far too many people to abandon to the would-be strongmen of the far right.

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Opinion | Josh Hawley and the Republican Obsession With Manliness - The New York Times

People were, like, shocked, Mr. Durr said. Theyd say, Nobodys ever been here.

Mr. Durr said he hoped to keep his job as a truck driver for the Raymour & Flanigan furniture chain, and the health insurance it provides, even after he is sworn in as a senator, a part-time position that pays $49,000. Lawmakers who took office after 2010 are not eligible for health coverage.

He rides a 2012 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, spoils his three pit bulls I call them my fur babies and, with his five siblings, takes care of his mother, a recent widow who lives next door.

Before joining the furniture company, he worked in construction and said he often held multiple jobs, including making pastries for Dunkin Donuts and working in a farm supply store. During two growing seasons, he drove trucks for East Coast Sod and Seed.

He was on time, said Andy Mottel, the manager of the Pilesgrove, N.J., farm, which transports sod across the country and provides the field grass for Yankee Stadium. He worked every day. He has that strong voice very knowledgeable about sports.

Mr. Durr completed his G.E.D. through Gloucester City High School, and he has made no secret of his unease with his sudden stardom. (I feel like Im about to throw up, he said the day Mr. Sweeney conceded.) He will be a member of the minority party in the State House, making it unlikely he will have significant power to steer or stonewall legislation.

When ticking off his legislative priorities, he mentions goals like bringing jobs here, bringing businesses here, and he is the first to say he has a lot to learn about how Trenton works. If its an issue that concerns New Jersey citizens, Im going fight for it, he said.

It was his fourth campaign for public office. He ran for State Assembly as an independent in 2017 and as a Republican in 2019, and he ran last year for Logan Township council.

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Edward Durr Jr.: The Trump Republican Whos Riding High in New Jersey - The New York Times

My almost 50 years of experience in politics has taught me that 11 months can be a lifetime in this business. What seems inevitable today can vanish overnight.

With that caveat and unless Republicans defeat themselves every reliable political indicator today points toward overwhelming Republican victories in the 2022 midterm elections.

President BidenJoe BidenUS lawmakers arrive in Taiwan to meet with local officials Biden meets with Coast Guard on Thanksgiving Five reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season MOREs poll numbers are at almost record lows in every conceivable category. Vice President Kamala HarrisKamala HarrisFive reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season CIA director says there will be consequences if Russia is behind 'Havana Syndrome' attacks Biden, Harris volunteer at DC nonprofit before Thanksgiving MOREs numbers are even worse. Inflation is rising more rapidly than any time in three decades. Violent crime is steadily increasing, especially in our inner cities.

The 2021 off-year elections were an across-the-board disaster for Democrats not just losing the three top statewide offices in Virginia but being routed as well in the suburbs in several states, which had been going progressively blue, especially during the Trump years.

Nassau County, N.Y., where I live, is a prime example of the steep declines suffered by the Democratic Party.

Located just outside New York City, with a population of almost 1.4 million, Nassau grew rapidly after World War II and is generally considered to be the nations first suburb. Overwhelmingly Republican for many years, it slowly began to tilt to the Democrats in the 1990s until Republicans there took deep hits during the Trump years. Democrats Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaMissed paperwork deadline delaying Biden nomination for FDA: report Poll: Democracy is under attack, and more violence may be the future No time for the timid: The dual threats of progressives and Trump MORE, Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonPoll: Democracy is under attack, and more violence may be the future Popping the progressive bubble GOP primary in NH House race draws national spotlight MORE and Joe Biden carried Nassau in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Going into this years elections, Democrats held three of the top four countywide offices and controlled local municipalities within the county including the town of North Hempstead, with a population of more than a quarter-million, and the city of Glen Cove, where the Democrats held the mayors office and all six council seats.

Yet, on Election Day earlier this month, Republicans once again swept Nassau not just winning back the countywide positions of county executive, district attorney and comptroller, but also electing the North Hempstead supervisor for the first time since 1989 and winning the mayors office and five of six council seats in Glen Cove. The issues in all of these races were taxes, crime and Joe Biden.

The results were similar in neighboring Suffolk County, where Republicans won back the county legislature for the first time in years and defeated a popular Democratic district attorney.

If the suburbs are the new national political battleground, Republicans seemingly could not be better positioned for the 2022 midterms unless they take their focus off of Biden, form circular firing squads, and attempt intra-party purges similar to those in which Democrats have engaged the past year.

Democrats want to make the next race about Donald TrumpDonald TrumpFive reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season Giving thanks for Thanksgiving itself Immigration provision in Democrats' reconciliation bill makes no sense MORE instead of about Biden and congressional Democrats, which makes sense since Trump polls in most opinion samplings only marginally better than Biden.

Against that backdrop, it would be political malpractice to follow the crazy idea of Mark MeadowsMark MeadowsJan. 6 organizers used burner phones to communicate with White House: report Trump allies leaning on his executive privilege claims Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Roger Stone, Alex Jones MORE, former Republican congressman from North Carolina and Trumps last chief of staff, that Republicans should support Trump for the next Speaker of the House. If they were to do so, Republicans would be lucky to break even in next years midterms instead of picking up an expected 60 to 70 House seats and taking back control of the Senate, as many political analysts now predict will happen.

Similarly, it is madness for Trump and his supporters to be threatening primaries against House Republicans who voted for an Infrastructure bill which benefits their very competitive districts and which passed the Senate with 69 votes, thanks to the support of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellFive reasons for Biden, GOP to be thankful this season Five victories Democrats can be thankful for Bipartisan success in the Senate signals room for more compromise MORE (R-Ky.) and other conservative senators such as Roy BluntRoy Dean BluntThis Thanksgiving, skip the political food fights and talk UFOs instead It's time for Congress to guarantee Medigap Health Insurance for vulnerable Americans with kidney disease Texas Democrat Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson announces retirement at end of term MORE (R-Mo.) and Roger WickerRoger Frederick WickerSenators: US allies concerned Senate won't pass annual defense bill Overnight Defense & National Security A new plan to treat Marines 'like human beings' Republicans press Milley over perceived progressive military agenda MORE (R-Miss.).

To win and to be able to govern, Republicans must be a national party not an ideological monolith.

It is time for all Republicans to follow the Reagan admonition to not speak ill of other Republicans. If Republicans are united and focus on the core issues of inflation, crime and Bidens incompetency, they have a golden opportunity to achieve historic victories for their party and for the nation in 2022. If not, Republicans will have no one to blame but their own ideological purists.

Peter King retired in January as the U.S. representative of New Yorks 2nd Congressional District. He served 28 years in Congress, including as chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Follow him on Twitter @RepPeteKing.

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Republicans seem set to win the midterms unless they defeat themselves | TheHill - The Hill