Category: Foreign Affairs

CHICAGO, March 11— With thousands of people already packed into stands and music blaring to warm up the crowd, Donald J. Trump’s campaign abruptly canceled his rally here on Friday night over security concerns as protesters clashed with his supporters inside an arena where he was to speak.

Minutes after Mr. Trump was to have taken to a podium on the campus of a large, diverse public university just west of downtown, an announcer suddenly pronounced the event over before it had begun. Hundreds of protesters, who had promised to be a visible presence here and filled several sections of the arena, let out an elated, unstopping cheer. Mr. Trump’s supporters, many of whom had waited hours to see the Republican front-runner, seemed stunned and slowly filed out in anger.

Around the country, protesters have interrupted virtually every Trump rally, but his planned appearance here — in a city run for decades by Democrats and populated by nearly equal thirds of blacks, Latinos and whites — had drawn some particularly incensed responses since it was announced days ago.

The canceled rally came on a day that Mr. Trump sought to move past the primary fight, saying that the party needed to come together behind him.

Elsewhere, Mr. Trump’s security has tried to identify and exclude potential demonstrators before they enter his events, but large groups of protesters had waited in line for seats here, and engaged in tense disputes with Trump supporters even as the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion was still filling up. For more than an hour before the event was to begin, security teams led protesters out, one by one, but many more remained, sparring with Trump supporters.

In a statement, Mr. Trump’s campaign said that he “has determined that for the safety of all of the tens of thousands of people that have gathered in and around the arena, tonight’s rally will be postponed to another date.”

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders held a fierce and substantive debate in Flint, Michigan, on Sunday night, disagreeing over trade, guns and the auto industry bailout while joining forces to call for the resignation of state governor Rick Snyder over the city’s water contamination crisis.

Shortly after they took the stage, the Associated Press announced that Sanders had won the Democratic caucuses in Maine, his eighth victory in the 2016 presidential primary race. In a statement, the leftwing Vermont senator thanked Maine’s voters and claimed momentum heading into Tuesday’s primaries in Michigan and Mississippi.

Onstage he and the former secretary of state had one of their sharpest exchanges yet when they were asked by a member of the audience about trade and job creation, an issue Sanders had been attacking Clinton over in the lead-up to the debate.

“Secretary Clinton supported virtually every one of the disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America,” Sanders said.

“He voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry,” Clinton replied. “I think that is a pretty big difference.”

“If you are talking about the Wall Street bailout, where some of your friends destroyed this economy … ” Sanders began.

“You know…” Clinton interjected, before Sanders cut her off: “Excuse me, I’m talking,” he said, dismissing her with his hand.

Bernie Sanders scolds Hillary Clinton for interrupting him during a particularly heated exchange on trade and government bailouts

Sanders repeatedly attacked Clinton’s past support for international trade agreements, an issue he is attempting to use against her in Michigan in order to win blue-collar votes in the rust-belt industrial state.

“I am very glad … Secretary Clinton has discovered religion on this issue,” Sanders said, referring to her position on trade. “We’ve lost 60,000 factories since 2001, they’re going to start having to – if I’m president – invest in this country, not in China, not in Mexico.”

The candidates began the debate by addressing the city’s toxic water crisis. Sanders recalled his meetings with residents: “I have to tell you what I heard, and what I saw literally shattered me. And it was beyond belief that children in Flint, Michigan, in the United States of America in the year 2016 are being poisoned.”

Clinton, who spotlighted the issue in an earlier debate, reminded the CNN audience that she had pushed the Democratic National Committee to host a debate in Flint.

“It is raining lead in Flint, and the state is derelict in not coming forward with the money that is required,” Clinton said, joining Sanders for the first time in calling for the governor to “resign or be recalled”.

Sanders and Clinton have both been campaigning hard in Michigan, which holds its primary on Tuesday.

Sanders has work to do if he hopes to win the state; Clinton is leading him by a double digit margin, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Just before the debate, Sanders earned the endorsement of former Michigan Senator Don Riegle, a native of Flint. During an impromptu press conference, Riegle said the Clintons’ support for the Nafta trade agreement “destroyed the Flint I loved”.

Clinton and Sanders also tussled over whether gun manufacturers should be legal liable when their weapons are used in crimes.

Clinton said that giving immunity to gun makers and sellers “was a terrible mistake” and noted that she and Sanders were on opposing sides of the debate.

Sanders has said his support for the 2005 law was in part an effort to protect small gun shops in his home state of Vermont. He told the audience in Flint that Clinton’s approach could amount to “ending gun manufacturing in America”.

Clinton referred in emotional terms to the Sandy Hook massacre and told Sanders: “You talk about corporate greed. The gun manufacturers sell guns to make as much money as they can.”

At turns during the debate, Sanders sharply cut Clinton off or seemed to reprimand her for interrupting. Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s communication director, called his tone and behaviour “desperate and disrespectful” and said it was a sign of his campaign’s mounting frustration at the current dynamic of the primary race.

“It was quite mild compared to Republicans, and I also think it was really substantive. It’s not even in the same universe as the Republican debate, but he does seem to be frustrated and that was apparent,” she told the Guardian after the debate.

When asked if the senator’s tone was too harsh, Jeff Weaver, his campaign manager, said it was not, and said he hoped the analysis of the debate remained on the issues.

“He made a lot of forceful points tonight, there were a lot of forceful points to make, frankly on issues like trade and the economy, and he made those points and [laid] out the differences between them,” Weaver said in the spin room after the debate.

Weaver dismissed Sanders’s heavy losses on Super Tuesday and said the campaign was making progress among African American voters, seen as crucial to winning the Democratic nomination.

“It’s not about margins, it’s about making progress,” Weaver said. “There’s a long campaign to go. We are making substantial progress … At this point, in many ways, what we’re confronting is not by race but by age.”

Weaver called Clinton a “regional candidate” despite the fact that she has claimed three states outside of the South, including a narrow victory in Massachusetts, where Sanders had hoped to win.

There were also moments of levity during the debate. “We are, if elected president, going to invest a lot into mental health, and if you watch these Republican debates, you’re going to know why,” Sanders said.

“He’s called you a communist,” host Anderson Cooper told Sanders of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

“That’s one of the nice things he’s called me,” Sanders replied.

Clinton said she had won more votes than Trump in the primaries so far, and predicted that his “bigotry, his bullying, his bluster are not going to wear well on the American people”.

Sanders declared: “I would love to run against Donald Trump,” adding that polls showed “Sanders v Trump does a lot better than Clinton v Trump”.

Perhaps the most powerful moment came when Sanders was asked about his Judaism, which he has been accused of downplaying on the campaign trail.

“I am very proud to be Jewish, and being Jewish is so much of who I am,” Sanders said.

“Look, my father’s family was wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust. I know about what crazy and radical, and extremist politics mean. I learned that lesson as a tiny, tiny child when my mother would take me shopping, and we would see people working in stores who had numbers on their arms because they were in Hitler’s concentration camp.”

He concluded: “I’m very proud of being Jewish and that is an essential part of who I am as a human being.”

Actor Mark Ruffalo briefly joined reporters in the spin room to discuss Sanders’ performance.

“The message that Bernie is giving us is one of imagination,” said Ruffalo, who has campaigned on the senator’s behalf. “It’s one of great ideas and one that takes America to its greatest potential … and early on that message really captured the minds and the hearts of feeling people.”

Former CIA director Michael Hayden believes there is a legitimate possibility that the U.S. military would refuse to follow orders given by Donald Trump if the Republican front-runner becomes president and decides to make good on certain campaign pledges.

Hayden, who also headed the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005, made the provocative statement on Friday during an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” Trump, fresh off a string of primary victories, has yet to secure his party’s nomination, but Hayden said the candidate’s rhetoric already raises troubling questions.

“I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign,” Hayden said during the interview with Maher.

Earlier this month, Trump told a South Carolina retirement community that he supports waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques because “torture works” when it comes to extracting vital information from terrorists.

Deeming waterboarding “torture,” President Obama’s administration discontinued its use during his first term in office. Proponents of the controversial practice, as The Washington Posts Jenna Johnson noted, avoid labeling it as torture, which would violate various international laws and treaties. Trump, meanwhile, has not only pledged to reinstate waterboarding, but also introduce other methods of interrogation that are “so much worse” and “much stronger.”

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works,” Trump told the Sun City retirement community. “Okay, folks? Torture — you know, half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works. Okay?”

Trump has also said on multiple occasions that the United States should kill the family members of terrorists.

“That will make people think. Because they do not care very much about their lives, but they do care, believe it or not, about their family’s lives,” Trump said during a debate of Republican presidential candidates in December.

Politifact has pointed out that targeting terrorists’ family members is barred by the Geneva Conventions.

During his appearance on “Real Time,” Hayden cited Trump’s pledge to kill family members as being among his most troubling campaign statements.

“That never even occurred to you, right?” Maher asked.

“God, no!” Hayden replied. “Let me give you a punchline: If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act.”

“That’s quite a statement, sir,” Maher said.

“You are required not to follow an unlawful order,” Hayden added. “That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”

“You’ve given us a great reason not to support Trump. There would be a coup in this country,” Maher joked.

Hayden said he didn’t mean to imply that the military would provoke “a coup.”

“I think it’s a coup that you said it,” Maher added.

If there’s one thing that fires up Bernie Sanders supporters—and makes his detractors roll their eyes—it’s his call for a “political revolution.” To his base, it’s the very point of his anti-establishment, anti-elite candidacy. To his critics, it’s the very embodiment of his campaign’s naïve impracticality and vagueness.

But now that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have spoken, it’s time to take the idea of political revolution more seriously—more seriously, indeed, when Sanders himself appears to have. It’s time to ask: What exactly would it take?

It starts with Congress. And here it’s instructive to compare Sanders and Donald Trump. Both rely on broad, satisfying refrains of “We’re gonna”: We’re gonna break up the big banks. We’re gonna make Mexico build the wall. We’re gonna end the rule of Wall Street billionaires. We’re gonna make China stop ripping us off.

The difference is, Trump’s refrains are more plausible. That’s because today’s Congress is already willing to enact many of his proposals, whether repeal of Obamacare or severe restrictions on immigration. And if Trump became president, the 115th Congress would very likely be more conservative than the 114th.

For Sanders to deliver on his “We’re gonna” pledges, he needs an entirely different Congress. How to get it? Thus far, Sanders has laid out a theory of action that is basically, “If I come, they will build it.” That is, if he electrifies enough voters to win, then presumably those voters will have upended Congress as well. He’s banking on an electoral flood tide à la 1980, 1964, or 1932.

That’s possible, but it’s not a plan. If he’s serious about political revolution, the first priority for Sanders now should be to cultivate a crop of Democratic candidates who can oust Republican incumbents. House Democrats, at their lowest numbers since 1947, need 30 seats to regain a majority. If Sanders launched a “Bernie’s 30” effort, to persuade his formidable base of small donors to give money and time to a slate of candidates who can win a targeted set of seats now held by the GOP, that would help effect the actual institutional change his presidency would depend on.

A second step for a true revolution would be a common policy agenda for all these candidates. Here he could take a page from Newt Gingrich’s playbook and issue a progressive Contract With America that prioritizes 10 easy-to-digest legislative goals (Wall Street reform, campaign reform, single-payer health care, and so forth). Historians and commentators differ on how much the Contract truly caused the tectonic 1994 GOP takeover. But it did nationalize, and standardize, congressional campaigns in a way that Sanders would need to do.

Third, Sanders should also take a page from the Obama 2008 playbook. That campaign organized young people more systematically than any presidential campaign in history. Across the country, it held “Camp Obama” trainings, in which young people taught each other Marshall Ganz’s story-centered methods of community organizing. Sanders has the young people; now he needs the machinery to amplify their force.

Fourth, Sanders would have to learn from Obama 2008 how to catalyze culture makers. Every presidential campaign knows enough now to enlist celebrity musicians or artists. But Sanders could invite artists from all around the country, famous or not, to create work that spreads the message of his campaign. Culture shapes norms: about inequality,  racism, violence. And culture that isn’t made by the campaign but by the people packs a punch.

Fifth, Sanders would have to link up to other organic movements that are arising in parallel with his own campaign. The Democracy Awakening coalition, led by the NAACP and Public Citizen with dozens of other progressive organizations, for example, is planning a national rally in Washington for this spring. But Sanders should look beyond obviously progressive movements. If he wants a revolution, he needs also to invite in the segment of Trump supporters who aren’t racist xenophobes but who simply feel left behind by a changing country. That would be revolutionary.

Sixth, the Sanders campaign should study the Tea Party closely and learn from it. It’s too easy for progressives to dismiss the Tea Party as a creation of the Koch brothers. The more complex and instructive reality is that, especially early on, there were many thousands of Americans self-organizing on conference calls and Facebook and in person. What was their leadership structure? How did they communicate? What lessons do their grassroots leaders have about dealing with the party establishment?

Seventh, Sanders should be building a web of city leaders—elected and not—who will push policies in sync with his national agenda. Cities are increasingly the locus of civic innovation, whether on the sharing economy or living wages or criminal-justice reform. A true political revolution would activate citizens in every city of scale to provide the foundation from which federal reforms could arise.

Of course, Hillary Clinton could adopt some of these strategies, too. But her disadvantage is that she does not have many young voters. More crucially, she does not seek transformational change. The only other candidate who wants such change, Trump, sees his voters as an audience, as customers, as fans. Not so much as citizens. He loves them the way Il Duce loved his people. He wants to exercise power in their name, not to empower them to shape their own futures.

Which brings me back to the Sanders opportunity—and what I think of as an American opportunity. I supported Obama in 2008, and I’ve supported Clinton this time. But I am genuinely excited about the energy Sanders has activated, and I believe it’s good for the country if that energy gets converted to productive civic action.

So the message now to Bernie Sanders from Americans of every stripe should be this: You say you want a revolution? Help us make one.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who is trying to save his failing campaign in New Hampshire after finishing sixth in the Iowa caucuses, had to beg an audience in New Hampshire to clap for him.

“I will be a commander in chief that will have the back of the military, I won’t trash talk, I won’t be a divider-in-chief or an agitator-in-chief. I won’t be out there blowharding talking a big game without backing it up,” Bush said at a town hall in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we’re prepared to act in the national security interests of this country to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world.”

When Bush’s comments were met with silence, he asked the audience to “please clap,” which they did.

According to HuffPost Pollster, which aggregates publicly available polling data, Bush trails Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) in New Hampshire.

The Democratic and Republican Iowa Caucuses, the first step in nominating a candidate, will take place on February 1. Iowans defend the caucus as an exercise in real grassroots democracy, given the extent of politicking and discussion that goes on.

On February 1, the first voting contest in the presidential nominating process kicks into gear in the US state of Iowa. Because it is the first state to do so, candidates invest heavily there, whether by holding debates or canvassing.

Iowans vote in caucuses, which are small political meetings held throughout 1,681 locations scattered around the state. They are similar to primaries in that residents cast ballots for their preferred party candidate, and whoever garners the most votes wins. But people do not just show up and vote – the process is essentially a meeting of friends and neighbours in high school gyms and church basements, where discussions about candidates are held.

Representatives for the candidates are present and, at one point, attempt to persuade undecided voters. This is what makes caucuses different from primaries. The Iowa caucuses, which have represented the nation’s first ballot-marking since the 1970s, is also different for Democrats and Republicans.

The caucuses: Republican vs Democrat

In the US, elections take place like this: Citizens elect delegates, delegates elect nominees, and nominees become presidents.

On the Republican side, the caucuses are straightforward: Voters turn up, listen to speeches, and then cast their vote by a secret ballot. Votes are tallied statewide. A winner is subsequently declared.

On the Democratic side, the process is more convoluted and time-consuming. The number of people in the room are counted, and any candidate who does not get a certain percentage (a threshold set at the beginning of the night) in the first round, is eliminated.

Those who voted for losing candidates are then coaxed by the others to join their side and to vote for their candidate of choice. At the end, the results are collated across the state in all precincts.

Despite the hoopla surrounding the Iowa caucuses, the real impact of this process happens further down the line, when results are eventually translated into votes for delegates, who represent their states at their respective party conventions. These delegates are the ones who vote for a candidate to run in the national election.

Why are the Iowa caucuses significant? 

Iowans defend the caucus as an exercise in real grassroots democracy, given the extent of politicking and discussion that goes on. However, some argue that the lengthy and complex caucus is archaic and should be changed.

One of the problems with placing so much weight on Iowa is that it is not demographically representative of the US, with a population that is approximately 90 percent white versus 77 percent nationwide.

“The importance of Iowa is enshrined in tradition. It’s not practical,” said Jason Johnson, a professor of political science and communication at Hiram College in Ohio.

“Other states are more demographically and economically diverse and are a better indicator of how you would do nationally. It’s just that we have been doing it for so long that no one wants to advocate its change,” Johnson, who has worked for both Republicans and Democrats as a campaign manager, told Al Jazeera.

If this state is small and unrepresentative, why does it have such an impact on the race? In a nutshell, it is because it is the first contest for people to get their party nomination. If a candidate does not do well in those early states, like Iowa and New Hampshire, financial and electoral support eventually begins to dry up. This gives Iowa the power to narrow down the playing field.

“Because it is the first, a large number of voters within the two parties and a large number of the press and party elites in [Washington] DC choose to make it an important contest,” Johnson said.

“Your success in Iowa is perceived to be an indicator for your ability to organise, to get people on the ground and to have voters enthusiastically support you.”

What do the Iowa caucuses achieve?

Because of the sequential system, the results of the ‘first-in-the-nation’ caucuses can affect how people in the next state vote (it helps them adjust their expectations accordingly), give winning candidates more airtime and media attention, and impact the behaviour of donors. More importantly, it narrows down the number of candidates to a manageable size.

“Its most important facet is that it winnows the field,” said Lara Brown, the author of Jockeying for the American Presidency: The Political Opportunism of Aspirants. “It typically brings out two to three candidates who have the media momentum and organisational campaign to go forward.”

The winnowing effect of the Iowa caucuses helps predict the losing nominee. That is because it separates the “starters from the non-starters,” according to Bill Schneider, a political analyst who has covered every US presidential and midterm election since 1976.

“You will see candidates dropping out after Iowa,” Schneider told Al Jazeera. “People who vote in the Republican caucuses tend to be evangelical. They are not representative of the larger party. On the Democratic side, they tend to be very liberal, because it’s people who have the commitment to attend what’s essentially a meeting.”

Since 1972, no Democratic or Republican candidate who finished worse than fourth place in Iowa has gone on to win their party’s nomination, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Most often, it is those hopefuls who get a top tier spot who continue to do well in their campaigns. Those who do not usually drop out of the race soon thereafter, although there are a few exceptions. A case in point is former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who, in 2008, won the Republican caucus, but dropped out just three months later, without securing the GOP nomination.

What does this mean for this year’s race?

Essentially, pundits, strategists, candidates and people will be using the Iowa caucuses’ results as a litmus test to see how the nation responds to candidates and to set the stage and build momentum for the first primary held in New Hampshire about a week later. It is also a chance for voters and the media to see if the results measure up to their expectations.

In the Democratic contest, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was leading in polls until Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders caught up with her. In Iowa, he recently topped Clinton at 49 percent to 45 percent, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, essentially locking both candidates in a tight battle.

While Sanders has positioned himself to seriously compete in this race, Iowa may be a tough win for him, according to some observers.

“Hillary Clinton has long focused on Iowa as essentially a shortcoming of her previous campaign, and I’d be surprised if she doesn’t win there,” Brown told Al Jazeera. “Bernie Sanders has to bring a lot of first-time caucus-goers who may not be as active and knowledgeable as Clinton’s supporters.”

On the GOP side, all eyes will be on billionaire Donald Trump, and whether people will actually go out and vote for him. The celebrity tycoon is leading in Iowa with about 31 percent, compared with 29 percent for Senator Ted Cruz, according to the same Quinnipiac University poll.

“As Trump gains momentum, there will be a lot of caucusers who think he’s going to be the nominee so they say ‘let me get on board’,” said Joe Watkins, a Republican strategist. “They see who’s going to win and they want in. That’s how it works.”

Trump, who won the endorsement of former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, recently exuded confidence at an Iowa rally when he said he “could shoot somebody” on New York’s Fifth Avenue and “wouldn’t lose any voters”.

“With Palin’s endorsement, he’s digging into Ted Cruz’s base, which is the evangelical Christian base,” Watkins, who was a White House aide to former President George Bush senior, told Al Jazeera.

In New Hampshire, Trump has a much larger lead over the other Republican presidential hopefuls there, so if he wins in Iowa, he can bring both contests to South Carolina, which then puts him in a comfortable position on Super Tuesday, a day on which several US states hold primaries.

Schneider explained that there are two ways things can go for Trump: His supporters, many of whom have never voted in a caucus before, may not show up, especially since he has not invested as much time and energy on the ground there.

“A caucus is a meeting. It takes a lot more energy to attend a meeting,” Schneider said. “You need something to pull people out of their beds, find babysitters for their kids, to get them to that meeting. Without that sort of operation, his people won’t show up.”

On the other hand, it is possible that Trump’s supporters will show up without any organisation. “His people are so fired up, they want their voice to be heard. So it could happen. It happened to [Barack] Obama in 2008.”

What happens after the caucuses?

“Just because a candidate wins Iowa doesn’t mean he wins the general election,” Republican strategist Watkins said. “It’s all very fluid and not automatic.”

“It’s possible Trump can win Iowa and even the Republican nomination, but winning the general election is something else; he’d have to win constituents who aren’t Republican, or he has to walk back many of his comments that alienated others.”

The results of Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s primaries also tend to go hand in hand. “Iowa and New Hampshire are different kinds of tests, but they go together: Iowa is a very restricted electorate. New Hampshire is more open because they allow independents,” Schneider said. “If you fail both these tests, then it’s time to leave.”