(WILTON MANORS, Fla.) —One man was killed and another injured after two people were hit by a truck at a South Florida gay pride march on Saturday evening.
The incident took place at the Stonewall Pride Parade & Street Festival in Wilton Manors, just north of Fort Lauderdale. It came right before the start of the parade.
“What started as a celebration quickly turned to tragedy at today’s Stonewall Pride Parade,” Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony said in a statement. “Though authorities are still gathering information, we know two individuals marching to celebrate inclusion and equality were struck by a vehicle. One person has died and the other remains hospitalized.”
“This tragedy took place within feet of me and my BSO team, and we are devastated having witnessed this horrific incident,” Gregory added. “I’m proud of all the BSO and local first responders who leaped into action, running into the unknown and instantly provided care for the victims.”
Both individuals were taken to Broward Health Medical Center, where one was pronounced dead. Officials said the other man was expected to survive.
Authorities are still investigating whether it was an accident or deliberate act. The driver was taken into custody for questioning, according to police. The truck hit a nearby gate and came to a stop.
“The investigation is active and we were evaluating all possibilities,” Fort Lauderdale police spokesperson Detective Ali Adamson said at a press conference. “Nothing is out of the question right now, we have to look at all angles and that’s what we are doing.”
“The FBI is involved in an effort to do a thorough and complete investigation,” Adamson added.
The vehicle also narrowly missed hitting a convertible that Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., was riding in, WPLG reported.
“I am deeply shaken and devastated that a life was lost and others seriously injured at tonight’s @WiltonManorsCty Stonewall #Pride Parade. My staff, volunteers and I are thankfully safe,” she wrote on Twitter.
An emotional Wasserman Schultz, who has represented the 23rd Congressional District since 2013, could be seen making calls and being consoled by staffers afterward.
“We’re praying for the victims and their loved ones as law enforcement investigates, and I am providing them with whatever assistance I can,” Wasserman Schultz added. “I am so heartbroken by what took place at this celebration. May the memory of the life lost be for a blessing.”
The parade was scheduled to start at 7 p.m., but the incident took place just beforehand. It was canceled after the crash, according to Wilton Manors police, though the festival continued.
Justin Knight, the president of the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus, said in a statement provided to ABC Miami affiliate WPLG that he did not believe this was a targeted attack.
“Our fellow chorus members were those injured and the driver was also part of the Chorus family,” said Knight. “To my knowledge, this was not an attack on the LGBTQ community.”
ABC News’ Jon Haworth, Matt Foster and Victor Oquendo contributed to this report.
NEW RULES have come into place which mean more gay and bisexual men will be allowed to donate blood, platelets and plasma.
The new eligibility rules came into effect on World Blood Donor Day on Monday and mean that donors in England, Scotland and Wales will no longer be asked if they are a man who has had sex with another man, NHS Blood and Transplant said.
Eligibility will instead be based on individual circumstances surrounding health, travel and sexual behaviours shown to be at a higher risk of sexual infection.
Any individual who attends to give blood regardless of gender will be asked if they have had sex and, if so, about recent sexual behaviours.
Anyone who has had the same sexual partner for the last three months will be eligible to donate, meaning more gay and bisexual men will be able to donate blood, platelets and plasma.
Ella Poppitt, chief nurse for blood donation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said: “Patient safety is at the heart of everything we do.
“This change is about switching around how we assess the risk of exposure to a sexual infection, so it is more tailored to the individual.
“We screen all donations for evidence of significant infections, which goes hand-in-hand with donor selection to maintain the safety of blood sent to hospitals.
“All donors will now be asked about sexual behaviours which might have increased their risk of infection, particularly recently acquired infections. This means some donors might not be eligible on the day but may be in the future.
“Our priority is to make sure that donors are able to answer the pre-donation questions in a setting that makes them feel comfortable and safe and donation is something that continues to make people feel amazing.”
The women endured two years of misery at the hands of their neighbour (Stock image: Envato)
Police have apologised to a gay couple who were subjected to a horrifying two-year campaign of harassment from a homophobic neighbour from hell.
Jessica and Lisa from Chatham, Kent, suffered a torrent of homophobia and intimidating behaviour from the middle-aged family man, who has now been ordered not to have any contact with them.
Their two-year ordeal included tyres being slashed, food waste emptied in the garden, a rock lobbed through their window and threats to strangle them and break down their door.
On one occasion the couple say the neighbour and “about nine members of his family” arrived on their doorstep hurling obscenities and accusing them of being “pervs”.
The women, both former police officers, told Kent Online they were appalled by the lack of action from Kent Police in response to their complaints.
Of the 40 separate incidents recorded by the couple, 17 were reported to the police, but on many occasions officers did not attend to take statements and they say the abuse was not “taken seriously”.
“We never retaliated, that would have been professional suicide,” Lisa told the paper. “What I find worrying is that we were serving police officers and not taken seriously.
“What if you are vulnerable, can’t speak English or have other issues? The message from us is to stand up for yourself and your rights.”
They were basically calling me a sex offender
The problems began in 2018 when Jessica, 31, moved in and asked the neighbour to move a vehicle as she was expecting a removal van. When he stubbornly refused the council slapped him with a fine, which only inflamed the situation further.
At Halloween several of the neighbour’s relatives blocked the doorstep saying children shouldn’t approach the women because they were “pervs”.
“They were basically calling me a sex offender,” Jessica said.
As time went on they found their neighbour’s vehicles consistently blocking their drive and the tyres to their campervan slashed, while his threats grew increasingly violent.
Afraid to leave the house, the couple carried their phones with them everywhere and stepped up security with CCTV cameras, leaving them feeling like they were “living in a fortress”.
At one point they felt so intimidated they fled to another address for months. Yet Kent Police still did not take them seriously – which was a “major factor” in Jessica and Lisa’s decision to leave the police about three months ago.
Police have now admitted the way they dealt with the abuse ordeal fell “below the required standard”, and say officers involved were given “words of advice and learning” after the two women officially complained.
A Kent Police spokesman told Kent Online: “We received two complaints from a person involved in a neighbour dispute. The first was received in February 2020 and questioned the quality of parts of the investigation.
“The second complaint concerned the disclosure of personal information, namely the complainant’s profession, which had been shared with the defence team as part of the court proceedings.
“Following review of both complaints, they were upheld and it was found the service provided fell below the required standard. The victim was updated and officers were given words of advice and learning.”
A 48-year-old man appeared in court on 3 June charged with offences under the Public Order Act.
He received a 12-month community order, including a curfew, and a six-month restraining order not to go to the women’s address. He was also ordered to pay £200 court costs.
Police have apologised to a gay couple who were subjected to a horrifying two-year campaign of harassment from a homophobic neighbour from hell.
Jessica and Lisa from Chatham, Kent, suffered a torrent of homophobia and intimidating behaviour from the middle-aged family man, who has now been ordered not to have any contact with them.
Their two-year ordeal included tyres being slashed, food waste emptied in the garden, a rock lobbed through their window and threats to strangle them and break down their door.
On one occasion the couple say the neighbour and “about nine members of his family” arrived on their doorstep hurling obscenities and accusing them of being “pervs”.
The women, both former police officers, told Kent Online they were appalled by the lack of action from Kent Police in response to their complaints.
Of the 40 separate incidents recorded by the couple, 17 were reported to the police, but on many occasions officers did not attend to take statements and they say the abuse was not “taken seriously”.
“We never retaliated, that would have been professional suicide,” Lisa told the paper. “What I find worrying is that we were serving police officers and not taken seriously.
“What if you are vulnerable, can’t speak English or have other issues? The message from us is to stand up for yourself and your rights.”
They were basically calling me a sex offender
The problems began in 2018 when Jessica, 31, moved in and asked the neighbour to move a vehicle as she was expecting a removal van. When he stubbornly refused the council slapped him with a fine, which only inflamed the situation further.
At Halloween several of the neighbour’s relatives blocked the doorstep saying children shouldn’t approach the women because they were “pervs”.
“They were basically calling me a sex offender,” Jessica said.
As time went on they found their neighbour’s vehicles consistently blocking their drive and the tyres to their campervan slashed, while his threats grew increasingly violent.
Afraid to leave the house, the couple carried their phones with them everywhere and stepped up security with CCTV cameras, leaving them feeling like they were “living in a fortress”.
At one point they felt so intimidated they fled to another address for months. Yet Kent Police still did not take them seriously – which was a “major factor” in Jessica and Lisa’s decision to leave the police about three months ago.
Police have now admitted the way they dealt with the abuse ordeal fell “below the required standard”, and say officers involved were given “words of advice and learning” after the two women officially complained.
A Kent Police spokesman told Kent Online: “We received two complaints from a person involved in a neighbour dispute. The first was received in February 2020 and questioned the quality of parts of the investigation.
“The second complaint concerned the disclosure of personal information, namely the complainant’s profession, which had been shared with the defence team as part of the court proceedings.
“Following review of both complaints, they were upheld and it was found the service provided fell below the required standard. The victim was updated and officers were given words of advice and learning.”
A 48-year-old man appeared in court on 3 June charged with offences under the Public Order Act.
He received a 12-month community order, including a curfew, and a six-month restraining order not to go to the women’s address. He was also ordered to pay £200 court costs.
The night of 9 September, 1982 started off like any other evening for Declan Flynn.
He went to Belton’s Pub in Donnycarney, Dublin with a friend – an establishment that was just a short walk from his home.
At 11.45pm that night, Flynn left the pub and set off on his walk home through Dublin’s Fairview Park, a well-known meeting spot for gay men. He stopped off at the Fairview Grill on his way home where he met with a male friend. Before continuing his journey, his friend kissed him on the cheek.
Shortly afterwards, he was violently beaten to within an inch of his life by a group of “vigilante” teenage boys who wanted to remove queer people from the park.
At around 1.45am, a badly-beaten Flynn was discovered in the park, with paramedics arriving on the scene just minutes later. He died shortly afterwards in Blanchardstown Hospital.
He was just 31-years-old.
Flynn’s death sent shockwaves through Ireland’s LGBT+ community – but anger reached a crescendo when the boys responsible for his death went before the courts.
One of the boys admitted that they went to the park as part of a “queer bashing” mission, boasting about having “battered about 20 steamers”.
“We used to grab them. If they hit back we gave it to them,” said Robert Alan Armstrong, then aged 18.
Despite this, all five boys walked free, with Mr Justice Seán Gannon telling them that Flynn’s killing “could never be regarded as murder”.
Gannon told the court: “One thing that has come to my mind is that there is no element of correction that is required. All of you come from good homes and experienced care and affection.”
Heartbreak in Ireland’s LGBT+ community quickly turned to fury – a rage that was compounded when the teenage killers held a “victory march” in Dublin after walking away with suspended sentences.
Declan Flynn’s brutal murder galvanised Ireland’s Pride movement
Flynn’s death galvanised the modern Pride movement in Ireland as LGBT+ people rose up and demanded that Irish society treat them with the respect they deserved. Between 400 and 800 queer people took to the streets shortly after the boys were given suspended sentences, marching from Liberty Hall through the city to Fairview Park in protest.
“When the judge let them off with suspended manslaughter sentences, essentially what it said to us was that a gay man’s life had no value,” Tonie Walsh, curator of the Irish Queer Archive, told drag queen Panti Bliss on her radio show Pantisocracy.
That march, Walsh said, was “the first large-scale massing of lesbians and gay men in Ireland”.
“We were angry and fearful at the same time. And the only good thing that came out of all that misery was we funnelled all that anger into Ireland’s first proper Pride parade three months later, when 150 of us walked down newly pedestrianised Grafton Street.”
On 25 June, 1983, protesters marched through the streets from Stephen’s Green to the General Post Office (GPO), where Cathal Ó Ciarragáin, Tonie Walsh and Joni Crone addressed the crowd.
In her speech, Crone delivered a satirical queer re-working of the 1916 proclamation of independence, written by Irish revolutionaries and read in the same spot many years before.
It was a moment of protest, anger and visibility — and it marked a radical shift in queer activism in Ireland.
In an interview with Una Mullally for her book In the Name of Love: The Movement for Marriage Equality in Ireland, LGBT+ rights campaigner Izzy Kamikaze said: “We were the people who organised the Fairview Park march after the killing, which is the thing that people say was ‘The Irish Stonewall’. It was.”
Ireland at the time was a staunchly Catholic country and it was a cold, unrelentingly cruel place for queer people to exist.
Since then, things have changed drastically. Gay sex was finally decriminalised in 1993. In 2015, marriage equality was legalised and the Gender Recognition Act was finally passed, giving some trans people legal recognition for the first time.
None of those changes would have happened without the tireless, painstaking work done by LGBT+ activists who spent years marching through the streets, demanding change.
When marriage equality finally became a reality in 2015, activists decorated a footbridge in Fairview Park in memory of Declan Flynn, showing that the legacy of his shocking death will never be forgotten.
Almost 40 years on, Flynn remains a vital figure in Ireland’s Pride movement – even if he never lived to see LGBT+ equality.
A recent Gallup Poll found that for the first time a majority of Republicans (55%) said they supported same-sex marriage. Four years ago, only 40% backed it. So what changed over that period?
“Obviously, change happens rapidly in society,” said Charles Moran, managing director of the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBTQ GOP organization with 51 chapters in 33 states. “But I do give a good amount of credit to the leader of the Republican Party during those times.”
Wait a minute. Donald Trump was good for the LGBTQ community?
“Donald Trump defied conventional wisdom and was one of the most unorthodox candidates that our country has ever seen,” Moran, a part-time Los Angeles resident and member of the California Republican Party’s executive committee, said on my “It’s All Political” podcast. “One of the best things about him is he really helped get the Republican Party beyond the hang-up around LGBT equality issues.”
Moran conceded that the party still has some hang-ups: The Texas Republican Party, for instance, still won’t let Log Cabin have a booth at its state party convention.
It’s not as if an LGBTQ mecca like California always welcomed the organization with open arms. The state’s Republican Party didn’t formally recognize Log Cabin — which was founded here 44 years ago — until 2015. It was begun by gay conservatives who were opposed to the Briggs Initiative, the unsuccessful 1978 ballot measure that attempted to ban gay teachers from schools.
The GOP still has some pretty big hang-ups when it comes to anything LGBTQ. Despite recognizing the organization, the California Republican Party still opposes same-sex marriage. Its platform says, “We support the two-parent family as the best environment for raising children, and therefore believe that it is important to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.”
The national GOP platform also considers marriage to be heterosexual-only turf. Well, it did in 2016. The party did not adopt a platform last year, instead renewing the one it passed four years earlier. Trump — who wanted to shrink the platform into a brief list that people could carry in their pocket — instead released a list of 50 “core priorities” for his second term, none of which mentioned LGBTQ issues.
Moran, who was a delegate to the 2020 convention, said the lack of a platform was a “missed opportunity.”
“We really had an opportunity to radically change the platform of the party, to make it modern, in a way that it had never been done before,” Moran said. “And the only person who could have made that happen was Donald Trump.”
To some LGBTQ conservatives, Trump started his presidency with a promise that he wouldn’t, unlike the GOP nominees before him, stoke fears about the community for political reasons. President George W. Bush had used state ballot measures opposing same-sex marriage to rally religious conservatives to help him win re-election in 2004.
Politics with Joe Garofoli
When Trump accepted the nomination at the party convention in Cleveland, he said, “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” Trump said. “Believe me.” (Some saw that as an attempt by Trump to gain support among the LGBTQ community for his effort to ban Muslims from coming to the U.S.)
It was a big deal then that Trump, unlike most Republicans, voiced the “Q” (which stands variously for “queer” or “questioning”) in “LGBTQ.”
But less than a year later, the president proved to be less than a protector.
He ordered — via tweet, without consulting top advisers — that the “United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.” Trump said that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
“Tremendous medical costs” were overstated. A 2016 study by the nonpartisan Rand Corp. found that extending “gender transition-related health care” would increase military costs between “$2.4 million and $8.4 million annually, representing a 0.04% to 0.13% increase in the annual health care costs.”
Many saw the move as a transparent appeal to the GOP’s base at a time when many were still suspicious of Trump’s conservative beliefs and were showing signs of turning on him because of his criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
But Moran argued that it wasn’t a “ban,” as often described. “Nobody was kicked out.”
Bree Fram, the president of Sparta, a transgender military service advocacy, support, and education organization, said there’s a reason transgender service members weren’t kicked out: It would have taken a lot of time, “and the policy that could have led to discharge was only in place for 21 months.”
Getting Republicans to a place of acceptance on transgender issues similar to their position on same-sex marriage will be a challenge. The GOP has backed more than 100 pieces of anti-transgender legislation across 33 states.
Log Cabin does not support the federal Equality Act, which was passed by the House in February. It would broaden legal protections to include sexual orientation and gender identification, because 31 states still don’t have laws to protect gays and lesbians against job discrimination. But Moran dismissed it as “a solution in search of a problem.”
“Conservatives can agree that you shouldn’t be fired for being trans, you shouldn’t lose your access to public accommodations because you’re transgender, you shouldn’t be fired from your job,” he said. But federal legislation is going too far.
Being a gay Republican often means having to answer questions that gay Democrats don’t. Moran came out when he was 19. Now, he’s 40.
“The easy answer” he gives when people ask him why he’s a Republican is, “I really do believe in individual responsibility, personal freedoms, small governments and a strong national defense. I am very proudly gay. I have been living my truth.
“I was physically attracted to men, I was emotionally attracted to men, I was gay,” Moran said. “But that didn’t really change anything when it came down to my conservative principles. There’s nothing about my sexual orientation that has anything to do with those issues.”
Moran said he tells conservatives, “If you believe in having the ability to control your money, and to raise your kids the way you want to and to be able to defend yourself the way you want to, it also includes letting you have your family be the way that is best suited for your life.
“And be it two men or two women, at the end of the day, if you really believe in you making those personal choices on how to best live your life and keeping the government out of it, you’re going to support equality issues for the LGBTQ community,” he said.
The new Gallup poll shows that gaining support among Republicans can happen. It just takes a lot longer. And even more so for the party to catch up to its members.
The charity is urging teachers to stop using all gendered language and gendered uniforms in a new series of guidance documents. They have also called for children to compete against the opposite sex in PE classes.
Their new guidance suggests uniform policies should “give the option to wear a skirt as well as the option to wear trousers”.
One of Stonewall’s guides said its work in primary schools was funded by the Government Equalities Office.
Stonewall also said staff should: “Avoid dividing learners by gender, whether in the classroom (you could divide them by their favourite colour, month of birth or something else) or through uniform, sports activities or other aspects of school life.”
Another piece of the guidance suggests trans pupils should be able to use the toilets, changing rooms, and dorms on school trips that they feel most comfortable in.
The guidance comes for members of the Stonewall School and College Champion schools.
According to reports, schools have to pay an annual fee of £150, plus VAT for establishments with less than 100 pupils.
Those who have more than 2,000 learners have to pay up to £800 plus VAT to be a member of the charity’s champion scheme.
St Paul’s, the private school in London, is reportedly among the hundreds of primary and secondary schools who are members, the Telegraph reported.
Tanya Carter, a spokesman for the parents and teachers campaign group Safe Schools Alliance UK, said “It is shocking that cash-strapped schools are paying for misinformation from Stonewall that undermines basic safeguarding.”
She argued sport should be “separated by sex for reasons of safety and fairness”.
Ms Carter said: “Single-sex sports are important to girls for reasons of privacy and dignity.
“This is necessary to increase girls’ participation.
“Girls participation in sports is essential to both physical and mental health”.
Her comments come following a recent Ofsted report that found sexual harassment was prevalent in schools.
A spokesman for Stonewall defended their new guidance and said they are “very proud” of their work “supporting schools to create supportive and inclusive environments which help everyone feel accepted for who they are”.
They added that they are “confident that the advice that we give schools is robust” and “in line with the Department for Education’s guidance for schools in England, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Equality Act Code of Practice”.
A government Equalities Office spokesperson said: “Six organisations were awarded funding to deliver programmes tackling anti-homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools across the country. The funding was a one-off payment for 2019-20.”
Benali Hamdache, Green Party spokesperson for migration and refugee support, looks at the issues facing LGBT+ refugees on World Refugee Day.
In too many places, this pandemic has allowed regimes to crackdown on LGBT+ people. Cameroon, Ghana, Philippines and Uganda have all seen outbreaks of arbitrary arrests and violence. LGBT+ refugees in Kenyan camps have experienced assault and murder.
Here in the UK the Home Office’s social media is currently adorned with the rainbow flag and Boris Johnson has acknowledged that COVID has worsened the situation for LGBT+ people globally. We have a government that professes inclusivity, openness and action.
But Priti Patel’s New Plan for Immigration threatens to close the door on countless LGBT+ refugees. At a time when refuge is in greater need, our Home Secretary is out selling harsh new proposals on refugees during Pride Month.
Earlier on in the year, the Home Secretary released a 46 page policy statement on her vision for changing the asylum process. These represent the biggest changes proposed in two decades. Nowhere in the document is the impact on refugees seeking support because of their gender or sexuality considered.
But those impacts are real and have been laid out by Rainbow Migration, one of the country’s leading charities working with LGBT+ refugees.
The first concern is the demand that all evidence for an asylum claim must be laid out at the beginning of the case. It is suggested that anything disclosed later will be given “minimum weight”.
This will mean many more LGBT+ asylum seekers will have their claims rejected. The reality is that not everyone is able to tell a stranger everything that has happened to them immediately. Many will carry huge amounts of shame and trauma about the experiences that brought them to flee. This harsher process will result in people being sent back to danger.
There is no need to dramatically shorten the process in manner. People deserve a fair hearing and the time to open up and share their journey.
The second concern is around how refugees will be detained. Detaining people in “reception centres” will be doubly damaging for a range of asylum seekers.
There’s huge amounts of evidence that LGBT+ asylum seekers face discrimination and intimidation in refugee holding centres. While out in the community people have been able to find support and begin to express their gender and sexuality freely.
We’ve seen what mass detention of refugees looks like in Australia. Unbelievably hostile spaces that re-traumatise the traumatised. We should not be emulating that here.
The final concern, also laid out excellently by Rainbow Sisters (a collective of LGBT+ women and non-binary refugees), is around routes to the UK.
The new proposals threaten to send back anyone who could have claimed asylum somewhere on their way to the UK. They make arbitrary decisions about what constitutes a safe harbour for LGBT+ refugees and emphasise the value of resettlement plans. But many LGBT+ people have to flee their homes suddenly and quickly. What constitutes a safe country may differ widely from person to person and across the EU not all countries guarantee the same level of rights to LGBT+ people.
These proposals also threaten the plight of trafficked people. Punishing refugees for being brought here “illegally” would add another layer of cruelty.
In reality Priti Patel’s proposals that asylum seekers can be sent back to their first “safe” harbour seem unlikely. EU countries in the wake of Brexit seem unwilling to sign any kind of reciprocal deal along these lines. LGBT+ refugees deserve more than empty threats and being treated like a political football.
We already have an undoubtedly harsh asylum system. A Freedom of Information request looked at how many claims based on gender or sexuality had been rejected between 2016 and 2018. More than 3,100 LGBT+ asylum claims had been rejected from countries where gay sex is criminalised. From Pakistan and Nigeria to Bangladesh.
Priti Patel’s proposals to make the system harsher are wrongheaded and mean spirited. This Pride, our government cannot claim to be allies, but then turn its back on LGBT+ people in danger.
‘A man who is not a liberal at 16 has no heart; a man who is not a conservative at 60 has no head.’ It is a political aphorism credited to many, but was actually said by 19th-century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.
A hundred and forty years later it remains a useful guide, but the full reality is more complex.
US President Joe Biden is 78. Taoiseach Micheál Martin is 60. Mary Lou McDonald is 52. She’s 10 years older than Leo Varadkar, who was born in 1979, the year Charlie Haughey became Taoiseach.
‘A man who is not a liberal at 16 has no heart; a man who is not a conservative at 60 has no head.’ It is a political aphorism credited to many, but was actually said by 19th-century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli. Pic: Johanna Geron, Pool via AP
Parties eternally seek the elusive perfect leader, and sometimes trends for young leaders emerge. Yet there is no correlation between the age of a leader and the level of attraction they hold for younger voters.
President Michael D Higgins — who could well end his term in 2025 as the most loved President we have had — is 80.
Nevertheless, younger voters do currently favour particular political parties, conspicuously.
The support of the under-35s is not vital for politicians seeking power in the short term.
The long term? Time waits for no man or party and attracting younger voters is vital for those parties that seek long-term relevance and survival.
If a political party can find the door to the youth vote, it will lead to other places too.
To attract the younger voter, a number of factors are key: they include policies, vogueishness and an inclination towards liberal views.
Parties eternally seek the elusive perfect leader, and sometimes trends for young leaders emerge. Yet there is no correlation between the age of a leader and the level of attraction they hold for younger voters. President Michael D Higgins — who could well end his term in 2025 as the most loved President we have had — is 80. Pic: Tony Maxwell/Maxwells
Take a look at Joe Biden. Often he’s a bit doddery and confused. Yet in the 2020 presidential election, in a Titanic defeat of Donald Trump, Democratic Party candidate Biden attracted an extraordinary 61% of the 18 to 29 demographic.
He was the anti-Trump, yes. But he also espoused left-wing and liberal policies, supported using traditional Democratic Party ‘big Government’ ideas to fight the pandemic and he harnessed the support of youth icons such as New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez.
AOC is a social media pioneer, and her online tactics have been studiously adopted by Biden. Trump, of course, was no slouch on social media. Biden won, just.
Here we have a proportional representation electoral system, so contrasts are never as stark. Yet in Ireland the 2020 election marked a new era in politics.
Take a look at Joe Biden. Often he’s a bit doddery and confused. Yet in the 2020 presidential election, in a Titanic defeat of Donald Trump, Democratic Party candidate Biden attracted an extraordinary 61% of the 18 to 29 demographic. Pic: GettyImages
For the first time Sinn Féin won more votes than either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Sinn Féin took 24.5% of the first-preference vote; Fianna Fáil took 22.2% and Fine Gael 20.9%.
Yet this is where the closeness of the race ends.
Exit polls show that in the 18 to 25-year-old category, Fianna Fáil took 13.6% of the vote; Fine Gael 15.5% and Sinn Féin took an extraordinary 31.8%.
In the 25 to 34-year-old category the traditional parties fared little better: Fianna Fáil took 15.2%; Fine Gael 17.3% and Sinn Féin 31.7%.
In last week’s MRBI/Irish Times poll it got worse for Fianna Fáil and better for Sinn Féin. Among the 18 to 24 age group, Fianna Fáil is polling 11% support; Fine Gael 28% and Sinn Féin 35%.
In the 25 to 34 category Fianna Fáil is 15%; Fine Gael 20% and Sinn Féin is at an outstanding 40%.
In Ireland the 2020 election marked a new era in politics. For the first time Sinn Féin won more votes than either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Sinn Féin took 24.5% of the first-preference vote; Fianna Fáil took 22.2% and Fine Gael 20.9%.
Today we publish a poll with Ireland Thinks that shows an overwhelming 45% of 18-34-year-olds support Sinn Féin compared to 17% for Fine Gael and six per cent for Fianna Fáil.
Sinn Féin is exceedingly popular with young people, unencumbered by the grim prejudice of history. Many older voters can never allow Sinn Féin to emerge from the black clouds of the Troubles. For the young the sun shines on Mary Lou and her party.
They resonate with the young, they understand them and understand how to communicate with them.
They are hip. Sinn Féin capitalised and participated in the social media revolution with greater energy and skill. And crucially it adapted to it earlier.
A key to success is control — military discipline presides over the Sinn Féin message.
Hence, Sinn Féin has managed to present itself as more socially liberal than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Sinn Féin is exceedingly popular with young people, unencumbered by the grim prejudice of history. Many older voters can never allow Sinn Féin to emerge from the black clouds of the Troubles. For the young the sun shines on Mary Lou and her party. Pic: Fran Veale
Leo Varadkar, a gay man, and Micheál Martin were, in fact, frontiersmen on social issues.
Both men were far ahead of their party membership on the marriage and abortion referendums, and played crucial roles in both victories.
Sinn Féin controlled its message and image. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil did not, permitting significant dissent in their parties.
Fianna Fáil in particular lost control. Five women Oireachtas members and 26 men were photographed holding signs that said ‘vote no’ and ‘Support women, protect women, save lives’. Three current Cabinet Ministers feature. It is a photograph that has permanently damaged its image with the young.
Leo Varadkar, a gay man, and Micheál Martin were, in fact, frontiersmen on social issues. Both men were far ahead of their party membership on the marriage and abortion referendums, and played crucial roles in both victories. Pic: Julien Behal/PA Wire
For Fianna Fáil, other policies are an issue as well. Housing is the most intractable, imminent yet attritional problem facing the political establishment. But for those either directly or indirectly connected to it, it is a crisis. It is a scandal. Those most directly affected by it, and who have not got adult memories of a different reality, are the 18-35-year-old section of our population.
And, crucially, Fianna Fáil is now in charge of the housing department. A crisis with no end in sight.
Fine Gael, for its part, can at least hope to gain from older voters who wish to prevent Sinn Féin from participating in government. Fianna Fáil, it would appear, will not be trusted to ensure this aim.
The soldiers of destiny know they are in trouble. Fianna Fáil, some of its most influential figures tell me, has a passé image. It appears out of touch. Young people tell me that they will not consider the party at the polls: recent elections and opinion polls show it.
Fianna Fáil holds the office of Taoiseach and some of the key ministries, yet this week it is happy to be back at its general election level. To survive long term, Fianna Fáil must get drastic and radical on housing, communication and personnel. Pic: JULIEN BEHAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Fianna Fáil holds the office of Taoiseach and some of the key ministries, yet this week it is happy to be back at its general election level.
To survive long term, Fianna Fáil must get drastic and radical on housing, communication and personnel.
In the old days its masses of supporters trusted their leader was working away quietly in an austere office, delivering.
Now the young want to see it happen, in real time. And preferably on TikTok.
In the old days its masses of supporters trusted their leader was working away quietly in an austere office, delivering. Now the young want to see it happen, in real time. And preferably on TikTok. Pic: RollingNews.ie / Julien Behal Photography
The sample size for the Ireland Thinks poll was 1,274. Using innovative technology, the survey has the advantage of doing random sampling from a face-to-face poll, together with the benefits of speed and privacy of smartphone sms polling. It was conducted yesterday between 11am and 4pm.
The method is in line with Pew Research Center and the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s evaluations of the most accurate methodologies for conducting public opinion polling. The representative sample is collated using Random
Digit Dialling and propensity score matching. The figures are weighted to age, gender, region, education and vote at the 2020 general election.
The poll has a response rate of one in three and a completion rate of 98%. The methodology is led by Dr Kevin Cunningham. He holds degrees in statistics from Oxford and TCD and lectures in TUD.
He works as a consultant on statistical methodology for three UK polling firms. The methodology exceeds the standards set by AIMRO, ESOMAR and the British Polling Council.
Advocates of equal rights for same-sex couples feared the worst when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of a Catholic agency that faced the loss of its city contract because it declined to work with gay and lesbian prospective foster parents. On Thursday, the justices ruled for the agency, but in a reassuringly narrow way that doesn’t create a gaping exception to anti-discrimination laws.
The court held that the city of Philadelphia violated the First Amendment rights of Catholic Social Services when it barred the agency from screening the parents. Citing its religious beliefs about marriage, the Catholic agency had refused to work with same-sex couples, though it was willing to refer such couples to other providers. (The agency also wouldn’t certify unmarried heterosexual couples as foster parents.)
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The case of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, growing out of a lawsuit filed by Catholic Social Services and three foster parents affiliated with the agency, was viewed by religious conservatives and civil rights groups alike as potentially a major ruling on how the court would balance anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians with religious freedom. In prohibiting the Catholic agency from screening prospective foster parents, Philadelphia officials cited a city ordinance outlawing discrimination in public accommodations as well as nondiscrimination language in the contract.
Thursday’s ruling wasn’t the landmark decision some hoped for and others feared. The court ruled unanimously for Catholic Social Services, but the majority opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., joined by five other members of the court, focused narrowly on the facts of the case.
Roberts noted that Philadelphia’s standard foster care contract said that agencies couldn’t reject prospective foster parents because of their sexual orientation, but that it also allowed for exceptions from that policy at the “sole discretion” of a city official. By failing to provide a compelling reason for not providing such an exemption for Catholic Social Services, Roberts said, the city had violated the agency’s right to free exercise of religion.
The chief justice also said that Philadelphia’s ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodation didn’t apply to participation in the city’s foster care system. Certification as a foster parent, he wrote, “is not readily accessible to the public. It involves a customized and selective assessment that bears little resemblance to staying in a hotel, eating at a restaurant, or riding a bus.”
We continue to find it troubling that an agency that engages in discrimination can receive a contract from the government, even if the agency is motivated by sincere religious convictions. But this ruling could have been worse.
This is neither the first nor the last time the court will have to address the tension between anti-discrimination provisions and religious freedom, which is guaranteed not only by the First Amendment but also by state and federal laws, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
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In balancing those interests, the court must not allow religious freedom to become an all-purpose license to discriminate. Thanks to Roberts’ judicious approach, it stopped short of creating such a blanket exception in this case.
From a virtual meet-and-greet with a comic book author to a hot air balloon festival, central Ohio will be buzzing with things to do as the temperatures rise — and all of us start to get back to normal.
That includes dozens that you can bring the family to for a night of family fun. Many events are outdoors for parents taking COVID-19 precautions, and most are free.
— Peter Tonguette
MOVIES IN COLUMBUS
Movies by Moonlight at Easton Town Center
When: at dusk June 22 and 29
Where: Easton Town Center’s Town Square, 160 Easton Town Center
What: The annual outdoor movie series got underway earlier this month and will wrap up with two flicks appropriate for the whole family: “Despicable Me” (June 22) and “Sonic the Hedgehog” (June 29). Those who prefer to be seated away from moviegoers outside of their party can sit in social-distancing circles.
Where: outside The Naz Church, 4770 Hoover Road, Grove City
What: Family movies new and old will be shown Wednesday evenings on a screen behind the church. Highlights include “Frozen” (June 23), “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (July 7) and the original “Toy Story” (July 21).
Discovery District summer movies at Columbus Museum of Art
When: dusk, July 9, Aug. 6
Where: Columbus Museum of Art, sculpture garden, 480 E. Broad St.
What: The Discovery District Civic Association will present a pair of movies at the sculpture garden of the museum. First up is (what else?) “Night at the Museum” (July 9), which will be followed by “Remember the Titans” (Aug. 6). Organizers suggest parking for free in the museum’s lot on Gay Street and Washington Avenue and, of course, bringing a blanket.
What: Two family movies will be shown in the softball field at the park: the original 1984 version of “Ghostbusters” (July 16), and the family favorite “Paddington 2” (Sept. 17). Food trucks will be on-site.
What: The Abbey Theater of Dublin will present a one-act stage version of the animated film about animals who escape from New York’s Central Park Zoo for an African journey.
When: 7 p.m. July 16, 2 and 7 p.m. July 17 and 2 p.m. July 18
Where: 100 Price Road, Newark
What: Weathervane Playhouse’s Young Artists’ Repertory Theatre will present children performing a condensed one-act stage version of the Disney films about the children of Disney’s beloved characters offering opportunities for redemption at their prep school for the children of villainous characters.
When: 7:30 p.m. July 22-23, 2 p.m. July 24 (for masked and socially distanced patrons only); 7:30 p.m. July 24 and 7:30 p.m. July 27-31
Where: 100 Price Road, Newark
What: Weathervane Playhouse will return from hiatus with the family-friendly musical comedy-mystery based on the whodunit board game, with audience interaction determining different endings by allowing theatergoers to choose from cards representing potential murderers, weapons and rooms.
Admission: $15 to $37, or $35 for senior citizens, $26 for students or $15 for children
When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, Aug. 12 to Sept. 5
Where: Schiller Park amphitheater, 1069 Jaeger St.
What: Actors’ Theatre of Columbus and Columbus Children’s Theatre, in their first play collaboration, present Neil Duffield’s stage adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s story about an orphan girl who discovers a long-neglected sanctuary and a hidden-away boy at her new home.
Admission: “Pay what you will,” or $45 for premium boxes of two reserved zero-gravity chairs, or $25 for a lawn box with a reserved Actors’ Theatre logo blanket (can keep after the show) with advance online purchase
‘Children of Eden, Jr.’ in Newark by Weathervane Playhouse
When: 7 p.m. Aug. 13-14 and 2 p.m. Aug. 14-15
Where: 100 Price Road, Newark
What: Weathervane Playhouse’s Young Artists’ Repertory Theatre will present a one-act youth version of composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz’s and author John Caird’s Biblical musical about Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, parents, children and faith.
When: 7 p.m. Aug. 20 and Aug. 22, 2 and 7 p.m. Aug. 21
Where: Lancaster Campground, Davis Auditorium, 2151 W. Fair Ave., Lancaster
What: Rise Up Arts Alliance, a fledgling youth theater, will present an hourlong one-act stage version of the 2016 Disney animated film about the coming of age of a strong-willed girl as she sets sail across the Pacific to save her village and discover her heritage.
Admission: $12, or $8 for students 4 to 18 and senior citizens; free for children 3 and younger
‘Once Upon a Murder in Fairyfieldland’ in Lithopolis
When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 10 and 2 p.m. Sept. 11
Where: Wagnalls Memorial Library, 150 E. Columbus St., Lithopolis
What: During the annual Lithopolis Honeyfest celebrating Ohio honey, Wagnalls Community Theater will present Lancaster writer Scott Gottliebson’s family-oriented one-act comic murder mystery inspired by Brothers Grimm fairy-tale characters such as Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
Where: Natural Trail Play Area, Rose Run Park, 200 Market St., New Albany
What: One of several summertime music offerings by the symphony, this series of informal events will feature musicians “playing” — that is, making music — while parents and children play in the Natural Trail Play Area, a section of Rose Run Park near the intersection of East Dublin-Granville Road and Market Street.
Where: Goodale Park, corner of Park and Goodale streets
What: The 38th annual ambulatory celebration of the absurd exhorts this year’s attendees to “doo dah like a cicada.” No registration required, no advertisements permitted, and costumes and funny hats encouraged.
Where: Union County Airport, 15000 Weaver Road, Marysville
What: Three days of balloon flights, glows and rides, a laser light show and a Kids Fun Space. Proceeds go to Hope Center in Marysville. In addition, Cole Swindell will perform Aug. 12 ($37.50 in advance, $50 day of show) as well as a host of other musical acts throughout the weekend.
Admission: starts at $14, free on Friday and Saturday for kids 10 and younger
‘Think Outside the Brick: The Creative Art of Lego’ at the Columbus Museum of Art
When: June 29 through Aug. 20
Where: Columbus Museum of Art, 480 E. Broad St.
What: The annual exhibit features a huge model of a real and an imagined Columbus built by the Ohio LEGO User’s Group. New features include underwater scenes, “Sesame Street” characters and UFOs.
Admission: $18, or $9 for senior citizens and students; $5 Thursdays evenings; free for ages 4 to 17, age 3 and younger, members, veterans and active military and their families; and free on Sundays
WASHINGTON – The descendants of the men and women who designed and implemented President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal gather regularly on Zoom to strategize how to keep the pressure on President Joe Biden to likewise go big and bold.
“We would love to think that we have captured his attention and stirred the pot with some FDR seasoning,” said Scott Wallace, the grandson of one of Roosevelt’s vice presidents and one of five descendants who has been urging Biden for the past year to pass a “21st Century New Deal.”
Biden hasn’t seemed to need the encouragement.
“There’s a new bargain,” Biden said during a May trip to Cleveland to push for the trillions of dollars he wants to spend on infrastructure, education, health care, child care and more. “Everyone is going to be in on the deal this time.”
Many comparisons – not all of them favorable – have been made between the size and scope of Biden’s ambitions and Roosevelt’s programs and the World War II spending that lifted the nation out of the Great Depression.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been at the forefront of selling the infrastructure component of Biden’s plan, calls it the “largest jobs package since World War II.”
“Today’s effort might be described as ‘the big deal,’” Buttigieg said in a May speech to graduates of the Harvard Kennedy School. “The big deal is based on a big ambition to demonstrate how good government can indeed do big and good things and do them well.”
Beyond the word play, there are other Rooseveltian echoes.
Biden’s plan to give all Americans access to affordable and reliable high-speed internet evokes the New Deal initiative to bring electricity to rural America.
Updating Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps that put millions of men to work on conservation and development projects on rural lands, Biden wants to create a Civilian Climate Corps to address the threat of climate change.
While President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a Civilian Conservation Corps, President Joe Biden has proposed a Civilian Climate Corps. It would employ thousands of young people to address the threat of climate change. While President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a Civilian Conservation Corps, President Joe Biden has proposed a Civilian Climate Corps. It would employ thousands of young people to address the threat of climate change. While President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a Civilian Conservation Corps, President Joe Biden has proposed a Civilian Climate Corps. It would employ thousands of young people to address the threat of climate change. Associated Press, Getty Images
Just as labor unions were boosted by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that sanctioned the right to bargain collectively, Biden has repeatedly emphasized the importance of unions, including calling on Congress to strengthen protections for workers’ right to organize.
While Roosevelt had an “Arsenal of Democracy” to sell military supplies to Great Britain and France, Biden has declared that the United States will be the world’s “arsenal of vaccines” in the shared fight against the coronavirus.
At the start of Biden’s first foreign trip this month, he and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson released a “revitalized” Atlantic Charter, updating the 1941 attempt by Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill to rally the West at a time of global crisis.
And don’t forget about the massive portrait of FDR that hangs across from his desk, over the Oval Office fireplace.
But, after swift passage of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package in March, Biden’s hope of making generational and transformational changes is running up against the reality of a closely divided Congress and the clock.
“Time is running out,” said Stephen Wayne, an expert on the American presidency who is writing a book on Biden’s presidency. “He will not end up getting as much done as he wants to get done.”
Presidents typically achieve their biggest accomplishments early in their first terms. But Democrats have no room for error in the 50-50 Senate and Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, has resisted moving forward without support from some Republicans.
A bipartisan group of senators is working on a smaller version of Biden’s proposed spending on public works like roads, bridges and broadband.
But progressives, who have been pleasantly surprised by the scope of Biden’s plans, don’t want to cede ground. In fact, some Senate Democrats are trying to raise the price tag.
“What we are working right now is on a budget that builds on the proposals that the president has brought to us,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Thursday,
Stephen Wayne, an expert on the American presidency who is writing a book on Biden’s presidency
Time is running out. He will not end up getting as much done as he wants to get done.
Democrats know they could lose control of the House next year unless Biden defies history. Since the 1930s, the president’s party has lost House seats in every midterm election during the president’s first term with two exceptions: the 2002 midterms during President George W. Bush’s second year that came after the 2001 terrorist attacks and the 1934 midterms during Roosevelt’s first term.
“FDR gained seats in Congress,” said his grandson, James Roosevelt, Jr. “People saw what he was doing to restore the health of the country, both physically and financially.”
Biden has repeatedly described the moment as a test of government, not just to show it can deliver for people but also that democracy works – and performs better than autocracies.
“I think this generation is going to be marked by the competition between democracies and autocracies, because the world is changing so rapidly,” Biden said when releasing in April his “American Jobs Plan.” “The autocrats are betting on democracy not being able to generate the kind of unity needed to make decisions to get in that race. We can’t afford to prove them right. We have to show the world – and much more importantly, we have to show ourselves – that democracy works.”
Before President Joe Biden met with the leaders of the some of the world’s wealthiest nations at the Group of Seven summit in England in June, he and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson released a “revitalized Atlantic Charter.” The charter is modeled on a historic joint statement made by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, setting out their goals for a postwar world. Before President Joe Biden met with the leaders of the some of the world’s wealthiest nations at the Group of Seven summit in England in June, he and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson released a “revitalized Atlantic Charter.” The charter is modeled on a historic joint statement made by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, setting out their goals for a postwar world. Before President Joe Biden met with the leaders of the some of the world’s wealthiest nations at the Group of Seven summit in England in June, he and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson released a “revitalized Atlantic Charter.” The charter is modeled on a historic joint statement made by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, setting out their goals for a postwar world. Getty Images
While the updated Atlantic Charter may burnish Biden’s claim to Roosevelt’s economic legacy, a lot has changed since FDR, according to Stewart M. Patrick, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“The two most important, relevant differences may be the diminished position of the United States and the internal political divisions that beset America today,” Patrick wrote in an analysis for World Politics Review.
Stewart M. Patrick, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations
The two most important, relevant differences may be the diminished position of the United States and the internal political divisions that beset America today.
As Biden aims to put pressure on a disruptive Russia and an economically ascendant China, Democrats have sounded the alarm about the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and laws passed in Republican-led states placing new restrictions on voting rules.
When Roosevelt was elected, totalitarian states were on the rise. He also faced pressure from within the United States for a “benevolent autocracy” to wield power sufficient to deal with the nation’s immense problems.
Migrant workers are shown inside a pick-up truck in central California on April 5, 1939 during the Great Depression.DOROTHEA LANGE, FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION via AP
That tussle was the first thing Biden mentioned when recounting, in an October interview, how he was re-reading Jonathan Alter’s book about FDR’s first 100 days.
“There’s no such thing as a guaranteed democracy,” Biden said in a podcast interview with author and lecturer Brenê Brown. “It has to be fought for every time. If you read just the first chapter, talk about how guys like Walter Lippmann were telling Roosevelt, ‘We have to have a dictatorship to get it right.’…There’s nothing automatic about this.”
Biden said in a podcast interview with author and lecturer Brenê Brown
There’s no such thing as a guaranteed democracy. It has to be fought for every time. If you read just the first chapter (of Jonathan Alter’s book about FDR’s first 100 days), talk about how guys like Walter Lippmann were telling Roosevelt, `We have to have a dictatorship to get it right.’…There’s nothing automatic about this.
Central to that argument is Biden’s ability to get the economy back on track, not just to recover from the pandemic but to deepen federal investments in the workforce, families, infrastructure, research and development and the environment that the administration says are long overdue.
President Joe Biden arrives to speak about the economy at the Cuyahoga Community College Metropolitan Campus, Thursday, May 27, 2021, in Cleveland.Evan Vucci, AP
“We’re in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution of enormous consequence,” Biden said at his first full press conference in March. “Will there be middle class? How will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology and the environment? How will they do that? And are democracies equipped – because all the people get to speak – to compete?”
It’s a framework that is a natural fit for Biden whose long Senate career was defined more by his foreign policy expertise than work on the types of domestic spending he is now championing.
Biden nodded to that new overlap in interests in his Cleveland speech.
President Biden
They’d always announce me in the past as an expert in foreign policy. Well, let me tell you something: Economic policy is harder than foreign policy. You know what the basis of foreign policy is in our stature in the world? One thing: our economic prowess.
“They’d always announce me in the past as an expert in foreign policy,” he said. “Well, let me tell you something: Economic policy is harder than foreign policy. You know what the basis of foreign policy is in our stature in the world? One thing: our economic prowess.”
As a sign that the nation’s approach – which has focused heavily on getting Americans vaccinated along with the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package – is working, Biden touts the fact that the U.S. economy is growing faster than any other major economy.
Biden’s proposals aren’t as big a share of the economy as Roosevelt’s, but they’re more comparable when combined with coronavirus relief passed during Trump’s administration, according to one calculation. The cost of Roosevelt’s New Deal was roughly 40% the size of the national economy in 1929, estimates Bill Dupor, an economist and assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package combined with about $4.1 trillion in additional spending Biden initially proposed – which may get scaled back – is about 28% as large as the economy was in 2019, before the pandemic hit. But, when combined with the $3.3 trillion in coronavirus relief spending that passed in the last year of the Trump administration, the total cost would be 43% as large as the 2019 economy if fully enacted.
Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers build a new farm-to-market road along Knob Creek in Tennessee on March 9, 1936 .AP
June Hopkins, the granddaughter of Roosevelt’s commerce secretary, sees similarities between Biden’s assessment of the situation and FDR’s.
“The idea that democracy is at risk now is the same fear that Roosevelt had of democracy being at risk because of the Depression,” she said.
Fascism was growing in Europe and in Japan. The collapse of the economy created public unrest in the United States. There were pushes from the left as well as the later rise of the America First Committee to keep the nation from entering World War II.
While dealing with those problems, Hopkins said, Roosevelt, during the 1930s, kept his attention on the economy.
“He knew that if America would fail economically, it would also fail politically,” she said.
The huge expansion of government under Roosevelt got another boost from the Great Society programs under President Lyndon Johnson before President Ronald Reagan declared during his 1981 inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”
“Biden, it seems to me, is trying to put a minus sign in front of that proposition,” Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said in an April discussion at the think tank about Biden’s first 100 days. “And everything that he does is unified by the proposition that, in the circumstances we now face, government is the solution and not a problem.”
Reagan’s view predominated even through Democratic administrations like Bill Clinton’s, during which Galston was a domestic policy adviser. Clinton, in his 1996 State of the Union address, declared that “the era of big government is over.”
President Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president, faced bipartisan consensus that deficits are bad, noted Alter, author of “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.”
“For 50 years, Dems have lacked a prez who could build on New Deal,” Alter tweeted in March, calling Biden “FDR’s first true heir since LBJ.”
But Dan Pfeiffer, a former communications director to Obama, said the relative ease with which Biden passed the coronavirus relief legislation belied how difficult it will be for Biden to achieve the rest of his grand plans.
“Even I – a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist – got swept up in the FDR comparisons,” Pfeiffer recently wrote in a newsletter published on Substack. “Passing a relief bill in the middle of a pandemic was always going to be exponentially easier than holding together the Democratic coalition to pass multi-trillion-dollar structural changes to the economy and electoral system.”
Likewise Wayne, the presidential scholar, said fiscal conservative arguments against Biden’s plans are still potent because the nation hasn’t moved that far left.
“It’s liberalized a little bit,” said Wayne, a professor emeritus at Georgetown University. “But we’re still closer to the age of Reagan than we are to the domestic dimension of Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.”
In a May speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that, for decades, the prevailing focus has been on the need to decrease and then limit the size of government as a share of the economy.
“This approach to U.S. fiscal policy, founded on a distrust of government motives and effectiveness, along with a resistance to higher taxes, has had profound effects on our nation and our people,” she said. “It is time to recommit our government to playing a more active and smarter role in the economy.”
But when the administration released budget projections showing that, under Biden’s plans, the nation’s debt would rise, relative to the size of the economy, to higher levels than during World War II, Republicans said it showed overreach by the new administration.
“The best thing you can say about this budget is that it will never happen,” said Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House tax-writing committee.
Former Vice President Mike Pence charged that while Biden campaigned as a moderate, “he has governed as the most liberal president since FDR.”
A recent Pew Research Center poll showed public trust in government remains low. Those more likely to want the government to do more to solve problems – women, minorities and younger people – are the foundation of the Democratic base.
It’s a base that, under Roosevelt, included blue collar workers who have been migrating to the GOP in recent years.
Biden is betting that his economic programs can win back some of those voters.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoyed large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. When the nation elected President Joe Biden, however, voters gave Democrats a very small majority in the House and no margin for error in the Senate. President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoyed large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. When the nation elected President Joe Biden, however, voters gave Democrats a very small majority in the House and no margin for error in the Senate. President Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoyed large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. When the nation elected President Joe Biden, however, voters gave Democrats a very small majority in the House and no margin for error in the Senate. Getty Images
“The other side of the argument, and it’s an ongoing argument among strategists in the Democratic Party, is that the essence of the working class opposition to Democrats and to the Biden presidency is less about economics than it is about culture and race,” Galston said.
If that’s the case then, even if Biden is successful, his programs “may not have the kind of political payoff that the Biden administration is hoping for,” he added.
James Roosevelt Jr., Co-Chair of the credentials Committee, speaks to viewers during the Democratic National Convention at the Wisconsin Center on August 18, 2020.Democratic National Convention via USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Content Services, LLC
While Republicans try to thwart Biden’s plans, progressives are keeping the pressure on.
The descendants of the New Deal architects began their efforts during the 2020 campaign with a full-page ad in Biden’s hometown paper, asking him to “champion a 21st Century New Deal that will restore belief in a government that works for all Americans.”
“We believe that bold action, particularly for jobs, is exactly what’s necessary,” said James Roosevelt, Jr.
And he’s pleased with what he’s seen so far from a president who, early in his campaign, said America is not looking for a revolution.
“I think Joe Biden has evolved with the time,” Roosevelt said, “and come to understand what is needed in 2021.”
In one picture, Hibma, Thompson and Genhi are lying in bed. Hibma is cradling Genhi’s foot in one hand, and holding Thompson with the other as they both look lovingly at her. It’s a tender moment that is familiar to any new parent.
The book is notable, too, for its diversity, both in who Heynen photographed and the range of their stories — as there are many roads to fatherhood.
For Hibma and Thompson, their road was through adoption by way of a chance message on social media.
Devon Gibby’s path was one that some might consider to be more conventional: He married a woman, and they had children. As time wore on, however, Gibby’s acceptance of himself as a gay man collided with his marriage and his Mormon faith. Yet, he said it changed nothing for him about being a father.
“I’ve always wanted to be a dad,” Gibby said. “The idea of having kids with another man was not even an option to me. Awareness is not always there when you just don’t have other role models that are gay parents.”
Devon holds a birthday present for his son in front of his apartment in Salt Lake City.Bart Heynen
Gibby’s story is told across five photographs in the book. The first shows Gibby at 8 years old in a family photo. The second is a portrait where he seemingly blends into the vast Utah landscape. In the third, he exudes optimism as he’s about to make his weekly journey from his apartment in Salt Lake City to Logan, Utah, where his children live with his ex-wife. In the fourth, Gibby is spending time with his children in a hotel, as that’s their ritual. In the fifth, Gibby is silhouetted against the late-day sun, a deeply contemplative and evocative image that speaks to his journey.
His hope is that his story can help those who might be struggling like he did before he came out, especially for those living in parts of the country where acceptance is harder to come by.
“I would just hope that people would see me, someone living in Utah, and be able to relate to that and find some inspiration in that to be who they are,” Gibby said.
The book encompasses a wide range of stories with a common thread: men who love and care for their children.
“I don’t wake up thinking, ‘Oh, we’re gay dads,’” Thompson said. “It’s a labor of love. You’re not really thinking about identity.”
Instead, he said, he’s typically focused on “everything that any parent has to worry about, like, “How do I get her to school on time? Does she have clean clothes? What is she wearing?”
Dennis combs Elan’s hair at home in Brooklyn, N.Y.Bart Heynen
What distinguishes the book, too, is how seemingly ordinary the photographs are. Men play with their kids. They get ready for the day. They travel. They relax. They eat. They live their lives. In many ways, they’re no different than any other family.
What sets some of these families apart are the ways in which they came to be, and Heynen does include some of the women who were necessary in helping these families get started.
“They are crucial in the sense that without them, there would be no gay dads,” Heynen said. “It would be very disrespectful just to have only these dads. I can tell with several families that they are still so influential.”
Perhaps the most surprising story is that of Matthew Eledge and Eliot Dougherty. They got married in 2015 and began exploring the process of starting a family two years later. Yet, because they live in Nebraska, the prospect of having to navigate adoption agencies as a gay couple in a conservative state seemed insurmountable, so they set their sights on in vitro fertilization.
“When we first started doing meetings with our IVF doctor, it started to come together,” Eledge said. “But it was really daunting. Eliot’s a hair stylist. I’m a teacher. It’s not like we have these really lucrative fields that we work in. As we were trying to search for options, our family members stepped in.”
WARSAW, Poland — The largest gay pride parade in central Europe took place again in Warsaw for the first time in two years after a pandemic-induced break — and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.
Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski walked at the head of the Equality Parade on Saturday — a sign of support for LGBT rights by the liberal politician. Thousands of people joined the march and were cheered on by others waving rainbow flags from their apartment balconies and sidewalk cafes.
But that level of acceptance is not universal in Poland, a heavily Catholic, largely conservative nation.
The joyful and colorful celebration was tinged with fear of what the future holds for the rights of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people after setbacks first in Russia and now in Hungary.
“The day of the parade is always a bittersweet moment for our community,” said Rafal Wojtczak, a spokesman for the organizers. He described feelings of sadness and helplessness that LGBT people have not achieved rights like same-sex partnership or marriage in Poland, while also facing new threats.
The parade comes days after Hungary’s parliament passed a law that makes it illegal to show any materials about LGBT issues to people younger than 18.
Hungary’s conservative ruling party portrayed the law as an effort to fight pedophilia. But human rights groups see it as a cynical tool that will stigmatize LGBT people and prevent youths from accessing critical information.
Poland’s populist ruling party has taken a political direction similar to that of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, pushing conservative policies and tightening ruling party control over courts and media. The European Union has criticized both member nations, accusing them of eroding democratic norms.
One prominent Polish activist, Bart Staszewski, carried a Hungarian flag in Saturday’s march. He said it was a message urging the EU to act in defense of LGBT people because he fears that “Poland will be next.”
Ambassadors and other diplomats from 14 embassies in Warsaw also took part, including the U.S. charge d’affaires Bix Aliu, who tweeted, “Let’s choose love not hate.”
A year ago, the Polish LGBT community faced a backlash from ruling conservative politicians, local communities and the church. In his successful bid for reelection against a challenge from Trzaskowski, President Andrzej Duda declared that “LGBT is not people; it’s an ideology,” while also claiming that it was “even more destructive” than communism.
A Polish archbishop warned of a “rainbow plague.” And dozens of local communities in Poland were passing resolutions against “LGBT ideology” in what was described as an attempt to protect the traditional family. These were strongly denounced by EU officials, and a handful have since been rescinded.
“We’ve been through a very, very rough time, but at the same time we are going out in the streets, and we are saying we are stronger, and we are not going to give up,” said Miroslawa Makuchowska, vice director of Campaign Against Homophobia.
Wojtczak said “our community has been used in a political war.”
At the start of the march, some people chanted a vulgarity against Poland’s ruling party.
This weekend’s Equality Parade comes 20 years since the event was first held in the Polish capital. Since then, Polish society has become largely more open on the issue of gay rights, shaped by EU membership and cultural influences from the West.
People walk towards the starting point of the Equality Parade, an LGBT pride parade, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People walk towards the starting point of the Equality Parade, an LGBT pride parade, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People walk towards the starting point of the Equality Parade, an LGBT pride parade, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
A woman take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
A woman with a rainbow flag cools off in a sprinkler ahead of the Equality Parade, the largest LGBT pride parade in Central and Eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
WARSAW, Poland — The largest gay pride parade in central Europe took place again in Warsaw for the first time in two years after a pandemic-induced break — and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.
Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski walked at the head of the Equality Parade on Saturday — a sign of support for LGBT rights by the liberal politician. Thousands of people joined the march and were cheered on by others waving rainbow flags from their apartment balconies and sidewalk cafes.
But that level of acceptance is not universal in Poland, a heavily Catholic, largely conservative nation.
The joyful and colorful celebration was tinged with fear of what the future holds for the rights of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people after setbacks first in Russia and now in Hungary.
“The day of the parade is always a bittersweet moment for our community,” said Rafal Wojtczak, a spokesman for the organizers. He described feelings of sadness and helplessness that LGBT people have not achieved rights like same-sex partnership or marriage in Poland, while also facing new threats.
The parade comes days after Hungary’s parliament passed a law that makes it illegal to show any materials about LGBT issues to people younger than 18.
Hungary’s conservative ruling party portrayed the law as an effort to fight pedophilia. But human rights groups see it as a cynical tool that will stigmatize LGBT people and prevent youths from accessing critical information.
Poland’s populist ruling party has taken a political direction similar to that of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, pushing conservative policies and tightening ruling party control over courts and media. The European Union has criticized both member nations, accusing them of eroding democratic norms.
One prominent Polish activist, Bart Staszewski, carried a Hungarian flag in Saturday’s march. He said it was a message urging the EU to act in defense of LGBT people because he fears that “Poland will be next.”
Ambassadors and other diplomats from 14 embassies in Warsaw also took part, including the U.S. charge d’affaires Bix Aliu, who tweeted, “Let’s choose love not hate.”
A year ago, the Polish LGBT community faced a backlash from ruling conservative politicians, local communities and the church. In his successful bid for reelection against a challenge from Trzaskowski, President Andrzej Duda declared that “LGBT is not people; it’s an ideology,” while also claiming that it was “even more destructive” than communism.
A Polish archbishop warned of a “rainbow plague.” And dozens of local communities in Poland were passing resolutions against “LGBT ideology” in what was described as an attempt to protect the traditional family. These were strongly denounced by EU officials, and a handful have since been rescinded.
“We’ve been through a very, very rough time, but at the same time we are going out in the streets, and we are saying we are stronger, and we are not going to give up,” said Miroslawa Makuchowska, vice director of Campaign Against Homophobia.
Wojtczak said “our community has been used in a political war.”
At the start of the march, some people chanted a vulgarity against Poland’s ruling party.
This weekend’s Equality Parade comes 20 years since the event was first held in the Polish capital. Since then, Polish society has become largely more open on the issue of gay rights, shaped by EU membership and cultural influences from the West.
People walk towards the starting point of the Equality Parade, an LGBT pride parade, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People walk towards the starting point of the Equality Parade, an LGBT pride parade, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People walk towards the starting point of the Equality Parade, an LGBT pride parade, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
A woman take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
A woman with a rainbow flag cools off in a sprinkler ahead of the Equality Parade, the largest LGBT pride parade in Central and Eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 19, 2021.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
People take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
