Robert Tait, The Guardian Journalist Profile

Articles

‘He’s moving at a truly alarming speed’: Trump propels US into authoritarianism

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

It reads like a checklist of milestones on the road to autocracy. A succession of opposition politicians, including Alex Padilla, a US senator, are handcuffed and arrested by heavy-handed law enforcement for little more than questioning authority or voicing dissent. A judge is arrested in her own courthouse and charged with helping a defendant evade arrest. Masked snatch squads arrest and spirit people away in public in what seem to be consciously intimidating scenes.
Trump’s saber-rattling over Iran threatens to split his Maga base

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

Prospects of the US joining Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear program risks splitting Donald Trump’s support base asunder, amid sharp divisions on military intervention between the president’s most avid America-first acolytes and traditional Republican foreign policy hawks.
The rise of Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

With Los Angeles convulsed by confrontation between pro-migrant protesters and military units dispatched by Donald Trump, no figure apart from the president has loomed larger than Stephen Miller.
Trump’s military parade taps an ancient tradition of power: from Mesopotamia to Maga

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

To Donald Trump, the inspiration is the pomp and pageantry of Bastille Day, France’s annual celebration of the 1789 revolution. For his critics, it is redolent of the authoritarian militarism proudly projected by autocracies like Russia, China and North Korea. Despite its military prowess and undoubted superpowers status, overt military displays in civilian settings are the exception rather than the rule in US history.
American carnage revisited as Trump plays president of permanent emergency

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

Donald Trump was hundreds of miles away from the White House on Tuesday, visiting one the country’s most venerable military bases, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, partly to big-up Saturday’s forthcoming celebration of America’s armed might in Washington – a parade spectacular ostensibly held in honor of the US armed forces’ birthday. But also his own. With a new setting came the chance for a new theme. Instead the president chose an old one – American carnage.
Trump administration to cut all USAID overseas roles and axe thousands of staff

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Joseph Gedeon |Robert Tait

The Trump administration will eliminate all USAID overseas positions worldwide by 30 September in a dramatic restructuring of remaining US foreign aid operations. In a Tuesday state department cable obtained by the Guardian, secretary of state Marco Rubio ordered the abolishment of the agency’s entire international workforce, transferring control of foreign assistance programs directly to the state department.
Money can’t buy him love: Republicans give Elon Musk the cold shoulder

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

Elon Musk may believe his money bought the presidential election and the House of the Representatives for the Republicans. But he is discovering painfully and quickly that it has not bought him love, loyalty or even fear among many GOP members of Congress on Capitol Hill.
Why the reaction to Trump’s travel ban is different this time

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

Many of Donald Trump’s critics may have become so inured to the treadmill of iniquities that his second presidency has brought, that a long-expected travel ban announced against citizens of a dozen countries failed to register the same intense shock and outrage as his similar move made during his first presidency. Of course, there was condemnation.
Linda McMahon unsure if teaching Black history flouts Trump’s anti-DEI policy

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said Wednesday she is unsure if teaching students about two of the most notorious racist episodes in US history would fall foul of the Trump administration’s onslaught against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Testifying before the House of Representatives’ education and workforce subcommittee, McMahon appeared uncertain of her facts when confronted by Summer Lee, a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania.
‘This isn’t just about Trump’: the Rev William Barber arrested after prayer-protest against Republican-led budget

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Robert Tait

A police officer’s sense of timing seemed to illuminate the Rev William Barber’s moral mission with startling clarity. During a prayer vigil on Monday in the Capitol rotunda, close to the very heart of US democracy, Barber was lamenting that Congress starts each day with its own prayers to the almighty even while preying on the poor. Capitol police captain, John Hersch, serendipitously choose that very moment to intervene.