It might seem like a post-Trump world, but in red states across the US his most hardline supporters are setting the political agenda. How much power do they have to shape the country’s future, even with a Democrat in the White House?
To a casual observer, Joe Biden’s victory in the last US presidential election, coupled with Democratic success in the Senate and the House, might have seemed to turn the page on the Donald Trump era and consign his hardline policy agenda to the past. But a huge amount of power in the US resides in its 50 state legislatures, and Republicans won a clear majority in 30 of them. In large parts of the US they are now using that power to enact a policy agenda that many observers view as being far more extreme than many voters would have supported. So why are they going ahead anyway?
Rachel Humphreys speaks to David Smith, the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, about the politics that lie behind that move to the right, and how in the era of coronavirus it will further deepen the sense that there are two vastly different Americas. Smith reflects on what threat to Biden’s agenda the state Republicans will present and whether their strategy of appeasing their base could pave the way for a new Trump run at the presidency in 2024.