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GOP's lack of power in politics, tech and the workplace will feed future grievances

11 January 2021
Dan Ackermann

Republicans are losing power where power matters most at the national level: in politics, media, technology and the workplace.

Why it matters: Republicans often felt mistreated when they had real power in the form of the presidency and Senate. Watch Fox News or listen to Ben Shapiro, and you will see and hear how this new isolation will feed Republican worries and grievances in the months ahead.

  • Tucker Carlson warned on Fox: "Tens of millions of Americans have no chance — they’re about to be crushed by the ascendant left."

Democrats will soon control the White House, Senate and House. They already dominate most mainstream newsrooms, own Big Tech companies, and often band together inside corporations to force politically motivated decisions.

  • Republicans will be left with Mitch McConnell as party leader of a 50-50 Senate, prime time on Fox News and The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
  • Most importantly, the right has the Supreme Court, which might prove to be the one reliable counterbalance, and the majority of power at the state level.

Conservatives long ago lost so many key institutions that define the national conversation, including culture, media and higher education.

  • But since 1980, the party had political power and policy-making capability.

Now, President Trump has cost Republicans those tools, and the party will have to rebuild around new people and ideas.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.