Campaign journal: Voters Flee from Biden
“Vast swaths of demographics that the Democratic Party is used to winning by a wide margin sound like they’re ready to give up on Joe Biden,” notes National Review’s Jim Geraghty. “A new survey in the key swing state of Georgia finds Donald Trump leading Joe Biden by eight percentage points,” while an ABC News/Ipsos national poll shows the prez’s “approval rating is 21 points below average among Black people and 15 points below average among Hispanic people,” and “just 31% of women now approve of Biden’s work in office, a new low.” Then again, Donald Trump seems unable to “avoid saying crazy things.” But if he “had even an ounce of self-control,” then “this deeply troubled incumbent would likely be doomed.”
From the right: Trump’s Uncertain Future
Donald “Trump’s Iowa triumph can hardly serve as a bellwether,” argues Phil Boas at USA Today. It’d be “a noteworthy triumph” for “just another Republican competing to lead the ticket,” but in fact he’s a quasi-incumbent who “remade the modern Republican Party.” Yet in Iowa “the ‘not Trump’ coalition of candidates won nearly half the vote in a state that ABC News calls ‘overwhelmingly white and rural.’ In other words, these were ideal conditions for a Trump landslide.” That Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley “cut into Trump’s support” signals “some serious discomfort with Trump in the Republican base.” Primary voters may yet realize: “Trump’s power to motivate Democrats to vote” brings a high risk “that Trump will lose the general election and take down the rest of the Republican ballot.”
Culture critic: DEI Serves the Elites
Hearing defenders of diversity, equity and inclusion during Claudine Gay’s “public trial” was “disembodying,” fumes pastor Corey Brooks at Tablet — “like listening to people who don’t know you talk about you as if they knew you from way back when.” Advocates “were exploiting the pain of my community to gaslight their opponents,” hindering “our efforts to truly make lasting progress.” The people of Brooks’ community on Chicago’s South Side are at “the bottom,” and “DEI ideology” doesn’t offer them better lives; rather, it’s “manipulative rhetoric,” a way for “professional-class ideologues” to exploit our tragedies in order to “rise through American institutions.” Indeed, claims that “merit, freedom, and agency” are “white supremacist values” are actually “toxic for my community and for the lives we are trying to save.”
Terror watch: Rising Assassination Threats
The Jan. 2 bid to kill South Korean politician Lee Jae-myung was “the latest in a long — and growing — line of assassination attempts against political leaders” from Ecuador to Argentina to Japan, warns Jacob Ware at The Hill. The “United States has avoided a successful high-profile assassination,” but 2022 saw threats to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh where “would-be assassins made it all the way to their target’s home.” The cause? Maybe simply that the “norms of civility have frayed,” maybe “the rising prevalence of conspiracy theories targeting politicians” or perhaps “lone actors” have “inspired others to follow in their footsteps.” “The most critical counterterrorism measure, then, is to continue reinforcing democratic institutions, including free elections and the free press, that isolate extremism to the fringes of society.”
Urban beat: Why US Cities Are So Squalid
At UnHerd, Chris Arnade wonders: Why does America have “garbage-strewn subways that effectively serve as mobile homeless shelters”? Why do municipal authorities remove “resources for the majority” — like bus shelters and public benches — “because of concerns over ‘misuse’ by less than 1% of residents” (i.e., “they don’t want people to sleep there”)? Because the United States is a “high-regulation/low-trust society.” That blocks “organic growth,” and so cities end up “building things the majority doesn’t want, or doesn’t find useful.” The combination means “we can’t have nice things.” Don’t worry about “Americans moving overseas.” Worry that “authorities don’t feel compelled to provide citizens with towns and cities that work, and feel safe.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
