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POLITICS

Biden’s Foreign-Policy Blast From the Past He thinks liberal multilateralism will tame China, Russia and woke Democrats. By Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-foreign-policy-blast-from-the-past-11594680389?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Optimism is a rare commodity in this difficult year, but I came away from a conversation with Anthony Blinken, Joe Biden’s senior foreign-policy adviser, believing the former vice president’s campaign is confident that the old-time Democratic policy playbook will bring success abroad and at home.

This sort of optimism, the belief that working hard and sticking to your principles will bring results, is a defining characteristics of the American spirit. Pessimists don’t change countries and cultures in hope of building a better life. And a nation of pessimists produces few world-class innovators and entrepreneurs.

In foreign affairs the case for optimism is limited. A nation of pessimists wouldn’t have come up with the Marshall Plan—but neither would it have overthrown Moammar Gadhafi, certain a more peaceful Libya would emerge.

Team Biden’s optimism reflects a faith in the classic pillars of Cold War-era Democratic policy: At home, a regulated market economy and government that attends to the concerns of key Democratic interest groups can produce the middle-class affluence that makes the U.S. model admired and envied around the world. Abroad, the principles of liberal multilateralism—supplemented when absolutely necessary by the American military and a willingness to use it—can bring a critical mass of the world’s powers into broad alignment with core U.S. objectives.

Trump Needs to Scale the Real Wall of 2020 By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/12/trump-needs-to-scale-the-real-wall-of-2020/

The president should emphasize not just the efficacy of his administration but its effects on real people. Focus on “Restoration 2021.”

Donald Trump is trying to break through a 2020 wall. 

By January 2019, after over three years of failed efforts to impeach him, sue him, indict him, impoverish him, and destroy him, the Left had failed. The economy was booming. Trump’s tweets were mostly bragging about his accomplishments. And the Left was dumbfounded that both impeachment and Mueller, in Nietzschean fashion, had only made Trump stronger.

Then came an unexpected trifecta catastrophe—plague, a quarantine-induced recession, and a leftist cultural revolution in the streets. Suddenly, the Left saw all of that as a gift that might succeed where its own self-constructed melodramas had failed.

By late May, Trump’s polls had dived. 

His enemies declared this time he was really, actually, truly finished. NeverTrumpers hit the media to boast they were finally redeemed. 

The discredited pollsters of 2016 reemerged, this time even convincing once-burned, never-again Las Vegas bookies that Trump was toast. Leftists, depressed over the progressive implosion in the Democratic primaries, now rebranded Joe Biden as a useful septuagenarian. He could carry them to victory before being pushed aside. 

Biden was put on ice, a virtual prisoner of the Democratic establishment, who gave him teleprompted messages and pre-canned interviews to stumble through on Skype. “Keep silent, keep hidden,” was the motto of Biden’s keepers.

Trump railed. He fumed. As a furious Achilles, he tweeted about the unfairness of it all—how he had defeated concocted attacks, but suddenly a virus from his nemesis China had unleashed sheer madness, with him as its target.

To get back on track, Trump almost alone became the defender of tradition under assault, of security, and safety. He deplored the statue toppling, the madness of cancel culture, the racial obsessions of the Black Lives Matter/Antifa cultural revolution. He praised America’s goodness and reminded the country it was good without having to be perfect. And still, the Left hobbled him. 

The Winds of Woke By Matthew Continetti

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/joe-biden-political-correctness-can-he-withstand-winds-of-woke/

Can Joe Biden withstand the storm of political correctness?

Before Thursday morning I had not heard of Thomas Bosco, and I am willing to bet you haven’t heard of him either. He runs a café in Upper Manhattan. From the picture in the New York Times, the Indian Road Café is one of those Bobo-friendly brick-lined coffee shops with chalkboard menus affixed to the wall behind the counter and a small stage for down-on-their-luck musicians to warble a few bars of “Fast Car” as you sip on a no-foam latte while editing a diversity-training manual. It looks pleasant enough. “Local writers, artists, musicians, and political activists are regulars,” writes metro columnist Azi Paybarah. “And for years, two drag queens have hosted a monthly charity bingo tournament there.” Drag queens! You can’t get more progressive than that. Bosco seems like a noble small businessman making his way in a turbulent world.

There’s a problem, though. He once expressed an opinion. Though Black Lives Matter signs are posted throughout the restaurant, and its owner identifies as “a liberal guy who supports almost every liberal cause I can think of,” in early June Bosco told MSNBC that he voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and expects to do so again. Omigod no. “The backlash was swift, as you might expect,” writes Paybarah. Neighbors denounced Bosco on Facebook. Some vowed not to patronize the café. Randi Weingarten, who as president of the American Federation of Teachers draws close to half a million dollars in salary and benefits annually, wrote online that it would be “hard to ever go back.” No more tips for the barista from her. As for the drag queens, they are taking their glitter elsewhere.

Bosco is distraught. “My staff feels like I let them down to a certain extent,” he told the Times. He has supported Bernie Sanders, donated to immigrant groups, contributed to the food pantry, provided child care for an employee, and plans to change the name of the café to Inwood Farm to avoid any possible offense toward the Indigenous. None of this is enough to quell the fury of the Very Online. “Similar backlashes have erupted in liberal New York City, usually after a business is revealed to have financial links to Mr. Trump or socially conservative causes,” notes Paybarah, citing the example of Stephen Ross, an investor who had to cut ties to the Equinox and SoulCycle gym chains after it was revealed that he was going to throw a fundraiser for the president. “But Mr. Bosco is no Mr. Ross.”

Will Democrats Accept Another Trump Victory? Barton Swain

https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-democrats-accept-another-trump-victory-11594405793?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Joe Biden, asked recently if he had considered the possibility that President Trump may refuse to concede defeat in the election, answered that he had. But he was “absolutely convinced,” the former vice president said reassuringly, that if such a thing happens, military personnel will “escort him from the White House with great dispatch.” What a relief!

The exchange brings to mind the 2016 campaign, when media personalities speculated that Mr. Trump would refuse to concede to Hillary Clinton. The hypothesis was never tested, Mr. Trump having had the bad manners to win, but it turned out to be they who refused to concede defeat—not by contesting the election results but by persuading themselves and half the country that Mr. Trump had won by illegal means and generally behaving like spoiled children for the next four years. 

I suspect Mr. Trump would have conceded the night of the election (which Mrs. Clinton did not do), for the simple reason that he neither expected nor particularly wanted to win. In the event that Mr. Trump fails to win re-election, he will depart willingly. Not graciously, perhaps, but willingly and at the appointed time.

The more interesting question is: What will Democrats do if Mr. Biden loses? What idiotic conspiracy theory will they concoct to explain their defeat?

I mean no disrespect to my liberal friends when I say, to borrow Mr. Biden’s phrase, that I am absolutely convinced that Democrats won’t accept the result if the Republican wins.

The Magic of the Democratic Party Constant distraction is the core of dystopian politics. Garrison Bergeron

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/magic-democratic-party-frontpagemagcom/

The most famous technique magicians use to fool you is distraction. They distract you with one hand while doing their trick with the other. The amazing thing is how it keeps working even though we all know about it. The next magic act comes around, and we still look at the hand that the magician wants us to watch while ignoring the hand weaving the deceit.

Nobody understands this better than the Democrat Party. Democrat mayors preside over the most horrific dysfunction and violence in America. Recently President Trump called them out, claiming that the top 20 most violent cities in the USA were run by Democrats. The Democrats were livid. One of their favorite propaganda outlets, the Washington Post, “fact-checked” Trump and declared him wrong, saying: “Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats. They aren’t.” But the article went on to document (with supporting data) that 17 of the top 20 are indeed actually the most dangerous.

Since many of us cannot witness what’s actually going on in Democrat-run cities, their mayors can distract us with irrelevant issues while hiding the carnage wrought by their own policies. Search for “Chicago gangs,” for example, and you’ll see a huge number of sites dedicated to the subject. High on your list will be a page called “chicagoganghistory.com.” This site alone is breathtaking in its depth; try navigating its menus.

Nixon Doesn’t Go to China Tim Blair

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/06/nixon-doesnt-go-to-china/

“Left-leaning journalists of recent decades perform a cute little two-step. First they demonize their targeted white conservative as a wicked Nixonian figure, and then they commence what they imagine to be an honorable Watergate-style destruction of that target.”

Watergate destroyed the presidency of Richard M. Nixon. It may also have done a similar job on modern journalism.

Prior to Watergate, journalism was mostly a procedural affair. Journalists were a delivery system between things that happened and people learning about those things. After Watergate—as noble as was the cause pursued by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein—matters shifted. Journalism made things happen.

In Watergate’s specific case, they made a US president resign after his various crooked antics were exposed. Quite why Nixon went to such lengths to crush his Democrat opponents remains something of a mystery; after all, Nixon prevailed in the 1972 election by forty-nine states to one. The Democrats weren’t exactly putting up much of a fight.

In any case, Watergate and the subsequent celebration of Woodward and Bernstein led to a shift in journalistic aims. We still see the result of that shift today. Journalism courses in the US, UK and Australia focus on causes, struggles and Speaking Truth to Power. As opposed, I guess, to the previous model of simply Speaking Truth.

Progressive Democrats Threaten Cut-Off of Military Aid to Israel Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leads the anti-Israel campaign in Congress. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/progressive-democrats-threaten-cut-military-aid-joseph-klein/

With the wind at her back following her recent primary victory, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is taking the lead in challenging Israel’s possible extension of sovereignty over certain areas within the West Bank. She authored a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning that any move by Israel to extend its sovereignty into such areas would jeopardize continued U.S. military aid to the Jewish state. Senator Bernie Sanders signed AOC’s letter along with 11 other Democrat House members, including AOC’s fellow “Squad” members Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. Anti-Semitic organizations that back the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel are also in AOC’s corner.

“Should the Israeli government continue down this path,” AOC’s letter warns, “we will work to ensure non-recognition of annexed territories as well as pursue legislation that conditions the $3.8 billion in U.S. military funding to Israel to ensure that U.S. taxpayers are not supporting annexation in any way. We will include human rights conditions and the withholding of funds for the offshore procurement of Israeli weapons equal to or exceeding the amount the Israeli government spends annually to fund settlements, as well as the policies and practices that sustain and enable them.”

Newt Gingrich: Joe Biden’s 4th of July Video ‘Most Anti-American’ Speech by Presidential Candidate — Ever

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/05/newt-gingrich-joe-bidens-4th-of-july-video-most-anti-american-speech-by-presidential-candidate-ever/

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich panned former Vice President Joe Biden’s short speech on the Fourth of July, saying it “may be the most anti-American speech ever given by an American presidential candidate.”

Biden delivered a short video address on Twitter from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, in which he told Americans that the November election offered “a chance to rip the roots of systemic racism out of this country,” implying the country itself was racist by design.

Do Never-Trump Republicans Know How Liberal Joe Biden Has Become?

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/06/do-never-trump-republicans-know-how-liberal-joe-biden-has-become/

President Donald Trump causes people to do the strangest things, but none is as strange as the growing determination by some Republicans to get Joe Biden elected in November, even as Biden moves further and further leftward.

We aren’t the only ones who’ve noticed that, while the country is fixated on the coronavirus panic-demic and race riots, Biden’s agenda has shifted sharply to the socialist side of the spectrum.

FiveThirtyEight noted a few weeks ago that “The Pandemic Has Pushed Biden To The Left. How Far Will He Go?”

Around the same time, New York magazine reported that “Biden Is Planning an FDR-Size Presidency.”

One Democratic consultant told The Hill that Biden has moved to the left on issues such as bankruptcy policy and college affordability, and that a Biden win, along with Democrats regaining control of the Senate, “could lead to a New Deal era of progressive policies.”

MarketWatch recently said Biden is proposing a “radical tax plan” that “goes after the indolent rich.”

Then there is Biden’s joining up with Sen. Bernie Sanders to create “task forces” on various issues.

The Battle for America’s Soul Biden is on the wrong side. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/battle-americas-soul-joseph-klein/

Joe Biden has often said during his presidential campaign that we are in a “battle for America’s soul.” A nice soundbite, but Biden is already conceding this battle to globalists who disdain American sovereignty. Indeed, Biden is an extreme globalist himself. And Biden has for the most part been AWOL in the battle being waged for America’s soul over the founding ideals of our nation, which are under attack by the far-left progressive base of the Democratic Party. After weeks of silence, Biden finally spoke out on June 30th in favor of protecting the statues and monuments of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. But Biden’s political correctness prevents him from standing up strongly for American exceptionalism against the mobs in the streets and the mainstream media.

As we honor our nation’s independence on July 4th, we should reflect on the timeless words in the Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Joe Biden garbled these words in one of his typical gaffes, declaring instead: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created, by the, you know, you know the thing.” However, even when Biden was more articulate in restating America’s founding ideals in his 2017 New York Times op-ed article, he (or his ghost writer) went off the rails by trying to characterize President Trump’s America First policies as antithetical to those ideals.