Foreign desk: Russia, China Seek To Divide Us
The Russian and Chinese regimes will wage a disinformation campaign to “capitalize on America’s vulnerabilities” and, Janusz Bugajski warns at The Hill, thereby “incapacitate” American resistance to their “global aspirations.” For “international audiences,” that campaign will take the form of arguments that the US is “a fading power” and a “fraudulent democracy” — and that American allies should “instead look toward Moscow and Beijing as models and leaders.” For Americans, the campaign will “fixate on allegedly irreconcilable divisions in American society, whether based on class, wealth, ethnicity, color, religion, region or sexual identity,” not to mention exploiting coronavirus fears. America “needs to brace itself”: In this “time of danger and uncertainty,” don’t believe Moscow’s and Beijing’s attempts to “sow social discord” in the homeland and distract from their own “domestic failures and international ambitions.”
2020 watch: Joe’s Latino Problem
While Joe Biden’s odds of winning the presidency are “improving,” to beat President Trump in November he will need to satisfy “skeptical” demographics — particularly Hispanics, Slate’s Léon Krauze observes. A recent poll “reveals a clear enthusiasm gap among Latinos for both Biden and the 2020 election itself,” which should be “an immediate cause of alarm” for the Democratic Party. Unlike ex-primary rival Bernie Sanders, Biden “spent little time and money actually having a conversation with these voters” early on — and has now gone into “hibernation” because of the coronavirus, preventing him from reaching out to anyone. If Biden and his team continue to stall, Krauze warns Democrats, “Latino voters could deliver” a rebuke loud enough to re-elect Trump. “No hay tiempo que perder!”
Corona beat: Has the Virus Mutated?
At Spectator USA, Ross Clark wonders why the Asian outbreak has proved far less deadly and vexing than outbreaks in the West. Could it be that we haven’t “really been fighting the same disease”? That’s the conclusion of a study by researchers at the University of Sheffield and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The authors contend that “one reason that Europe and North America might have suffered much more than East Asia from COVID-19 is that we have been fighting a mutation of the virus which causes it.” Analyzing a key protein in the virus, they discovered 14 different mutations, one of them especially concerning. The mutated version of the protein, known as G614, “does not seem to result in a greater risk of hospitalization,” but it may be far more transmissible than the Asian variety. The upshot: “Our chances of having a vaccine will depend on how it evolves from here.”
Feminist: Dems Need a Plan B
Whether or not Tara Reade’s sexual-assault allegations against Joe Biden are true, The New York Times’ Elizabeth Bruenig “can assert with firm conviction” that Democrats should “start considering a backup plan for 2020.” If Democrats and the media subject her allegations to “a level of scrutiny” they didn’t use against Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, for one thing, their “evident hypocrisy” may discredit the whole #MeToo movement they have “spent the last few years championing.” Yes, the allegations may “fade away” — “precisely the sort of thing #MeToo was meant to prevent” — but, if they don’t, they also create a “serious liability” for a candidate whose campaign stresses his “empathy and decency.” Democrats, Bruenig urges, “need to begin formulating an alternative strategy for 2020” that does not include Joe Biden.
Conservative: Biden Needs a Rock-Solid Veep
Lefty speculation on Joe Biden’s choice of a vice-presidential nominee has focused obsessively on identity and electability. But, National Review’s Jim Geraghty notes, this ignores a “little thing called governing.” A mistake, when the principal is Biden: “Just look at and listen to the guy. He’s a 77-year-old man who survived two brain aneurysms, had his gallbladder removed and has been preemptively treated for non-cancerous polyps.” And he’s heading into “one of the most stressful jobs in the world.” Which means “Biden’s running mate needs to be ready to assume the responsibilities of the presidency at a moment’s notice.”
— Compiled by Karl Salzmann & Sohrab Ahmari
