Tim Kaine: Dems Weak on National Security, Economy

Victories in the recent midterms “can obscure an important warning” for Democrats, suggests Sen. Tim Kaine at Politico: “Our party is struggling with voters on national security and the economy.” Kaine, the Democratic VP candidate in 2016, says that’s even true in his Democratic-leaning home state of Virginia, which means “our brand is even worse in other, more GOP-friendly battleground states.” Democrats “would be foolish to cede the spotlight on these two critical issues in the hope that we could make up the gap elsewhere.” He suggests “a fresh approach to traditional Democratic issues,” such as making climate change “a national security imperative” and immigration reform “as much about the strength of our work force as a civil-rights issue.”

Hate watch: Ignoring Sources of Europe’s Anti-Semitism

Yet another major study shows that “anti-Semitism is surging and the right wing isn’t primary to blame,” reports Evelyn Gordon at JNS. Yet American Jewish leaders “remain fixated on the idea that right-wing anti-Semitism is the principal threat to Jewish life.” The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights survey of anti-Semitism showed that ­respondents cited “Muslim and left-wing anti-Semitism” as bigger problems than far-right extremism. They also reported that being blamed as Jews for Israel’s actions “was far more common in liberal countries than in conservative ones.” None of this means right-wing anti-Semitism should be ignored. But to combat anti-Jewish hatred, “removing these ideological blinders is essential.”

Social critic: Gillibrand’s ‘Intersectionality’ Backfired

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand recently tweeted something that The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan calls typically “self-serving.” The senator’s seemingly innocuous message declared that “The Future is Female [and] Intersectional.” That slogan “began as the rallying cry of lesbian separatists” and is now “the kind of feel-good feminist slogan that’s sold in posh boutiques.” But because response to the tweet from conservatives was “so overwhelmingly negative,” Gillibrand “decided she needed to walk it back to about 1957” and perform “a kind of innocent-woman routine” — telling CNN she only meant to say, “Please include the ladies in the future.” Asks Flanagan: “Include the ­ladies? Was she trying to kick-start the revolution or get a better tee time for her foursome at the country club?”

Foreign desk: Erdogan’s Win a Betrayal of the Kurds

In President Trump’s decision to abruptly withdraw US forces from Syria, “the Kurds are the real losers and Russia is the winner,” contends Cengiz Kandar at Al-Monitor. As is Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who reportedly prompted Trump’s decision by stressing to him that the Syrian Kurds are terrorists, receiving a green light from the president in return. Some are calling this “Trump’s New Year’s gift to Erdogan,” but Kandar ­insists “it is more than that: It is the realization of Turkey’s influence all over the northern part of Syria to the detriment of Kurdish ideals for self-rule, which is Turkey’s long-standing red line.” Indeed, “Turkey’s main ­objective in Syria is to prevent the emergence of Kurdish self-rule along Syria’s northern border.” Whatever the trajectory of Erdogan’s coming ­onslaught, this will be “a win-win situation for Turkey.”

Tech writer: Why Did We Just Hand the Web to Google?

Now that Microsoft has decided to end development of its own Web-rendering engine and switch to Chromium, “control over the Web has functionally been ceded to Google” — which Ars Technica’s Peter Bright calls “a worrying turn of events, given the company’s past behavior.” In fact, “we’re looking at a world where Chrome and Chrome-derivatives take about 60 percent of the market.” Google already “exercises considerable ­influence over the direction of the Web’s development,” including “a large fraction” of streaming video. Problem is, the company “time and again has tried to push the Web into a Google-controlled proprietary direction” in order to consolidate its own market position and put “everyone else at a disadvantage.” Google has been put in charge of the Web, but its “track ­record shows it shouldn’t be trusted with such a position.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann