Political scribe: Dems’ Stormy Daniels Problem

James Comey, Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen “represent an inescapable threat to Republicans” come November’s midterm elections, suggests Ronald Brownstein at The Atlantic. But they also “pose a challenge for Democrats, too.” Because the intense media attention they attract is keeping the Dems’ economic message from “breaking through.” Besides, revelations about Trump’s personal deficiencies are unlikely to “move many more voters than they already have.” So “it remains a close call” whether Democrats can flip enough upscale, metro-area districts to retake the House. Nor is it clear that questioning Trump’s values “is a winning argument” with working-class voters. For “a sunny outcome, Democrats probably need more health care and taxes — and less Comey and Stormy.”

Urban scholar: Jews’ Greatest Threat Is From the Left

Ever since President Trump’s election, prominent Jewish intellectuals and leftist community leaders have lamented the resurgence of right-wing anti-Semitism both here and in Europe. But Joel Kotkin at City Journal argues that “by far the greatest threat to Jews, not only here but also abroad, comes not from zombie fascist retreads, but from the Left, which is increasingly making its peace with anti-Semitism . . . in alliance with a growing Muslim population.” Much of this is masked as anti-Zionism, which is not automatically identical with anti-Semitism. But “targeting the Jewish state while ignoring far more brutal,” as well as “homophobic and profoundly misogynist, Muslim states represents a double standard characteristic of anti-Semitic prejudice.” And while “anti-Semitism is not rampant in America today,” the “political evolution of progressive Democrats points to a troubling future.”

Security writer: Trump Is Not Nixon & NoKo Isn’t China

Bloomberg’s Eli Lake finds it understandable that parallels are being drawn between Donald Trump’s potential summit with Kim Jong-un and Richard Nixon’s 1972 breakthrough trip to Beijing. The reality, though, is that they’re “not really comparable.” For one thing, Kim — unlike Mao Zedong —“presides over a weak country that relies almost exclusively on China for the power and trade that allows his regime to survive.” And while the Trump-Kim summit could “remove the threat of nuclear missiles aimed at American cities,” it won’t “unshackle a great power,” the way Nixon’s trip did. China has modernized its economy and, for better or worse, “plays an important part in world affairs.” But “nothing like that is in the cards for North Korea.”

From the right: #MeToo Has Become Infantilizing

Six months after #MeToo began trending on social media, Joanna Williams at The American Conservative says it’s time to “take stock and ask what women have gained from this movement.” Yes, joining with #MeToo allows women to “become part of a community” and “gain validation for their suffering.” But she suggests that “beyond the euphoria,” #MeToo “has become an orthodoxy intolerant of criticism or even question.” The result: a “censorious closing down of debate.” And, she charges, it also has become “a moral crusade where facts are readily sacrificed for the greater good of the cause.” Indeed, #MeToo “treats women like children, incapable of standing up for themselves” and requiring the kind of “infantilizing protections” against which “previous generations of feminists fought.”

From the left: Save America’s Nuclear Power Plants

The United States still has the world’s largest network of nuclear power plants, but, as The Week’s Ryan Cooper notes, this “supply is shrinking fast.” Plants built in the ’60s and ’70s “are being retired as they reach the end of their planned operating lifespan, while they simultaneously come under powerful price pressure from natural gas and ever-cheaper renewables.” And that, argues Cooper, “is bad.” Because nuclear power “is still the largest zero-carbon portion of our existing energy infrastructure” and “the most vital part of the American electrical grid.” Sure, it’s “old, a bit rickety and overpriced,” but it produces “a huge amount of zero-carbon power.” Which is why “we should wring every last kilowatt out of that infrastructure until renewables (or perhaps future superior nuclear tech) are ready to take up the slack.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann