From the right: Has Trump Moderated Dems?
“The Joe Biden polling surge has raised the frightful specter of Democratic rationality,” quips Rich Lowry at Politico. The former vice president’s rise in the poll, he suggests, could mean that, far from radicalizing Democrats, President Trump’s antics have “made them shockingly pragmatic.” This makes sense from an electoral standpoint: “The common-sense play for the Democrats has always been to nominate a non-socialist with appeal to Obama-to-Trump voters in former Blue Wall states.” That would require a nominee with a “relatively moderate profile.” The Democratic base, it seems, has wised up to this, with more than half of Democrats telling CNN in a recent poll that it’s “extremely important” to pick someone electable with “a good chance of beating Trump.” Biden could be the man, Lowry says, provided he can survive what he calls the coming primary “Woke Olympics.”
Foreign desk: France’s Many Burning Churches
The fire that burned Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral horrified the world, but many other deliberate blazes and acts of vandalism targeting French churches go unnoticed, says Nina Shea at The National Catholic Register. “In February, Notre Dame of Dijon was vandalized, with hosts scattered about,” she notes. “At Notre Dame Church in Nimes, a cross was recently drawn on the wall using excrement and consecrated Communion hosts. Notre Dame of France Catholic bookstore was vandalized last September.” Indeed, according to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, such attacks in France have been relentless for the past four years.” Who’s behind this trend? “A variety of extremists enraged by the identities and teachings that the churches symbolize — Christianity, French nationalism and Western civilization at large.”
Jurist: Not All Contempt Votes Are Equal
It’s tempting to treat as purely partisan the House Judiciary Committee’s votes to hold in contempt Attorneys General William Barr and Eric Holder, notes Michael McConnell at National Review. But “the rest of us might want to know: What is the legal or constitutional difference between Holder’s refusal to provide documents” to Congress and Barr’s? Start with Holder. Under the “Fast and Furious” program, Holder’s Justice Department accidentally armed Mexican gangs. When that became public, Holder told Congress in a letter that the administration knew nothing about it. “This letter was false,” McConnell recalls, “as Holder later admitted.” When Congress asked for documents to find out why it was misled, the Obama administration invoked executive privilege and stonewalled. That’s how the Holder contempt vote came about. By contrast, Barr’s redactions from the Mueller report “protected innocent third parties, ‘peripheral to the investigation,’ whose privacy would be compromised.” In other words, two entirely different contempt votes.
Culture critic: Generation Z’s Abashed Narcissism
At Salon, Keith Spencer writes: “Baby Boomers may have been dubbed the ‘Me Generation,’ but Millennials and Generation Z are the ones that are most self-absorbed — by their own admission.” The good news: A recent study shows that Gen-Zers are “distressed by messaging that casts their age-group as the most narcissistic and entitled age-group ever.” Social-media-driven narcissism, Spencer says, might be a coping mechanism for a generation with poor economic prospects (compared to their forebears) and crushing student-loan burdens. In a “gig” and online-fundraising-based economy, online narcissism may actually be useful. Still, “that doesn’t mean it’s not embarrassing.”
Fiscal watch: Don’t Blame the Deficit on Tax Cuts
Democrats warned that President Trump’s tax cuts would explode the deficit, observes John Merline at Issues & Insights, and the Treasury’s latest report seems to confirm that. This year, the red ink is set to top $1.1 trillion, versus $779 billion last year. But don’t blame the tax cuts — they’re “doing what they’re supposed to do: boost growth, create jobs, raise wages” and at least partially offset the “cost” of the cuts. Revenues, year-to-date, are up 6 percent since 2017, the year the cuts were passed. The real culprit? Spending is “out-of-control”: While revenues this year are expected to climb by $109 billion, outlays will jump $421 billion. For that, Merline concludes, “there’s plenty of blame to go around.”
— Compiled by Sohrab Ahmari & Adam Brodsky
