Conservative: Liberals Still Don’t Get Trump Support
Progressives are forever predicting President Trump’s political demise, but his support has risen by 6 percentage points since late 2017. Asks Henry Olsen at The Guardian: How do they keep getting it so wrong? For one thing, they don’t understand that “the often virulent behavior of anti-Trump partisans” has made Republicans “especially unwilling to abandon their leader, even when he stumbles.” For another, Trump’s base is far more conventional than they realize. Indeed, more than 80 percent of his vote came from people who’d voted for Mitt Romney four years earlier. And, like any good politician, he’s made sure to give each group in that coalition “what they most desire.” This not only keeps him politically alive, “it might serve to re-elect him against a strong progressive candidate two years hence.”
Security desk: The Other War of Words in Iran
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech Sunday on Iran “stands as one of the finest moments in US-Iran relations since the 1979 revolution,” argues Bloomberg’s Eli Lake. The speech, “Supporting Iranian Voices,” will “resonate with a population that feels cheated out of the economic boon promised from the 2015 nuclear deal.” Moreover, he stressed that America “will focus on going after the regime’s unaccountable leaders, not the Iranian people.” But there’s one nagging problem: President Trump “loves to cut deals,” as he did with North Korea. And if Iran’s leaders agree to talk after crippling sanctions are re-imposed, will “Pompeo’s demand that Iranian leaders treat their people with dignity go the way of Trump’s declaration of solidarity with Koreans who have endured their country’s gulags?”
Political scribe: Dems Refusing To Meet With Kavanaugh
Nearly all Senate Democrats are refusing to hold the traditional meet-and-greet with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until they receive millions of pages of documents from his stint in the Bush White House. And that, says Susan Ferrechio at the Washington Examiner, “could ultimately delay the confirmation process.” Republicans want him confirmed by the start of the court’s fall term on October 1. But “to show they mean business,” GOP leaders say “they won’t adjourn for all-important campaigning this fall if Kavanaugh isn’t on track to making that deadline.” So far, Joe Manchin (W. Va.) is the only Democrat who’s met with Kavanaugh; the others claim they “can’t fit him into their schedules.”
Foreign desk: The Truth About Israel’s Nation-State Law
Israel last week passed a new law, made up mostly of symbolic declarations, affirming the country’s Jewish character. Yet, as David Hazony notes at the Forward, “it took about 11 seconds before critics went ballistic,” with The New York Times portraying it as “just another step in Israel’s inexorable march into darkness.” But all the bill does is reaffirm “some of the key ideas that always lay at the heart of the Zionist project.” And while it no longer includes Arabic as an official language, it also pointedly notes that it does not harm Arabic’s “special status” that was in effect before the law was enacted. Bottom line: “Israel is the Jewish State, and this law tells us what that means. … It’s not the rise of ethno-national-populist-alt-right-MAGA-Bannonism.”
Numbers-cruncher: Hypocrisy of Union-Led Government
Mayor de Blasio may have been elected by promising to unite New York’s “two cities” of rich and poor, but City Journal’s Nicole Gelinas suggests his style of progressive politics unsurprisingly “means favoring a special group with a basket of goodies at the expense of everyone else.” Last month, de Blasio announced a deal giving union teachers six weeks of fully paid leave without having to give up other benefits. But “the only way that the new benefit pays for itself” is if the next teachers contract “is more expensive, overall, to the city than the current one.” And because it’s administered by the union, “the benefit doesn’t further the public interest, but is rather a sop to people with power.” Says Gelinas: “We should expect our elected officials to distinguish between the demands of their political base and the public good.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann
