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Putin

The GOP Is Now The Party Of Putin

"Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it's infected a good chunk of my party's base." That acknowledgement from Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was echoed a few days later by Ohio Rep. Michael Turner, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. "To the extent that this propaganda takes hold, it makes it more difficult for us to really see this as an authoritarian versus democracy battle."

It has been two months since the Senate passed, by 70-29 (including 22 Republicans), a $95 billion foreign aid bill that included $60 billion for Ukraine. The Republican-controlled House, by contrast, has been paralyzed. This week, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Ukraine will lose the war if the aid is not approved.

The Republican party is now poised to let a brave, democratic ally be defeated by the power that the last GOP presidential nominee save one called "without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe." One member of Congress has sworn to introduce a resolution to vacate the chair if the House speaker puts aid for Ukraine on the floor, and the entertainment wing of conservatism — most egregiously Tucker Carlson — has gone into full truckling mode toward the ex-KGB colonel in the Kremlin.

It's worth exploring how the Republican party, the party of "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," became the party that now credulously traffics in blatant Russian disinformation while it flirts with betraying an important ally — along with all of its principles.

Trump's particular preferences and ego needs play a starring role in the GOP's devolution. Cast your minds back to 2016 and the revelation that the Russians had hacked the Democratic National Committee. To rebut this damaging development, Fox News conjurers got busy inventing a tale about CrowdStrike, the company that documented the hack, alleging that the servers had been mysteriously moved to Ukraine so that the FBI could not examine them. Trump raised the CrowdStrike issue in his infamous call with Zelenskyy.

This was bonkers. As the Mueller report made clear, the FBI did get all the data regarding the DNC hack. There was never a shred of evidence that the servers were moved to Ukraine, and in any case physical control of the servers was unnecessary. But what was Zelensky supposed to say? He promised to look into it just as a courtier to a mad king will say, "Yes, your majesty, we will look into why your slippers are turning into marshmallows when the sun goes down."

Because Trump regarded any implication that he had received assistance from Russia as impugning his victory, he latched onto the idea (perhaps whispered by Putin himself in one of their many private conversations) that, yes, there had indeed been foreign interference in the election, but it was Ukraine boosting Hillary Clinton, not Russia aiding Trump. Now, it's true that Ukraine's friends reached out to Clinton, but why wouldn't they? Trump's campaign manager was Paul Manafort, a paid agent of Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted pro-Putin Ukrainian leader.

Trump nurtured his misplaced grudge for years. Recall that when Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Trump's initial response was that it was a "genius" move. "You gotta say, that's pretty savvy."

A non-sociopath would say it was raw aggression of the worst kind. A normal Republican of the pre-Trump mold would have been outraged at the attempted rape of a peaceful, democratic neighbor.

Most Republican officeholders are not sociopaths, but they take their marching orders from one and have adjusted their consciences accordingly. The talking point Sen. J.D. Vance and his ilk favor is that they cannot be concerned about Ukraine's border when our southern border is also being invaded. Of course it's absurd to compare immigrants looking for work or safety to tanks, bombs and missiles, but that's what passes for Republican reasoning these days. In any case, it was revealed to be hollow when Biden and the Democrats offered an extremely strict border bill to sweeten aid for Ukraine, and the GOP turned it down flat.

Russia's fingerprints are all over the Republicans' failed attempt to impeach (in all senses of the word) Joe Biden. Their star witness, Alexander Smirnov — who alleged that Hunter and Joe Biden had been paid $5 million in bribes by Burisma — was indicted in February for making false statements. High-ranking Russians appear to be his sources.

Whether the subject is Ukraine, Biden's so-called corruption, or NATO, Putin seems to have pulled off the most successful foreign influence operation in American history. If Trump were being blackmailed by Putin, it's hard to imagine how he would behave any differently. And though it started with Trump, it has not ended there. Putin now wields more power over the GOP than anyone other than Trump. GOP propagandists indulge fictions that even many Russians can see through: Ukraine is governed by Nazis; Russia is a religious, Christian nation; Russia is fighting "wokeness."

Republicans are not so much isolationist as pro-authoritarian. They've made Hungary's Viktor Orban a pin-up, and they mouth Russian disinformation without shame. Putin must be pinching himself.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Democrats

Democrats Should Reclaim Patriotism From Anti-American MAGA

In 1984, at the Republican National Convention in Dallas, a lifelong Democrat stood up to denounce her former party. Jeane Kirkpatrick, who had switched parties to serve as Reagan's U.N. ambassador, lambasted her former party for always "blaming America first."

Today, it is the Republican Party that — despite its MAGA slogan — is trafficking in dark, anti-American ideas and imagery. The party that claims to put "America first" is led by a man who describes the nation as "failing" or "corrupt" a hundred times for every one mention of an American virtue. Our cities, according to Trump, are crippled by "bloodshed, chaos and violent crime." Our courts are corrupt. Our press is the "enemy of the people." Immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our nation" while committing countless murders and rapes. Our military is "woke." Meanwhile, those who gave the last full measure of devotion are "suckers" and "losers." We are a "failing nation" whose free elections are actually rigged by a stealthy and unaccountable "deep state." Far from a global leader, America is a "laughing stock" around the world.

The Republican Party has traded patriotism and uplift for an apocalyptic cult. This presents Democrats with an opportunity — if they can seize it.

Most people are patriots. In June of 2023, 67% of Americans said were extremely or very proud of their country. If you add those who say they are "moderately" proud to be American to those who are extremely or very proud, you arrive at 89% of the adult population.

For Democrats to scoop up the banner of patriotism will require rejecting the approach of progressives. I'm a devoted listener to NPR, and they do excellent work. But their progressive bias results in a seemingly endless litany of American sins and shortcomings past and present. Some self-criticism is a sign of maturity. Too much can be demoralizing.

Most Democrats are not progressives though, and they have a golden opportunity to uphold true patriotism in contrast to the nativist nationalism now proclaimed by the Republicans.

What is there to love about America?

Let's begin with the Declaration of Independence. Though written by a slave owner, its stirring words inspired not just colonists along the Atlantic coast of the new world, but all of humanity.

The Constitution enshrined a republican form of government, checks and balances, and rights like freedom of speech and worship, the right to trial by jury, and the right to be secure in your home from government intrusion that were practically unheard of in the 18th century and remain too rare today. And where those rights are honored, it is often due to the example and influence of the United States.

Seventy-four percent of Americans believe that, on the whole, America has been a force for good in the world. I'm with them.

There are countless examples of American benevolence to those in need, but one that has disappeared from our national consciousness is the story of American relief of Europe after World War I. Had he never had the misfortune to be president when the Great Depression hit, Herbert Hoover would be remembered as one of the most consequential humanitarians in history. When tens of millions in Europe faced starvation, Hoover was tapped to lead the American Relief Administration and saved tens of millions from starvation.

The United States offered similar humanitarian relief after World War II. After bitter warfare, the United States administered Japan without vengeance or plunder and put that nation on the road to democracy and prosperity.

In recent years, the United States has underwritten peace between Egypt and Israel, provided the lion's share of funding for the U.N.'s humanitarian missions and undertaken to save Africans from the scourge of AIDS with the PEPFAR program.

On the home front, with all of our flaws, the United States has provided a haven for generations of immigrants from war-torn, despotic or impoverished nations. Among them were my grandparents.

This nation has been guilty of slavery, ethnic cleansing (of Native Americans), discrimination, religious bigotry, and always and everywhere racism. But this is also the nation that passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act and many more. It is the nation that, imperfectly but steadily, implemented Brown v. Board of Education.

The American genius for innovation gave the world many of the most significant inventions of the past two centuries. Americans invented the telephone (Alexander Graham Bell was an immigrant to the United States), the lightbulb, anesthesia, the airplane, the elevator, the skyscraper, the polio vaccine, air conditioning, the cellphone, the internet, nuclear power, GPS (with key work by an African American woman from rural Virginia), and mRNA vaccines. Americans landed on the moon and established the first national parks.

America's capacity to absorb and blend cultures from around the world led to the flourishing of music and art. Tap dancing originated here, along with jazz, the blues, movies, hip hop and, of course, blue jeans.

The MAGA vision of a woke, corrupt, crime-infested hellscape is not patriotism but its opposite. Speaking up for the goodness of America is just — and may also be politically potent.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

For 'Reagan Republicans,' A Third Party Is The Coward's Way Out

For 'Reagan Republicans,' A Third Party Is The Coward's Way Out

During the all-too-brief one-on-one contest between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, there was a good deal of analysis declaring it the last stand of the Reaganite vision for the GOP versus the MAGA takeover. That was the wishiest of wishful thinking — and not just because such large segments of the current Republican Party delight in Trump. It's also because the Reaganite wing has made such a poor showing for itself.

It's generous to call the desiccated exoskeleton of Reaganism a "wing" at all, and frankly, the use of the term "Reaganism" is not really accurate anyway. What people mean when they use the term is traditional Republicanism, which includes belief in free enterprise, smaller government, freer trade, respect for the Constitution, dedication to American world leadership and social conservatism, among other ideals. Republicans who continue to adhere to those principles embraced Haley as the last man (as it were) standing.

One reason there weren't more traditional Republicans was on display in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. The world might look very different if traditional Republicans had been willing to stand firm for their values when they came under assault from an ignorant, cruel demagogue. So I was briefly optimistic when I saw that an honest-to-goodness Reaganite, John Lehman, who served as secretary of the Navy under Reagan, had weighed in. The headline was promising: "Reagan Would Never Vote for Trump." But after that bold beginning, the subhead was deflating: "He also didn't care much for Biden. Like me, he'd be looking for a strong third-party candidate to support."

Let's unpack that subhead. Reagan may not have "cared much" for Biden in the 1980s; most conservatives didn't. But we cannot say how Reagan would view the 2024 Biden; many former Republicans like me consider him the more conservative choice in the most important respects, i.e., respect for the rule of law and adherence to the Constitution. As Lehman itemizes in his piece, Trump's departure from conservative ideals — or just plain American ideals — are "horrifying," including his "naked admiration of our enemies," "praise for Hezbollah," contempt for allies, and incessant denigration of America as a "third world country" and a "laughingstock."

One might suppose that given all of that and so much more, Lehman would counsel that Trump's reelection would be a disaster and, accordingly, that he would vote for Biden. But no, Lehman makes a feeble accusation in the final paragraph that Biden has "turned his platform over to socialist Bernie Sanders" and accordingly, Lehman will vote for the No Labels candidate.

That's rubbish. Biden has done no such thing. Lehman, like so many who should know better, is failing to take responsibility for the decision we must all make. His longing for purity is overwhelming his judgment. If Trump is reelected, none of the things he worked for as Navy secretary is safe.

Anything that erodes the anti-Trump coalition makes it more likely that Trump will prevail. So those who vow to write in a non-Trump Republican, or who, like Lehman, will vote for the No Labels candidate, are increasing the chances that a man who promises to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, imprison his critics and become an ally of Russia, will be elected.

The No Labels candidacy is cotton candy. Though advertised as providing a "unity ticket" that will provide "common sense" solutions for America's problems, the reality is that No Labels has no chance of winning 270 electoral college votes. Last year, they predicted that they would achieve ballot access in 32 states by now. Instead, they have access in only 16 states. Oh, and No Labels might as well be called No Candidate. Like dominoes, one possible candidate after another has turned down their offer to run: Jon Huntsman, Joe Manchin, Larry Hogan, Kyrsten Sinema, Nikki Haley, Ken Buck, Brian Kemp and, just this week, Geoff Duncan.

As William Galston, a founder of No Labels who broke with the group last year, has explained, there are more moderate voters in the Democratic Party than in the GOP. Accordingly, No Labels will attract more Democrats than Republicans.

No Labels claims that it is only interested in fielding a ticket that can win outright and has no desire to serve as a spoiler. But polling shows that even a nationally known figure like Haley would only claim 9% of the vote in a four-way race that also contained Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Their projections also presume that a No Labels candidate would carry states that Biden won by double-digit margins in 2020.

No Labels is playing a dangerous game. Some believe it has forfeited the benefit of the doubt and is a full-fledged stalking horse for Trump. It wouldn't be so dangerous were it not for feckless lightweights like John Lehman.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Margie Lied: Debunking That 'Migrant Crime Wave' Canard

President Joe Biden chose to scrap a bit with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene at the State of the Union — a choice that should remind us of the old saw, "Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it."

Greene has two modes: heckling and lying. This time, she was doing both by bellowing that Biden should "Say her name," a reference to Laken Riley, the nursing student who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant. Biden said the name (though he mangled it) and added the reasonable observation that thousands of people are murdered every year by the native born. A few progressive speech police then attacked Biden (!) for using the politically incorrect terminology for the murderer, causing Biden to correct himself, and here we are — all covered in mud while the pig is grinning.

Biden's initial instinct was good, even if the execution and follow-through left something to be desired. But that doesn't mean Biden should shrink from the subject in future. On the contrary, the false immigration narrative is clearly damaging Biden's standing.

Cards on the table: I'm for increased immigration. Immigrants are vital to our economy. They will contribute an estimated $7 trillion to our GDP over the next 10 years. They also revitalize our civic culture, injecting new Americans who do not take our prosperity or our freedoms for granted (and that's not even counting all the new cuisines). They contribute more to the economy than they take from it. Yes, our immigration laws are outdated and in need of reform — as the Biden administration at length conceded.

But while revising our criteria for asylum and hiring new immigration judges, we must not lose sight of the fact that being a magnet for those who want a better life is an American strength, not a weakness.

Greene cited the case of Laken Riley because she was a young, white woman murdered by an illegal immigrant. A group of GOP senators led by Rand Paul is muscling in on the stunt by demanding documents relating to the case. This is key to the cynical effort to convince Americans that most immigrants are dangerous criminals.

Recall that in 2015, the right was similarly inflamed about Kate Steinle, a woman who was shot and killed in San Francisco. The man who accidentally shot Steinle was eventually acquitted, but never mind the details. She was young and beautiful and nativists from coast to coast exploited her tragic death. Trump invoked her at the 2016 Republican Convention as evidence of the vicious invasion America was facing from Mexican rapists and murderers.

Since then, Trump has only ratcheted up his incitement, now employing fascistic language about immigrants "poisoning the blood" of this country.

In 2022, there were 18,785 murders in the United States. Some of them happened in Greene's district. A Dalton, Georgia, man escorting his girlfriend to the home of her ex was arrested after stabbing the ex to death. Also in Dalton, a 19-year-old pled guilty to second-degree murder for supplying a 16-year-old girl with fentanyl. In Rome, Georgia, a man was convicted of slaying two sisters he believed had stolen his wallet. He shot them and dumped their bodies in a river. He later found the wallet behind his TV.

Is the Republican governor of Georgia to blame? Is Greene? Should she say their names?

Every study on the subject has shown that since 1960, immigrants are much less likely than native-born Americans to be arrested or convicted of crimes (excluding those associated with entry into the country). The right highlights a few cases of murder committed by immigrants, but as Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute shows, undocumented immigrants are 27.7 times less likely to commit homicide than natives, and legal immigrants are 57.1 times less likely.

A Stanford University study of incarceration rates going all the way back to the 19th century shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes of every description than are the native-born. "Far from the rapists and drug dealers that anti-immigrant politicians claim them to be, immigrants today are doing relatively well." Criminologists have consistently found that immigrant-heavy neighborhoods in big cities have less crime, not more crime, than other areas.

It's rich that Republicans are seeking to blame Biden for murders committed by undocumented immigrants when they just rejected a bill that would have hired thousands of new border patrol agents and asylum officers, and allocated $20 billion for new detention facilities, improved drug detection technology, and more immigration judges. It would also have dramatically overhauled the standards for asylum. But the GOP foot soldiers, after stoking anti-immigrant hysteria for years, refused to take yes for an answer precisely because the incitement is the policy.

Biden's fundamental decency was on display during the State of the Union when he extended his deep sympathy to Laken Riley's family for their loss. The same cannot be said for Greene and company, whose bad faith is exceeded only by their shamelessness.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.


Former President Donald Trump

These Are The Ways Trump Will Destroy Liberty In A Second Term

Apparently interpreting the Supreme Court's decision on the 14th Amendment as a personal vote of confidence, Donald Trump pushed his luck, urging the justices to rule swiftly that he has absolute immunity as well.

That is not likely. Most observers thought the court would reject Colorado's action because permitting it would have invited chaos in the middle of an ongoing election and because the court husbands its legitimacy. Had it upheld Colorado's disqualification, the court would instantly have become a hate object for 70% of Republicans, who would have perceived its ruling as baldly political, denying to voters their free choice of candidate.

The presidential immunity claim is another matter. A ruling that completely adopted Trump's position in that case would essentially gut the Constitution, permitting a president to accept bribes, use taxpayer money to build a series of palaces for himself all over the world, or arrest and torture his critics. As the D.C. Circuit Court put it: "At bottom, former President Trump's stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the president beyond the reach of all three branches."

Here's the rub: If Trump is reelected in November, he will essentially have total immunity, regardless of what the court says.

A reelected Trump would have the voters' imprimatur for lawlessness. If he wins in November, the message from voters will be: Yes, we know he mishandled the most sensitive classified documents and obstructed justice rather than return them. And we know he caused the deaths of millions of COVID patients by lying about the threat of the virus and discouraging precautions. And we know he invited his followers to threaten and harass innocent election workers, secretaries of state and governors. And we know that he called for shoplifters to be shot on sight and said the Constitution should be terminated. We know he said he'd be a dictator for a day. Above all, we know that he attempted to subvert the peaceful transfer of power and remain in office despite the will of the people. And we chose him anyway. Reelection would grant absolution for all of it.

The supposed guardrails of democracy are already creaking and groaning at the prospect of another Trump term. Just look at the state of the GOP. As a "might be" president, he is already able to dictate the composition of the Republican National Committee, rig a primary in Nevada, kill a border bill that would have given Republicans 90% of what they've been demanding for years and undermine Republican support for Ukraine.

Now imagine that Trump is president again and instructs the Justice Department to bring treason charges against Jack Smith. Who will stop him? The carefully vetted MAGA lawyers he has hired precisely for their loyalty?

What if he instructs the IRS to audit and fine Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, George Conway, and hundreds of other prominent critics? This violates IRS rules. But will IRS employees, again hired for loyalty to Trump, demur? After all, he did run on the promise, "I am your retribution," and his voters agreed.

What if he directs the SEC to investigate banks that refuse to loan the Trump Organization money? Would any whistleblower risk his job or worse?

What if, in response to street demonstrations, Trump invokes the Insurrection Act and federalizes the national guard, allowing the military to shut down protests and arrest (or worse) demonstrators without cause?

In Trump's first term, he was partially thwarted by strong institutions, yes — but above all by a deep commitment to the rule of law among the citizens of this country. A mid-level NSC staffer found the courage to defy the president's illegal and immoral acts because of his deep faith in the people's values. As Alexander Vindman said to his father, who, having grown up in the totalitarian USSR, worried about what might happen to his son for opposing the president, "Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth."

Except he wasn't. Not quite. He and (for spite) his twin brother were fired from the NSC. His military promotion was put on hold. He was harassed. It would be far, far worse in a second Trump term. Would there even be Alexander Vindmans in a second Trump presidency?

Doubtful. The mob justice that Trump has practiced and been rewarded for would intimidate nearly all. And they would not be enough to preserve constitutional democracy.

As Judge Learned Hand said in his 1944 "Spirit of Liberty" speech:

"I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it."

On April 22, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on presidential immunity and will perhaps issue a ruling full of pious talk about the rule of law. But the words will be empty if Trump is elected.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Pregnant woman

Don't Trust Sudden Republican Support For IVF -- It Isn't Sincere

The Alabama Supreme Court set off political tremors last week with its decision that frozen embryos have the status of "extrauterine children" and thus are covered by a state law that permits parents to seek damages for the wrongful death of a "minor child." The implication that in vitro fertilization (IVF) cannot be practiced if embryos have legal standing led some commentators immediately to describe the ruling as a "ban." Alabama's attorney general issued a statement reassuring people that IVF providers and patients would not face prosecution, even as clinics around the state were phoning their patients to cancel procedures. There is, IVF industry representatives told lawmakers and the press, too much risk of legal liability if a clinic accidentally causes the death of an embryo by piercing it with a pipette; or if, in consultation with parents, it discards a genetically damaged embryo; or if a power failure causes freezers to malfunction. The possible lawsuits are limitless.

Democrats seized on the decision as evidence that Republican extremists were gunning for IVF, and Republicans, burned once too often by abortion at the ballot box, rushed to assure voters that they reject the ruling and urged the Alabama legislature to amend the law forthwith. Former President Donald Trump led the way by proclaiming that "We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!"

Jason Thielman, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, circulated a letter to candidates urging, "When responding to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, it is imperative that our candidates align with the public's overwhelming support for IVF and fertility treatments." Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a Freedom Caucus member, said, "I totally support the procedure" and offered that he would support federal legislation to protect IVF. Sen. Tommy Tuberville was confused about the nature of the Supreme Court ruling, telling a group at CPAC "I was all for it. ... We need to have more kids," but he seems to have gotten the memo about the GOP's message. Speaker Mike Johnson affirmed his support, saying IVF "has been a blessing for many moms and dads who have struggled with fertility."

The problem with the GOP's newfound enthusiasm for IVF is that it contradicts other positions the party has taken to please pro-life voters. In the last Congress, more than 160 House Republicans, including Johnson, cosponsored H.R. 1011, the "Life at Conception Act," which extends 14th Amendment protections to include "preborn human person(s)."

Republicans have also marched in lockstep to oppose the Right to Contraception Act introduced by Democrats because it would have included methods, such as IUDs and the morning-after pill, that some consider abortifacients. It's hard to square support for IVF, which, as practiced in the United States, nearly always entails the loss of fertilized eggs, with opposition to Plan B because it may result in the loss of a fertilized egg.

Maybe the lesson here is that doctrinaire approaches to these matters are not right. Life is full of trade-offs. Johnson is right that IVF has been a blessing for millions, and that includes many people who think of themselves as pro-life. For every 100 Americans born today, between one and two will have been conceived through IVF. By 2015, more than 1 million Americans were born as a result of IVF or similar technologies. For people diagnosed with cancer, IVF can preserve their fertility until after they have completed chemotherapy. For couples who are carriers of genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs and more than 400 other disorders, IVF can allow embryos to be tested before transfer to ensure that the disease is not present. Is that a pro-life gift to the world? Millions of Americans think it is — even though the procedure involves the loss of embryonic human life. It isn't a failing to recognize that these matters are murky and sometimes we do act on moral instinct more than on bright lines.

It is possible to approach the process ethically and even reverently. Some couples make decisions in advance about how to handle the question of "excess" embryos that have not been transferred after IVF treatment (only a fraction of transfers result in implantation and pregnancy). Some place frozen embryos for adoption. Others have larger families than they might have originally intended because they regard the frozen embryos as their children.

It's difficult for a political party to escape its brand. Just as Democrats will have difficulty convincing voters they aren't soft on illegal immigration, Republicans won't easily escape the association with hard-line abortion positions, including opposition to certain kinds of contraception. The personhood bills that four states have enacted and a dozen others are considering draw a harsh line on matters like IVF, which does entail making life-and-death decisions about frozen embryos. The voters may force Republicans to reconsider their blanket support for personhood bills. Perhaps pro-natalism is the pro-life position the GOP needs.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

US Mexico border fence

Republicans Only Exist To 'Fight,' Not To Make Policy

The border bill circus is the latest demonstration of a bedrock reality of today's Republican Party: It does not exist to achieve political outcomes. Its chief function is fan service.

The overriding concern of GOP voters, according to polls and to elected Republicans, is immigration. In the ranty precincts of the right, they believe that the southern border is open; that criminals, terrorists and drug dealers are crossing en masse. Among less febrile Republicans, the argument is that while legal immigration is good for the nation, we are swamped by illegal border crossers and must get control of a border that is out of hand.

Whichever version of the immigration argument they favor, every Republican who truly cared about solving the "crisis at the border" would presumably favor a bill that would have tackled — or at least ameliorated — the problem right now. In October, a group of senators including Shelley Moore Capito and Todd Young sent a letter to the president warning that 169 people on the terrorism watch list had been apprehended in the preceding 10 months. In early January, a 60-member delegation of House Republicans traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas. They were enraged, they said, by the fentanyl coming across the border.

In reality, fentanyl is mostly smuggled by American citizens, not would-be asylum seekers. Ninety percent of seizures occur at legal border crossings and interior vehicle checkpoints. In recent years, just 0.02 percent of people arrested for crossing the border illegally had any fentanyl in their possession.

Speaker Mike Johnson thundered that "One thing is absolutely clear: America is at a breaking point with record levels of illegal immigration." Rep. Mark Green, who yesterday announced his retirement from Congress, claimed that the FBI director had testified that members of Hamas can "just walk right in." But as The New York Times clarifies, Christopher Wray said no such thing. Rather, he explained in response to a tendentious question, that he could not 100 percent guarantee that none of those who evaded the border patrol ("get-aways") were members of Hamas.

While the risk of terrorists crossing the southern border is not zero, the Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh has shown that the southern border is not a common vector for terrorists attempting to enter the United States.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that most Republicans are unfamiliar with Nowrasteh's research and fully believe the Mark Greens and Mike Johnsons of their party who claim that we are being overrun by terrorists and foreign drug smugglers, to say nothing of immigrants "poisoning the blood" of real Americans.

Would they not be outraged by their elected officials' decision to tank a border bill that would achieve many of their objectives? The base has not been shy about accusing Republican leaders of cowardice and betrayal over much less. Yet on this issue, supposedly the one they feel most passionate about, they are tamely accepting that GOP congressmen and senators passed up a unique opportunity to get much tougher enforcement just in order to give Trump a campaign issue?

Well, some might explain, the average Republican voter thinks that if Trump is reelected, they will get even better (i.e., harsher) measures to keep immigrants out. But that is false.

The only reason the Democrats are willing to agree to a lopsided border deal that gives Republicans 80 percent of what they demanded and get nothing in return (like a path to citizenship for Dreamers) is because Democrats are worried that the issue hurts them with voters — and since Republicans linked support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan to border security, Democrats would have to bend.

But that political calculation goes out the window if Trump is reelected. Democrats would not have any incentive to compromise.

So if GOP voters believe that illegals are flooding into the country to our sorrow and that we are in danger daily from infiltration by terrorists, how can they accept that Republicans would choose to continue this "unconscionable" status quo a day longer than necessary — much less the years it will likely take before another deal is possible? And if the Republican Party is a political entity, don't voters have a duty to understand political realities, including that this was a unique moment to achieve their cherished objective?

But if the party doesn't exist to solve political problems, if instead it exists only to "fight," then the voters' passivity makes sense. The GOP doesn't need to get control of the border, merely to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas. Lauren Boebert released a triumphant video after the (second) impeachment vote boasting that "Just now we impeached Secretary Mayorkas who has endangered our country by deliberately handing over control of our southern border to the cartel. Now that's delivering for the American people!"

No, that was a gross misuse of government power against an official that even the GOP's favorite legal advisers had said did nothing to merit impeachment. Besides, it was a pointless, empty gesture since the Democrats control the Senate and will certainly acquit him (as he deserves).

The show is everything. Results don't count, only the fight.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Tucker Carlson's 'Fatal Attraction' To The Kremlin Dictator

Tucker Carlson's 'Fatal Attraction' To The Kremlin Dictator

The title of my 2003 book, Useful Idiots, was a reference to a perhaps apocryphal quote sometimes attributed to Lenin to the effect that gullible liberals in the West would prove useful idiots for the Soviet Union. I wrote about Democrats. Twenty-one years later, the epithet belongs wholeheartedly to the GOP. Their choice to support Trump — Putin's biddable spaniel — for the party's nomination; their decision to sabotage aid to Ukraine; and Tucker Carlson's ring-kissing visit to the dictator's lair cements the status of Republicans as the useful idiots of the 21st century.

The party has turned its back on America's world role and very identity as a tent pole of global stability. Republicans are well down the path of handing Putin an historic victory in his war of conquest against Ukraine, and so dies the consensus in place since 1945 that aggression must never be rewarded. Think of what this will do to NATO, whose membership has expanded in response to Russian belligerence. Think of what it conveys to China about American resolve on Taiwan. Think of what it says to Iran, whose proxies have been firing at American forces and international shipping for three months. And consider what it conveys to friends who may rethink their relationships with a country so clearly unreliable. The Republicans, who imagine themselves "tough," are signaling the very opposite — cringing capitulation to a despot.

Tucker Carlson is not a useful idiot. The term implies naivete, but he seems to know exactly what he's doing. He claims to be in Moscow to interview Putin because the rest of the press refuses to do so. In fact, Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, was just one of many who have pointed out that major press organizations have repeatedly requested interviews and been rebuffed. Peskov explained that Carlson had been approved because "he has a position that differs from the rest of (Western media)." Yes, supine.

For the past several years, Carlson's project has been consonant with Putin's. Both seek to sow division in the United States. Both seek to flood the zone with shit so that people won't know what to believe or whom to trust.

Carlson played a leading role in spreading the big lie about the 2020 election and distorting the events of January 6. He's the one to whom Kevin McCarthy released thousands of hours of surveillance tape so that Carlson could then cherry pick a few anodyne frames and say to his millions of viewers (I'm paraphrasing) "See, a normal tourist visit."

Months later, in a display of his dominance over Republicans, Carlson forced Ted Cruz to grovel on the air for having called the Jan. 6 rioters "terrorists." Carlson has been one of the chief conduits for Russian disinformation in the United States, peddling lies such as the story that the U.S. government was involved in chemical and biological research labs in Ukraine. The truth is easy enough to find: The American bioweapons program was shut down in the 1960s, while Russia's bioweapons program probably still exists in secret. Not that Carlson investigates things.

His Fox News show was appointment viewing in Russia, where reruns were featured on state-controlled TV. After Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Congress dressed in army fatigues, Carlson was unmoved by the mien of the brave leader of a nation under unprovoked attack: "As far as we know, no one's ever addressed the United States Congress in a sweatshirt before." In another monologue, Carlson spouted the vilest Russian propaganda: "Zelenskyy himself is a very dark force. ... It is unmistakable. ... This man is a destroyer."

Just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he famously accused Democrats of trying to gin up hatred of Putin, asking "(W)hat is this really about? 'Why do I hate Putin so much?' Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?"

Putin has, as Carlson knows full well, arrested more than 20,000 people for protesting the war. As for his cruel attack on Ukraine — for no reason other than Putin's appetite — it has claimed the lives of half a million soldiers (two-thirds of them Russian) and at least 10,000 Ukrainian civilians. Russian forces have deliberately targeted power plants, hospitals, and civilian apartments. Putin is a war criminal. The world knows this. Carlson knows it, too.

Carlson says he went to Moscow because he's a journalist. He isn't. He's a tool. Putin has kidnapped and jailed two real Americans journalists: the Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich, who has been rotting in a Russian prison for 11 months, and Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, who committed the crime of visiting her sick mother while being an American.

As of this writing, it seems Carlson got the interview he craved with Putin. Doubtless Trump will find it very interesting and urge his people to "take a look," which will be the signal for the rest of the GOP to agree that we've really been getting only half of the story, haven't we? And it's really Biden, not Putin, and not certainly not Trump, who's a threat to world peace.

What a catastrophic turn for a once great political party.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Behind That Iowa Primary 'Landslide' Lurked Very Bad News For Trump

Behind That Iowa Primary 'Landslide' Lurked Very Bad News For Trump

No question that a 30-point victory for Trump was not the ideal outcome of the Iowa caucuses. Voters have only two opportunities to prevent the return to power of a Putin-besotted, antisemite-praising, Constitution-terminating, multiple felony indictee — the primaries and the general.

It would have been better if Trump had been rebuked early and hard by Republican voters. But that was not to be. Once the first indictment was handed down in New York in the hush money for porn star case, the die was cast. The party faithful — partly because the Bragg indictment was legally shaky and pretty easily dismissed as politically motivated — rallied round their prosecuted, persecuted hero. I said partly because it wasn't just that the indictment was a stretch; it was also that MAGA Republicans so dearly want the accusations to be false. To admit otherwise opens the door to considering that he may really have obstructed justice and blithely endangered national security in the classified documents case, lied about and attempted to steal an election, and looked on with depraved satisfaction as his minions searched for Mike Pence — to commit murder. (Even now, despite everything we've witnessed, I still cannot believe I must write those words.)

We'll never know if things would have been different absent the Bragg indictment. Would the rally-round-the-mob-boss effect have been as pronounced if the classified documents in the bathroom case had gone first? Or if Ron DeSantis hadn't proved such a doofus candidate? Or if all of the GOP candidates in the race had run as Chris Christie did? We cannot know.

And while one can always hope for a miracle like Nikki Haley defeating Trump in New Hampshire, prompting South Carolina voters to rediscover their affection for their former governor, which would in turn upend the entire race — the chances of that are about as good as winning the lottery, which in South Carolina are about one in 293 million.

So one cannot bank on most Republicans to save us from a second Trump term. Still, lurking in the pre-caucus polling is some reassuring news. We cannot count on most Republicans, but what about the skeptics? What about a few Republicans like Kenan Judge, a lifelong Republican who left the party over Trump? Or Loring Miller, who voted for Trump twice but explained that "January 6 did it for me. A true leader would've put an end to that." Though 48 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers in the final Des Moines Register/NBC poll listed Trump as their first choice, 11 percent said that if Trump were the nominee, they would vote for Biden. Among the 20 percent who said Haley was their first choice, fully 43 percent said they would vote for Biden in the general if Trump is nominated.

According to The Washington Post ,"94 of Iowa's 99 counties moved toward Republicans between 2012 and 2020." Most voters don't show up for primaries and even fewer for caucuses. In 2016, 187,000 turned out, just 15.7 percent of voters. Last night, only about 110,000 made it. We are evaluating results from one of the whitest, most Evangelical, most rural states in the nation.

The Des Moines Register pre-caucus poll also found that among these gung-ho Republicans, six percent would support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rather than Trump, and eight percent would seek another third party choice. Bottom line: At least 25 percent of Iowa Republican caucus-goers say they will not vote for Trump in the general.

That's significant. Our elections are decided by a few thousand votes in five swing states. Admittedly, Iowa is not one of those swing states, but if large numbers of Republicans in ruby-red Iowa are saying they will not vote for Trump in the general election, what does that suggest about Republicans in places like Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia?

Eleven percent of Republicans in Iowa tell a pollster that they will vote for Biden. Biden, the guy everyone says even Democrats are having trouble working up enthusiasm for. Whatever those misgivings may be, I very much doubt that 25% of Democratic primary voters would say they're thinking of voting for Trump or a third party.

The interest in third parties remains a serious challenge, but if we're indulging in hope, we can see the work ahead. Independents are even more determined to prevent Trump from gaining another term than the minority of Republicans who have drawn a line against him. Some, perhaps many, independents have not yet processed that we really will be facing another Trump/Biden choice in November. Once Trump is in front of their faces again, they will remember why he's unacceptable — just as the January 6 hearings in the summer of 2022 drove down Trump's approval.

The undimmed Trump support among the most ensorcelled bloc of Republicans shouldn't blind us to the other news from Iowa — there's a saving remnant out there, and we need to buttress them before November.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Don't Let Trump Distract Us From His Disqualifying Criminal Indictment

Don't Let Trump Distract Us From His Disqualifying Criminal Indictment

Within the few days, Trump has made at least five moronic, dangerous or incendiary comments. And if the past is any guide, the press and social media will be all over each of them. Some will decry his vicious allusion to John McCain's disabilities, earned in a war Trump evaded. Others will be outraged by his description of the January 6 defendants as "hostages."

He manipulates our attention and our conversation like a skilled puppeteer. Consider that with only days to go before the first nominating contests, we are not even talking about Trump's greatest legal peril — the sweeping 37-count indictment regarding willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, corruptly concealing a document or record, and making false statements.

Admittedly, the Mar-a-Lago classified documents indictment is only the second-most disqualifying crime in Trump's roster — the first being attempting a coup — but it is the most open-and-shut and therefore the most ruinous.

Unlike the Washington indictment for attempting to overturn an election, the Florida indictment does not rely on untested applications of criminal statutes (e.g., was the riot an attempt to obstruct an official preceding?) or inquiries into Trump's state of mind. The questions of law and fact are straightforward.

Trump apologists will point to Biden, Pence and others who were found to have classified documents in offices or homes. But the indictment does not charge Trump for any documents he voluntarily returned after they were requested by the National Archives and Records Administration. No, he is charged only for the documents he hid, moved around, lied about, shared with a number of people lacking security clearances, kept in bathrooms, ballrooms, and bedrooms, and stubbornly withheld — even in defiance of a subpoena — from an increasingly alarmed federal government.

After the search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Trump claimed to have declassified all of these documents before absconding with them. A sitting president does have authority to declassify, though not to take documents home as trophies. There are two problems with this justification: 1) There is zero evidence that Trump ever did declassify the relevant documents, and 2) even if he had, "willful retention of national defense information" remains a federal crime under the Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917, long before the current classification system was adopted. Others who've been charged and convicted under this statute include Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner and Edward Snowden. Less famous was Kendra Kingsbury, a former FBI analyst who pleaded guilty to taking classified documents home and was sentenced in June to three years and 10 months in federal prison.

Oh, and there's one other problem with the "Trump declassified everything" argument: His own words. The indictment includes a recording of Trump flaunting one of the documents to a writer (who had no security clearance, far less top-secret) at his Bedminster club. These were "highly confidential" and "secret," he confided, adding ''as president I could have declassified it. ... Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."

That would be quite enough, but there is so much more. The indictment lays out the manifold maneuvers Trump undertook to obstruct justice. After being asked to return the documents, he instructed Walt Nauta to hide 64 of the boxes in other parts of Mar-a-Lago before letting his lawyer go through the remaining 30 — letting the lawyer believe that he was seeing the complete set. After the lawyer examined the contents and found some classified material, Trump suggested that he make them disappear. He "made a plucking motion."

The superseding indictment details Trump's instructions to several Mar-a-Lago employees to destroy security camera footage — textbook obstruction of justice.

The law is clear and easy to understand. Jack Smith has the receipts. Even Trump's allies have acknowledged that the indictment is devastating. Jonathan Turley admitted that "It's really breathtaking. ... The Trump team should not fool itself. These are hits below the water line. ... It's overwhelming in its details." Bill Barr added, "I do think that ... if even half of it is true, then he's toast. I mean, it's a pretty — it's a very detailed indictment, and it's very, very damming."

This, all by itself, is utterly disqualifying for a presidential candidate. The indictment cites two instances — that Smith can prove — of Trump revealing classified information to people not authorized to have it. God only knows how many times he did it that we have no record of.

Trump got lucky in the selection of Judge Aileen Cannon, who may be a MAGA sympathizer. But let's not lose sight of his flagrant, brazen, criminal contempt for his duty. Let's keep our focus on the people whose lives he put at risk. Let's have enough self-respect to recoil at his reckless endangerment of this country. If convicted, he deserves to do prison time. Cannon notwithstanding, he may well do prison time for this. And that, not his latest stink bomb, should be front of mind as we head into the campaign.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, "Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism," is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Sorry Kevin, 'Checks And Balances' Won't Save Us From A Dictatorial Trump

Sorry Kevin, 'Checks And Balances' Won't Save Us From A Dictatorial Trump

The already-forgotten-but-not-yet-gone Kevin McCarthy shared some thoughts on threats to our democracy with Bob Costa on "Face the Nation." McCarthy is unworried about Trump's authoritarian ambitions. "Yeah, but remember, you have a check-and-balance system."

McCarthy isn't the only one to place exaggerated confidence in institutions to save us from Trump's lawlessness. Even the supposedly serious conservatives on The Wall Street Journal editorial board assure readers that "We think American institutions are strong enough to contain whatever designs Mr. Trump has to abuse presidential power." The real danger, as the Journal editorialists see it, is that "his chaos theory of governance would result in a second term that failed to deliver on his promises and set up the left for huge gains in 2026 and 2028." So the Journal isn't at all concerned that Trump would follow through on plans to instruct the Justice Department to prosecute his opponents; pardon all of the Jan. 6 rioters, fake electors and others who helped him attempt to steal the 2020 election; withdraw from NATO; impose a ten percent tariff on all imports; investigate NBC for treason; and shoot shoplifters on sight.

This complacency is dangerous. The truth is that institutions don't uphold themselves.

Consider the GOP. Though partisan feelings run hot these days, the actual political parties have very little power. They don't even have influence over what the party stands for. In 2020, the Republican Party — which had produced a platform every four years despite civil war, depression and two world wars — produced no platform, merely a one-sentence declaration that the party supported "the President's America First agenda."

The Democratic Party, also a shadow of its former self, could not assemble a delegation of elders — say, in 2022 — to approach Joe Biden and suggest that he step aside and groom a younger successor.

If the Republican Party were not such a shell, it would have shut down Trump's dangerous lies about the stolen election on Nov. 3, 2020. Instead, leading officeholders "humored" him or, worse, reinforced his lies. They knew that to mislead voters about the integrity of the election process was playing with fire — that it could result in instability or violence. But the party failed miserably. Even after the deadly assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 147 Republican representatives and senators voted not to certify Biden's election.

It was only the conscience and courage of a few individuals that kept the United States from plunging into a constitutional crisis. Mike Pence, Rusty Bowers, Brad Raffensperger, Jeff Rosen, Richard Donoghue and a few others found it within themselves to put country before party.

A few people with the backbone to do the right thing do not make an institution. They don't comprise a reliable "check and balance" — especially when the institution has chosen not to reward but to punish them. Not only have most of those who did the right thing lost their seats; many have had to expend small fortunes for personal security.

What would elected Republicans do if he instructed his officials to violate people's constitutional rights and promised in advance to pardon them? Let's be realistic. Most Republicans would justify it. The Wall Street Journal would probably tsk tsk and say the real danger was that Democrats might get the same idea. And if they didn't, what could they do to stop him? Impeachment is a dead letter.

What about the institution of the press? There are probably more excellent journalists working today than any time in history, but the press as an institution is in crisis. Reliable outlets compete for clicks with disinformation sites and malicious liars.

What about the churches? You would think that if any institution were loyal to something higher than partisanship, it would be the churches. But as Peter Wehner, Tim Alberta, David French, and Russell Moore have shown in painful detail, white Evangelicals have shown themselves to be among the most susceptible to the lure of a would-be authoritarian. The churches are not a check on Trump.

What about the military? For the most part, the military has held steady, affirming that it has no role in domestic politics. It should disturb the sleep of any patriot that all of the living former secretaries of Defense felt the need to sign a letter in 2020 affirming that the military has no proper role in determining the outcome of America's elections.

What about the courts? The judiciary has been a stalwart check on Trump. Will that hold? Trump will spend the next 11 months discrediting the entire judicial system in order to vitiate the impact of any guilty verdict. And what is to stop him from pardoning himself for any and all depredations of the Constitution, which he has already declared should be "terminated"? What can the courts do against the plenary pardon power?

Our institutions are weak. The checks and balances, like the impeachment power, have proved toothless. There is only one check on autocracy that remains — the electorate — and with every poll, doubts about that one accumulate.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Israel

Far Left And Far Right Come Together In Their Antisemitic Rage

They came waving Palestinian flags and clad in the keffiyehs that have become a symbol of the Palestinian cause. Dozens of chanting protesters crowded the street outside Goldie, a vegan restaurant serving Israeli-inspired dishes in central Philadelphia, blocking traffic and chanting, "Goldie, Goldie, you can't hide. We charge you with genocide."

What does this restaurant have to do with the war in Gaza? Nothing. It serves falafel to Philadelphians. It is owned by a Jew, who was born near Tel Aviv. And that's enough.

Around the world, synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, Jewish-owned businesses, and individual Jews are facing harassment, vandalism and even murder. Just two days after the Hamas terror attack, a Jewish student who tried to paint the Israeli flag on a "free speech rock" at Wayne State University was shoved and called a "f—-ing Zionist." A week later, a woman was punched in the face at Grand Central Terminal. When she asked her attacker why, he said "You are Jewish."

At the University of Minnesota, the Jewish student center erected a display showing the faces of children kidnapped by Hamas. It's been kicked over and damaged twice.

In Pittsburgh, just a few blocks from the Tree of Life synagogue, scene of the deadliest attack on Jews in American history, homes were defaced with graffiti proclaiming, "Free Palestine," "Death 2 America" and "I stand with Gaza."

In Thousand Oaks, California, a pro-Palestine demonstrator struck a 69-year-old Jewish man in the head. He later died of his wounds.

These are snapshots of a broad phenomenon. The Anti-Defamation League reports that anti-Jewish acts have increased more than 300% since the 10/7 attacks.

The Israel/Hamas war has also inflamed anti-Palestinian rage. A six-year-old child whose parents were from the West Bank was stabbed to death and his mother seriously wounded by a knife-wielding landlord in Illinois. And in Burlington, Vermont, three Palestinian college students were shot on the street simply for being identifiably Palestinian.

There are also reports of an increase in threats against American Muslims, though aside from the two terrible attacks in Illinois and Vermont, there doesn't seem to be a great wave of anti-Muslim sentiment surging in the nation or the world.

What would the response have been if we had seen one? If, in the wake of 10/7, we had seen mosques defaced, Muslim students harassed, Muslim homes vandalized, posters of kidnapped Palestinian children ripped down (work with me here), death threats posted online against Muslim Students Associations, individual Muslims shoved, slapped and punched "because you're a Muslim" and hordes of protesters carrying Israeli flags and chanting "From the river to the sea, Israel will be Arab-free!" we'd have no trouble labeling what was going on, would we?

We don't hold Muslims in Dearborn responsible for the acts of Muslims in Jakarta. We don't call in threats to their mosques or harass random Muslim engineers because Muslim regimes elsewhere are persecuting Christians.

Nor, of course, did we harass or persecute Buddhists due to the actions of the Burmese regime, which viciously persecuted its Rohingya Muslim minority, or individual Chinese Americans for China's oppression of the Uyghurs, or individual Catholics for the actions of the IRA, or individual Protestants for the acts of the Ulster Defense Association. We don't harass individual Russians for Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

In America, we believe in treating everyone as an individual, not as the mere representative of the group he or she may belong to.

So why is it so hard to see what is happening to Jews in the United States and around the world for what it is? Individual American (or European or Australian) Jews are not responsible for Israel's actions. They may support them, though surprisingly often they do not. But that's irrelevant. Isn't it odd that the very people decrying what they call "collective punishment" of Palestinians in Gaza can't see a contradiction in holding a Jew in Los Angeles responsible for what happens in Khan Younis?

Many of the antisemitic protests and harassments began before Israel retaliated for the 10/7 terror attack. They were, in effect, celebrations of Israeli victimization. They didn't chant, "Not in our name" after Hamas gang-raped women to the point of breaking their pelvises and filled their vaginas with nails and rocks before shooting them in the face. Protesters carried placards proclaiming, "By any means necessary" — as blatant an endorsement of terrorizing civilians as you can find.

There are no rallies in London or Paris demanding that Hamas release the hostages or permit the Red Cross to visit them. And the United Nations organization responsible for speaking up for women? Silence about the brutal attacks on Israeli women and girls. Israeli first responders forwarded the evidence to UN Women. Nothing for eight long weeks until Sheryl Sandberg and protesters in the UN lobby shamed them into a belated statement.

No, the upsurge in antisemitism wasn't a response to the IDF's campaign to wipe out Hamas. The initial wave was approval for killing and torturing Jews.

Some on the far left couldn't see that, but guess who could? The far right. Remember Charlottesville? Some of the same lowlifes, like the National Justice Party, are now showing up at anti-Israel rallies. Another neo-Nazi group, NSC-131, hung banners from an overpass near Boston that read "Free Palestine" and "End Jewish terror."

Those groups are fringe, but they have friends in very influential places. Tucker Carlson, for example, has used his X-supported platform to denounce those who warn of rising antisemitism on college campuses as "hypocrites" because they have not condemned the supposed support for "white genocide" at American universities. Carlson has brought the "great replacement" conspiracy theory into the mainstream. That was the very idea that motivated the Tree of Life killer.

Similarly, Carlson's patron, Elon Musk, has opened the sluice gates for bigotry and antisemitism on X.

The fever swamps are on our phones and in our social media feeds now. When conspiracies are loosed upon the world, it always comes back to the Jews. Whatever side you're on, if you think it's only the other side that has this problem, think again.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Family

Why Progressives Should Care About The 'Family Gap'

Economist Melissa Kearney has studied poverty, inequality and family structure for more than 20 years and come to the conclusion that America's drift away from the two-parent norm has "contributed to the economic insecurity of American families, has widened the gap in opportunities and outcomes for children from different backgrounds, and today poses economic and social challenges that we cannot afford to ignore."

She is hardly alone among her social science peers in reaching this conclusion. As she relates in her new book, The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, these insights are more or less commonplace among those who study the matter. The facts aren't in serious dispute — the wisdom of saying it out loud is another matter. Wary of seeming preachy — or worse, conservative — most social scientists recoil from talking about family structure when considering the matter of poverty and child outcomes.

Unsurprisingly, her book has been greeted skeptically by progressives and enthusiastically by conservatives. Progressives were quick to label Kearney a "scold" and to object that they were being "lectured" to get married.

As I documented in my own book, Sex Matters, marriage has been in decline at least in part because it was sabotaged. Feminists argued that marriage was essentially a male conspiracy to keep women unfulfilled, submissive, and servile. Radical feminists scorned married women for "sleeping with the enemy."

Their arguments carried the day, or at least contributed to what came next. Marriage rates, especially for the poor and working class, cratered.

The consequences for children were stark. In 1980, 77 percent of American children lived with their married parents. By 2019, only 63 percent did. Among the college-educated, 84 percent of children still live with married parents, which is a solid majority, if down a bit from 90 percent in 1980. But among those with a high school degree or some college, only 60 percent of children are living with married parents (down from 83 percent). So today when you enter a hospital nursery, 4 out of 10 babies will be children of single moms. As significant as the class divide is, the racial divide is wider. In 1960, 67% of Black children lived with their married parents. In 2019, only 38 percent did.

As Kearney carefully documents, children in mother-only homes are five times more likely to live in poverty than children with two parents. Poverty is not conducive to thriving, but even for kids who are not poor, those who grow up with only one parent fare worse than others on everything from school to work to trouble with the law. Boys raised without fathers and/or without good adult male influences in their lives are less likely to attend college, be employed as adults or remain drug-free.

It's unfair to suggest, as many of Kearney's critics have, that she is a scold. She's not chastising single mothers. Her book overflows with sympathy for the difficulties of raising kids alone. If she's scolding anyone it's the educated class that has imposed omerta on the subject of family structure. Nor is she unaware that some marriages cannot be saved and that many kids raised by single parents turn out fine.

Progressives tend to respond to the family gap with calls for more government support for single-parent families. Kearney is fine with that, and advocates it herself. But her book is realistic about the limits of financial resources to address this problem. Two parents provide more to kids than money. She notes that a "child born in a two-parent household with a family income of $50,000 has, on average, better outcomes than a child born in a single-parent household with the same income."

One reason is that two parents share the stress of parenting — the sleep deprivation, the appointments, the scheduling conflicts, the missed work, the terrible twos — the lot. When there are two parents to share the load, both have more "emotional bandwidth" to meet their children's needs and more opportunity to take care of themselves. In true economist style, Kearney notes that having two adults permits for "task specialization."

Frankly, the case that two are better than one when it comes to raising children is open and shut.

But the critics do raise a point that Kearney cannot answer — and neither can I. It's the problem posed by The Washington Post's Christine Emba, among others, who agrees that two-parent families are best and that marriage is the gold standard, but "plausible marriage partners for heterosexual women are thin on the ground."

There may not be a solution for all of today's single women who are hoping for marriage. Pew estimates that one in four unmarried adults (as of 2012) would likely never marry. But for the kids who are growing up now, Kearney does have ideas. These include increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit and other programs that will enhance the economic position of low-income men, scaling up the efforts of groups like Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Becoming a Man, promoting and supporting co-parenting among non-married couples, and above all, reviving the norm that marriage is best for kids.

As a bonus, it's also good for grown-ups.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Israel

The World's Oldest Hatred Roars Back Into Fashion

In one day of savagery, Hamas brought the world's oldest hatred into the mainstream. The upwelling of antisemitism around the globe, and especially in the United States, mocks the naivety of those who imagined that the oldest hatred was mostly in the past, that Israel could be a normal nation, or that a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue could be realized in the near future. American Jews, stunned by the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, are reeling from the lack of basic decency shown by many progressives. If your ideology blinds you to the crimes of rape, arson, kidnapping and mass murder, what is there to discuss?

No more hiding behind "anti-Zionism is not antisemitism." This moment, for all its horror, is at least clarifying. Jewish schools and synagogues are closing around the globe. Vandals stenciled Stars of David on the doors of Jewish homes in Paris. What has Zionism to do with that?

Criticizing the Israeli government, or even generally taking the side of Palestinians over Israelis, is not anti-Zionism. No, anti-Zionism is dehumanizing hatred of Israelis and Jews. It's the denial of Israel's right to exist and the hunger to punish, harm or kill Jews wherever they may live. It is indistinguishable from antisemitism.

Raw, Jew-hating anti-Zionism can be found in statements like that of Columbia professor Joseph Massad praising the "resistance's remarkable takeover" of Israeli bases and checkpoints and calling the 10/7 attack "awesome" and "striking." We see it in the mob in Sydney, Australia, that gathered to celebrate — yes, celebrate — the mass murder with cries of "Gas the Jews." We see it in the mob at Cooper Union college shouting antisemitic slogans at a group of Jewish students who were barricaded in the library for their safety.

The depravity of Hamas's useful idiots is matched only by their ignorance. In Philadelphia last weekend, I passed a pro-Hamas demonstration. One protestor's sign read "Free Palestine" and was decorated with a hammer and sickle. The cross-cutting inconsistencies here are legion. Hamas is an Islamist movement that believes in strict adherence to sharia law, persecutes homosexuals and represses women. But they are the oppressed, according to the moral hierarchies in vogue on the left. The protesters also decry Israel as a "settler colonial" state. Sorry, that's rubbish.

There have been Jews in Israel since Biblical times of course (and Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority for hundreds of years), but the modern settlement of the land began in the 1880s when Jews from Europe arrived, inspired by the Zionist idea. They were not colonists for any European power. They were fleeing European persecution. Several more waves of migrants came in the following decades, especially after the severe pogroms of the early 1900s. They did not push anyone out of their homes or land. They purchased land legally and openly.

Israel is also routinely accused of genocide, which is satisfying for the kind of person who thinks, "Why can't they shut up about the Holocaust?" But it's a lie. Israel has for 16 years absorbed thousands of missiles fired over the border into southern Israel with only limited responses. They built the Iron Dome system and safe rooms instead of attempting to destroy Gaza. But the rule cannot be that Hamas can target Israeli grandmothers, families and babies for kidnapping, rape, death and dismemberment but Israel cannot pursue them because they hide among their own civilians. That would amount to surrender to terrorism.

The Hamas apologists who point to the suffering of Palestinian civilians are not wrong about the suffering — though they cannot see the obvious responsibility of Hamas for starting this war. A pre-10/7 poll of Palestinians in Gaza found that 62 percent wanted to preserve the ceasefire. In any case, Gazans haven't been given a vote since 2006, so Hamas's claim to legitimacy is essentially nonexistent.

There is also a strange selectivity among Hamas apologists in their concern for civilians. They overlook the glaringly obvious moral distinction between intentionally targeting civilians and inadvertently harming civilians. Hamas makes war on Israeli and Palestinian civilians, in the first case through the most vicious violence imaginable and in the second through using them as human shields for missiles and terror headquarters. Yet their apologists give them a pass for both. They also display notable indifference to what is happening to the civilians in other parts of the world: in Yemen (15,000 killed), or Nagorno-Karabakh (100,000 Armenians ethnically cleansed and forced to flee their homes), or Burma (25,000 Rohingya killed, 18,000 raped), or Syria (306,000 civilians killed including 30,000 children, 12 million forced to flee their homes). It's almost as if it doesn't matter how many people suffer and die — that doesn't disturb the sleep of Hamas's defenders. What matters is whom you most hate. Israel and Jews top the list.

There was a time when respectable observers who sympathized with the Palestinians would emphasize their desire for "two states for two peoples." No longer. The protesters and Ivy League professors who proclaim their support for a "free" Palestine "from the river to the sea" are not asking for a tame, two-state solution. The river is the Jordan. The sea is the Mediterranean. What lies between is Israel. Hamas has never made a secret of its rejection of the two-state idea. The slogan envisions at least massive ethnic cleansing, and after 10/7 only a fool would imagine that genocide is unthinkable. There would doubtless be cheers in Paris and Sydney and Dagestan if it came to pass. And that only underscores the original Zionist raison d'etre. There must be an Israel because the world's oldest hatred will never die.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Joe Biden

Yes, Biden Is Old -- But His Stamina And Mental Condition Are Good

Our octogenarian president traveled 8,000 miles to meet with India's premier, Narendra Modi, and to attend the G20 summit in New Delhi. He then flew another 2,000 miles to visit America's new pal, Vietnam — all over the course of just five days. That's a demanding trip, even for a younger person. After meeting for several hours with the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, Biden held a formal press conference. And he did fine.

Yes, his voice is weaker than it used to be, and his gait is stiff, but on the matter that currently has 62% of the public seriously worried — namely, whether he has the mental acuity to serve as president — his performance should be reassuring.

The public's perception of Biden's mental decline is out of all proportion to reality. A May NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that 69% of registered independent voters believe Biden's mental fitness is a real concern. A more recent CNN poll found that 73% are seriously concerned that his physical and mental health might not be adequate for another term. Even among Democrats, only 49% say he has the stamina and mental sharpness to serve another term. At dinner parties, people say the president has dementia.

To be clear, it would be better to have a younger president seeking reelection — and I would like to be four inches taller and gifted at the cello. But we got what we got, and part of being a grown-up is accepting reality.

There is no way to watch Biden's Hanoi press conference and not recognize that his brain is working fine. He responds to questions in appropriate fashion. His words are diplomatically chosen, and his thoughts follow in logical order.

Anyone who has ever had a friend or relative with dementia knows that this is nothing like what they sound like. They repeat themselves constantly without self-awareness. They don't distinguish between things that happened that morning and things that happened years ago. They get angry and tearful for no apparent reason. Dementia is a devastating disease and quite different from normal aging. In fact, while the percentage of people with dementia rises with age, only about 10% of those aged 70 and older suffer from it.

Now, have a look at Biden's press conference. He was asked about a Chinese official's accusation that Biden was "insincere" about the relationship with China, and also whether he thought Chinese President Xi Jinping was sincere in light of his recent move to "ban" Apple in China. Biden had trouble hearing the first part of the question (OK, that is his age showing), but then gave a careful answer.

He declined the implied invitation to get into a spitting match with Xi and emphasized that "we're not looking to hurt China ... We're all better off if China does well," adding that "if China does well by the international rules, it grows the (world's) economy." To underline that point, he noted that "It's not about isolating China. It's about making sure the rules of the road — everything from airspace and — and space and in the ocean is — the international rules of the road are ... abided by."

Without overt threats or intemperate words, Biden then noted that he is building and/or bolstering alliances with other Asian nations. "That's what this trip was all about: having India cooperate much more with the United States, be closer with the United States, Vietnam being closer with the United States. It's not about containing China; it's about having a stable base — a stable base in the Indo-Pacific."

I could have done without the too-clever-by-half tactic of calling only upon female journalists (a reprise of an Obama gimmick from 2014). And Biden's acknowledgement at the start that the five questioners had been chosen in advance was a mistake. He introduced the Q and A by saying, "And now, I will take your questions. Let me see. They told me — they gave me five people here," which made him seem directed by others instead of in charge. And he stumbled over their names all the same.

But in the course of his basically direct, non-meandering answers, he touted the new rail and shipping corridor just announced at the G20 that will link India to Europe; noted that the United States has the world's strongest economy; praised a past Republican senator for working with poorer nations to maintain forest land; and mentioned the amount of carbon the Amazon rainforest absorbs.

At one point he did sound like a geezer, quoting from a John Wayne movie, but that was one deviation from an otherwise workmanlike performance.

Biden's physical presentation — the slow and careful walk, the slightly pitched posture — suggests age more than his words. But, bottom line: He is perfectly capable of thinking on his feet. Too many Americans have come to believe that he is in sharp mental decline. When you see him in a Q and A, it's clear that he isn't, and people need to know that.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Joe Biden

Why Biden's Age Might Not Be A Problem After All

Confession: For the past couple of years, I fell into the "Biden shouldn't run again" camp. Too old. Better not to ask Americans to reelect a man who will be 82 in November of 2024 and ... you know the rest. Nikki Haley summed it up tactlessly in April: "The idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely."

But I've thought better of it. Yes, Biden is the oldest man ever elected president and bids fair to break his own record, but that's not entirely a bad thing.

We're all familiar with the usual narrative. Americans are awfully dubious about Biden's fitness. Only 32 percent in a recent poll said he has the "mental sharpness to serve effectively as president," and a mere 33 percent said he had the physical health to serve out another term. By contrast, 54 percent believe Trump, 77, has the mental fitness to serve, and 64 percent believe he has the physical fitness to serve. (I know. I know.)

So Biden has some work to do to prove that he's not senile or decrepit. This has been a favorite GOP talking point since 2020, yet Biden has not been able to debunk it despite owning the bully pulpit, so something has to change there. On the other hand, to the degree that people are simply concerned about age per se, there are many reasons to rest easy.

Nikki Haley is wrong. If you go to the Social Security longevity calculator and punch in Biden's sex and date of birth, you find that he can expect to live until age 89.1. That would carry him through a second term and then some, but the reality is even better than that. The Social Security number is just an average for all 80-year-old American men and doesn't take account of other reasons to expect Biden to age very well. He has advanced levels of education and wealth and lives in a safe neighborhood. He is white (alas, race does matter in longevity), married, and has a circle of good friends. He attends church. He doesn't drink or smoke and exercises five days a week. Other than a weakness for ice cream (which he clearly eats only in moderation), his diet seems good and his weight is in the healthy range. His father lived until 86 and his mother until 92.

There's one more thing: Biden is president of the United States, and it seems that people who achieve this office have a tendency to outlive others in their cohorts.

So worries that Biden is going to die before 2028 are overblown. Obviously, you can't rule it out — age is still the greatest risk factor for death — but it's far more likely that he will serve out his term. And his age carries some benefits.

As The Economist notes, older people are happier than younger people. Though it may seem counterintuitive to our youth-obsessed culture, it seems to be the case that happiness is U-shaped. People start out their adult lives pretty happy, then experience a drop in middle age and get progressively happier in their later years. This pattern holds true across nations and cultures.

Though many Republican primary voters probably hate the idea of a happy president, the rest of us can see the benefits. Happy people are less likely than others to be spiteful, petty, distracted, self-absorbed, or erratic. If you're thinking of a certain mango-hued counterexample, look, he has never been a normal human and defies all categories. For most people, research confirms, anger declines throughout life.

Biden, by contrast, does seem to have mellowed with age. I can recall a younger Biden who got himself into multiple embarrassing gaffes because he was prickly, sensitive about his dignity, and quick to anger. The older Biden is more comfortable in his skin.

It's no good sighing over the fact that a 70-year-old Biden would be so much better than this Biden. Take it from someone who is 66: Accept life as it is. If Biden had bowed out of the 2024 race, we can all fantasize about the ideal candidates who could have taken his place — Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro or Amy Klobuchar — but what are the chances the Democratic Party would deny the nomination to the sitting vice president? And who thinks Kamala Harris would be a stronger general election candidate than Biden?

Aging is a challenge. I constantly buy broccoli forgetting that I had some in the back of the refrigerator. I can't make out what people are saying when there's a lot of background noise. But I don't fret about small slights, rage at drivers who cut me off in traffic, or nurse grudges. I take more joy in nature and the simple pleasures.

Joe Biden is better at 80 than he was at 50. He is very likely to serve another term just fine. And there is not a particle of doubt that in a Biden/Trump rematch, the fate of the republic rests on the old(er) guy winning.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the Beg to Differ podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Donald Trump

Trump's Criminal Trials Will Be A Step Toward Truth

It's a little hard to recall now, but last year, Donald Trump was in eclipse. In July 2022, half of GOP primary voters expressed a desire to move on from Trump. His anointed candidates fared poorly in November, and even some of his most ardent backers, including the Murdochs, were eyeing other options. If he could be relegated to the rearview window, I reasoned, even if it meant that he escaped liability for his crimes, it would be the best available outcome. An indictment, I feared, would spark a rally-round-Trump effect that would revive his fortunes among Republicans and thrust this viper back into our national life.

I was also concerned that, considering Trump's modus operandi, his response to indictment would be a thoroughgoing assault on the rule of law.

Perhaps Merrick Garland had similar worries. He certainly seemed to drag his feet — until Trump's florid criminality forced the DOJ's hand. In the matter of the stolen classified documents, Trump defied a subpoena, attempted to conceal evidence (textbook obstruction), and displayed such contempt for national security and law that, in the words of former Trump Attorney General William Barr, "What is unjust is not prosecuting Trump at this stage." Once Jack Smith was appointed to investigate the Mar-a-Lago documents case, it was untenable not to give him authority to look into the January 6 offenses as well.

As feared, the rally-round-Trump effect has happened. The GOP base is once again glassy-eyed with zeal for their martyr/hero. This emphatically does not reflect poorly on the prosecutors (though the Alvin Bragg prosecution was ill-considered), but only on the Republicans whose instinct is to adore the most despicable human to hold high office in our lifetime, or maybe ever.

Also, as predicted, the discrediting of our legal system has shifted into overdrive. The cowardly and cynical among Republican presidential candidates have cast aspersions on the Department of Justice. Ron DeSantis, though claiming not to have read the document, calls the latest indictment a "weaponization of federal law enforcement" that "represents a mortal threat to a free society." Tim Scott leaped to whataboutism, citing the Hunter Biden case, and suggesting that "We're watching Biden's D.O.J. continue to hunt Republicans while protecting Democrats." And from what used to be the fever swamps but are now the MAGA influencer ranks comes this from The Federalist's Sean Davis: "The Department of Justice is a domestic terror organization."

The party of law and order is now the party of nihilism and chaos.

So in some ways, this is a sum-of-all-fears moment. But there are reasons to believe that the coming months, which will be ugly, debased and charged with anxiety about the future of this republic, will not necessarily end badly.

There are four and a half Republican presidential contenders who are telling the truth about Trump. Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie and Will Hurd are solid. Nikki Haley, characteristically, is hedging, but she also sometimes stumbles into honesty. That is a departure from the norm during the 2016 primaries and during the Trump presidency. And it matters that these Republicans are making the case now, during the primaries, that Trump is unfit for office because some in the party will automatically tune out any critique of Trump if it seems that the beneficiary will be a Democrat in the general election.

Now, some will object, reasonably enough, that all of the Trump-critical candidates account for only about 11% of the primary vote according to recent polling. But in our time, politics is a game of inches. If just a small fraction of Republicans, to say nothing of independent voters, are dissuaded from supporting Trump because of the pending trials, it would make all the difference. A recent New York Times poll showed that 25 percent of the GOP electorate is not open to supporting Trump. Among that 25 percent, 49 percent think Trump is a criminal, and 29 percent (or about seven percent of all Republican respondents) would vote for Biden over Trump in 2024.

Is that enough to keep the disaster of a second Trump term at bay? Probably not, because the structure of the Electoral College requires that the Democrat score at least a four-point victory to prevail.

In our polarized information world, with millions getting only news that is politically palatable, it's excruciatingly difficult to convey basic facts. But trials, especially trials that will dominate every single news outlet, are probably the one way to penetrate those hermetically sealed bubbles. Through the trials, some who are currently in ignorance will learn facts that will disturb them. There will be testimony from Republicans and cross-examination and sworn oaths. Our justice system is by no means perfect at revealing truth, but it's far superior to social media or cable TV. If just a few tens of thousands of Americans in key states have their minds opened to new information, it could be enough to avoid an unthinkable outcome in 2024.

So we must strap in and prepare to play our part, mindful of the stakes, and welcoming a new ally in the battle for truth — the courts.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.