The Corner

“Arrrgh.”

Readers of National Review magazine know that the first item of “The Week” is typically lighthearted or humorous in nature. Well, in the first issue of NR after the 1964 presidential election, the above quote was about as funny as the editors were willing to get.

Tuesday’s results weren’t a 1964-level political catastrophe, even if they were disappointing, albeit with bright spots in Florida, Georgia, and elsewhere. Regardless, as Rich Lowry notes today, William F. Buckley was keen to remind us that despair is a sin. And the institution he created has persisted through conservatism’s rough patches just as it has gloried in — and contributed to — its triumphs.

In all this time, our readers have been there for us, and we have been there for you. This enterprise has always depended on you. “Without your help down through the decades, we wouldn’t be here today,” as Rich notes. We aspire to be worthy of your support. If you think we have earned it, please consider donating in any amount here.

It is my considered view that National Review can help point the way forward from the disappointments of this week, by continuing to stand against the Left and for the serious and viable conservatism that we have consistently worked to advance. But we cannot do that without you. If you believe in our vision, and are interested in promoting those parts of conservatism that can bring us true victory, not some emotive simulacrum thereof, then we humbly request your support.

With your help, we can get conservatism from “Arrrgh” to “Ahhh . . .”

A major problem with solar and wind-powered energy is intermittency. The sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. This is a problem that could be largely resolved by storage technology efficient and scalable enough to cope with intermittency (although I suspect that some backup will always be required, which is why nuclear power will have to be a part of our energy mix for a very, very long time). Unfortunately, that storage technology does not yet appear to exist, not that that has bothered the central planners who continue to plough billions into solar and wind without, seemingly, being too worried that these energy sources are not yet ready for the role that has been assigned to them. That some of these billions might be better spent elsewhere does not seem to worry our planners overmuch either.

And so to Japan.

Via Japan Today (my emphasis added):

For a large part of the year, the weather in Japan is far from comfortable. Winters are cold, and summers are hot and humid.

Those seasons could become even less comfortable, though, if a new plan from the Japanese government goes through. As reported by Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, in a meeting on Nov 2, the Energy Conservation Subcommittee of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry resolved to begin working group discussions with the aim of gaining the ability to remotely turn down privately owned air conditioner/heater units. The goal would be to decrease energy usage during expected power shortages, which the committee feels are a growing concern as Japan attempts to shift towards renewable energy sources such as solar power, where the amount generated can be affected by day-to-day climate, making it difficult to stabilize the amount of total power available. The ministry says that AC unit usage accounts for roughly 30 percent of household electricity consumption in Japan.

From a technical standpoint, the plan wouldn’t be particularly difficult to implement. Japanese air conditioner units have long had remote controls, so external inputs aren’t a problem, and many models now allow the owner to turn the system on and off or adjust temperature settings through the internet. By asking manufacturers to extend such access to government regulatory organizations, and granting those organizations override functions over other inputs, the plan could easily be put into practice for internet-connected AC units…

One of the great advances made by humanity since the industrial revolution has been the way that, in so many ways, we have loosened our dependency on “Mother” Earth. Sadly, climate policy (as currently configured) is not only an excuse for ever increasing amounts of coercion, but, also, it appears, by renewing, in many ways, our connection with this most unreliable of “parents,” a reversion to the pre-modern.

It’s easy to treat Kanye West’s and Kyrie Irving’s Farrakhan-esque vituperations as nothing more than the cretinous gobbledygook of two imbecilic celebrities. But considering the powerful megaphone they each have, it is worth debunking one of their central claims, namely, that Jews were disproportionately responsible for slavery in America.

This slanderous traducement has sadly been repeated by academics and cultural icons alike and features prominently in Black Israelite propaganda such as the “documentary” that Irving featured on his Instagram story.

Nowhere has this lie been amplified more than in The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a work of pseudo-scholarship from the Nation of Islam. The first volume, published in the early ’90s, claims that Jews had a stranglehold on the Atlantic slave trade. The book grossly misrepresents historical facts, in large part by cherry-picking quotes from otherwise reliable sources. Much like the Black Israelites, the Nation of Islam has a long history of Holocaust denial and antisemitism. The truth is that American Jewish merchants bought less than 2 percent of all the Africans sold into slavery and brought to the Americas, a far cry from the Nation of Islam’s assertion of Jewish “predominance” in this activity.

What’s most concerning about libelous books such as The Secret Relationship is the implicit belief that Jews are culpable for the supposed sins of their ancestors. If this is true, then Jews can never extricate themselves from the supposed misdeeds of yesteryear and will forever be deserving of opprobrium, or worse. This is the same racial antisemitism playbook the Nazis used.

Race relations between African Americans and Jews are not perfect, but if we ever want to transcend the legacy of the past, lies such as exaggerated Jewish involvement in the slave trade must be put to rest.

There are at least three (at times overlapping) ways of looking at the GOP’s disappointing midterms: candidates, policy, and voting.

The topic that has gotten perhaps the most coverage is candidate quality, especially at the gubernatorial and senatorial levels. Many swing voters are not hard-core ideologues, so perhaps they are particularly attuned to the immediate presentation of a candidate (whether she has experience, a closet full of skeletons, and so forth). The GOP struggled at candidate recruitment. Top-tier potential candidates often passed on running in key battleground races, as when Chris Sununu decided against a Senate run in New Hampshire. Sometimes, very weak candidates triumphed in fractured primaries. Doug Mastriano is perhaps the most prominent example of this. And weak candidates at the top of the ticket often dragged down other candidates, costing seats in the House and state legislatures. Moreover, these flawed candidates were often associated with fringe policy positions.

On issues, Republicans often settled on a purely negative campaign — hoping that inflation and other national trends would carry them across the finish line. While there were some efforts (such as the House “Commitment to America”) to articulate a more positive policy vision, a coherent policy message never really achieved critical mass. This relative lack of an affirmative platform ended up heightening the salience of issues that were harmful to the GOP. Donald Trump persuaded many candidates to center their campaigns (especially during the primary) on conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The idea of overturning elections turned off many swing voters, and it’s telling that secretary-of-state candidates tied to election-conspiracy theories often lost their bids by big margins. A policy vacuum also allowed Democrats to seize on various Republican remarks about entitlements to argue that the GOP supposedly represented a threat to Social Security — a theme they hit hard in the closing days of the campaign.

Flawed candidates and stumbles with policy in part explain why Republicans failed to win over many of those voters who disapproved of Joe Biden. But there was a third structural challenge for Republicans: the lack of an infrastructure to turn out votes in an age of mass mail-in and early voting. The 2020 election helped polarize Republicans away from voting early, even as that election solidified a new paradigm of extending the voting season over days and, in many states, weeks. Relying on Election Day while Democrats turn out voters for weeks almost certainly undermined Republicans in key states. Florida was one of the few states where Republicans outperformed national trends, and part of the reason for that may be because the state GOP has a real apparatus for gathering mail-in and early votes. (It also had compelling candidates on the top of the ticket.)

All this suggests that a way forward for the GOP has at least three prongs: picking better candidates, crafting a platform that rises to the challenges of the moment, and developing a turnout infrastructure that can win under that current electoral model. Voters seem to prefer competence and experience to outrage and scandal. More than complaining, the GOP has to show that it can govern, especially that it can address challenges facing working families. There may be good policy arguments for revising some Covid-era changes to elections. However, many states (particularly those with Democratic governors) are likely to have extended seasons for voting in future cycles. If Republicans cannot learn how to turn out voters under those circumstances, they may face further electoral disappointments.

Readers of National Review followed what happened to the Tavistock gender-identity clinic in England, from its provision of medicalized gender transitions for minors to its being shut down over concerns that it was unsafe, to the present prospects of a class-action lawsuit from former patients.

Scotland has its own version of the Tavistock clinic. The Scottish Daily Express reports: “Scotland’s gender identity clinic for children is facing mounting legal actions from former patients who claim they were rushed into irreversible sex-change treatments. International law firm Pogust Goodhead is laying the groundwork for a US-style class action lawsuit against the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow.”

You’d think that this would give pause to the Scottish government, whose leaders are determined to make it easier for people to change their legal sex. But Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is pushing ahead with her agenda anyway — though not without opposition.

In considering whether to simplify the legal process for acquiring a gender-recognition certificate, the Scottish National Party saw an unprecedented revolt, including the resignation of its community-safety minister, Ash Regan.

A judicial review brought by the women’s-rights group For Women Scotland is currently underway. Its central concern is whether the government acted lawfully in redefining sex to include gender identity for the purposes of guidance on gender representation in public boards.

There’s some hope for Scotland yet.

Steven Malanga’s essay for City Journal, “Trumped at the Polls,” offers a comprehensive analysis of how the former president’s influence helped kneecap the GOP’s performance in the midterms:

With a deeply unpopular Democratic president in office, inflation raging, and high crime resonating in many areas, Republicans seemed poised to ride another state red wave this year. Instead, they have struggled merely to retain currently held governorships, losing several in the process. What was different this year? Polls suggest it was Donald Trump. The ex-president, who has remained a significant player in local elections, didn’t just spit fire at Democrats in 2022. He also feuded with Republican state leaders in some places, took shots at potential competitors within the party, including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and played a massive role in helping MAGA candidates win state GOP primaries. But Trump, exit polls show, is deeply unpopular with many voters—even more so than President Biden. In some states, candidates he endorsed could muster little support beyond voters who say that they back Trump, too. It wasn’t enough to unleash a red wave.

In the previous GOP waves, moderate Republican gubernatorial candidates were able to flip several deep-blue states, including Larry Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts in 2014. Both governors managed the task of governing in a blue state well enough to coast to reelection in 2018. But Hogan was term-limited this year, and Baker, facing the likelihood of a tough challenge from a Trump-backed candidate in the state GOP primary, declined to run again. Trump supporters won both state Republican primaries, including a victory in Maryland by state delegate Dan Cox, who was aided by millions of dollars in ads run by the Democratic Party, which preferred him as an opponent over former state secretary of commerce Kelly Schulz, endorsed by Hogan. The cynical strategy paid dividends. Cox managed less than four in ten votes in Maryland, a sharp turnaround from the 55 percent of votes Hogan won in 2018. Trump’s favored Massachusetts candidate, state delegate Geoff Diehl, fared worse, managing just 35 percent of the vote against Democrat Maura Healey. Baker, by contrast, won reelection in 2018 with 66 percent of the vote. As the Boston Globe observed, Healey likely wouldn’t even have run if she had to face the popular Baker in a general election. Trump helped ensure that didn’t happen.

In response, I noted on Twitter:

I’m not a Never Trumper. I am, however, a Republican. I like it when Republicans win elections. Trump backed losers in winnable races, nuked blue-state GOP gains, and then had the audacity to pick a fight with Ron DeSantis—the leader of the one state GOP that didn’t underperform. pic.twitter.com/hcxv433dp2

— Nate Hochman (@njhochman) November 10, 2022

Trump, who is reportedly on the cusp of announcing his 2024 bid, has gone scorched-earth against Ron DeSantis, the other prospective frontrunner for the Republican presidential primary. It appears that the Trump–DeSantis tensions that have been building for some time are about to be played out in the open. The coming months — and perhaps years — will be bitter for the warring tribes within the GOP. As I said in my tweet, I am not a Never Trumper. For all of Donald Trump’s flaws, I thought the Trump administration’s record was a largely successful one. But the former president has made it abundantly clear that he is less interested in winning than he is in watching the world burn — and taking down the entire GOP with him. As someone who thinks it is good when Republicans win — and bad when they lose — that is an unacceptable proposition.

Sometime in early 1978, Ron DeSanctimonious became a “Zygote” that was completely undistinguished and even if it’d been examined by a Microscope would have shown no signs of anything other than run-of-the-mill potential political skills, indeed MIDDLE OF THE PACK, unless someone had known — which they wouldn’t have — that one day 40 years later I’d decide, because what the hell, to give him my Endorsement.

About a decade later, Liddle Ronnie — that’s what they called him, Liddle Ronnie — stuck a piece of Chewed Chewing Gum under a desk of Mrs. Bamburger’s 4th-grade class that could never be removed despite the best efforts of the Highly Professional and Very Respected custodial staff in what is called an act of “Destruction of Government Property.”

When he captained the Yale varsity baseball team, it went a pathetic 12–22 overall, 6–14 in the Ivy League, showing DeSanctimonious’s poor leadership skills, not to mention that he never could catch up to the fastball because of the terrible Hole in His Swing and no one will ever forget his error against Dartmouth when his insanely wild throw to third went into the opposing Dugout allowing an absolutely crucial insurance run to score. NOT GOOD.

After his struggles at Yale, DeSanctimonious lacked direction and focus and attended Harvard Law School, where he hoped to graduate summa cum laude, but everyone knows he didn’t have What It Takes, and despite his countless hours studying and “Hitting the Books,” leading everyone to consider DeSanctimonious a complete and total Bore, he only graduated cum laude in a humiliating FAILURE. We all know why DeSanctimonious decided not to become a practicing lawyer.

DeSanctimonious was struggling in Congress, had no friends, and would vote on the House floor alone and then leave alone, leading everyone to whisper and wonder, “What’s wrong with DeSanctimonious?” when he came to me and begged for my Endorsement for governor and I said, “Why should I give you my Endorsement?” and he said my Endorsement would give his life meaning and purpose and I said OK against my better judgment and based on Melania’s strong advice, provided he never becomes too popular and effective, and now that he is in Breach of Contract, my Endorsement is hereby officially RESCINDED and his office will receive a Cease and Desist letter in the morning. LOCK HIM UP?

Seriously, who is still politically turned on by this?

Trump now attacking Glenn Youngkin .. pic.twitter.com/eEEPcAMplX

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) November 11, 2022

Trump is like Charlize Theron’s charming-to-some character in Arrested Development whose British accent somehow masks the fact that she’s — how to put this delicately — mentally enfeebled. His put-downs distracted from his insufficiency. Eventually, in the show anyway, people realize their mistake. (And at a time when Republicans are actually making gains with Asian Americans, the grade-school jokes about “Chinese”-sounding names are another way he’s putting a ceiling on what the party can achieve while he’s around.)

The far Left has infiltrated most of the country’s institutions with its divisive, illiberal, and anti-American ideology. That, alarmingly, includes the service academies.

In today’s Martin Center article, J. A. Cauthen, a graduate and former faculty member at the Naval Academy, writes about the way “wokeness” has penetrated into that once-great school.

Cauthen writes, “In early 2021, the Naval Academy published a Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, a complementary compendium to its 2030 Strategic Plan. This vision, if achieved, will erode the competency of future officers and imperil our national security. Endorsed and signed by all senior Naval Academy leadership, from the superintendent to the academic dean and provost, the plan will set the tone and tenor of forthcoming DEI initiatives and programs, with enforcement centralized through the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI). Drafted and promulgated by ODEI, some of the published objectives and actions read like bygone Soviet and Maoist slogans. To describe these as troubling is charitable; pernicious and punitive are more apt descriptors.”

Evidently, the Washington swamp that needs to be drained extends up to Annapolis.

Diversity and inclusion will now infect the curriculum, displacing needed training with moronic political blather. Cauthen continues, “To ensure full indoctrination, the Naval Academy published, in early 2022, a formal instruction creating what is being called the Diversity Peer Educator Program (DPE). This program requires that midshipmen ‘be taught appropriate terminology [and] facilitation techniques and . . . given the necessary skills and tools to discuss sensitive topics among their peers.’”

Cauthen fears that the infusion of leftist ideology will undermine the Navy’s ability to do its job when we need it, and I do too.

More than the DeSantis win, I believe it was the post-election New York Post covers that triggered Trump. His favorite newspaper — and, indeed, the greatest newspaper in the world — brutally mocked him and promoted his potential rival. That, on top of the terrible midterm results and the huge DeSantis win, had to be too much to take. The unhinged statement is obviously a kind of warning to DeSantis — he’ll have to deal with nonstop abuse and fabricated allegations from a figure that, at least until this point, countless millions of Republicans have revered and taken their cues from. On the other hand, the statement clearly comes from a place of weakness and fear. As we speak, people around Trump are trying to get him to react to his changed circumstances in a strategic, non-destructive way. Good luck.

A post-election chat with Patrick Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy Center:

The exit polling showed that more than two-thirds of unmarried women (68 percent) favor Democrats over Republicans. Three things to remember:

(1) Women vote in greater numbers than men.

(2) The majority of unmarried women are liberal.

(3) The number of unmarried women has more than doubled in the past 50 years and continues to grow.

Markets liked what they saw in the inflation data on Thursday (the S&P 500 was up 5.5 percent, its best day for over two years), not only because of hopes that a corner may have been turned, but also because of increased confidence that the Fed would think that the numbers were good enough to increase rates by only 50 basis points next time after a series of 75-bp increases.

The Wall Street Journal:

Over the past week, Chairman Jerome Powell and other central bank officials have signaled that they would prefer to slow down the pace of rate rises, even without clear evidence that inflation was easing. Instead, they have tried to shift the focus to how high rates might have to rise.

Mr. Powell last week suggested that more stubborn price pressures—supported by strong consumer demand and a tight labor market—could require officials to raise rates next year to slightly higher levels than they had anticipated at the end of the summer. Back then, most officials projected rates would need to rise to between 4.5% and 5% early next year.

“We’ve seen a little bright spot on the data today, but again, I can’t reiterate enough that one month of positive data on inflation does not a victory make,” said San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly during a webinar Thursday.

Prices increased (month-on-month) by a seasonally adjusted 0.4 percent in October against expectations of 0.6 percent. Headline inflation (year on year) fell to 7.7 percent (that this is seen as good news tells you about the times we live in, but still), compared with expectations of 7.9 percent, and against 8.3 percent in September. Core inflation (the measure that excludes food and energy, and a number to which the Fed pays much more attention) also came in at below expectations at 6.3 percent (a 0.3 percent increase on a monthly basis as against an expected 0.5 percent gain).

Much of the easing of pressure was seen on the goods side, a function, in part, of retailers that “over-ordered” during the supply-chain mess and are now dumping inventories, but also a sign that might suggest that squeezed consumers are spending less. It is also worth noting that used-car prices, which have been in sharp focus since we began emerging from the pandemic, also eased on a month-on-month basis, and, in the view of the Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart, ought to fall further. That seems reasonable. “Shelter,” notes Lahart, is still pushing the headline number up, but that’s a lagging indicator. There are clear signs that rents have peaked, and house prices (which are reflected within this part of the index in a rather convoluted way) are clearly looking shaky. Shelter accounts for about a third of the index.

With the labor market still tight, I’d keep a eye on wage pressure, which feeds, of course, into higher services prices.

The Wall Street Journal has a more detailed breakdown of price movements here.  The sharp year-on-year increase in energy costs come as no surprise, and, although it is not considered to be “core,” that’s not how consumers will feel.

Monetarists, meanwhile, will note that M2 is falling. To be sure, that’s from a very high level, but the fact that it is falling may matter more.

We’ve seen a false dawn before in this cycle, but there may be more reason this time to think that, absent an additional “external” shock, this may be the moment we have been waiting for. But even if this is the peak, we remain a long, long way from the 2 percent target (remember that?).

Haviv Rettig Gur is an Israel explainer — one of the best. An Israeli himself, he has been a student of his country and its politics for some time. He is the senior analyst of the Times of Israel. And he is my latest guest on Q&A, here. My listeners have heard him before. When something happens in Israel — you want to hear from HRG.

Israel has had another election — its fifth in 43 months, as HRG tells us. Benjamin Netanyahu is back again, for his sixth tour as prime minister. He was out of power for 17 months. In that time, there were two other prime ministers.

As HRG says, Israel now leads the world in elections — the frequency of. The Israelis have surpassed even the Italians.

Netanyahu is a brilliant politician and tactician, as HRG says. You may not trust him as far as you can throw him — but he out-wilies the wiliest. He has now cobbled together a coalition that includes people who have been against him for a long time. Is it a conservative coalition? A right-wing coalition?

HRG is very sharp on this question, as on others. Netanyahu himself is an American-style conservative, at least as conservatism in America was long understood: lean government, a free economy, etc. His coalition partners are a different kettle of fish.

Of particular interest, in this new coalition, is Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been on the margins of Israeli politics for decades. He comes out of the Kahane movement, an extremist movement, one shunned by even the right edge of Likud. (As HRG says in our podcast, Yitzhar Shamir used to leave the Knesset when Meir Kahane rose to speak.) There are two oft-cited facts about Ben-Gvir: that he threatened the life of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, shortly before Rabin was assassinated; and that he long kept a portrait of Baruch Goldstein on the wall. (Goldstein was the man who murdered 29 Palestinians, at prayer in a mosque, in 1994.)

Has Ben-Gvir moderated? That is a tricky question, probably not answerable with certainty.

Can this question be answered with certainty? Is Benjamin Netanyahu corrupt? Or is he the victim of media and “elites” who hate him and are out to get him? The answer, or possible answer, is rather complicated, and Haviv Rettig Gur is at home with complications.

He also has interesting things to say about the nature, the very essence, of Israeli politics. That nature, or essence, is tribal, he says. It has been that way since the beginning — the beginning of modern Israel, in the late 1940s. You have different tribes sending representatives to the Knesset, to work out a modus vivendi. This has worked in Israel for almost 75 years now.

Will it continue to work? (Big question.)

In the minds of many foreigners, says HRG, Israel is a Western country, whose political system resembles that of the United States and the European democracies. Not so, he says. The Israeli system is more akin to that of other Middle Eastern countries.

Who came to Israel? HRG asks. People from czarist Russia; from Egypt, Morocco, and other Arab countries; from Iran. This peopling determined the nature of Israeli politics. And that nature is not as “liberal,” or “Western,” as many people believe.

Let’s talk Mahmoud Abbas. Haviv and I do. Abbas has been head of the PLO since 2004. Frankly, I thought he was old then — a functionary near the end of his career, whose job it was to be a placeholder. He is still on that job, almost 20 years later (age 86).

Other topics? Iran. How do you keep that country from going nuclear? Then the Ukraine war. What role does that war play in Israeli politics? Then antisemitism — antisemitism in the United States, in particular, and, more in particular, the cases of two celebrities: Kanye and Kyrie (no last names necessary).

Anyone curious about Israel, and its chaotic, or chaotic-seeming, politics, will enjoy and benefit from hearing Haviv Rettig Gur. Again, our latest podcast is here.

Here’s the Washington Post:

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday blocked President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, delivering a victory to a conservative advocacy group that sued to strike down the plan.

This was not a victory for “a conservative advocacy group.” It was a victory for the rule of law. It was a victory for Article I. It was a victory for separation of powers. It was a victory for people who can read. It was a victory, in other words, for America’s beautiful constitutional order.

This particular suit had to do with the Administrative Procedure Act. As the Post noted, “the suit alleges the administration violated federal procedures by denying borrowers the opportunity to provide public comment before unveiling the program.” But that’s just one small part of the order’s extraordinary illegality. From the start, it has been entirely obvious that if the question ever reached the merits of this case, it would be nixed by the courts. And so it has. In his opinion Judge Pittman recorded that Biden’s order “does not provide clear congressional authorization for the program proposed by the Secretary.” Specifically, he observed that student-loan forgiveness is not mentioned in the statute that Biden pretended gave him authority; that, because Biden himself had declared the pandemic to be over, there was no justifying “emergency” in the first place; and, finally, that the agency that was expected to execute the order had found recently that it had no such authority. Because this is a “major question,” the judge concluded, the court was not obliged to defer.

The Post records that this development

comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit last month granted a stay against the loan forgiveness program in a separate lawsuit brought by six Republican-led states. The cases are among a growing number of legal challenges to stop Biden’s program. Some of those suits, including one filed in Indiana and another in Wisconsin, have been dismissed for lack of standing, but others are ongoing.

The case in the 8th Circuit is still pending. There is no reason to believe that it will end differently than this one.

There is a well-known gender gap among American voters, but the salience of the issue of abortion has not affected the size of the gap from 2018 to 2022. 

From the 2018 midterm elections to the 2022 midterms, male voters swung 10 points toward the Republicans, while female voters swung 11 points toward the Republicans:

2020:

Men: Trump+8
Women: Biden+15 pic.twitter.com/kcAadqZTJ8

— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) November 10, 2022

In 2018, men voted Republican by a 4-point margin, while women voted Democratic by a 19-point margin. That’s a 23-point gender gap.

In 2020, men voted for Trump by an 8-point margin, while women voted for Biden by a 15-point margin. That’s a 23-point gender gap.

In 2022, men voted Republican by a 14-point margin, while women voted Democratic by an 8-point margin. That’s a 22-point gender gap.

So, in each of the last three elections, the gender gap has been almost identical. That doesn’t mean that the issue of abortion had no impact in the 2022 elections; it just means that the salience of the issue hasn’t produced any discernible difference in the overall voting patterns of men and women.

And no one can doubt that the salience of the issue was highest in 2022: Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, Democrats aired at least $415 million in abortion ads, and Democrats surely received many times that amount in free advertising on the issue from the media.

How much the issue mattered in 2022 is a topic that deserves lengthy analysis, but it’s notable that it did not widen the gender gap.

There seems to be a bit of confusion surrounding Colorado Republicans’ poor showing on Tuesday. Donald Trump, who criticized O’Dea before the election, claims that Republican senatorial nominee Joe O’Dea “lost big” because he tried to “distance” himself from the former president. Talk-radio host Mark Levin claims that O’Dea lost because he was a “McConnell-Rove RINO candidate.” Putting aside Levin’s misplaced fixation with Senator McConnell, these inane assertions don’t survive scrutiny.

Colorado is a purple D+4 state. Had Republicans run a more extreme candidate, they would’ve fared even worse. That’s why Democrats tried to boost O’Dea’s MAGA primary opponents and attempted to tie him to Trump when that failed. O’Dea fell short because what was supposed to be a favorable electoral environment for the GOP nationally turned out to be nothing more than a red mist.

If you want a rough counterfactual, look no further than Lauren Boebert’s race in Colorado’s third congressional district, an R+7 jurisdiction encompassing around half the state’s land. Boebert is one of the Trump-friendliest members of Congress, and she’s currently fighting for survival for a seat that’s redder than the rest of the state. She may still win, but her struggles are another telltale sign of what’s holding back the GOP.

The word is that Trump’s announcement is on, but, of course, it’s not truly on until the announcement is over. Everything prior to that is negotiable. From Marc Caputo:

A senior Trump adviser just confirmed Tues announcement & said “The media, the corporate elites, and political establishment has all moved in unison against Donald Trump at their own peril. It’s like they want to recreate 2015-2016. Let them. We are doing it again. Buckle up”

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) November 10, 2022

An announcement in the immediate aftermath of the midterm disappointment is a very bad idea, and it’s an even worse idea if the Georgia runoff is going to determine Senate control.

I posted something from Dave Wasserman earlier suggesting Laxalt is going to lose, but I was talking to someone who’s following it closely and buys this math (although, personally, I’m done with Republican optimism for a while):

Clark County Clerk just reported there are just over 50K ballots left. This number includes Election Day drop off. We know there are rural and Washoe votes to be counted. Assuming these two at least offset, then Cortez Masto needs 63.5% to catch us. We remain very confident.

— Adam Paul Laxalt (@AdamLaxalt) November 10, 2022

Anyway, for his own purposes, Trump should put off his announcement, take stock, and find a way to try to be genuinely helpful if the Georgia runoff is going to be the difference-maker.

Last month, Anthony Kinnett argued for National Review that “the implementation of technology in schools” has fallen far short of “what was promised by the education-technology salesmen of the early 2010s.” Instead of greater technological skills accompanying improved learning,

Screen addiction, blue-light exhaustion, and other medical issues accompanying near-round-the-clock screen use have only increased during this age of the computer replacing the teacher in the classroom. ADHD, dyslexia, and other learning disabilities’ coping mechanisms, often achieved through handwriting and screen restraint, are becoming less common as physical media takes a back seat to the convenience and entertainment of classroom computer use.

Short-term and long-term memory development has also taken a massive hit in the education space. The ability to search most answers with a few key presses has discouraged developing minds to retain information that doesn’t facilitate dopamine.

While Kinnett said he “can’t fully endorse or decry screen use in any classroom,” his basic thesis was that the benefits of incorporating screen technology in the classroom have been oversold, and that we should “invest accordingly.” As someone who went to school just before tech really exploded (no laptops, no tablets; one old-fashioned history teacher I had even took joy in bringing out a vintage slide projector), I couldn’t agree more.

Some schools are willing to take Kinnett’s argument further than he himself did. A recent Wall Street Journal report focused on Buxton School, a small boarding school in Massachusetts, that banned smartphones, after realizing they had exacerbated drama at the school. Though there were some initial hiccups, for students — “Everyone was crying. Kids were yelling at us,” [associate head of school John Kalapos] recalls. “Parent feedback was really mixed” — and even for teachers. But two months in, things are going much better. Students and teachers alike report being more engaged in the classroom, more relaxed outside of it, and some even found their old smartphones disgustingly overwhelming when they returned to them during breaks, opting for fewer apps and less phone use generally.

To be sure, Braxton is not a totally tech-free environment. Laptops are still allowed, and students have Light Phones with only text and call functioning. Reading that texting on such phones “is designed to be clunky, and many students say it’s so slow that they don’t bother texting more than a few words at a time,” amused me greatly, as “back in my day” (am I really old enough to start saying this?), this was all we had. (And phone use was banned during school hours besides.) It may seem like baby steps to return today’s kids to what life was like when I was in high school, but even that would be an improvement.

Eventually, though, it would be ideal if we could start stigmatizing smartphones altogether. That was Elayne Allen’s argument last month in the Public Discourse. Making a striking (if imperfect) analogy between cigarette smoking and smartphone use, she argued that

we must begin by deciding appropriate and inappropriate uses of them. Just as we have created designated smoking areas, we can create designated “areas” for smartphone use (though probably without the precise physical boundaries). During meals, for example, smartphones should be put away. It should be seen as déclassé to scroll while eating out and during social functions. And more urgently, just as with smoking, schools should be no place for smartphone use. Education is too important an endeavor for students’ minds to be divided between coursework and Instagram.

We’re a long way from this. But for now, it seems eminently worthwhile to take baby steps to get there.

I wrote for Politico today on Trump and the midterms:

Republicans have looked past his selfishness in the belief that Trump is the GOP’s unique electoral savior, a view that was dubious when he was at his height and is less convincing now.

You nominate FDR for a third time after he’s won the first two times (and wash, rinse and repeat). You make a romantic icon of a promising young leader cut down in his prime, like JFK. You revere the two-term presidents, like Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, who went out on high notes.

It’s passing strange to become similarly devoted to a political figure who barely won a fluky presidential election, then lost a winnable reelection bid, before dragging the country through a bonkers attempt to overturn the result, with the episode ending in futility and bloodshed. . . .

It’s not a coincidence that the two most impressive Republican performers in the 2022 midterms, Brian Kemp and Ron DeSantis, were both governors who could forge an identity distinct from the party’s national brand. They both had the opportunity as executives to demonstrate competence (and did). They both are hard workers and shrewd operators. And neither bent a knee to Trump; indeed, they got attacked by him.

It is telling that Trump was more favorably inclined to no-hoper Doug Mastriano, the Jan. 6-attending Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate whose dreadful performance helped sink Mehmet Oz, than two conservative stalwarts whose electoral and governing success are a tribute to the party.

The humiliating performance by Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections has drawn renewed attention to the negative influence of Donald Trump on the Republican Party. What’s been interesting to watch over the past few days is that it isn’t merely those of us who have consistently been lamenting Trump’s control over the GOP who have blamed Trump for saddling the GOP with so many subpar candidates. He’s getting criticized even by some who typically like or defend him.

If you’re following the conversations on Twitter, podcasts, cable, and within online publications, there is definitely a “water is now safe” quality to criticizing Trump. It feels like something is different this time. Trump’s unnecessary insults at Florida governor Ron DeSantis, the big winner from Tuesday, especially have not seemed to sit well with people. It’s no big mystery who Fox’s Laura Ingraham was referring to when she said, “If the voters conclude that you’re putting your own ego or your own grudges ahead of what’s good for the country, they’re going to look elsewhere, period.”

But when it comes to prominent figures lining up against Trump, we’ve seen this movie before — in the days after the Capitol riot, and throughout the early stages of the 2016 Republican primary. One thing to note especially is that a number of pro-Trump figures on the right were actually late arrivals to the Trump train, the type of people who initially supported Ted Cruz in the Republican primary.

But ultimately, Trump’s power has never derived from the praise he’s earned among conservative influencers or Republicans holding or seeking office — that’s always come after the fact. His influence has always derived from his passionate and devoted followers, who cheer for him, and direct their anger at anybody who he decides to make his enemy. And we have not heard from them yet. We have not even seen polls reflecting his standing in the wake of the midterm elections. We do not know where the early adopters stand — not the ones who were won over during his presidency, or once he became the nominee — but those who made him the nominee by backing him in a crowded field with many other conservative stars.

This is why I wrote in March that there are benefits to Trump running — as long as he loses. Because if he is rejected by Republican voters, he loses his influence in every place else. It’s just premature to know whether the ground has really shifted.

Every now and again I drop into the NRPlus Facebook group. It’s a community of good humor and wisdom and fellowship. It’s the kind of place you want to be on an election morning and any other day when you find yourself processing and thinking through next steps. With permission, I share one of the threads I saw yesterday, which reflect where we need to be post-Roe.

David Graf

Considering that the pro-abortion side seems to have won in every state when the issue was on the ballot, maybe it’s time to switch our priorities from politicians to working on reducing the number of abortions by:

* addressing the reasons why women have abortions

* providing alternatives to abortion for women who want to keep their babies

* supporting CPCs with our time and money

* disentangling the issue of abortion from politics

* showing love to those who disagree with us on this issue

We spent decades overturning Roe and so we can spend decades if necessary to reduce the number of abortions in America to as low a number as possible by persuasion not coercion.

James Heaney

We can do both. We should do both. We must do both.

Slavery ended in part because of persuasion. But it also ended in large part because of coercion. Ending a great atrocity is almost always a both-and situation.

It is true that, after a difficult cycle, we need to regroup, consolidate in areas where we’ve successfully defended the unborn, and begin pointing to the horrors of abortion and the radicalism of the pro-choice agenda again. The pro-life movement, for having worked to end Roe for 50 years, was surprisingly unprepared for the end of Roe.

But we can’t just give up on the most pressing issue of our time, and any conservative movement that purports to do so wouldn’t be worth the effort.

Continue reading “A Window into the NRPlus Community, Post-Election” →

The Biden administration’s illegal student-debt “forgiveness” program will result in hundreds more dollars per month being freed up for those who currently owe money. What Biden calls “forgiveness” really amounts to a transfer of debt from the people who borrowed the money to people who did not. Taxpayers will be picking up the tab for borrowers whose debt is reduced, which means they are ultimately subsidizing the purchases that borrowers make. What kind of purchases will taxpayers be subsidizing?

A survey from Intelligent.com found that 73 percent of borrowers who have their student debt reduced plan to spend their extra money on non-essentials such as travel, eating out, and new technology. Thirty-six percent said they’d buy a new gaming system, and 27 percent said they’d gamble with the extra money.

The survey included this finding: “Despite the fact that most don’t plan to practice what they preach, 73% do agree using student relief to buy non-essential goods is wrong.”

Truly needy people would not need to contemplate the morality of their spending on non-essential purchases. If someone was having a hard time affording food, clothing, and shelter, he or she would naturally spend extra money on those things first. That borrowers know they shouldn’t spend on non-essentials yet plan to do so anyway indicates that they have no problem paying for essentials as things currently stand. They don’t need “relief.”

That perfectly matches what we know about the distributional impacts of the student-debt program. People with lots of student debt are generally people with graduate and professional degrees who have relatively high incomes. As Adam Looney wrote for the Brookings Institution in January, “Measured appropriately, student debt is concentrated among high-wealth households and loan forgiveness is regressive whether measured by income, educational attainment, or wealth.”

The non-essential spending on short-term satisfaction also undermines the claim that removing the debt burden from borrowers will allow them to make long-term improvements in their financial situations. Instead, it adds to what we already know about the vaporous effects of the student-debt-forgiveness program at a macro level. According to calculations from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, total student debt in the United States will return to its current level of $1.6 trillion in only five and a half years.

By that time, the U.S. will be in the exact same situation it is today with respect to student debt, the national debt will be about half a trillion dollars greater, and a bunch of already well-off people will have taken federally subsidized vacations. Blatant unconstitutionality aside, the student-debt-forgiveness program is awful public policy.

China’s top climate negotiator used the U.N.’s ongoing climate conference to spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda about Taiwan, as climate envoy John Kerry holds out hope that Beijing will undertake climate cooperation talks in good faith.

Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua falsely claimed during a speech at the COP27 conference in Egypt today that China had provided Taiwan assistance to implement climate-related initiatives. The comment was intended to convey the sense that Beijing has sovereignty over the island.

“Within the policy of One China, we have provided assistance to Taiwan to implement climate policies,” Xie said, according to a Straits Times report today.

That claim is false because Beijing has not in fact provided that sort of assistance, Taiwan’s presidential office told the paper in a statement. Taiwan’s presidential spokesperson also said that Taiwan doesn’t need China’s help on that front: “Taiwan’s goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 far exceeds China’s commitments on climate change.”

The incident demonstrates that Beijing views global climate diplomacy efforts as an effective channel through which to advance its goals in other areas.

Xie was appointed by Beijing to be Kerry’s counterpart in early 2021, as the U.S. and China undertook a series of talks intended to produce cooperation on climate change between the two countries. Throughout this process, Chinese officials have appeared preoccupied with holding climate cooperation as a reward for U.S. compliance with Beijing’s preferred approaches to other issues. The Biden administration has claimed that it won’t let its pursuit of these talks undermine U.S. policies in other, unrelated areas.

After House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan this past August, Beijing suspended Xie’s interactions with Kerry, and the Chinese diplomat temporarily cut off all contact with the U.S. official, according to Kerry.

Then, this week, Xie suggested that Washington would need to make amends for Pelosi’s support of Taiwan.

“We hope the U.S. will take the initiative to clear the barriers,” Xie said about the stalled talks at the U.N. conference, the Guardian reported. “I think the door was absolutely closed by them. We in China are trying to open it.” Xie said that informal discussions with Kerry’s teams had begun again, something that Kerry confirmed during an event at the summit: “I stand ready to negotiate.” A source told the New York Times that Kerry and Xie had spoken at least three times during the summit.

Last year, Kerry made headlines for saying that combating Beijing’s mass atrocities against Uyghurs are “not my lane” while standing next to Xie during a press conference to unveil a framework agreement on reducing methane emissions.

I have a piece in the latest issue of the magazine about Democrats’ denials of biological reality on the campaign trail.

Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Mike Gallagher are introducing legislation to ban the TikTok app in the United States, the two lawmakers wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post today.

They cited recent reporting that points at significant overlap between TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and Chinese Communist Party–directed propaganda organizations. They also mentioned TikTok’s ability to collect U.S.-users’ locations, internet-browsing data, and keystrokes, as well as its reported plans to monitor the locations of specific U.S. citizens.

They also wrote that the CCP could use TikTok as a megaphone for disinformation to promote its preferred narratives:

The CCP could also use TikTok to propagate videos that support party-friendly politicians or exacerbate discord in American society. Such videos need not originate from CCP proxies — they could be created by anyone. With essentially unlimited data on user-made content at its disposal, Beijing can leverage it to fan the flames of domestic division.

And thanks to the rising number of adults who get their news from TikTok, the platform has the ability to influence which issues Americans learn about, what information they consider accurate, and what conclusions they draw from world events. This places extraordinary power in the hands of company employees who could any day be overruled by the CCP.

Rubio currently serves as the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Democratic senator Mark Warner, the chairman of the committee, has also expressed alarm about TikTok’s national-security implications, recently saying that President Donald Trump was right to attempt to ban the app. Gallagher is a member of the House’s intelligence committee.

Gallagher and Rubio wrote that they are not optimistic about the Biden administration’s ongoing national-security review of TikTok’s data-security practices:

TikTok is a major threat to U.S. national security. Yet Biden is encouraging greater engagement with the platform by directly courting TikTok influencers. Furthermore, reports suggest that he is nearing a deal that would authorize TikTok’s continued operation in the United States without any change in ownership.

This would dangerously compromise national security and provide a template for other CCP-controlled companies to establish themselves in the United States with minimal scrutiny. Unless TikTok and its algorithm can be separated from Beijing, the app’s use in the United States will continue to jeopardize our country’s safety and pave the way for a Chinese-influenced tech landscape here.

These are unacceptable outcomes. This is why we’re introducing legislation which would ban TikTok and other social media companies that are effectively controlled by the CCP from operating in the United States. Congress needs to act against the TikTok threat before it’s too late.

The two lawmakers’ decision to introduce the legislation now suggests two paths forward for the proposal. They could attempt to insert their bill into the annual defense-authorization bill that Congress is expected to pass before the end of the year. If it’s not included there, the bill stands a chance of winning the approval of what is expected to be a Republican-controlled House in the next Congress. GOP leaders have promised a China-focused legislative blitz.

Either way, Gallagher and Rubio will have to get the legislation past TikTok’s politically savvy team of former lawmakers and Congressional staffers, who are working for the CCP-linked tech giant. That lobbying team, however effectively it has defended ByteDance before, will have to contend with growing bipartisan alarm of the app.

Famously, after Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election, the RNC under Reince Priebus developed an autopsy report. The report was based on 3,000 “group listening sessions,” over 800 conference calls, and 2,000 surveys of Hispanics, with 225 consultants employed. It produced such gangbusters recommendations as “Republicans should never look at one group of Americans and assume we can’t reach them. Good ideas reach everyone.” It recommended the creation of a “Growth and Opportunity Inclusion Council” to “collaborate with other Republican organizations of diversity.” It recommended race-based hiring for certain Republican jobs: “The RNC should hire Hispanic communications directors and political directors for key states” and “APA [Asian and Pacific Islander Americans] communications directors and political directors for key states and communities across the country.”

The bottom line was that Republicans could retain the party’s more libertarian policy recommendations by just ditching social and cultural conservatism. The recommendations on the mechanics of running a party, including data-gathering and voter contact, were cursory at best.

Can we get a real Republican autopsy this time?

What went wrong? How were candidates actually recruited in this cycle? Was charisma even a factor?

Why did Republicans overperform in New York, where districts were drawn by a court to be “fair,” compared with states where Republicans were in charge of gerrymandering? Does this indicate that the party doesn’t really know who its voters are, or how to communicate to them?

Are Republicans still too dependent in midterms on “high-propensity voters,” who are now more attracted to the Democratic Party? What tactics, techniques, and strategies of previous Democratic GOTV operations can be adapted by Republicans as they rely on lower-propensity voters?

Are Republican campaigns continuing to sow distrust of the electoral system in voters and thereby demoralizing them? If states are going to continue to allow ballot-harvesting, and mail-in voting for a month before Election Day, what are the best strategies for Republicans to bank votes in future elections?

Just a start.

With his many varied interests in technology, politics, and culture, Peter Thiel has often been described as a Renaissance man. So perhaps it was only fitting that we traveled to Florence, Italy — where the Renaissance originated and thrived for hundreds of years — to speak with him. In this wide-ranging interview, we cover several topics, including his support for candidates across the country who are running as outsiders, why technology has not fulfilled many of its early promises, and why California is still America’s incubator for ideas and growth.

Recorded in Florence, Italy, on October 19, 2022.

Montana Referendum 131 would have required that babies born alive — including after an attempted abortion — be treated as legal persons and treated in a “medically appropriate” manner. Alas, it was just rejected by voters.

That’s awful, but I think there is a reason the measure failed, and it is in the drafting of the text. From Referendum 131:

Born-alive infant protection. (1) A born-alive infant, including an infant born in the course of an abortion, must be treated as a legal person under the laws of the state, with the same rights to medically appropriate and reasonable care and treatment.

That fine, decent, and moral. But this second clause became the focused issue in the opposition campaign (my emphasis):

(2) A health care provider who is present at the time a born-alive infant is born shall take all medically appropriate and reasonable actions to preserve the life and health of the infant

Here’s the problem. Sometimes preserving life of an infant is not “appropriate” medical treatment. Sometimes, palliative care and/or allowing nature to take its course is the most reasonable and humane approach.

Yes, I am aware that the clause, “take all medically appropriate and reasonable actions,” should have assuaged any fears doctors might have had of being prosecuted for not trying keep a dying baby alive — no matter the futility or suffering thereby caused. But that wording allowed media and opponents to fear monger.

For example, KTVH’s description of Referendum 131 omitted the “medically appropriate and reasonable” clause (my emphasis):

The referendum is described on ballots as the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. If passed by voters, the new law would establish penalties for health care providers if they did not provide necessary medical care and treatment to preserve the life of infants born alive, including infants born alive after an abortion. If a health care provider violated the act, the maximum punishment would be a $50,000 fine and up to 20 years in prison.

That description would make it appear that the law would require preserving the life in every case. I wouldn’t have voted for that.

NPR’s description of the measure was even more egregiously inaccurate:

LR-131, a referendum for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, would require doctors provide resuscitative care to infants born at any stage of development, or face penalties. . . .

The Born Alive Infant Protection Act would require medical providers give life-saving care to infants born at any stage of development: Born as a result of “natural or induced labor, cesarean section, induced abortion, or another method,” the legislation reads.

If the referendum LR-131 passes, medical professionals who “fail to take medically appropriate and reasonable actions” could face up to $50,000 in fines and 20 years in prison.

Those falsehoods opened the door to blatant fear mongering. Indeed, one opponent quoted in the KTVH report claimed the measure would prevent allowing a mother to snuggle with her baby who would not survive:

During a September rally in Helena meant to show opposition to LR-131, Jenn Banna of Missoula said she experienced the scenario described by Mitchell. While pregnant with her daughter Anna, doctors told her the child’s brain hadn’t fully developed. Anna would not survive for long after delivery. But Banna opted to continue the pregnancy.

“The opportunity to snuggle and sing to her would not have been possible if she had been taken away immediately,” Banna said at the rally. “Anna Louise would have died in a different room, without me, robbing me of the opportunity of comforting and holding her during her short life.”

Nothing in Referendum 131 would have prevented that dying baby from being cuddled by her mother.

What’s the lesson for pro-lifers? Your proposals will be shamelessly misdescribed, distorted, and lied about by opponents and in the media. But also, that fact of political life requires careful and defensive drafting of ballot measures. For example, the first clause quoted above would have been sufficient to fulfill the desired purpose of the measure because it would have covered all circumstances of a crisis birth. Emphasizing “preserving life and health” in the second clause was superfluous and opened the door to the kind of blatant media mendacity that I suspect caused a majority of Montanans to vote no.

At some point soon, Donald Trump is likely to announce that he is running for president of the United States. When he does, Governor DeSantis — who I presume is going to run as well — will have to make a choice as to how he deals with the barrage of flak that Trump’s entry will generate. My recommendation would be for DeSantis to ignore Trump completely until he is fully ready to engage.

That, of course, will not work once DeSantis is officially in the race. At that point, it will be a brawl whether DeSantis likes it or not. But before? It would be the smart move. There is no risk that DeSantis is going to disappear from the news, be forgotten about, or be totally overshadowed by Trump’s entrance. DeSantis just won Florida by 20 points. He won all but five of the state’s 67 counties, flipping Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Osceola, Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Duval. He won Hispanic voters. He won women. He won voters in every educational category, from “no college” to “postgraduate.” Going forward, he is going to be talked about whatever Trump does. Going forward, every GOP candidate and Republican association in America is going to want him to come speak. The demand will be there, irrespective.

And so will the attention. Florida’s state legislature, which meets for just two months every year, will convene this year in March and April. When it does, the scrutiny from the media will be intense. Presumably, DeSantis has some laws he’d like to see passed, and, presumably, some of these laws are going to upset the national media, which will dutifully come down to Florida and tee DeSantis up to tell them on TV why they are wrong and post the ensuing footage online. If he plays his cards right, DeSantis can be seen in public doing things that Republicans voters — and, usually, a majority of voters — like, while Trump sits around doing nothing but talk. It won’t always be easy for DeSantis to stay quiet, but, on balance, this juxtaposition will serve him well, especially if Trump starts going after him while he’s governing in a way of which the base approves.

And then? Well, then all hell is going to break loose. But there’s no need for DeSantis to immanentize it.

Interesting thread from Sean Trende:

One of the quiet stories under the hood is that Republicans are looking like they'll win the popular vote. Probably a popular vote swing of 5% (depending on how CA votes work out), swinging about 2% of the chamber. IOW, the generic polls are likely to be about spot on. Why? 1/

— Sean T at RCP is a free elf (@SeanTrende) November 10, 2022

November 10 is the birthday of the Marine Corps, celebrated in every American embassy and every major city in America. Why? Because for 247 years, the very word Marine has symbolized discipline and toughness in battle. The statue of six Marine grunts raising the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945 is emblematic of American grit. Marines are seen as being ready to fight anywhere at any time, bringing to bear its aircraft, artillery, and tanks to support the riflemen who close with and destroy the enemy.

The grunt is the organizational heart and the guiding soul of the Marine Corps. Until now. On this birthday, for the first time in its history, the grunt is not the Marine centerpiece. Advised by only a few officers, the current Commandant, General David H. Berger, has decided that shooting missiles, not rifles, will be the centerpiece of the Marines going forward.

The reason for this basic shift is that China has emerged as America’s most formidable military foe. To contribute to defeating China, should war break out, the Commandant slashed the size of infantry and reduced the amount of artillery, tanks, and aircraft. This meant that the Marines were less capable as a combined arms force ready to fight anywhere.

With the money thus saved, the Commandant intends to buy anti-ship missiles and electronic-detection gear. The U.S. Navy is expected to buy two dozen shallow-draft ships to land small packets of Marines armed with those missiles on islands in the South China Sea. If the Chinese surface warships attempt, in war, to sortie into the broad Pacific to attack Guam or Pearl Harbor, Marine missileers will sink them.

This tradeoff from infantry man to missile man has been applauded by the administration and Congress. And why not? It seemed innovative and forward-looking, and it came at no additional dollar cost. The Marines transformed themselves. If you are an outside observer, what’s not to like?

The flaw lies in the logic. First, to insert the missile force before hostilities requires Vietnam or the Philippines to become actively involved by granting landing rights at a moment of great peril. Second, the key to dominating the Pacific is the seizure of Taiwan, far out of range for the missile Marines a thousand miles away in the empty theater of the South China Sea. Taiwan has 1,000 anti-ship missiles and can buy as many as they want. The Marines have taken themselves out of the main fight. Third, the Marines want the U.S. Navy to procure about 30 shallow-draft ships to get to the islands, at a total cost of $500 to $900 million over the next ten years. To do that, the Navy will have to take money from other accounts, especially the attack submarines. But our SSNs are stealthy, while the Marine missile force is overt. With our underwater acoustic systems, Chinese warships cannot move anywhere without being detected and sunk with torpedoes. It’s doubtful if the Navy will take money from other programs to buy ships to duplicate a mission the SSN fleet can do better. On balance, Marines as missileers adds too little and gives up too much. Let the U.S. Navy deal with the Chinese navy.

Obviously, the Marines must innovate. The lesson to guide them is clear. The war in Ukraine has driven home the lethality of small infantry units equipped with drones and linked to mobile, long-range precision artillery. Buy those proven systems instead of morphing into a redundant anti-ship missile force. The Marines should celebrate their birthday by resolving to remain an infantry-centric combined-arms force in readiness.

One of the great benefits of winning landslide elections is that you end up building up your own bench of viable candidates while diminishing the other side’s. In this respect, the Republican sweeps of 2010 and 2014 were terrific for the GOP and devastating for the Democrats. Why is Joe Biden president, rather than a younger, Obama-esque star? Why, even now, would it be tough for the Democrats to find a replacement for Biden, even if they wanted to? In part because, in 2010, 2014, and, to a lesser extent, 2016, the Republicans did so well.

And they’re wasting it. In his role as head of the party, Donald Trump has made life extremely difficult — and extremely unpleasant — for anyone who does not agree with him completely, and for anyone who decides to run for office without his imprimatur. And people have noticed. Doug Ducey, a product of the 2014 wave, decided not to run for the Senate in Arizona. Chris Sununu, a product of the 2016 wave, decided not to run for the Senate in New Hampshire. Larry Hogan, a product of the 2014 wave, decided not to run for the Senate in Maryland. Cory Gardner, a 2014 winner, passed on a run in Colorado. Pat Toomey retired. Rob Portman retired. Surely, these decisions are not all accidental. Certainly, they are enough to form a pattern. Ducey, Sununu, Hogan, Gardner, Toomey, and Portman are all intelligent people who may well have reasonably concluded that they didn’t want their lives ruined by challenging a Trump-backed candidate in a primary, or by being an elected officeholder in a party still overly in thrall to his whims. As Joe O’Dea found out, as Brian Kemp found out, and as Ron DeSantis is about to find out, the only thing that ever prevents Trump from throwing grenades at his own side is his current mood. Why bother?

This is crazy. In his races for governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey won in a landslide twice — by eleven points in 2014, and by 14 points in 2018. He’d have won a Senate race this year. In his races for governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu has now won by two points, seven points, 31 points, and 16 points. He’d have won a Senate race this year. Larry Hogan won two victories in Maryland — by just under four points, and then by twelve points. He probably would not have won a Senate race, but he’d have helped the party down-ballot, especially in the House. In his race for Senate in Colorado, Cory Gardner squeaked by in 2014, and probably would have lost, but I suspect he’d have been more effective at the top of the ticket than was Joe O’Dea. Rob Portman won by 15 points in 2010, and 21 points in 2016. He would likely have gained as much of the Ohio vote as Governor DeWine, and he wouldn’t have used as much of the GOP’s money in the process. Pat Toomey won more closely: by two points in 2010 and 1.5 points in 2016, but he won in Pennsylvania both times, and would likely have done so again.

The GOP should have been taking advantage of these figures for years to come. Instead, Donald Trump kept them on the sidelines — and, even worse, pushed for replacements chosen from the third tier of possibilities rather than the top. That’s a choice, and one that Republican voters ought to consider as they decide whether working hard to put good people into office is worth their effort and their care.

Editor’s note: This post has been corrected to note that Doug Ducey won his gubernatorial reelection in 2018. 

It was 247 years ago, on November 10, 1775, that the Continental Congress decreed

That two battalions of Marines be raised consisting of one Colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, two majors and other officers, as usual in other regiments; that they consist of an equal number of privates as with other battalions, that particular care be taken that no persons be appointed to offices, or enlisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve for and during the present war with Great Britain and the Colonies; unless dismissed by Congress; that they be distinguished by the names of the First and Second Battalions of Marines.

Happy birthday, Diablos. Through nearly two and a half centuries, the beautiful American bastards of the Corps have served their country in every clime and place.

Marines fought and won at Belleau Wood and Guadalcanal, at Tarawa and Inchon, at Hue City, Khe Sanh, and Fallujah.

Marines are warrior-scholar crayon eaters. Marines are disciplined hell raisers. They’re jarheads and leathernecks and devil dogs, every last one a rifleman.

Marines are loyal and brave and true — and straight-up libo liabilities.

They’re America’s best young men and women.

If you have a chance, watch the Commandant’s annual Birthday Message. But to get a sense of the rhythm and flow of the Marines, I present to you this birthday cadence from a few years ago.

Happy birthday, Marines. Make sure you and your battle buddy stay out of the brig after tonight’s Ball.

Semper Fidelis.

Marc Joffe of the Cato Institute writes about the fiscal problems imposed upon Medicaid by the repeated extensions of the Covid state of emergency:

A largely forgotten piece of Covid-19 legislation, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, made major changes to the Medicaid program. First, it increased the federal share of Medicaid costs by 6.2 percentage points while the pandemic state of emergency remained in force. To receive the additional federal support, states had to keep beneficiaries on the Medicaid rolls unless they either moved out of state or asked to be dropped from the program.

These changes were expected to be temporary but will now remain in place through 2022 and beyond. On October 13, health and human services secretary Xavier Becerra issued the eleventh renewal of the nation’s Coronavirus Public Health Emergency. The emergency, which began on January 27, 2020, will now continue through January 11, 2023 unless Becerra explicitly terminates it. More likely, Becerra will extend the emergency once again in January, since Covid-19 case rates will likely rise during and after the holiday season. Case rates are already spiking in Europe, a harbinger of future U.S. trends.

The latest episode of the Capital Record features the one and only Andrew Stuttaford, chatting with David about the debacle in the U.K. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.