Dear Weekend Jolter,
Heading into Michigan’s Senate primary election, soon-to-be GOP nominee Mike Rogers suggested to NR’s Kamden Mulder that he wasn’t too concerned which Democrat he’d be facing. He argued that Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed are both radical in their own way.
Presumably, the Republican was hedging in case Stevens won. She didn’t. And Rogers can’t be displeased that he’s facing the other guy. As he told NR at the time, “[El-Sayed] just adds a whole other level of crazy to the whole mix.”
Crazy, of course, can win — the RealClearPolitics polling average shows El-Sayed with a slight edge over Rogers. But El-Sayed, who only narrowly won his primary, is facing early difficulties presenting a friendlier, more palatable version of himself for the median Michigander.
Before broaching the subject of Israel, let’s begin with the immeasurable glibness of his recent appearance with Fox News’ Jesse Watters. The Democratic nominee attempted to shut down questioning about whether he supports child gender surgeries by inquiring whether the host is circumcised.
“Abdul, Michigan’s not going for that,” Watters replied, after El-Sayed emphasized the above comparison.
You can say, as the Democratic candidate did, that Fox was ignoring “the issues that people actually care about in Michigan.” But, as Noah Rothman writes, El-Sayed himself ignores the harm associated with youth gender transitions:
The minimally curious should by now have grappled with the medical literature that finds young people suffering from gender dysphoria do not, on balance, experience positive mental health outcomes as a result of surgical or pharmaceutical interventions. Indeed, their conditions often worsen. El-Sayed and others should be expected to have surveyed the landscape in Europe, where the public health apparatus expresses increasing uncertainty about the value of those interventions.
They should recognize, at the very least, the political peril associated with their incuriosity, especially if they’re running for office. . . . If El-Sayed had acquainted himself with even the basic contours of the issue, he probably wouldn’t have struck the condescending posture he adopted on Monday night. Instead, he smirked his way through an exhibition of profound ignorance.
Meantime, the candidate’s association with Hasan Piker is causing growing problems for the campaign. As NR’s editorial recounts, El-Sayed tried to create the appearance of distance between himself and the far-left internet personality after the latter claimed that “if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action — not against the State of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews”:
While Piker’s comments could be charitably interpreted as his sympathetically noting the way things are, rather than arguing that this is how they ought to be, there is very little reason to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Piker has claimed that “America deserved 9/11” and regularly defended terrorist groups. He said Hamas is “a thousand times better” than Israel, that he did not have “a single issue with Hezbollah,” and that what the Houthis were doing was “not only moral, but it’s just.”
As the editorial points out, El-Sayed avoided directly criticizing Piker even as he tried to quiet the controversy; after all, they’ve done several campaign events together. “That Piker would again say something controversial about Jews during the campaign was not an unforeseeable event.”
Hasan Piker is quickly becoming El-Sayed’s Jeremiah Wright, if Barack Obama had made his pastor a prominent campaign surrogate and GOTV booster rather than cast him as an avuncular kook.
Understandably, Rogers is making a play for Democratic voters, including Jewish voters, in the run-up to the general election. Jewish Insider reported that Jewish leaders in the state have circulated an open letter urging Democrats and independents to support Rogers.
Try as he may, El-Sayed will struggle to court the center — and credibly distance himself from Piker — now that a primary season that rewards rabidity is over. As Jim Geraghty previously explained, pointing to the candidate’s scheduled appearance at an Islamic Society of North America convention alongside some radical figures, “either A) El-Sayed doesn’t want to moderate or B) he just can’t moderate; this is who he is, through and through.”
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
Another alliance shaken, for no good reason: The Pointless Trade War with Canada
The U.S. should own this tech revolution too: The Self-Destructive Opposition to Data Centers
On “Operation Economic Outcast”: Is Trump Prepared to Dig In on Economic War Against Iran?
ARTICLES
Caroline Downey: It’s No Mystery Why Young Men Are Leaving the Workforce
Charles Hilu: The Midterms Will Test the Power of the MAGA Defectors
Rich Lowry: What If Factories Had Gotten the Data-Center Treatment?
Anna Smith Lacey: What Totalitarianism Could Not Destroy
Fred Fleitz: Eight Reasons Why Obama’s Iran Nuclear Deal Is Still a Fraud
Michael Brendan Dougherty: Trump’s Canada Tariffs Are Not on Mission
James Lileks: The New British Migrants
James C. Ho: Clarence Thomas, Going Further by Standing Alone
John Yoo: Trump’s Ballroom Is a Political Fight, Not a Judicial One
Daniel J. Flynn: How Oppenheimer Obliterated Auden’s Association with National Review
Noah Rothman: AOC Is Damaged Goods
John Gerardi: Why Democrats Can’t Moderate on Abortion
Jianli Yang: On Taiwan, China Is Pursuing ‘Unification Without Formal Unification’
Dan McLaughlin: When the Revolution Almost Died in Brooklyn
Brittany Bernstein: How the New York Times Lost a Defamation Suit for the First Time in Over 50 Years
A two-parter of pessimism from Jim Geraghty:
Five Non-Debt Problems That the U.S. Government Is Largely Ignoring
Five More Non-Debt Problems That the U.S. Government Is Largely Ignoring
But wait, there’s good news: More from Jim, looking on the bright side
CAPITAL MATTERS
John Puri teaches us a thing or two about irrigation: Data Centers Use Little Water, So Where Does It All Go?
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Brian Allen, on highlights and letdowns in Venice: During a Visit to the Biennale, the Good, the Bad, and the Bungled
Armond White, on how Sandler’s Netflix deal is working out well for him, his family, his moviemaking, and his audience: The ‘Good Luck’ of Adam Sandler
A few tributes to the legendary Dolly:
Jennifer Tiedemann: Dolly, We Will Always Love You
Jeffrey Blehar: Dolly Parton Was a Mother to the World
Christian Schneider: Make America Dolly Again
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Dolly Mama, Our Pro-Life Hero
EXCERPTS ON THE HOUSE
Jianli Yang explains how the Taiwan-invasion scenario might not be the preferred path to “unification” for China:
When Americans imagine China’s unification with Taiwan, they usually imagine an event: a morning when missiles fly, Chinese troops cross the Taiwan Strait, and the United States and Japan must decide whether to intervene. Much analysis therefore revolves around dates — 2027, 2035, even 2049, and whether the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will possess the capability to conquer Taiwan by then. This way of thinking produces a static, binary framework: Taiwan is either unified with China, or it is not.
But while strategists debate when China might cross that line, Beijing appears increasingly interested in erasing the line itself. Its strategy is evolving from achieving unification at a particular moment to achieving it incrementally. Unification, in this conception, is not merely a future event. It is a dynamic process.
An illuminating formulation came this June from Zhu Weidong, director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and vice president of the National Society of Taiwan Studies. Zhu calls his concept bu tong er tong — roughly, “unification without formal unification,” or what might be called “de facto unification.” He argues that unification “cannot be rushed, cannot be slowed, and still less can be waited for.” More recently, he explained that the objective is to create the “objective facts of unification” before formal political unification occurs — accumulating small victories until they become a larger strategic victory.
The logic is subtle but consequential. Instead of first obtaining Taiwan and then exercising sovereignty, jurisdiction, and international recognition, Beijing can reverse the sequence: Acquire pieces of those attributes before political unification.
The China Coast Guard can exercise a little jurisdiction. The PLA can acquire a little more control of the surrounding sea and airspace. Chinese law can reach a few more Taiwanese citizens. Foreign governments, corporations, and international organizations can be pressured to treat Taiwan increasingly according to Beijing’s “one China” rules.
No individual step constitutes unification. But accumulated together, they progressively diminish the space in which Taiwan exercises de facto independence. Formal unification comes last, after some of its substance has already been achieved.
Zhu is not Xi Jinping, and his formulation should not be mistaken for an official declaration of Chinese policy. But his institutional position makes his thinking significant, particularly because it corresponds strikingly with Beijing’s recent behavior, which has made Zhu’s theory especially important.
Following up on last week’s theme, why is the Trump administration picking self-defeating fights with allies? From NR’s editorial:
The latest tariff standoff with Ottawa was triggered by the administration retaliating against Canadian retaliation (trade fights are like that) at federal and provincial levels, for earlier U.S. tariffs and the insults that preceded them. The White House claimed the power to do so under Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act, an act, as we have observed before, better known as Smoot–Hawley, a familiar name to students of the Great Depression. Section 338, which allows the president to impose tariffs up to 50 percent under certain conditions, had lain dormant for the better part of a century. Its survival is, to repeat ourselves again, a reminder of the value of sunset clauses.
Trump had given Ottawa a deadline to come to a deal covering various disputed areas in order to avoid tariffs on $20 billion of goods. Despite the two sides reportedly coming close to an agreement, the deadline was missed (each side is blaming the other). The new tariffs have come into force. Canada’s Carney has said that Canada will retaliate dollar-for-dollar starting September 8, with tariffs affecting a wide range of goods from dairy products to electronics. Trump has now announced on Truth Social (why bother with Congress?) that from January 1, yet more tariffs will be imposed: “Tariffs on all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel, will be increased to 50%.”
Using wording clearly intended to refresh memories of earlier insults, Trump added that “Canada will be treated like a State no longer!” He also referred to Canada’s trade surplus of $60 billion with the U.S., a surplus more than accounted for by U.S. imports of $90 billion worth of crude oil. As was noted by the editors of the Wall Street Journal, Canadian heavy crude is particularly well-suited to U.S. refineries. Exclude it, and “U.S. refineries would also operate at lower capacity.” Is that in our interest?
As is so often the case, tariffs will inflict economic damage on both sides of the border. U.S. manufacturers will take a hit, not least because anticipated cuts to tariffs on steel and aluminum will not now take place. Trump’s new tariff hikes will also have a direct impact on the prices of a range of consumer goods, unwelcome news for those who have to pay them and for the Republican candidates who will be asking for their votes in a few weeks.
The geopolitical consequences may also be serious.
And now for something completely different. Let’s close with James Lileks’s imagining of the U.K.’s Harry & Meghan invasion:
The quaint English village of Blemblingbun-on-Blury (pop. 6) is famous for its Mumble Tart, made from the berries of a local bush, and the ruins of a monastery consisting of one large stone in a field on the edge of town. Every year, the village holds a fete to celebrate the stone and tell stories about the village ghost, Mumble Stony, who wanders around at night making dire predictions no one can understand. The ale flows freely, and the residents — fiercely proud of their history, freedom, and incomprehensibility — end the night with a bonfire that could be seen for miles, if anyone cared to look. But all that might soon change.
“We don’ wan’ ’em,” said one local. “Who’re they t’know our ways?” Such a sentiment is common among the town’s residents, who find themselves thrust into the nation’s immigrant debate. Following the PM’s desire to place migrants in posh places instead of distressed locales, it seems as if Blemblingbun-on-Blury will soon host not one, but two migrants.
“Boat people, that’s one thing,” said another local, “but Harry and Meghan?”
The non-royals will be returning to England soon, leaving their comfortable life of doing bugger-all in California to do bugger-all in Harry’s home country. He famously renounced his royal ties to move to America with his wife, a low-born actress, and the two spent years attempting to do something anyone would care about. To the mystification of many, Meghan embarked on a program of making bespoke jams, which she would display on her TV show, which was essentially “much ado about no one,” and working on a podcast whose audience was so small you could pack them in a London cab and have room left over for Sydney Greenstreet. Harry, for his part, spent his years sitting on a white sofa looking ruddy with the pained smile of a man on Christmas morning trying not to think about a gambling debt. . . .
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Harry wanted to return home, as he’d given Meghan’s idea a fair go and was homesick for his native land. Far from welcoming them, though, the residents of Blemblingbun-on-Blury fear their culture will be overwhelmed by the influx of a single American.
CODA
I’ve been relistening to Mahavishnu Orchestra’s debut album lately, partly to annoy the other people in the car, partly because the first song on it blew my mind when I first heard it in college. It still does.
Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading.