From the left: The McCarthy Reboot
The May 18 House hearings with three FBI whistleblowers brought “yet another loud display of the once-disgraced tactic of questioning the loyalty and patriotism of American witnesses,” thunders Racket News’ Matt Taibbi, as “Democratic members’ questions gave off a strong echo of the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities.” Indeed, it’s “even crazier than” the McCarthy era: “They’re simply taking the fact that an agent privately raised a question about an FBI operation — his right under both the First Amendment and under the FBI procedure for making a protected disclosure — and using that to publicly imply that the man lacks ‘allegiance to the United States.’ Have we all gone mad?” Reps. Linda Sanchez and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz were grotesque, while New York’s Dan Goldman falsely said “all three had ‘to varying degrees’ expressed ‘support for the January 6th insurrection,’” when they’d simply questioned or opposed specific FBI tactics and actions.
From the right: Joe’s ‘White Supremacy’ Race-Baiting
President Biden’s recent claim that “white supremacy” is America’s “most dangerous” domestic-terror threat may be technically true, notes Wilfred Reilly at National Review. Given that “riot and ‘common crime’ deaths” don’t count toward terror-death totals, “right-wing terrorists do kill more U.S. citizens per year than do left-wing domestic terrorists.” But the average number of all such deaths between 2014 and 2021 was just 31. Compare that with, say, the 20,000 murders in 2020. “Why the national-level focus on the rather niche problem of white supremacy?” Because whites can be “attacked without significant social risk,” feeding a narrative America is a “white-supremacist country.”
Libertarian: We Can Solve Homelessness
“Maybe homelessness isn’t an unfixable problem after all,” muses The Orange County Register’s Steven Greenhut. San Antonio, Texas, “built a lovely campus in an industrial area not far from downtown” that “offers dormitories, cafeteria, clean restrooms and a panoply of social services.” This nonprofit-run program “has moved 6,000 people into permanent housing,” with the city’s “downtown unsheltered homeless population” dropping by 80%. California, meanwhile, “has spent $20 billion to address the problem in five years” — to no avail. Its “Housing First” policy “views homelessness primarily as a housing problem, thus downplaying the addiction and mental-health issues that are at the root of the crisis.”
Foreign desk: China’s Mandela
The documentary “The Hong Konger” “shines a light on [Jimmy] Lai’s story and Hong Kong’s sad demise,” as the city “is being rapidly reshaped in the mainland’s authoritarian image” because “a free Chinese society on China’s doorstep is, in itself, a threat to the Communist Party,” mourns Jeremy Hurewitz at The Hill. It shows Lai’s “big heart and moral convictions in action as he implores his fellow Hong Kongers not to succumb to violence against the steady encroachments of Beijing’s totalitarian reach.” Now: “As the world watches China pivot to a much more aggressive posture than its recent past,” the Nelson Mandela “of China languishes in jail and the world is not paying enough attention.” Note “one of his closing statements in the movie: ‘A China that does not respect the rights of people will not respect the rights of its neighbors.’”
Liberal: Progressivism’s Missing Dividend
Surely, moving to the center on cultural and green issues would help Democrats “with moderate, persuadable voters who are uncomfortable with Democrats’ recent embrace of uncompromisingly left stances in these areas,” writes the Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira. There has been no “support dividend” for the party’s leftward turn as progressives promised. In 2022, Democrats did “worse among their base voters generally” as the shift enabled conservatives and the working class “to vote their ideology instead of a default loyalty to the Democratic Party.” The party’s base “would be more likely to turn out for a Democratic Party associated with safe streets, a healthy economy, and a sensible, non-divisive approach to social issues.” For Democrats, moving to the center is “where the real electoral payoff lies.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board