10 hours Ago By Post Editorial Board
From the right: What Biden Cost Us A new WSJ report on Joe Biden’s decline shows he “wasn’t up to the job on day one, let alone day 1,000,” argues Commentary’s Seth Mandel . Worse, “the global crises that arose during Biden’s presidency were dealt with by reducing the flow of information to and from the president.” “We know the president’s aides were avoiding giving him bad news.
Did Biden even know what was really happening on the ground in Ukraine? When the administration froze the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza for months,” who really ordered it? “The fact that we have to ask the questions at all” shows “enough of an answer to know that the world paid a dear price to protect the fragile mental state of the American president.” Ukraine desk: Putin Must Go “Putin’s war against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has clearly become personal,” observe Jonathan Sweet & Mark Toth at The Hill . “He suffers from Ukraine Derangement Syndrome: A disdain for the Ukrainian people” has “overcome his sense of logic.
” “Surrounded by yes-men, Putin is marching his now largely conscripted pick-up game of an army into oblivion.” For Ukraine, “submit or face extinction” is “one and the same choice.” “Trump needs to put an end to Putin’s bluffing and grandstanding,” to demonstrate “to him that he cannot win” by “ending the sanctuary afforded to Moscow on the battlefield by the Biden administration.
” “Anything less and Putin will not come to the negotiating table, save to buy time and attempt to snooker Trump into a bad deal.” White House watch: The End of ‘Never Trump’? Can “Never Trumpers” make “peace with populism, if not Donald Trump himself?” asks Fred Bauer at UnHerd . “One of the founding ‘Never Trumpers’, Bret Stephens, has used his latest column” to “distance himself” from the movement.
“On the level of raw politics, Trump’s conservative critics have strategic incentives to make some populist rapprochement.” “Foreign policy might also give some Never Trumpers a reason to distance themselves from the Democratic Party.” “Trump’s surprise win in 2016 gave birth to an elite-led alliance that portrayed him and his supporters as an existential threat to American democracy.
” “Even by its own standards, that project of existential crisis has a legacy of ashes. Instead, revitalising American democracy might require learning some of the lessons of populism.” Libertarian: COVID’s Crime Wave “Restrictive policies in response to COVID-19 did a huge amount of damage,” notes Reason’s J.
D. Tuccille . But “lockdowns also contributed to a surge in crime that temporarily reversed a decades-long decline in homicides.
” “Most violent crimes” are committed by “teenage boys and young men in their twenties. Dumping them out of jobs and out of classrooms,” and “often without money in their pockets,” was “a recipe for disaster.” “The best thing to do?” “Avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
We need to minimize social disruptions and certainly not permit government officials to close businesses and schools by decree. A free and prosperous society, it turns out, is a much happier and peaceful one than what results from the authoritarian whims of public-health officials.” Elex desk: Have Dems Learned Nothing? “After it was shocked by its losses and the GOP’s gains in the 2024 elections, you would think the Democratic Party might pull back from crazy left-wing proposals,” snarks Zachary Faria at the Washington Examiner .
But it’s “evident the party has not learned its lesson.” “Democrats running states and cities promise they will make protecting illegal immigrants their No. 1 priority and that they will fight the Trump administration to keep illegal immigrants in the country.
” “Prominent congressional Democrats” have argued that UnitedHealthcare killer Luigi Mangione “may have a point.” “Three Senate Democrats are pushing to eliminate the Electoral College.” “It would be difficult to say that Democrats learned all the wrong lessons from the 2024 elections because it is clear they have learned no lessons at all.
” — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board.
