From the left: Dangerous White House Denialism
“According to the polls, President Biden is currently losing,” warns New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait. Despite a “persistent strain of thought among many Democratic partisans that polls showing Biden trailing are inaccurate,” if “Biden and his aides genuinely believe” that, it “would be highly disturbing.” “The polls may be underestimating Biden, but they may just as well be underestimating Trump. To assume Biden must be doing better than the polls indicate is nothing more than wishful thinking.” “The most disturbing possibility of Biden’s posture of polling denial is not that it’s sincere but that it comes from a sense of entitlement,” as “the worst possible thing for American democracy would be if the people tasked with protecting it retreat to a cocoon of self-justifying denial.”
From the right: Unhinged SCOTUS Reax
“Unhinged responses” from the left “started flowing immediately” after the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling that overturned decisions by “Colorado and other states” to keep former President Donald Trump “off the primary ballot because of his actions leading up to and during the US Capitol riot,” observes USA Today’s Ingrid Jacques. “I had hoped that a unanimous decision would appease hand-wringing over the ruling,” but “so much of the left, including the news media, are so blinded by their hatred of Trump that they forget how our system of government is supposed to work.” “Trying to pull unwise maneuvers like Colorado did will only further divide the country and contribute to the distrust in elections that has been building the past few years. Let the people vote.”
Labor watch: The Autoworker-less UAW
Some “3,100 full-time and part-time non-tenure-track employees at Harvard University” will soon be joining the United Autoworkers Union, reports National Review’s Dominic Pino. Meanwhile, the UAW represents just 30% of workers at US auto plants — down from its peak “at about 1.5 million members in the late 1970s.” “Today the UAW has about 380,000 active members and about 100,000 of them work in higher education.” As many “UAW members work for the University of California system as work for General Motors.” And the number of active members pale against “almost 600,000” retirees.” The UAW is no longer “primarily a group that represents autoworkers.” Indeed, it knows its “growth is much greater among progressives in higher education.”
Eye on elex: How Haley Helps Trump
Nikki Haley “may not be able to win” the nomination “but she can give Trump a workout,” contends Daniel McCarthy at CNN. In fact, “Haley is only making Donald Trump stronger” by giving him “more experience with mobilizing supporters, maximizing turnout not just to win but also to win as decisively as possible.” Yes, her campaign forces “the Trump campaign to spend money that could otherwise be put toward taking on Biden,” but that harm is “outweighed by the benefit Trump’s campaign receives from putting its resources into voter identification and turnout.” Turnout will be critical. “In New Hampshire, for example, exit polls showed that Trump underperformed among married voters,” and his outlook among Haley voters is “bleak, unless his campaign’s messaging to them de-emphasizes Trump himself and instead focuses on Biden.”
Israel war: Cite Hamas’ US Hostages, Joe
President Biden will give his State of the Union speech Thursday “against the backdrop of six innocent Americans being held captive by Hamas,” notes The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn. And “nothing illustrates the state of the nation better than the sad reality that America’s enemies feel empowered to kill, capture or threaten our citizens abroad.” The speech is Biden’s “opportunity to introduce the Gaza Six to their fellow Americans”; he should at least speak their names. Yet Biden also needs to “lay out his strategy” for getting the hostages back and “explain why he thinks it will succeed.” Lawmakers reportedly invited the hostages’ families to the speech; in their presence, the prez won’t be able to avoid offering a plan for their return.
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
