From the left I: Progs Have Become Monsters
“My progressive fever started breaking on Oct. 7, 2023,” recalls Brianna Wu at The Boston Globe — “when feminists I knew personally” dismissed Hamas terror-rape as “legitimate resistance” and a “propaganda machine” started to “spin up and rebrand the perpetrators of Oct. 7 as the victims of Oct. 7.” “My job is to help progressives win elections,” but “I’ve become more and more concerned about the people I’m standing next to.” It’s true that “no conflict demonstrates the toxic horror that progressivism has become more than the Israel-Hamas war.” But now “I fear that progressivism has become the ideological mirror image of the Gamergate mob I fought a decade ago.” “Can progressivism be saved from here? I just don’t know.”
From the left II: Repudiate Joe, Kamala
“Rather than trying to balance loyalty to Biden against catering to the desires of the electorate,” Kamala Harris “should focus entirely on catering to the public with no attention whatsoever to Biden’s feelings,” advises New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait. “Why not directly repudiate unpopular Biden positions?” After all, “Biden is, on the whole, a liability for Harris”; he’s been “deeply unpopular” for years. A New York Times poll shows 61% of voters want “a major change” from Biden, “but only a quarter” believe Harris represents such change. There’s no “needle to thread”: Harris should “define her campaign as whatever she wants it to be, unburdened by what has been.”
Freedom watch: Musk Must Win Censorship War
“The censorship war has hit a flashpoint” with Brazil’s ban on X after Elon Musk “refused a government order to suppress seven dissident accounts,” thunders City Journal’s Christopher F. Rufo. Governments and major platforms have joined in “restricting the speech of conservative journalists, activists, and political figures.” Musk’s purchase of X “disrupted this consensus” and exposed “the collusion between the government and the company’s previous leadership to censor political opinion.” Across the world, “conflict over censorship, disinformation, and free speech rages.” “Suppressing dissent is the ultimate goal” when online populists threaten “elites’ worldview and power.” Fighting for a “free and open Internet” in Brazil and elsewhere “means supporting Musk’s X and resisting draconian censorship laws wherever they emerge.”
Liberal: Why Pols’ Family Chaos Grabs Us
“The shivving of candidates by their own family members is tailor-made for a moment in which we view politics more like a team sport than a civic exercise,” writes The Free Press’ Kat Rosenfield. Last week “a group of Tim Walz’s Midwestern relatives” released “a photo announcing their support for Donald Trump”; before that, “Tim’s brother, Jeff, wrote a Facebook post publicly declaring his opposition to Tim’s ideology.” Donald Trump has “Mary Trump, the grudge-holding niece” and “her brother, Fred Trump III”; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family has “been publicly condemning him as a weirdo conspiracy theorist for years.” Average Americans can relate: “In these intensely polarized times . . . it’s strangely comforting to imagine a politician’s own family is just as embattled.”
Trade beat: US Tech Faces Global Opposition
“To ensure that the U.S. continues to lead the world in tech and digital innovation,” Uncle Sam “must take a more direct approach to guarantee that American tech companies do not face unreasonable obstacles to success,” argues Robert O’Brien at The Hill. Challenges “include protectionism, state-funded competition, significant regulation and intellectual property theft,” all “part of a global trend toward undermining American tech leadership.” The most glaring “example of unfair competition comes, of course, from China,” with its “massive state subsidies to industries and companies, such as electric vehicle giant BYD and telecom manufacturer Huawei.” Also “concerning are the European Union’s increasingly protectionist regulations.” So, “our government needs to go on offense” against “these non-market restrictions and ensure that American innovation is harnessed in Latin America, the Global South and elsewhere.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board