We’ve made a mess of blue cities, why we’re all Soviets and other commentary

"As Democrats make their case to voters," "one challenge is that some of the bluest parts of the country...are a mess," confesses The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof. REUTERS

Liberal: We’ve Made a Mess of Blue Cities

“As Democrats make their case to voters,” “one challenge is that some of the bluest parts of the country — cities on the West Coast — are a mess,” confesses The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. “Why put liberals in charge nationally when the places where they have greatest control are plagued by homelessness, crime and dysfunction?” “We are more likely to believe that ‘housing is a human right’ than conservatives” but “less likely to actually get people housed.” Liberals “accept a yawning gulf between our values and our outcomes” and too often “settle for being performative.” E.g.: “As a gesture to support trans kids, Oregon took money from the tight education budget to put tampons in boys’ restrooms” — including in kindergartens.

Historian: Why We’re All Soviets

“Are we the Soviets? Look around you,” urges The Free Press’ Niall Ferguson. We have an “American nomenklatura,” the Ivy Leaguers who overwhelmingly back rationing of gas, meat and electricity to fight climate change and think the US provides “too much individual freedom.” We have “bogus ideology” on gender, race and other issues “that hardly anyone really believes in, but everyone has to parrot.” Plus a “population that no longer regards patriotism, religion, having children, or community involvement” as mattering. And “a massive disaster,” COVID, has bared the “incompetence and mendacity that pervades every level of government.” We even have “Soviet justice” — witness Trump’s New York trial. Now Americans must “contemplate the possibility that we have done this to ourselves—just as the Soviets did.”

Libertarian: Feds Fouling up College Aid Again

“This year, the Department of Education created a massive headache for millions of college students” and it’s likely to repeat, warns Reason’s Emma Camp. The department’s late release of “an updated version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form” was “riddled with technical bugs” that meant schools “struggled to give students an accurate estimation of how much financial aid they would receive.” Now the feds are months behind in producing a new, de-glitched version, with experts “sounding the alarm over signs that next year’s form will also be riddled with issues.” It seems the “nightmare is likely to continue — and that the Education Department hasn’t learned from its mistakes.”

Conservative: Ditch Special Counsels

“Now that Hunter Biden has been convicted of federal gun felonies and awaits another trial on tax charges, can we all agree the special counsel is a bad idea?” asks The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn. Bipartisan agreement is possible; “it’s happened before with the independent counsel” law. Democrats liked it during Lawrence Walsh’s “six-year, $47 million Iran-Contra investigation of the Reagan administration.” But by 1999 they agreed to let it expire after “Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation of the Clintons.” And the special counsel undermines “the real check on government, which is political accountability.” Calling the special-counsel process “harmful,” constitutional lawyer David Rivkin says “it substitutes a politicized criminal process for what should be a transparent and accountable handling of politically sensitive issues.”

Scholars: Dems’ Growing Race Problem

“The Democratic Party can no longer count on unified minority support,” explain Michael Harney & Renu Mukherjee at City Journal — and Dems’ woes are likely to grow since it’s “practically impossible to hold a diverse coalition of minority groups together while embracing policies that benefit some of those groups at the expense of others.” E.g., when Dems learn that it’s Asian-Americans who lose out from affirmative action, most reject it, “including 63 percent of non-black Democrats.” And progressive dislike of “merit-based education policies” is at odds with “many minority voters, especially immigrant parents who see educational excellence as their children’s path to the American Dream.” “The more diverse and inter-connected the nation becomes, the less race-based political appeals will work. Indeed, they will increasingly backfire.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board