Liberal: ‘Bidenomics’ Pitch Not Flying
The “bold attempt to sell Democrats’ stewardship of the economy as ‘Bidenomics’” has a lot of “chutzpah,” argues The Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira, as polls show working-class approval of Biden’s performance especially low, “a rather big problem” since “Bidenomics has been explicitly pitched as a way to build working-class enthusiasm” for the prez. And it’s the prolonged downward “trajectory of workers’ living standards, not misinformation or media framing, that explains why they see the economy of the Biden administration in such jaundiced terms.” Voters now favor the GOP over Dems “on handling the economy by an astounding 21 points, the largest lead Republicans have had on this measure since 1991.” Democrats “would be wise to try a different approach — one that doesn’t rely on telling voters they should be happy when they are not.”
From the left: Anthony Fauci, Warmup Dictator
While establishment media obsessed over Trump lies, “the nation’s top medical official,” Dr. Tony Fauci, “was winning plaudit after plaudit for telling reporters to their faces that he lied to the public for its own good,” thunders Racket News’ Matt Taibbi, as in Fauci’s open admission that “he adjusted estimates for herd immunity upward” to increase pressure to get vaxxed. [[Indeed, “Fauci made no secret of his vision of pandemic messaging as a fundamentally political project, validating ancient authoritarian ideas in which power flows from the intellectuals who devise society’s organizing myths.”]] Doctors telling the truth “found themselves stripped of jobs, removed from the Internet, and isolated socially, financially, and professionally.” The hysteria “that the unvaccinated were killing grandma” was “true factory-produced out-group hatred of the type found in every modern authoritarian movement.”
Libertarian: ‘Net Neutrality’ Charade Returns
After years of Federal Communications Commission deadlock, Democrats just got a 3-2 majority on the board — and promptly “released a draft proposal to bring back net neutrality rules,” which are “a fix for a problem that doesn’t exist,” fumes Berin Szóka at Reason. Progressives are “still convinced the open internet is somehow in peril — despite all evidence to the contrary.” In fact, “broadband service is better than ever thanks to $2 trillion in private investment since 1996,” “dwarfing public subsidies, even the generous grants included in pandemic stimulus bills.” New rules are unlikely to survive court challenge; wise commissioners will proceed cautiously and “resist pressure from civil rights groups.”
Canada desk: Trudeau’s Diplomatic Disaster
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “decision to blame India for an extrajudicial murder” is a “catastrophe,” charges Rupa Subramanya at The Free Press. Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was “wanted in India on terrorism charges,” was killed outside a Vancouver-area Sikh temple. “No one has been apprehended for the crime,” but “Trudeau announced he had intelligence showing India was responsible.” That evidence “has yet to be confirmed.” And even if true, “the smart, diplomatically astute thing” would have been “to speak with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi” in private. Blame Justin’s “abysmal” polls: Young Canadians back “the Conservative Party over Trudeau’s Liberal faction, 32 percent to 24 percent.” “It may not be long before the heart of the country ultimately dispenses with Trudeau.”
Culture critic: Pop Philosophy Preachers
“Why do public intellectuals condescend to their readers?” wonders Becca Rothfeld at The Yale Review. “If the academic humanities too often address only siloed experts, then pop philosophy too often addresses an audience of imagined idiots.” The “self-help-inflected public intellectualism that is so prevalent today often” has a “sheer smirking quality,” with a tone “usually reserved for standoffs with obstinate children.” But “true thinking demands internal dialogue between equals”; “there can be no umpires” because no “one interlocutor has the power to decree a resolution to debate.” Public thinking “requires a kind of egalitarianism, too. A public intellectual should think in tandem with her audience,” making “hefty demands” on readers of whom she has “high expectations.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
