 Dear Weekend Jolter, A deserving anniversary — that being the 400th of the Mayflower Compact — gets little attention, an exception being Joseph Loconte's excellent NR piece. 1619 obstructs 1620. We’ll have none of that though, so let us recall that The Mayflower was the scene of an exceptional act: The Mayflower Pilgrims, as they came to be called, were committed to "the advancement of the Christian faith" and designed and signed their compact "in the presence of God." But no one seemed to have a theocracy in mind; rather, they sought to form "a civil body politic." Importantly, their new political community would be framed by "just and equal laws" — laws that would apply without discrimination to all their members. Here, at the very beginning of the American story, one can discern the concepts of equal justice and government by consent of the governed.
What has come of this legacy? Of this momentous thing that lit the long fuse that exploded in 1776? At the end of another excellent NR piece, Victor Davis Hanson has an unnerving summary of America's trajectory: We are a third-world state now with malleable laws, an inert Constitution, voting that cannot be certified beyond a reasonable doubt within a reasonable time, with a media that massages rather than reports the news, and pollsters who seek to modulate rather than reflect likely voting.
Let us gird our loins. But before we do, be aware that so much more excellence awaits below. Do remember the new drill: Short and sweet, just the links, at the outset, then, further down, big ladles of tasty fare. The Appetizers So say The Editors, Joe's gotta know: Brief Biden. Victor Davis Hanson is reminded of Arnhem: An Election Day Bridge Too Far. Rich Lowry says Democrats were obtuse to their agenda's unpopularity: The Blue Trickle. More Lowry, on a bad idea: The Completely Insane Electoral College Strategy. Andy McCarthy thinks the operation was a success, but as for the surgeon . . . : A Successful Presidency, a Maddening President. Tobias Hoonout on a billionaire's strategy flop: The Failure of Mike Bloomberg's Data-Driven Approach. More Tobias, profiling a doozie of a Fifth Estatist: Isaac Chotiner, the Least Curious Journalist in America. Jim Geraghty shakes the MSM's busted Magic 8 Ball: Did Campaign Coverage Ever Suggest the Senate GOP Would Have a Good Year? Michael Brendan Dougherty registers disgust with the unholy ways of Holy Mother Church: The McCarrick Whitewash. More MBD, on Lefty projecting: The Final Act. Zachary Evans on whether people will jooze an unangelic Democrat: Raphael Warnock's Checkered Past Under Scrutiny ahead of Georgia Senate Run-Off. Andrew Stuttaford on the leftward ho Tory PM: Nanny Boris Johnson, Censor and Food Policeman. Joseph Loconte reminds us of that great thing the Pilgrims wrought. Resisting the Leviathan: The Mayflower Compact. David Harsanyi makes the case for grievances: Against 'Unity'. Dan McLaughlin says to figure Joe, look at Grover: Republicans Can Learn from the 1892 Election. Cameron Hilditch on failure to communicate, not: Trump's Greatest Innovation. Ramesh Ponnuru fills in a blank: A Missing Part of a Pro-Worker Agenda. Fred Bauer says you can't spell GOP without ABE. Returning to the Party of Lincoln. Steve Hanke takes the temperature of the Sick Man of Europe: Turmoil in Turkey. Armond White calls out the wanna-GLAAD Awardees: In Ammonite, Artistry Competes with a Demand for Allyship More Armond, castigating silver-screen high-fiving of election fraud: America Assembled Epitomizes Hollywood Political Junk. Peter Tonguette reflects on Ian Fleming's 007: James Bond in Literature and Cinema: A Retrospective. Madeleine Kearns ain't liking the new Rebecca: Last Night I Dreamed I Watched a Better Movie. And then from Special Post-Election Issue of NR Rich Lowry checks the battle maps of our political culture war: The Promise and Peril of Trump's Cultural Politics. Matthew Continetti labels the Dem leaders: Schumer and Pelosi Are Bourbon Democrats. John J. Miller sees no room in the Democrat Inn for defenders of the unborn: Dan Lipinski and the Decline of Pro-Life Democrats. Charles C. W. Cooke checks out the MSM's centrality to the Biden effort: Biden's Media Campaign. John McCormack on the Blue Wave that wasn't: The Democrats' Shortfalls in Congressional Elections. Before We Get to The Full-Figured Links . . . We propose two items of interest. One ifs that the Godfather of the WJ, Big Jim Geraghty, has penned a new "Dangerous Clique" novel, titled "Hunting Four Horsemen." Your Humble Correspondent has ordered a copy — it comes out next week — and recommends the same. Here is the Amazon link. The second item: Notre Dame University Press is publishing the English-language edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Between Two Millstones, Book 2, Exile in America, 1978-1994. NR will be publishing some excerpts from this literary triumph next week, but in the meanwhile, the great Daniel Mahoney, who has written the book's foreword, joined Ignat Solzhenitsyn and ND professor Carter Snead for an excellent Zoom discussion of the memoir. Watch it here. Editorials 1. He could be President come January. We argue Biden deserves the national security briefings. From the editorial: Nothing is normal or uncontested in 2020. But it now seems all but certain that the initial state vote counts will conclude with Joe Biden having enough votes in enough states to claim well over the required 270 electoral votes. Donald Trump contests the legitimacy of these vote totals, but even taking the view most favorable to the president's position, it would require an event unprecedented in American history to overturn them. As a matter of simple prudence, it is wise for everyone to plan as if Biden has a significant likelihood of being inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States at noon on January 20, 2021. The most essential step to plan for that possibility is to begin giving Biden daily intelligence briefings, so he can be up-to-speed and ready to assume the role of commander in chief on January 20. There is precedent for this. In 2000, as the recount dragged on, the Clinton administration resisted treating George W. Bush as president-elect. Al Gore, then the vice president, was already receiving regular intelligence briefings. In early December — a month after the election, but a week before the Supreme Court brought the legal challenges to an end — the Clinton administration relented and began giving Bush the regular briefings being received by Gore and Bill Clinton. This was not a concession of the recount fight, but a responsible, if belated, recognition of reality. The 9/11 Commission later noted that the delayed transition as a whole "hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees."
A Dozen and Then Some Nuggets of Intellectual Gold, Mined for Your Mind 1. Victor Davis Hanson sees voter concerns over election irregularities as being eminently justified. From the essay: Still, half of the American people might not be so angry had just one state — as Florida in 2000 — failed to deliver a final, transparent, and timely tally. But by 2020, we had 20 years to learn from Florida's endless days of recounting and warped chad auditing. Although the suspicious circumstances were different — this time state executives and judges changed the state voter laws to enhance mail-in balloting in a way inconsistent with the Constitution's directives — states were nonetheless courting the same disaster of delays, popular outrage, and inconsistent rules of counting and certification. Now two decades later, Americans, in third-world fashion, suffered five Floridas — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania — all of which for some reason could not produce a transparent result on Election Day or in the hours shortly after. All had been warned that in some cases new computer voting systems, or in other cases radical transformations to mail-in voting, or in all cases insufficient awareness to transparency might once again provoke popular distrust. And in addition, a deadlocked Supreme Court ignored clear warnings that state judges and executives were overruling constitutionally mandated legislative laws of voting. So the public is mystified that the center of global high tech; the bastion of transparency and civil rights; the birthplace of the computer, the Internet, and automatic voting; home of the $4-trillion Silicon Valley masters of the universe; and the nation that vowed never again to suffer another 2000 has again failed. A nation whose tech wizardry can ferret out a single improper tweet and block an individual account in a nation of 330 million surely can use such omnipresence to ensure a nearly instantaneous voting result in certified machines. Or is the opposite true? Precisely because of that scary omnipotence, we need to be ever more vigilant?
2. Obtuse Democrats, says Rich Lowry, did not realize the unpopularity of their agenda. From the piece: Biden clearly owes his victory (which President Donald Trump, of course, is still contesting) in large part to Trump's personal ... READ MORE
| 
Comments
Post a Comment