Elex 2024: Dems in Disarray
“Challenging days” are here “for Democrats ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House” following November’s election, note The Wall Street Journal’s John McCormick, Catherine Lucey & Siobhan Hughes. “Their party has yet to land on a clear message or a leading messenger, leaving the president-elect mostly unchallenged.” The “largely muddled response to Trump stands in contrast with eight years ago when his surprise victory mobilized Democrats to march.” The debate over the Dem future “will be more heated in January as candidates jockey” ahead of the Democratic National Committee leader vote. “The DNC has typically been more about fundraising and party infrastructure, but the winner may need to play a larger role in messaging until more dominant voices in the party emerge.”
Foreign desk: Europe’s War on Christmas
The “gradual cancellation” of Christmas in France, Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany is “perhaps the most worrying symptom of the West’s renunciation of its Judeo-Christian cultural identity,” frets Itxu Díaz at Tablet. “It is happening at all levels: from governments and city councils to schools and associations.” And “it’s the secularists of the socialist left, behind the facade of ‘inclusivity,’ who are the most determined to cancel Christmas.” Indeed, “France, the European country with the most immigrants of Arab origin, has also been de-Christianizing Christmas for years.” “The main problem with mass Muslim immigration in the West is their very low rate of assimilation in the host cultures. But what’s more dangerous is that native leaders are so determined to deny their own identity.”
Media watch: No Justice for Duke Lacrosse Boys
Crystal Mangum’s belated admission that she lied about being raped by three Duke lacrosse players has been “at best a one-day story,” argues City Journal’s Harry Stein. Yet “the coverage conveyed not even a fleeting sense of what the Duke case meant at the time” and how it divided “Americans by race and class.” The 2006 Duke lacrosse case would presage “the rot at the heart of two of America’s key institutions that has since become ever more apparent — academia and journalism.” The media stuck with “the narrative of a poor black stripper violently gang-raped by privileged white male jocks” undeterred by “increasingly compelling evidence to the contrary.” Today, “the media continue to refuse to acknowledge gross error, let alone to apologize for it.”
Libertarian: Even More MIA Than Joe
Last week’s budget bill negotiations might’ve left the impression that President-elect Donald Trump “had already taken the oath of office,” given how his “late-breaking demands” drove “much of the drama,” observes Reason’s Eric Boehm. By contrast, President Biden “was utterly absent.” True, “outgoing presidents rarely hold much sway over congressional action.” But Biden’s “going out with a whimper on the final policymaking battle of his career.” That seems a “fitting end to the year” his age and mental condition forced him into retirement. Still, “even more MIA than Biden” was outgoing Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), who not only “didn’t vote on the continuing resolution” Friday but “hasn’t voted on any bill for several months — because she’s apparently been living in a memory care and assisted living facility.”
From the right: End Welfare for Illegal Migrants
The “mass of foreigners” who’ve entered the country illegally on President Biden’s watch and “have no right to be here” has “inflicted financial havoc on state and local governments,” thunder the editors of the Washington Examiner. Per the Congressional Budget Office, they’ll add as much as “$300 billion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years.” While “most illegal immigrants are ineligible for most federal welfare programs,” their US-born “children are eligible.” They also get school lunches and other benefits. Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s America First Act aims “to shut off the flow of tax dollars to illegal immigrants, including those granted parole.” “Congress should make clear that those in the country illegally may not live on welfare.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
