Conservative: Irish Rush To Crush Speech
“After an Algerian-born man attempted to stab several children in Dublin last week, a riot kicked off in the center” of the city, notes National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty. The Irish elite insist “there is nothing wrong with Ireland’s incredible demographic transformation,” except that the “far-right that dislike it.” Yet 18% “of the population of Ireland is now foreign-born — a rate higher than even the great waves of migration brought to the United States in the late 19th century.” And the government response to the riot is a rush to pass hate-speech laws “criminalizing speech that a person has neither uttered nor published. A person could be arrested under these new laws for merely possessing speech, perhaps on his phone, that a judge deems offensive.”
DC beat: Trade Border Fixes for Ukraine Aid
“Could the war in Ukraine lead to long-overdue U.S. immigration reform?” asks The Wall Street Journal’s Jason L. Riley. “Democrats and Republicans have good reason” to “cut a deal.” The White House wants more aid for Ukraine; Republicans want tougher requirements for asylum-seekers. And “lawlessness at the Mexican border is damaging President Biden’s re-election prospects” and other Dems’, while Republicans have “an interest in showing the country” they’re “capable of something other than government shutdowns.” Sure, for some Republicans, “no amount of border security will ever suffice,” while some Dems believe there’s “no such thing as an illegal migrant.” Yet such views “deserve to be marginalized in favor of doing what’s right for the U.S. as well as Ukraine.”
Culture critics: Mouse-House Woke Crisis
“The Walt Disney Co.’s foray into political activism hasn’t been good for business,” tut-tut the Washington Times’ editors. In its recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Disney disclosed “that a ‘misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences’ with ‘our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals’ might ‘impact demand for our entertainment offerings.’ ” Yep: Disney’s stock value has fallen “by nearly half since the beginning of 2021.” Why? “Recent flicks like ‘The Marvels’ have sacrificed good storytelling in favor of promoting social goals,” while the “Snow White” remake stars “a racially diverse lead actress who has a habit of complaining about the patriarchy.” The “studio’s founder, Walt Disney, wouldn’t recognize this version of his company.”
Iconoclasts: Europe’s Populist Revolt
“Donald Trump’s ‘forgotten men and women’ are as much a European phenomenon as they are an American one,” argue Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Evelyn Markus at The Free Press of Geert Wilders’ victory in Dutch elections. “Voters on both sides of the Atlantic have seen their living standards stagnate,” which explains “the uselessness of the old left-right political framework. It is now more appropriate to speak of globalists and anti-globalists.” “If the Dutch elite want to regain their legitimacy, they must accept rather than seek to subvert the extraordinary victory of Geert Wilders. They must take seriously the millions who voted for Wilders — and respond to their perfectly legitimate concerns about immigration, Islamism, and the reasonable fear that their national identity is being eroded.”
Media watch: Shameless Inflation Gaslighting
The media is “amplifying the Biden administration’s fatuous claim that inflation fears are being artificially increased by ‘disinformation’ on social media,” fumes The Federalist’s Joy Pullman. The Washington Post “fisked a viral TikTok post about a guy paying $16 for lunch at McDonald’s” and “hand-waved about how the incident doesn’t represent the whole picture,” while The White House Office of Digital Strategy told the paper it had “tracked the meme as one of many exaggerated examples of the nation’s economic woes.” Pullman goes on: “It’s not social media making inflation top of Americans’ minds, it’s every trip to every store.” People in power “have no clue how to fix it because doing so contradicts their ideology. Instead, they’re just cracking down on people who notice the problem.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
