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Super Tuesday and the Democratic Primary Map Show That It’s Over: Joe Biden Will Be the Nominee

Super Tuesday and the Democratic Primary Map Show That It’s Over: Joe Biden Will Be the Nominee

By John R Guardiano on March 5, 2020

We reported Tuesday morning, before Super Tuesday, that the Democratic presidential primary was “clearly a two-man race, even though Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg [were] still formally running.”

Well, today, after Super Tuesday, we can say with certainty that it is no longer a two-man race: because, for all practical intents and purposes, the race is over. Joe Biden will be the Democratic presidential nominee.

Why? Because Biden won big, prevailing in 10 of the 14 Super Tuesday states. And, in the four states that Biden lost, he nonetheless gained delegates by surpassing the requisite 15 percent threshold.

Consequently, in a result no one anticipated, Biden actually has more delegates now than Sanders: 566 to 501, according to Axios.

Future Primaries. Moreover, between now and March 17, there will be primaries in 10 states, where, for the most part, Biden has the clear advantage. These include delegate-rich Florida (248 delegates), Illinois (148 delegates), and Ohio (153 delegates), all of which vote March 17.

Biden has the advantage in these states because the demographics are clearly in his favor.

Indeed, the voters in Florida, Illinois, and Ohio tend to be older and more traditional Democrats, who strongly favor Biden. These states also have significant numbers of black voters, who, likewise, strongly favor Biden.

Thus NPR’s Juana Summers reports:

In Alabama and Virginia, Biden had the support of about 7 in 10 black voters. In Tennessee and North Carolina, Biden had the support of more than half of black voters.

Biden also outperformed Sanders with black voters in Texas, where they make up about one-fifth of the Democratic primary electorate. Exit polls show Biden had the support of roughly 60 percent of black voters in the state; Sanders had 17 percent.

Indy100’s Sirena Bergman, likewise, reports:

Exit polls show that more than half of voters aged under 45 voted for Sanders, compared to only 17 per cent of them backing Biden. By contrast, those over 45 were drastically more more than twice as likely to vote for Biden than Sanders.

Sanders’ last stand almost certainly will be in Michigan, which votes March 10. Sanders won the state in 2016 by just 1.5 percent over Hillary Clinton, but trails Biden in the latest poll by 6.5 percent. That poll was completed before Super Tuesday; yet, it still shows Biden surging.

As The Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein explains:

If Biden wins next week in Michigan, one of Sanders’s most significant victories four years ago, the rationale for the senator’s candidacy could quickly become murky.

Sanders won’t win Michigan, but even if he does, so what? Where does he go from there? Nowhere; that’s where. As The Bulwark’s Jonathan Last observes:

Over the next two weeks, Biden will win overwhelming victories in Florida and Mississippi. He is likely to win in Ohio, Arizona, Illinois, and Missouri. A week after that, he will win a large victory in Georgia.

As things stand now, no one else has a path to a majority of the delegates, and Biden’s principal rival is a socialist who does not identify as a Democrat, is heading into difficult demographic terrain, and—most importantly—is fading, rather than surging.

Meanwhile, Biden remains the vice president to the most recent Democratic president, a two-termer who remains immensely popular both with the public at large and the Democratic base.

Last is right: Biden, to his credit, has been resilient. He won this race when too many clueless pundits wrote him off. On the other hand, we have to note—as we have noted before—that this was Sanders’ race to lose and lose it he did. How?

By making absolutely no attempt to appeal to anyone beyond his base of young, hardcore secular progressives. As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney observes, this was a real problem for Sanders in South Carolina and other Southern states with large numbers of black voters, who tend to be more temperamentally conservative and religious.

If Sanders were a better politician, with more range and reach, he might have been able to pivot and find common ground with these more traditional people of faith. But the truth is that Sanders is a dour, dull and predictable socialist apparatchik who seldom smiles and rarely shows any wit, humor or humanity.

And so he lost.

Sanders Limited Appeal. That’s why we can say confidently that this primary race is over. Sanders cannot be someone or something that he is not. We’ve seen him now in two presidential campaigns, 2016 and 2020. Democratic primary voters have taken their measure of the man, and they’ve found him wanting.

“Sanders reached 33 percent or more of the vote in just five of the 14 states that voted, including his home state; beyond Vermont, he did not exceed 36 percent, his share in Colorado,” Brownstein notes.

Of course, there is a lot more to say and observe about Super Tuesday and what it means for the future of American politics. We’ll record those observations and explore those issues in future posts.

But certainly, the most significant development thus far is that Super Tuesday determined at last whom the Democrats will nominate as their standard-bearer against Trump, and that standard-bearer is 77-year-old Joe Biden.

Feature photo credit: CBS News via the BBC.

Bernie Wins New Hampshire and it’s Now His Nomination to Lose

Bernie Wins New Hampshire and it’s Now His Nomination to Lose

By John R Guardiano on February 12, 2020

Now that New Hampshire Democrats have voted, it looks like it’s gonna be Bernie, Biden or Bust—with the Bust being a contested political convention in which no candidate has a clear majority of the delegates and all bets are off.

First, Bernie. After finishing in a virtual tie in the Iowa Caucuses, Bernie won the New Hampshire primary.

Critics carp that he won a bare plurality of the vote—far less than the 60 percent he won in 2016 when facing off against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. But it is obviously more difficult to run up vote tallies in fractured field than it is in a two-person race.

What matters is that Sanders won and is the clear frontrunner now, with all of the momentum and sense of destiny that accompany a political winner. He’s also cemented his hold on the party’s progressive, left-wing base; no other candidate comes close.

Sanders, moreover, has raised a boatload of money and has strong political organizations in key states nationwide. If, as the polls suggest, he wins the Nevada Caucuses Feb. 22, he likely will go into Super Tuesday, Mar. 3, as the prohibitive favorite.

Biden didn’t just lose New Hampshire; he lost badly, finishing fifth, with a measly 8.4 percent of the vote.

Of course, he didn’t do much better in Iowa, finishing fourth there, behind Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren. Many prominent political analysts say he’s finished. You can’t lose this badly, they say, and remain politically viable.

That’s probably true; but Biden is banking on winning in South Carolina, Feb. 29, to catapult him back into the race. More than 60 percent of Democrats there are African Americans, and polls have shown that they strongly prefer Biden.

But will black voters in South Carolina and elsewhere continue to support Biden even as he decisively loses these early contests? Or will they conclude that he’s a political loser and cast their lot elsewhere?

That really is the critical question for Biden: because if he cannot win in South Carolina, then his presidential campaign is over.

Bust. Unlike the Republicans, who have winner-take-all rules for most of their primaries and caucuses, the Democrats award delegates largely on a proportional basis in accordance with a candidate’s share of the overall vote tally.

In 2016, this meant that Donald Trump could win, and often did win, all of a state’s delegates simply by winning a plurality of the vote in that state.

This is not true for the Democrats. Because they award delegates proportionately, it is much more likely that, at their convention this summer, no candidate will have a clear majority of the delegates, and they’ll have to fight it out to determine who their nominee is.

There hasn’t been a contested major party convention since 1976 if you count the Republican Party battle between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Prior to that, you have to go back to 1952 for the last truly contested convention.

“The chance of there being no pledged delegate majority—which could potentially lead to a contested convention—is high and increasing, reports Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. “New Hampshire,” he writes, “is

good news if you’re hoping for chaos. Our forecast has the chances that no one wins a majority of pledged delegates up to 33 percent, its highest figure yet, and roughly double what it was before Iowa.

Other Candidates. There are other candidates, of course, and, theoretically, they could win the nomination; but, practically speaking, I don’t see how.

Elizabeth Warren, the Senator from Massachusetts, will soon drop out. She finished fourth in New Hampshire after finishing third in Iowa.

If Warren could not win in either Iowa or New Hampshire, then it is difficult to see where she can win—especially given that she doesn’t poll well with blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities.

This is a real problem for her campaign: because starting with Nevada and South Carolina, minorities will become an increasingly prominent part of the Democratic Party primary electorate.

Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg have a similarly fatal political problem: a lack of support from blacks and other minorities.

Again, it’s possible that could change, but I don’t see how. As mayors of their respective cities, New York and South Bend, Bloomberg and Buttigieg alienated key black Democrats and sometimes had chilly and testy political relations with influential African American progressives.

Klobuchar does not appear to have incited opposition among blacks and other minorities, but she hasn’t exactly inspired their loyalty and commitment either. And her political problems extend well beyond this key voting demographic.

Does she, for instance, have the requisite political organization to compete head-to-head with Sanders nationwide and especially in the big and expensive states such as California, New York, Texas, and Florida? I rather doubt it, but we’ll see.

The bottom line: the media will do their best to make a race of it. Look for Klobuchar especially to be the beneficiary of glowing press coverage, and even Biden will get a second look. But right now, this is Sanders’ nomination to lose, and it is difficult to see how that changes.

Feature photo credit: the New York Times.

Critics Rely on Bad and Dated Nutritional Science to Lambaste Trump’s School Meals Reform

Critics Rely on Bad and Dated Nutritional Science to Lambaste Trump’s School Meals Reform

By John R Guardiano on January 19, 2020

Self-anointed nutritionists and “children’s health advocates” have lambasted the Trump administration for giving local schools greater latitude and flexibility in the choice of food that they offer students.

In a separate post, I explain why these critics have it wrong. They adhere to bad and dated nutritional science that says fat and sodium are bad, but fruit and whole-grains are an unalloyed good.

In this post, I report in greater detail what the best and most recent science actually says about fat, carbohydrates, sodium, fruits, and vegetables. In truth, much of what we think we know about nutrition simply ain’t so.

Fat. Take, for instance, the longstanding proscription on fatty foods. Fat, we are told, is bad. However, there is absolutely no scientific evidence for this proscription. To the contrary: fat is highly beneficial and a much-needed macronutrient.

Fat is “a major source of energy,” notes the Harvard Medical School:

It helps you absorb some vitamins and minerals. Fat is needed to build cell membranes, the vital exterior of each cell, and the sheaths surrounding nerves. It is essential for blood clotting, muscle movement, and inflammation.

It is true that not all fats are created equal. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are found naturally in nuts, cheese, olive oil, eggs, and fish. These are the healthiest types of fats.

Artificial fats, otherwise known as industrial-made trans fats, are found in sugar-laden snacks and processed foods and are unhealthy. Saturated fats, meanwhile, are found in meat and cheese and “fall somewhere in the middle” of the health continuum, notes Harvard.

Fat consumed, moreover, does not ipso facto become fat on our body. That is not at all how human biochemistry works. Excess calories consumed become fat. And, for most people, excess calories come not from consuming too much fat, but from consuming too many carbohydrates.

“The reality is that fat doesn’t make you fat or diabetic. Scientific investigations going back to the 1950s suggest that actually, carbs do,” writes Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fast Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.

Carbohydrates. Unfortunately, it is all too easy to consume too many carbohydrates. They dominate our food choices and need to be strictly limited. Yet, critics complain that Trump’s regulatory rollback will allow schools to offer more pizza, burgers and other fatty foods.

But pizza and burgers are high in protein and fat, which are not the cause of poor healthy and obesity. Just about all of us, in fact—our children included—would benefit from more protein, more fat and fewer carbs.

These same critics also complain that, because schools have greater flexibility in choosing food, students will consume less whole-grain bread and cereal, and starchy foods like potatoes [will] replace green vegetables.” But as Teicholz points out,

according to the best science to date, people put themselves at higher risk for these conditions [Type 2 diabetes and heart disease] no matter what kind of carbohydrates they eat.

Yes, even unrefined carbs. Too much whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast and whole-grain pasta for dinner, with fruit snacks in between, add up to a less healthy diet than one of eggs and bacon, followed by fish.

Sodium. Likewise with sodium: The critics complain that greater flexibility will result in more more high-sodium foods, even as the Trump administration rolls back regulatory limits on the amount of sodium allowed in school meals.

But it is far from clear that sodium is a real problem, especially for our youth. (High blood becomes more prevalent as people age and is less common in children.) “Dietary guidelines often change, but ‘restrict your salt intake’ has resisted the advances of science,” write Drs. Michael H. Alderman and David A. McCarron. “Adequate sodium,” they note,

is crucial for biological processes including nerve conduction, muscle contraction, and sustaining the fluid balance necessary to assure blood flow and deliver nutrients and oxygen to every cell in the body.

As recently reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine, human physiology has evolved a complex process, mediated by the brain, to maintain sodium balance precisely.

If we consume too little sodium, our kidneys will go to extremes to conserve it. If we consume too much, it is eliminated through our skin, intestines, and kidneys.

You’re far likelier to die from failure to maintain this precise control than from the modest impact salt may have on your blood pressure.

Fruits and Vegetables. What about fruits and vegetables? The critics say that, because of the Trump regulatory rollback, students will consume fewer fruits and vegetables, which are a great source of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Again: untrue.

While the benefits of fruits and vegetables are undeniable, they are not an unalloyed good, and too much of anything can be a bad thing.

The problem with fruit is that has lots of sugar (fructose), “which causes the liver to generate triglycerides and other lipids in the blood that are altogether bad news,” Teicholz writes.

Vegetables don’t have any such complicating factor. They absolutely are nutritious and should be an integral part of every person’s diet. Still, they are incapable of satiating a person’s appetite and cannot fulfill our natural, innate need for fat, protein, and basic food variety.

In truth, by giving local schools greater latitude and flexibility in the choice of food that they offer students, the Trump administration is acting upon the basis of the best and most recent science.

The administration’s critics, by contrast, are relying on antiquated and discredited ideas that serious nutritionists and health experts increasingly reject, and for good reason.

Trump’s Presence at the March for Life Shows How Policy and Personality Interact to Make Him a Consequential President

Trump’s Presence at the March for Life Shows How Policy and Personality Interact to Make Him a Consequential President

By John R Guardiano on January 26, 2020

If you want to understand the Trump presidency, you need to understand Trump’s personality and psychological makeup.

However, if you want to understand Trump supporters, you need to understand not Trump’s personality, but rather his administration and its public policies: because while Trump supporters may not like or admire the man personally, they do like and admire his public policies.

Conversely, Trump may not think or care much about public policy. However, he cares intensely about what people, allies and enemies alike, think about him; and this, in turn, drives his actions as president. Abortion is a telling example.

The 47th annual March for Life took place Friday on the National Mall. Trump was the first president to attend the March for Life; and as the Was hington Examiner explains in detail, he is indisputably the most pro-life president in American history.

Critics complain that Trump is not really pro-life because of things he said and did before running for president, and because unlike, say, Ronald Reagan, he hasn’t seriously grappled with “ideas about inherent human dignity,” as Jonathan Last puts it.

But that’s ultimately irrelevant. We cannot discern what is in Trump’s heart, mind and soul. All we can judge and evaluate are his public policies; and, when it comes to abortion at least, those public policies are indisputably and consistently pro-life.

The interesting question is: why? I think the answer is obvious and it tells us a lot about Trump. While he may not have thought much about human life and human dignity, he does think in very Manichean terms: You are either with him or against him.

Trump is well aware of who is against him and who is with him—and who elected him president. He knows that the pro-life movement is politically strong (especially at the grassroots level in many red states, and especially within the Republican Party) and supportive of his presidency.

And while abortion may not be an issue Trump particularly cares about or has thought much about, he does know that pro-life voters are with him; and so, he is with them, too. This is what critics mean when they say Trump is a “transactional politician.” They mean he has no (or few) real convictions. Instead, he does for you if you do for him.

There is something to this; but at the same time, what this tends to mean in practice—and certainly, what it means for the pro-life movement—is that Trump can be more firm and resolute than even many so-called conviction politicians like Reagan and Thatcher: but only if you are his friend, ally and supporter, and only if he perceives you as such.

That is why even occasional Trump critics like GOP Senators Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul go out of their way to show that they are all-in for the president.

Indeed, Graham will sometimes criticize Trump for being too weak or dovish on foreign policy, while Paul will occasionally criticize him for the opposite reason: for supposedly being too much of a neocon warrior. However, both Graham and Paul leave no doubt in anyone’s mind: They support the president, and don’t you forget it!

For them, and for GOP officeholders more broadly, this is a political imperative. GOP congressmen and senators realize that, to retain any influence on Trump, the president must view them as allies, not enemies. There is no middle ground in Trump’s mind.

Ironically, then, that is why and how a president who never much thought about public policy, and still doesn’t, can nonetheless be one of the most significant drivers of public policy ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Equally ironic, it is also why people who probably don’t like Trump personally, and are not fans of his obnoxious tweets and other regrettable public utterances, can nonetheless be among his most steadfast champions and supporters.

Feature photo credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters via National Review.

The House Impeached Trump Fairly and Legitimately. The Senate is Acquitting Him Unfairly and Illegitimately.

The House Impeached Trump Fairly and Legitimately. The Senate is Acquitting Him Unfairly and Illegitimately.

By John R Guardiano on January 29, 2020

Is President Trump being impeached and tried fairly or unfairly? To Trump and his apologists, the answer is obvious: He is being treated unfairly and denied basic due process.

His attorneys complain, for instance, that Trump’s been denied the right to call and cross-examine witnesses. Trump, likewise, took to Twitter today to complain that “the Democrats already [have] had 17 witnesses, [while] we were given NONE!”

But this is disingenuous. Aside from Hunter Biden, who has absolutely nothing to do with this impeachment inquiry and thus is a diversion, it is not at all clear who the alleged missing Trump witnesses are.

Trump himself, moreover, invoked executive privilege to prevent both his current Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, and his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, from participating in the House impeachment inquiry.

More to the point, analogies to a conventional criminal trial are inapt and inappropriate. By deliberate Constitutional design, impeachment is a political process.

This doesn’t mean that basic standards of fairness and due process don’t apply. However, it does mean that all of the legal niceties and procedural safeguards that apply in a conventional criminal trial do not apply in an impeachment hearing.

Conventional criminal trials were designed, first and foremost, to protect the innocent. Impeachment hearings, by contrast, are designed to protect the integrity of our laws and institutions, and the safety and security of our country above all else.

Thus we require guilt “beyond the shadow of a doubt” for criminal defendants. American presidents, however, enjoy no such presumption. Their guilt or innocence is secondary to the well-being of the country and our government.

The Political Clock. There’s also the matter of time and the political clock. American presidents are elected to a four-year term. Our Founding Fathers recognized that, because of a president’s limited time in office, impeachment hearings must be conducted expeditiously and not allowed to drag on interminably as many criminal trials do. Otherwise, impeachment could be rendered moot.

For these reasons, legal protections accorded to criminal defendants are simply not accorded to American presidents. The Founders believed that political checks and balances and the separation of powers would ensure that any impeachment hearing would basically be fair, or at least result in a just and equitable outcome.

And so it has been. The House of Representatives laid out a legitimate and fair process of inquiry and impeachment. Trump and his attorneys chose not to participate in this process. Instead, they have attacked and undermined that process every step of the way: by lambasting it as illegitimate from the start.

That is certainly their prerogative; but let’s not pretend that theirs is an honest, good-faith complaint, because it’s obviously not. What it is is political posturing and gamesmanship designed to obstruct Congressional oversight and deny Congress its Constitutionally prescribed power of impeachment.

A similar dynamic has played out regarding Trump’s use of executive privilege as an excuse or rationale for withholding documents from Congress and preventing his officials, past and present, from testifying there.

Law professors Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley complain that the House of Representatives should have taken this matter to the courts and let them decide whether Trump’s use of executive privilege is legitimate or illegitimate. But that would have taken many months and years, potentially, at which point the matter would have been rendered moot by the political clock and the 2020 election.

The House recognized that Trump was not acting in good faith, and instead, was stonewalling. Accordingly, then, they charged him with obstruction of Congress, which is the second article of impeachment. The first article of impeachment is abuse of power.

The House then delivered its articles of impeachment to the Senate, in the hopes that the Senate would compel witnesses and documents Trump denied to the House.

That was a smart, fair-minded and legitimate move. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans are uninterested in a fair impeachment trial. For crass political reasons, they want simply to go through the motions and summarily acquit Trump.

They act as his political Praetorian Guard, not as members of an independent branch of government charged with checking the executive’s abuse of power.

The truth is that Trump is clearly and plainly guilty as charged. He abused his authority as president to try and secure personal political favors from a foreign government, and he tried to use Congressionally authorized aid to that government as leverage to secure these favors.

And, because he’s plainly and obviously guilty, Trump and his attorneys refuse to contest the basic facts of the case, or even to participate in that case in any real and substantive way.

Instead, they complain about process. In so doing, they bring to mind that old law school admonition to aspiring trial attorneys: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.”

Trump and his attorneys have spent all of impeachment and the months leading up to it yelling like hell. But anyone even vaguely familiar with the case knows that they’re yelling loudly because the facts and the law are against them.

And what’s really unfair is not the House impeachment, but the Senate trial designed to conceal the truth from the American people while acquitting a president obviously guilty of wrongdoing.

Feature photo credit: Jon Elswick/Associated Press via the Boston Globe.

January 6 Lies and Distortions

January 6 Lies and Distortions

By John R Guardiano on January 2, 2022

January 6 is a day that will live in infamy. So, too, will left-wing lies and distortions about that infamous day.

The January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol never should have happened; and Donald Trump bears responsibility for inspiring the assault, for failing to deter and prevent it, and then failing to help stop it once it happened.

This was more than enough reason to impeach and convict Trump, as I argued at the time.

However, Democrats and “progressives,” aided by the media, have since depicted the protest as something that it was not: an insurrection involving hundreds of “racists” and “white supremacists” intent on “hanging Mike Pence” and violently seizing control of Congress.

In truth, a few thousand protesters marched on the Capitol and a few hundred of these protesters violently clashed with the police. None of the protesters were found to possess guns or firearms; and, despite hyperbolic, martial rhetoric from some of the protesters, they had no plan or scheme to seize control of Congress.

The protest got out of hand and became a full-scale riot because the Capitol Police were, as Andrew McCarthy explains, “grossly undermanned [and] unprepared.” Weakness begot aggression.

Yet, today on Face the Nation, Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago repeatedly referred to protesters who “broke into the Capitol.” But in truth, as we’ve seen in real-time video, many of the protesters were allowed into the Capitol building by police who opened the door for them and let them in.

Nor is this surprising. The Capitol has long been welcoming and hospitable to visitors. Ours is a democracy, after all; and those who foot the bill and elect our Congressional representatives have always been welcomed into the corridors of power.

For this reason, many of the protesters genuinely seemed to think they had a right to enter the Capitol. And the Capitol Police initially took a soft and relaxed approach to the protest because they seemed to view it as benign and non-threatening.

It was only after a small minority of protesters grew violent and viciously assaulted the police that things began to change.

Professor Pape also insists that “race is an element and race is a driver” of Trump’s January 6 protest. But he reaches this conclusion only through the worst possible interpretation of the evidence that he himself presents.

The evidence that Professor Pape presents is this: most of the 700+ indicted Trump protesters came from politically blue urban areas with declining white populations. This, he says, “dovetails with the right-wing conspiracy theory… called the great replacement.”

In short, these Trump protesters were racists and white supremacists angry that their communities are becoming more black and brown.

Blue State Politics. That’s one possible, albeit farfetched, interpretation. Here’s another more plausible interpretation:

These Trump protesters who live in blue enclaves have seen firsthand the damage wrought by “progressive” Democratic rule. Thus they are more politically engaged—and enraged—and more politically sensitive than ordinary red state voters.

In other words, politics, not race, is what drove these Trump supporters.

Because minorities vote Democrat in significantly greater numbers than white voters, it is all too easy to conflate race and politics. But we should avoid conflating these two factors unless we have clear and compelling evidence that race and not politics is at work. Professor Pape presents no such evidence.

The bottom line: we can and should condemn Trump and the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot. However, we mustn’t allow “progressives,” Democrats, and their media fellow travelers to use January 6 as a pretext to vilify all of the Trump protesters and especially all Trump supporters.

Most had peaceful intentions and were the misguided victims of Trump’s lies and demagoguery. Others were more malicious and sinister in their intent. Fair enough. However, the same can be said of Trump’s political opponents in the media and Democratic Party.

Feature photo credit: Political Science Professor Robert Pape (L) and Donald Trump (R), courtesy of Face the Nation and Ballotpedia, respectively.

What’s Really Behind the ‘War on Christmas’?

What’s Really Behind the ‘War on Christmas’?

By John R Guardiano on January 3, 2021

Through an act of political jiu-jitsu, militant secularists have largely succeeded in eliminating Christmas from the public square.

Remember the war on Christmas? Because of COVID and the presidential election, it received little attention this past year, except for the sneers and snickering of left-wing elites who pretend that it’s all a big right-wing hoax or fantasy.

But the sad and lamentable truth is that Christmas is now the holiday which (in secular, public settings at least) no one dare say or mention by name.

Consequently, there are no workplace Christmas parties, only “holiday parties.” Schools have “holiday breaks” and government agencies issue “holiday messages.”

“Holiday trees” have replaced Christmas trees. Store clerks wish customers a “Happy Holiday,” while steering clear of saying “Merry Christmas.”

As Dennis Prager has observed, we don’t do this with any other holiday.

We say “Happy Thanksgiving!”; we say “Happy Halloween!”; we say “Happy New Year!” But with regard to Christmas, we say “Happy Holiday!”

Now, why is that? Because of the deliberate attempt to dereligionize the United States of America.

Militant Secularists. Indeed, several militantly secular, left-wing organizations—including, for instance, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Military Religious Freedom Association, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State—have made it their mission to extirpate from public life any mention of Christmas and any expressions of religious faith.

“The left in America,” Prager explains, “like the left in Europe, wants to create a thoroughly secular society, not only a secular government—which is a desirable goal and which, in any event, has been the case in America—but a secular society.”

Sadly, they have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, as increasing numbers of Americans are afraid to publicly acknowledge Chrismas. This despite the fact most Americans celebrate Christmas and Christmas has been inscribed into law as a national holiday.

“I have watched in my lifetime,” says the 72-year-old Prager, “the demise of Christmas as an essential part of American life, and it began with the dropping of Christmas for the word holiday.

“You’re intellectually dishonest,” he adds, “if you do not acknowledge that that was a deliberate attack on the specialness of Christmas.”

‘Tolerance’ and ‘Inclusiveness’. The anti-religious zealots have cowed Americans into silence by arguing, ludicrously, that it is unfair, if not unconstitutional, to “privilege” Christmas over other religious holidays.

Moreover, they assert (ostensibly with a straight face) that non-Christians who do not celebrate Christmas may be hurt, offended, or “excluded” if Christmas is mentioned while neglecting other religious holidays.

Of course, this is complete nonsense. Saying “Merry Christmas” is obviously a gesture of goodwill; it is not meant to disparage other religious faiths; and there are only two religious holidays of note during what is now euphemistically called the “holiday season”: Christmas and Hanukah.

And please don’t say, “What about Kwanza?” Kwanza is not a religious holiday. It is a faux holiday made up by a left-wing radical in the 1960s to deprecate Christmas while fostering Marxism and black separatism.

In truth, the vast majority of African Americans, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, are Christians who celebrate Christmas. Which, again, is why Christmas is a national holiday.

Hanukah, meanwhile, is religiously much less significant to Jews than Christmas is to Christians; but Jews are just two percent of the U.S. population—and many celebrate Christmas as a secular, national holiday.

In fact, as Prager notes, Jews have written almost all the most popular Christmas songs—including, for instance, “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin.

“Apparently, all these American Jews felt quite included by Christmas,” Prager says.

Moreover, non-Christians who take other faith traditions seriously—Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, et al.—are not offended by the mention of Christmas. As religious believers themselves, they welcome and appreciate this expression of piety and goodwill by people of other faith traditions.

Politics. No, the war on Christmas is a secular creation with a discernible political objective: to extirpate religion generally, and Christianity specifically, from the public square—and thereby eliminate one of the most significant and serious-minded obstacles, religious faith, to the left-wing project of “fundamentally transforming America.”

In short, the war on Christmas is real. We don’t hear much about it anymore because, in truth, the war is just about over.

The militant secularists have won and the American people, both religious and non-religious, have lost. And it is only with the benefit of hindsight decades hence that we will realize just how much we have lost.

Feature photo credit: Author, columnist, and radio talk show host Dennis Prager (screenshot via PragerU).

Biden Clearly Beats Trump Even as Trump Scores Some Points

Biden Clearly Beats Trump Even as Trump Scores Some Points

By John R Guardiano on September 29, 2020

Trump needed to hit Biden on the economy and taxes. Instead, he obsessed over Hunter Biden, law and order.

Substantively and politically, Joe Biden won the first presidential debate.

Donald Trump did score some points; however, he missed many opportunities to hit Biden, especially on the economy. And, because Biden is the clear front runner, Trump’s failure to knock him off his perch means that Biden is one step closer to becoming President of these United States.

To be sure, Trump threw a lot of punches, but most of his punches failed to connect; and he too often failed to throw punches when it mattered most.

Taxes. For example, Trump said next to nothing about Biden’s $4-trillion tax plan, which threatens to sink the stock market and throw the economy into a prolonged depression.

Debate moderator Chris Wallace, in fact, asked the sharp question about Biden’s tax plan that Trump himself should have asked, but did not.

Of course, Trump partisans will plausibly spin this debate as a win for their candidate because Trump did hit Biden hard on multiple occasions.

Trump, for instance, asked Biden to name one police organization or law enforcement agency that had endorsed him for president. Biden literally had no answer.

However, the truth is that, in the aggregate, Trump did little to convince independents and undecided voters that they should vote for him.

Biden, meanwhile, seemed sharper than usual and suffered no real senior moment. And Trump may well have turned off many voters with his childish petulance, bullying, and constant interruptions in violation of the ground rules of the debate.

I suppose it’s possible that Trump may have inspired more voters already predisposed to vote for him to go to the polls on his behalf, but that, to me, seems a long shot.

The more likely outcome, I think, is that independents and undecided voters watch this debate say, “Joe’s OK. I can live with him.”

We’ll see.

Feature photo credit: New York Post.

The Suleimani Strike Comports with Both International and Constitutional Law

The Suleimani Strike Comports with Both International and Constitutional Law

By John R Guardiano on January 16, 2020

There have been a flurry of published articles declaring, ex cathedra, that the U.S. military strike against Iranian General Qassem Suleimani violates both international and Constitutional law. As we briefly explained in a previous post, this is not true.

The strike against Suleimani was defensive in nature; it occurred in a country, Iraq, where U.S. military personnel have been fighting and dying for 17 years; and it commenced only after a long-running series of Iranian military actions in Iraq, dating back over nearly two decades, that have resulted in the death of more than 600 Americans.

Iran, moreover, has been waging war against the United States for the past 40 years, ever since its 1979 revolution and seizure of 52 American hostages.

For ordinary people, enough said. Neither international law nor Constitutional law are suicide pacts. However, because media and academic partisans are out in force arguing that the strike was illegal, it is worth revisiting the issue.

International Law. First, international law is real and important because it promulgates rules and norms that govern international conflict and provide some predictability of action, thereby helping to minimize war crimes and atrocities. However, international law is much more malleable and subject to dispute and interpretation than domestic law, and it evolves organically over time to a far greater extent than domestic law.

That is because there is no international legislature and executive branch responsible for passing and implementing international law. Instead, international law develops over time based on treaties, customs and conventions, judicial decisions, and general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.

True, we have a United Nations, but the U.N. is not a unitary world government that rules the planet and whose decrees ipso facto have the force of law. Instead, the U.N. is a deliberative body, where countries argue, negotiate, and try to address problems and difficulties as best they can short of war.

U.N. resolutions sometimes have the force of law, but not always. The United Nations Charter adopted in 1945 is considered binding international law. However, other U.N. resolutions, such as ES-10/L.22, which denies that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, are more controversial and in dispute.

My point is this: anyone who insists that international law, or the application of international law, is clearcut, obvious, fixed, and unchanging is either lying or trying to use international law to pursue a political agenda.

And in fact, using international law for political purposes, as a tool of statecraft, is commonplace. This often is how international law evolves and develops. Countries try to promulgate rules and norms to justify their actions on the world stage. It’s called lawfare: “the strategy of using—or misusing—law as a substitute for, [or a complement to], traditional military means to achieve an operational objective.”

Thus for the United States—and certainly, for Trump administration officials determined to put “America First”—international law is not a problem to overcome, but rather a justification that must be embraced.

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, after all, specifically gives countries the right to self-defense. Everything else is legalistic background noise. And if some legal scholars don’t yet recognize the legitimacy of the Suleimani strike, they soon will, as international law adapts and evolves to reflect changes in weapons and war, as well as the geopolitical landscape.

Constitutional Law. As you would expect, because of the more fixed and settled nature of domestic law, U.S. Constitutional law is more discernible and straightforward: As we’ve previously observed, the President of the United States, as Commander in Chief, has a solemn responsibility to act with dispatch in defense of U.S. military personnel under attack. Failing to do so would be a dereliction of duty.

This is not “initiating a war” against Iran as some critics falsely and hyperbolically assert. Instead, it is wisely prosecuting a long-simmering war in Iraq. The Armed Forces of the United States, remember, have been deployed to Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government and in accordance with a 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force there.

“The power to declare war is different from the power to make war, which belongs to the president in his role as ‘commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States,'” explain Constitutional scholars David David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey in The Wall Street Journal. “There are few constraints on that power when the president is defending Americans, civilian or military, against armed attack,” they note.

“Suleimani,” adds David French, a wartime attorney in the Army’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, “was killed lawfully [and] in a properly constitutionally-authorized conflict… Trump’s action was constitutionally legitimate, and that matters. A lot.”

“It is a basic aspect of the law of armed conflict,” French adds, that opposing commanders are a legitimate target.

Soleimani had entered a theater of armed conflict not as a diplomatic guest of the Iraqi government, but rather as a co-belligerent with Shiite militias—the very militias that had attacked an American base and killed an American contractor and had days before attacked and burned part of the American embassy.

The bottom line: Americans need not feel guilty about our strike against Suleimani. It was morally and legally justified. He had it coming, and America’s enemies have been put on notice. With a nod to Liam Neeson, if you kill an American (or orchestrate the death of many Americans), we will look for you; we will find you; and we will kill you. Enough said.

Black Voters Won’t Deny Bloomberg the Nomination; Sanders and Biden Voters Will

Black Voters Won’t Deny Bloomberg the Nomination; Sanders and Biden Voters Will

By John R Guardiano on February 18, 2020

This is the third in a series of posts about the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential contest and the black vote. We previously examined Joe Biden’s prospects and Pete Buttigieg’s challenges. Here we consider former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s chances.

So, can Michael Bloomberg win the black vote? Well, that depends on what you mean by “win the black vote.” Can he get a majority of black votes in a Democratic primary election contest that has a fractured electorate and multiple candidates?

No, he cannot. But then, no candidate—including Joe Biden, the candidate who polls strongest among black voters—seems poised or able to do that.

The real question is: can Bloomberg win a sufficient share of the black vote to deny Sanders and Biden the nomination short of a contested political convention in July? And the answer to that question, surprisingly, is: yes. At least that’s what his surging poll numbers suggest.

A Feb. 10, 2020, Quinnipiac University national poll, for instance, shows Bloomberg with an impressive 22 percent share of the black vote, behind Biden (27 percent), but ahead of Bernie Sanders (19 percent).

An NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll released today (Feb. 18) shows Bloomberg winning 16 percent of the black vote nationally to Biden’s 31 percent and Sanders’ 28 percent.

Bloomberg chose not to compete in Iowa (Feb. 3) or New Hampshire (Feb. 11); and he won’t be on the ballot in Nevada (Feb. 22) or South Carolina (Feb. 29) either. Instead, he has opted to focus all of his time, money, and resources on the 14 “Super Tuesday” states that have primaries March 3.

No successful presidential candidate in American history has ever done this; but as FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich notes, “a handful of state polls that suggest that investment may pay off” for Bloomberg.

In Virginia, for instance, a new Monmouth University poll shows that Bloomberg is tied for first place with Sanders (they both have 22 percent of the overall vote) and holding his own among black voters, with a respectable 18 percent.

That puts Bloomberg in a tie with Sanders and behind only Biden, who is preferred by 37 percent of Virginia’s likely black voters.

Similarly, in North Carolina, a new WRAL News poll shows that Bloomberg has 25 percent of the black vote, second only to Biden’s 35 percent. That leaves him tied for first place overall with Sanders. They both have 22 percent of the overall vote versus Biden’s 20 percent.

Left-Wing Ire. A similar story is playing out more or less in other states with large numbers of black voters—Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, et al. Bloomberg is doing surprisingly well, and, as a result, is now a serious electoral force in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign.

This despite arousing the ire and opposition of the more progressive or “woke” elements of the Democratic Party. Leftists angrily denounce Bloomberg for what they say are his “racist” remarks and his “racist” record as Mayor of New York City.

Such vitriolic criticism has caused Bloomberg to backpedal politically, and to renounce some of his previous positions, while apologizing for some of his past remarks. Most notably, Bloomberg has disowned his previous support of “stop and frisk” police tactics, which helped to dramatically reduce violent crime in New York City.

But as Jason Riley observes in the Wall Street Journal, “if black lives matter, then New York’s former mayor has nothing to apologize for… If anything close to the crime rates of the early 1990s had persisted for another quarter-century,” he writes, then “tens of thousands more black men might be dead or incarcerated.”

Moreover, as Fox News’ Brit Hume and the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board explain, Bloomberg’s so-called racially insensitive remarks are factually true but politically incorrect. Big deal. Or at least they may be a big deal to “woke,” left-wing progressives; but as the polls suggest, ordinary black voters don’t seem overly alarmed or concerned.

“I don’t think his problem is that he’s racist,” says the New York Times Bret Stephens. “If he [Bloomberg] were, he wouldn’t have won nearly 50 percent of the African-American vote when he ran for re-election as New York’s mayor in 2005, or be drawing considerable African-American support today. “

Genuine grassroots black support, in fact, helps to explain why a significant number of elected black officials—including four members of the Congressional black caucus and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter—have endorsed Bloomberg.

Big Money. Critics charge Bloomberg, a billionaire worth an estimated $62 billion, with trying to “buy the election.” He’s already spent, after all, an unprecedented amount of money (more than $338 million thus far) on television, radio, and digital advertising.

As Business Insider’s Eliza Relman reports, that’s more than Obama spent on advertising in his entire 2012 reelection campaign, and we still have eight months to go before the Nov, 3, 2020, general election.

Bloomberg, though, has been able to turn this criticism on its head by noting that he has the money and resources needed to defeat Trump and will spend freely to ensure that Trump isn’t reelected.

Bloomberg’s desire to beat Trump and to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, has clearly resonated with Democratic primary voters, black and white, brown and Asian.

Limited Appeal. Still, we shouldn’t overstate Bloomberg’s appeal. For the most part, he still trails Biden and Sanders and will have trouble getting more than 25-30 percent of the primary vote, black and white, in any state.

That’s in part because the Democratic Party is now fractured with multiple presidential candidates; but it’s also in part because, even with his embrace of new left-wing positions, Bloomberg is still well to the right of most Democratic primary voters.

Woke, left-wing progressives view him with tremendous scorn and suspicion. His embrace of school choice, for instance, is anathema to them.

Plus: Bloomberg hasn’t yet been tested in the crucible of political combat. As we’ve noted, he sat out the first two primary contests and hasn’t appeared in any of the Democratic Party debates. Thus how he performs in his first debate tomorrow in Las Vegas will be telling and instructive.

I seriously doubt Bloomberg can win the Democratic presidential nomination, but if he fails, it won’t be because of a lack of black support. Bloomberg, as I point out, is holding his own there. Instead, it will be because he is a bridge too far ideologically for a party that has become increasingly woke and “progressive.”

Indeed, FiveThirtyEight gives Bloomberg just an eight percent chance of winning a majority of the pledged delegates. Sanders, by contrast, has a 40 percent chance of doing that; Biden a 10 percent chance.

Bloomberg’s only plausible path to the nomination is to do well enough to deny Sanders and Biden a majority of the delegates and thereby create a contested convention.

If he can do that, then he has a sim chance of winning the nomination—especially if, before the convention, he can get a dynamic and appealing African American woman (Stacey Abrams, say) to serve as his running mate.

But that’s a very big and unlikely if.

Next up, we’ll review how Bernie Sanders is faring with black voters, and we’ll examine his success—and failure.

Feature photo credit: NBC News.