%20(1)%20(4)%20(1)%20(1).jpg)
The Hoover Institution Monthly Briefing on National Security
Welcome to the Hoover Institution’s monthly briefing on national security. This month we are looking at the role of Japan in AUKUS, the enduring power and impact of empires, the incoherence of US policy on Taiwan, the ties between the green economy and slavery, Putin’s nuclear threats, and the history of Reagan-Gorbachev negotiations. Finally, we discuss the archival nuclear disarmament papers of Warren Heckrotte.
A Second Quad: Should AUKUS Include Japan?
While Japan has “not had the opportunity to develop multilateral military relationships to the same extent as other US allies,” writes Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia Michael Auslin, and therefore “ lacks experience in the kind of collaboration that forms the core of the AUKUS [Australia, UK, and US] partnership,” Japan’s status “as the world’s third-largest economy, the most influential liberal democracy in the Indo-Pacific, and Washington’s key Asian ally—makes a strong case for its inclusion.” Yet he notes the “Japanese people themselves have not yet reached consensus on the issue.” Global challenges may force a decision. “As China and Russia, along with Iran and North Korea, increasingly undermine global stability, liberal countries feel pressured to band together even more closely,” Auslin concludes, “Regional groupings such as NATO and AUKUS are becoming more central to allied security planning.”
Empires and Their Conflicts Continue to Dictate the Global Economy
The age of empires is not over, writes Milbank Family Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson: “All history is the history of empires.” The great conflicts of the 20th century—the world wars, the Cold War—were really agglomerations of conflicts between empires, “transforming economic, social and political life almost everywhere.” Ferguson reminds us what is at stake in today’s great-power conflict, “that war is history’s most consistent driver of inflation, debt defaults—even famines” and shares a new paper that draws on four centuries of data to show “that central bank balance sheets have been as much affected by geopolitical crises as by financial crises.” Present Biden’s new national security strategy, he writes, “delineate[s] an unmistakable cold war strategy” in placing export controls over key technologies such as semiconductors, “driving up the cost of computing in China.” Ferguson warns this is “an especially hazardous move when more than 90% of the production of those chips takes place in Taiwan, an island that China claims as its own” and that “we must not make the mistake of assuming that the US is an indestructible empire.”
Ambiguity No Longer Defines Policy Toward Taiwan
“The concept of strategic ambiguity is intellectually incoherent. It confuses strategic intent with tactical operations,” explains Robert Alexander Mercer Visiting Fellow Miles Yu. Yet this idea has been central to many discussions about US policy toward Taiwan. China’s response? “It is difficult to find any influential person in the government of the People’s Republic of China who believes in America’s strategic ambiguity,” Yu chides. “The PLA’s theory of victory, which informs its operations and tactics, envisions defeating the US military as a prerequisite for taking Taiwan. On this point, the CCP is unambiguous.” Yu recommends it is time to relinquish our ambiguity. “Strategic clarity on Taiwan should help provide strategic clarity on the China challenge as a whole.”
AND:
Victor Davis Hanson Reacts to 2022 Midterm Results -
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why isn't U.S Amb Nides screaming? He never loses an opportunity to do so when Israel upsets him.
+++
Israeli NGO: The Palestinians are stealing Area C
Massive illegal construction is creating facts on the ground in Judea and Samaria.
By Steve Postal
Arab expansion into land in Judea and Samaria is far outpacing Israeli growth in the area, according to a report by the Israeli NGO Regavim.
“In the past year, the rate of illegal Palestinian construction has increased by 80%,” the researchers wrote.
So far in 2022, Palestinians built 5,535 illegal structures in Area C, which was placed under full Israeli control by the Oslo Accords. In contrast, illegal Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria amounted to 406 structures in 2022.
Over the past 20 years, illegal construction by Israelis totaled a mere 4,382 structures, fewer than what Palestinians built in the past year alone.
Naomi Linder Kahn, director of Regavim’s International Division, told JNS that “Israel is quantifiably losing the construction battle to the Palestinians in Area C.”
As of 2019, Palestinian construction took up 78,626 dunams (7,862.6 hectares or 30.36 square miles) of land in Area C, including some 58,435 illegal structures, the researchers found. Land taken up by Israeli developments totaled 56,700 dunams (5,670 hectares or 21.9 square miles).
Out of the 85,699 illegal structures in Area C in April 2022, 94.9% (81,317) were Palestinian and 5.1% (4,382) were Israeli.
“While the E.U. and P.A. make a conscious effort to illegally take over as much land as possible, Israel places artificial and unnecessary restrictions on Jewish settlement, encouraging high-density housing and closely packed towns with ghetto-like fences,” says Eugene Kontorovich, director of the Center for the Middle East and International Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. “One side is trying to spread out, while the other is trying to take up as little space as possible.”
Regavim’s report notes that illegal Palestinian construction is facilitated by legal support from the European Union.
Such legal aid was provided to more than 2,000 households, with 97.6% of those served with eviction or demolition orders still in the illegal structures, and 94% of the 1,569 structures that were illegally provided by the E.U. still standing.
Kahn said Israel should concentrate on building up the parts of Area C where the Palestinian Authority is focusing its efforts: the Jordan Valley (because it is on the border with Jordan; the E1 corridor (because it provides control of the north/south and east/west axes, and Palestinian control of it would cut Jerusalem off the eastern border; Gush Etzion (because its strategic high ground protects Jerusalem; and the South Hebron Hills (because the area links Judea with the Negev.
According to Kahn, the P.A. sees the bigger picture and is “annexing the land along major traffic arteries that serve Israeli security and settlement needs.”
Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), told JNS “the IDF prefers quiet even if it means overlooking the facts on the ground created by the Palestinians. Additionally, the Israeli government has yet to devise a map of what places are important to build.”
Kahn concurred, saying, “The Civil Administration is an arm of the IDF, and as such is ill-equipped to handle civil matters effectively. As a military outfit, the Civil Administration prioritizes keeping the lid on the situation rather than planning for the future, formulating a vision for land use, protecting natural resources and facilitating population growth.”
According to Kahn, “Israeli governments have been held hostage by allies and enemies alike, threatening it with crushing sanctions if Israel dares to uphold its rights under international law.” At the same time, she said, “Israeli politicians have not learned the lessons of the failed Oslo ‘peace’ process, and still believe that Israel has a willing peace partner amongst the Palestinian leadership.”
International pressure against Israeli development of Area C has hamstrung Israel, according to Emmanuel Navon, a senior fellow at JISS and the Kohelet Policy Forum.
“One of Israel’s worst diplomatic setbacks in recent years was the passing in Dec. 2016 of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, which rejects the legality and legitimacy of any Israeli presence beyond the 1949 armistice lines,” he explained. In contrast, he said, Security Council Resolution 242, adopted after the 1967 Six-Day War, “left room for territorial changes.”
Kontorovich suggested that Israel should be more aggressive.
“Europe’s funding of naked violations of the Oslo Accords and Israeli law must be met with clear diplomatic consequences, not impunity,” he said.
Kahn echoed this, saying, “Diplomatic representatives of governments that continue to provide support for illegal activity should be informed that they are personae non grata and promptly disinvited from Israel and all territories under Israeli jurisdiction,” she asserted. “All funds transferred by foreign entities to support illegal activity should either be interdicted (since Israeli banks are used to transfer these funds) or garnered from the monies Israel collects for the P.A. and transfers regularly—sums in the billions that are used for illegal construction, support for terrorists and their families, lawfare against Israeli law enforcement, pro-BDS activity, anti-Semitic education and more.”
Inbar said, “Israel should prevent Palestinian construction in Area C, and should destroy and evacuate Palestinians from strategic areas in Area C, and do so again and again if necessary.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++
My friend, Elliott Abrams is quoted in the article saying as much. I trust his judgement over Friedman's any day.
Tom Friedman Column Is So Wrong It’s Funny
So wrong it’s funny.
That’s one way to to describe the latest column from Tom Friedman in the New York Times, which appears under the apocalyptic headline, “The Israel We Knew Is Gone.”
Wrong as in just plain factually inaccurate, to the point where a correction is warranted. Friedman claims, “You have not seen this play before, because no Israeli leader has ‘gone there’ before.” Writing about Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, Friedman writes, “Netanyahu has increasingly sought over the years to leverage the energy of this illiberal Israeli constituency to win office, not unlike how Trump uses white nationalism, but Netanyahu never actually brought this radical element… into his ruling faction or cabinet.”
It isn’t actually true that Netanyahu “never actually brought this radical element…into his ruling faction or cabinet.” In fact, Smotrich was Minister of Transport in Netanyahu’s government from 2019 to 2020. The sky did not fall. Friedman doesn’t tell readers this, perhaps because it would undercut his thesis that “The Israel We Knew Is Gone.”
What makes it funny is that Friedman and the New York Times have been proclaiming the death of the Israel they supposedly once loved for forty years now. In the 1992 collection of essays With Friends Like These: The Jewish Critics of Israel, a chapter by Jerold Auerbach described Friedman in the early 1980s as watching “an Israel he had deeply believed in while in high school and college recede from gilded, heroic mythology to the shadows of bleak reality.” And, as Auerbach notes, Friedman’s disillusionment with Israel even predated the 1980s Lebanon War. “By the time he graduated from Brandeis University in 1975, he had already identified himself with the Palestinian national cause, with apologies for PLO terrorism, and with the single organization so reflexively critical of Israel that it quickly became a pariah group within the American Jewish Community.”
Friedman writes basically the same falsehood-riddled column after every major or minor news development in Israel. He predicts that this time this latest event — whatever it might be — is going to lead the world and American Jewry to shun Israel. Each time, Friedman’s fear turns out to be wrong. In 2017, for example, Friedman claimed, “the foundations of Israel’s long-term national security are cracking… Under the leadership of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Israel is … drawing a line between itself and the Jewish diaspora, particularly the U.S. Jewish community that has been so vital for Israel’s security, diplomatic standing and remarkable economic growth.” Five years on, Israel’s economic and diplomatic standing is stronger than ever, thanks to the Abraham Accords and to Netanyahu’s leadership, and Friedman looks foolish.
Other commentators have already made interesting additional substantive points responding to Friedman’s hysteria. For the Jewish News Syndicate, Jonathan Tobin noted that any gaps between Israel and American Jewry may be more attributable to assimilation among American Jews than any Israeli electoral outcome. “If Jews don’t care about being Jewish, then they aren’t going to be inclined to support Israel, no matter who is in its government,” Tobin writes.
Elliott Abrams, writing at his Pressure Points blog at the Council on Foreign Relations, advises, “hold off on the doomsday talk. Netanyahu is a known quantity as prime minister because he was Israel’s longest-serving prime minister ever. His party is by far the largest in his coalition and as his long record shows he is as canny a politician as Israel has produced. Moreover, he has in the main been pretty prudent as a leader, avoiding war and conflict whenever possible and watching carefully where the voters are. It is not at all to be assumed that the government will be under the thumb of Ben Gvir and or Smotrich.”
And Daniel Gordis, in a detailed rebuttal on Substack, takes on the “Fifth Column” issue.
Tom Friedman writes that “Netanyahu has been propelled into power by bedfellows who see Israeli Arab citizens as a fifth column who can’t be trusted,” intimating that Israeli Arabs are not a fifth column. Some are, some aren’t. In our podcast series, I’ve interviewed many Arab women and men who are quite the opposite. But if you live in the Negev, if you have farmland you can’t protect from Arabs in the south or the north, you’re fearful. If you’re a young Jewish Israeli woman afraid to walk in downtown Beer Sheva, you don’t think a “fifth column” is a ludicrous claim.
Ben-Gvir knows that. Friedman can dismiss it, but Israelis increasingly don’t. The left and center ignore the issue, and now, Israelis are ignoring them.
It’s ironic that the New York Times, which has taken in its news columns to calling Israeli Arabs “Palestinians,” is faulting Israeli Jews for expressing concern on this issue.
Gordis writes that he lacks Friedman’s “certainty… that things are going to be horrible,” and cautions that when it comes to Israel, “little about this place plays out as we expect.” Indeed, little about Israel turns out as Tom Friedman expects.
The main utility of Friedman these days is as a humor columnist. It’s actually a relief to read him with the knowledge that all the dire things he predicts: “profound effect on U.S.-Israel relations” or an erosion of “bipartisan support in Washington,” are figments of Friedman’s hyperactive imagination aimed at his far-left New York Times readers, rather than reflecting a nuanced understanding of Israeli reality.
Friedman’s been warning for 40 years that Likud governments and policies will undercut Israeli security. Israel is far more prosperous and secure now than it was when Friedman started issuing the warnings back in the 1980s, as Netanyahu drily put it in his recent autobiography, back when “newspapers…still wielded a powerful influence over public opinion.” That influence has eroded not only owing to technological trends but because readers have learned that columnists such as Friedman are not trustworthy.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
+++++++++++++++
John Podhoretz dumps on Trump. John has not been a Trump booster from the git go. Much of what he writes, regarding Trump, I agree with but he tends to go overboard. The odds of ousting someone in office is difficult but when voters in Pa. are willing to elect a Fetterman type candidate the onus is really on the Quakers. OZ may not be a wizard but he ran a decent campaign.
+++
Here’s how Donald Trump sabotaged the Republican midterms
John Podhoretz
Hey, Lyin’ Ted and Sleepy Joe: Meet Toxic Trump. You know, if the former president had any self-knowledge or even the slightest ability to be self-deprecating, he might consider giving himself this alliterative nickname.
After three straight national tallies in which either he or his party or both were hammered by the national electorate, it’s time for even his stans to accept the truth: Toxic Trump is the political equivalent of a can of Raid.
What Tuesday night’s results suggest is that Trump is perhaps the most profound vote repellant in modern American history.
The surest way to lose in these midterms was to be a politician endorsed by Trump.
This is not hyperbole.
Except for deep red states where a Republican corpse would have beaten a Democrat, voters choosing in actually competitive races — who everyone expected would behave like midterm voters usually do and lean toward the out party — took one look at Trump’s hand-picked acolytes and gagged.
Liberal fundraisers actually put money behind Trump-endorsed candidates in GOP primaries all over the place to help them prevail so that Democrats could face them in the general election. It was transparently cynical and an abuse of our political process. But it worked like gangbusters.
New York Post cover for Nov. 10, 2022.New York Post cover for Nov. 10, 2022.
.jpg)
As Kevin Robillard of the Huffington Post noted on Wednesday afternoon, when a Michigan Democrat named Hilary Scholten was finally declared the winner of her House seat against a raving lunatic named John Gibbs: “With this race call, every single Republican who won their primary with help from Democratic meddling has lost in the general election.”
Gibbs is an example of Trump’s monomania. A former official for Trump’s Department of Housing and Urban Development, Gibbs Tweeted that officials associated with Hillary Clinton participated in Satanic rituals. But no matter! Gibbs believed the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump, the only stance that matters to the former president.
Trump backed Gibbs in the primary to unseat a sitting Republican, Peter Meijer, because Meijer had the temerity to vote in favor of impeachment after the shame of Jan. 6.
Trump got his way. Republicans lost the seat.
This pattern repeated itself over and over and over again.
In almost every place a Trumpster lost, there had been a regular Republican who could and should have been the party’s nominee — a nominee who could have taken advantage of the uniquely horrible facts and fundamentals confronting Democratic candidates in 2022.
John Gibbs, the GOP candidate for Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, lost after being endorsed by Trump for repeating lies about the 2020 election.
Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz lost his race against Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz lost his race against Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.REUTERS/Hannah Beier
But then Toxic Trump came in to these races, picking the candidate who bowed lowest — or, as in Pennsylvania, went for a snake-oil doctor salesman because, it seems, his wife enjoyed watching Mehmet Oz carny-bark on afternoon TV.
And the independent voters history tells us would ordinarily have flocked to the GOP said, “Oh, man, what is that stink?”
In the past four midterms, indies chose the party that did not hold the White House by double-digit margins. In 2018, with Trump as president, the Independent vote was 12 points in the Democrats’ favor. In 2006, with George W. Bush in the Oval Office, the number was 18 points. When Obama was president in 2010 and 2014, Indies went 16 and 12 points in the Republican direction respectively.
This week, Independents went 49-48 for the Democrats. One point — in the other direction.
Independents made the difference then and they made the difference on Tuesday. They didn’t want to keep hearing about voter fraud that didn’t exist, or about how the world done wrong a multi-billionaire boo-hoo whiner who lost his reelection bid due to his own incompetence.
Voters have their own problems. This election was about them, not Toxic Trump’s pathological inability to accept his own failure — and his desperate need to elevate cringe-inducing boot-lickers while punishing politicians capable of an independent thought.
The British political figure Oliver Cromwell once said about other British politicians who had overstayed their welcome and were ruining the country, “In the name of God, go!”
Yo, Toxic Trump: Scram.
TRUMP’S BIGGEST LOSERS
DR. MEHMET OZ
David McCormick, a former undersecretary of the Treasury Department under George W. Bush, was recruited to run for the Pennsylvania seat vacated by Republican Pat Toomey. But Trump favored TV personality Oz, and attacked McCormick in the primary. Oz lost to John Fetterman, a Democrat was so addled by a stroke he could barely debate.
BLAKE MASTERS
Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders very much wanted Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to run against Democrat Mark Kelly for senate. But Trump blasted Ducey for not illegally overturning the 2022 election results in Arizona, and the governor decided not to run. The race hasn’t been called, but it seems that Kelly will defeat election denier Masters.
DON BOLDUC
The Republican candidate for senator from New Hampshire got Trump’s support for saying 2020 was stolen during the primary. But when he wavered in the general, Trump attacked him, and when Bolduc lost to Democrat Maggie Hassan, Trump disowned him.
HERSCHEL WALKER
Trump was all-in on the former NFL player despite doubts from other Republicans. Walker way underperformed fellow Republican Brian Kemp (whom Trump refused to endorse or campaign for because he wouldn’t illegally overturn Georgia’s vote), who cruised to re-election as governor. Walker now faces a runoff with Sen. Raphael Warnock.
DOUG MASTRIANO
The GOP thought they had a shot at the Pennsylvania governor’s seat, but Trump boosted the election-denying Mastriano, who lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro.
TUDOR DIXON
She earned Trump’s endorsement, and a primary win, by claiming 2020 was stolen. But Republican Dixon lost the governor’s race in Michigan to incumbent Gretchen Whitmer.
++++++++++++++++
Abortion may have hurt Republicans but if that is more important than about 10 other critical issues then so be it.
Meanwhile, I agree with The WSJ Editorial Board and have warned the slim Republican victory could become a pyrrhic one if they do not demonstrate some progress on problems as opposed to investigations.
+++
The GOP’s Midterm Failure
The Editorial Board
A polarized but closely divided America elected a closely divided Congress on Tuesday. The voters seem to have put a check on progressive Democrats by handing Republicans the House, albeit narrowly, but control of the Senate hangs on races still to be counted.
Though the results are split, Republicans are dismayed, and they should be—at themselves. Some 70% of voters Tuesday said they’re unhappy with the state of the nation. With an unpopular President, 8% inflation, falling real incomes, rising crime, and chaos at the border, the GOP should have coasted at least to a normal midterm victory.
Instead they failed to win most of the toss-up House races, especially in the many suburban seats they lost in 2018. Their majority, if they get it, will be so narrow that Democrats could easily take it back in 2024. They lost winnable races for Governor across the Upper Midwest against weak incumbents.
***
The GOP’s failure owes in part to the deep partisanship that makes large swings more difficult. But it also owes to the party’s mistakes. Republicans only broke even among independents, according to the exit poll, which means millions of these voters found GOP candidates too extreme. Americans are unhappy with Democratic governance, but they aren’t sold on the GOP as an alternative.
Abortion hurt the GOP in some states, notably Michigan where the Legislature failed to modify a 1931 law. Many anti-abortion candidates won, but Republicans need to explain to voters what they believe and why. In most states they will also need to back away from a total ban in favor of restrictions favored by most voters.
The larger failure was that the GOP nominated too many lousy candidates who courted Donald Trump more than they did voters. They fed his ego about the “stolen” 2020 election but then were vulnerable to Democratic attacks (however exaggerated) that Republicans threatened democracy. The Democratic strategy of spending money to help MAGA candidates win primaries was cynical, but it worked. Every one of those candidates lost.
Doug Mastriano was a catastrophe in Pennsylvania and hurt GOP candidates up and down the ballot. Lauren Boebert, the Colorado MAGA star in a GOP-leaning district, may lose. We offer more examples nearby. The pre-election triumphalism of the MAGA media would seem to call for some rethinking, not that anyone should expect it. There’s money to be made, if not political success, in niche tribalism.
The GOP exceptions Tuesday were Republican Governors running for re-election with a record of competent conservatism. Brian Kemp in Georgia, Kim Reynolds in Iowa, Greg Abbott in Texas, Mike DeWine in Ohio, and Chris Sununu in New Hampshire all won easily.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 20-point re-election victory in Florida makes him the night’s biggest winner. His combination of a conservative reform populism with managerial competence offers a model of how to build a majority party in a once-swing state.
The risk for Democrats, as they celebrate, is that they’ll ignore voter unhappiness with their policies. Inflation helped Republicans, as did crime and a concern about progressive excess. In the exit poll, voters had similarly unfavorable views of both parties.
But progressives will argue that the election results aren’t a broad repudiation of their policies. They will continue to press Mr. Biden to skew to the left, as he has for two years, if he wants their support to run for re-election with the party behind him. Two-thirds of voters in exit polls said he shouldn’t run for President again, including many Democrats. That still leaves him in a perilous position.
If Republicans do take the House in the end, Mr. Biden will have to deal with the reality that the progressive agenda is dead for at least two years. Doubly so if Mitch McConnell becomes Senate Majority Leader.
There may be compromises available with Republicans on defense spending, funding for Ukraine, energy production, taxes, immigration and more. Mr. Biden will want to avoid a recession in 2023, and he can help mitigate the damage from rising interest rates by extending the expiring tax provisions of the 2017 tax reform. He can also reduce business uncertainty by restraining his regulators.
But this would require Mr. Biden to stand up to his party’s left, and it is hard to see him doing so. Mr. Biden has always followed more than led his party. He also knows Mr. Trump is even more unpopular than he is, according to the exit poll, and he rightly believes he can beat him again with a united party motivated to deny a second Trump term.
All of this is a recipe for two years of gridlock in Washington, which certainly beats the progressive binge since January 2021. The country faces enormous challenges in slowing growth, political polarization, and foreign powers on the march.
A government that showed it can address those challenges would be welcome. Instead we have a government that defines success as passing out money for green subsidies and welfare entitlements. As gridlock sets in, the voters will be looking to see if new leaders can offer them a better vision.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
More about Trump's lack of appeal. Whiton wrote a powerful Op Ed which I urge you read:
+++
Why selfish Trump FEARS DeSantis, yet must hand Ron the torch to save the America First movement, writes CHRISTIAN WHITON who served under the ex-president
By CHRISTIAN WHITON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
Christian Whiton was a senior advisor for strategic communications in the Trump State Department and an advisor to the Trump presidential transition team
If former President Donald Trump is truly willing to put America first, he won't run for president in 2024.
I write this as someone who admires Trump greatly, and who served on his presidential transition and in his administration.
I supported Trump wholeheartedly in the 2016 general election, and was an enthusiastic booster of his policies after I left the administration.
I was grateful for the economic revival Trump delivered before the world was upended by COVID. He changed the debate over trade policy, especially with China, beat ISIS, cut taxes, and nominated three people to the Supreme Court who believe the Constitution actually means what it says.
He changed the debate over illegal immigration and gave voice to Americans left behind by globalization.
Beyond that he redefined the Republican Party, essentially creating a New Right that is more appealing to blue collar workers and minorities, and no longer beholden to Wall Street.
Then he taught that movement how to fight, refusing to allow the propaganda media to set the rules of politics.
In his inaugural address, when he said, 'This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,' the mainstream media scoffed. They had no idea what he was talking about, but millions of Americans did. And we thank him for that.
But despite these accomplishments, Trump's time has past.
If he cares about the political movement he founded, he'll pass the torch to a new generation of conservatives, who are ready to lead -- now.
There are many reasons for Trump to step aside, but the most glaring is the lackluster performance of Republicans in Tuesday's midterm elections.
As vote counting continues, the GOP still has a narrow path to a Senate majority that relies on Republican challenger Adam Laxalt maintaining his slight lead in Nevada and on Hershel Walker winning a likely December 6 runoff in Georgia.
Slims odds of a modest majority are not exactly what Republicans had in mind as they barreled into Tuesday night.
More promising, Republicans seem on track to flip the House from Democrat to narrow GOP control, which would at least end what is left of President Joe Biden's legislative agenda.
However, this is a poor performance by historical standards.
It is true that Republicans faced an unfavorable Senate map and unexpected Republicans gains in the House in 2020, meant fewer easy targets in 2022. But these challenges do not explain the lack of anything resembling a red wave, especially with inflation at 40-year highs and an economy that is in or near recession.
What does explain the shortfall is Donald Trump.
Not all of Trump's picks for office were bad: JD Vance won handily in Ohio, preserving a Senate seat for the Republicans and replacing a retiring establishment officeholder with a young figure of the New Right.
But other choices, like Walker in Georgia and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania were gifts to Democrats.
Neither man reflected the best of Trump: standing up for the forgotten man and skillfully using media to reach voters directly. Trump also inexplicably sat on perhaps $100 million in funds he raised to help other Republicans, which he cannot use on his own prospective campaign.
Beyond some bad candidates, the stink of Trump pervaded nationally.
Democrats successfully goaded him to indulge his fixation on irregularities in the 2020 election, and pushed many other Republican candidates, who felt compelled to echo Trump's musing, onto this unfavorable debate ground.
He has become an albatross around the neck of much of the party.
The most notable exception to the mediocre Republican performance on Tuesday was Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis, who won office in a squeaker in 2018, achieved reelection with a nearly 20-point margin.
DeSantis has all of the upside of Trump without the baggage: he won over many independents and Democrats with an unapologetic record of economic growth and fighting woke radicalism.
DeSantis also knows how to talk past the progressive media in his state to reach voters directly, which is essential for any national Republican.
And at 44, he is member of Generation X, whose time it is to take the reins from the Boomer gerontocracy in Washington.
To those who say DeSantis is not ready or that he should wait his turn, I say: you're wrong.
Politics is about timing. And DeSantis' time is now as his star is rising.
But instead of embracing DeSantis, Trump has sought to undermine him.
Last Friday, Trump attempted to label him as 'Ron DeSanctimonious.' On Monday, Trump said, 'I think if [DeSantis] runs, he could hurt himself very badly… I don't think it would be good for the party.'
Most Republicans won't stand for this.
Trump obviously and rightly fears DeSantis and wants to harm him for his own self-interest.
In fact, Trump seems determined to get into the presidential race as fast as possible in the hope that it will somehow mitigate or prevent a potential federal criminal indictment related to possible obstruction of justice charges linked to the improper handling of classified documents.
After Tuesday's election, Trump continued the delusion.
He wrote that the election was 'A GREAT EVENING' and added that it was an 'Amazing job by some really fantastic candidates!'
The reality is that Trump's time has come and gone, and that he is a liability to his party and himself.
The most important takeaway from the Republicans' lackluster performance is that winning the presidency back from Democrats in 2024 is far from a sure thing.
We cannot start with a candidate hated by most of the country and who is clearly putting personal redemption and preservation ahead of his party and country.
Republicans can win with someone like DeSantis, but would lose with Trump, who could also face humiliation in the Republican primaries.
Thank you for your service, Donald. Your place in history is secure…if you retire now.
And:
Shifting to BIBI, the attached was written by a liberal Israeli friend and fellow memo reader.
The issue with respect to GVIR and Smotrich is due to their hard nosed attitude regarding Palestinians.
Frankly, I understand where GVIR and Smotrich are coming from. Radical lefties seldom cause any black ink to be spilled but those from the right always are placed under a magnifying mirror if they protest episodes by Palestinians regarding acts of expansion etc.
In a recent article the author pointed out Republicans made significant inroads in the ranks of Hispanic and Black voters. In the excellent article I recently posted by Whiton, he discussed how Trump had re-shaped the voter makeup of the Republican Party. It is as if the Republicans had walked off with several former Democrat voting blocks. The Vanderbilts must be rolling over in their graves.
In another recent article, I read where American Muslims felt more at home with Republicans because of their pro life abortion views. Democrats added another radical Muslim to their ranks as a consequence of the recent results in the mid term.
I find it interesting that Muslims seem not to much care about "life" when opportunities to kill Jews occurs. It will be interesting to see the impact, if any, Muslims make on the Republican Party. Certainly the five that have attached themselves to the Democrats have had a very negative impact. In may ways they have overtaken the Democrat Party. Certainly, many in America's black community have been heavily influenced and radicalized by Muslims.
+++
Netanyahu….Be A Hero
By Sherwin Pomerant
At the risk of being labeled a modern day Don Quixote, permit me to share one of Cervantes’ best lines in his book: “The fault lies not with the mob, who demands nonsense, but with those who do not know how to produce anything else.”
This past election brought former Prime Minister, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, back to power to, presumably, become the first PM ever to serve three terms separated by others who occupied the office. This will only add to his record of being the longest serving prime minister in Israel’s history. For this he deserves to be congratulated.
Nevertheless the pundits anticipate that to build his right wing coalition he will need to bring in a number of, how would we call them? Somewhat unsavory characters! These include two sterling examples:
Betzalel Smotrich who once said “Your [referring to Arab students in Israeli universities] illiterates occupy places the university. Show me one Arab that passed the psychometric exam to enter university.”
Itamar Ben Gvir who once said “They have no place here in Jerusalem nor even in the entire State of Israel” referring to the LGBTQ community and who, at draft age, was denied entry into the IDF because of his extremist views.
While the thinking on the street is that the coalition will be formed with these players as well as others in their party who are equally unsavory, it does not have to be that way. Bibi, when and if President Herzog invites him to form a government, has an opportunity to do what’s best for Israel rather than what’s best for Bibi and be a hero to Israel and the Jewish people.
How so?
Bibi, given he is 73 years old and already holds all of the enviable election records in Israel’s history, no longer needs to worry about who doesn’t like him. He owns the records and can now (and should) do something totally out of character but for the good and welfare of the country
In a word, he can distance himself from the right wing parties who assume they will be in the government and instead, reach out to Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz and invite them to join a tripartite coalition that would command 70 or more seats in the Knesset.
After all, there is much more that unites the three of them than divides them. Each of them and their parties share similar concerns about defense, security, economics, education, quality of life, diversity and the right of all Israeli citizens to be treated equally. The differences in their approach to governance is a result of their own coalition partners who tend to be more left or right, as the case may be. Therefore, the best solution would be to rid the new governing coalition of the extremes.
In principle, this is what Bennett and Lapid tried to do a year ago but their coalition was too broad and did not include large blocks of voters from the decision making process itself. With the framework I am suggesting, over 60% of the voting public would be represented in a coalition composed of centrists and others left and right of center, but not on the extremes
So, yes, my suggestion could be seen as Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Nevertheless, the times we are living in demand thinking that is way outside of the box.
Why?
While we are about to celebrate 75 years of independence and great strides have been made to establish productive relationships with our neighbors we will still face daunting challenges as we move forward. These include:
The continuing threat from Iran.
Threading the needle of our relationship with Russia and Ukraine.
Addressing the worsening problem of worldwide inflation.
The instability of American politics, and how that can affect our own stability.
A continued increase in world-wide anti-Semitism
The rise of autocratic regimes in countries we thought were democracies.
To deal with all of these issues Israel desperately needs a government that is not beholden to extreme forces either on the right or on the left. In a world which is less stable now than at any time since the end of World War II, our government has to be able to counter that instability.
Bibi, given his obvious popularity among a large percentage of the population, his expertise in the field of economics which is his core strength, and the fact that the Likud garnered the largest number of mandates in the last election, is well positioned to take the bull by the horns and strike out on his own in the best interests of all of Israel.
So yes, Cervantes wrote “The fault lies not with the mob, who demands nonsense, but with those who do not know how to produce anything else.” Israel needs to marginalize the mob because we really do know how to produce something else. Something better, more inventive and more in line with what everyone needs, not just the extremists.
Bibi has the opportunity, in cooperation with Lapid and Gantz, to teach the world that Israel, more than any other nation, can rise above petty politics and do what’s best for the country.
Our beloved moral compass, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, once said: “If we are to negotiate the coming years safely, we may need a new kind of leadership. To put it more precisely, we need the rediscovery of an ancient kind of leadership that has rarely been given the prominence it deserves. I mean the leader as teacher.”
Bibi, be the teacher for our generation and you will be the hero for the ages…..there is no one better positioned to make this happen
Sherwin Pomerantz is a 38 year resident of Jerusalem, CEO of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem based international business development consultancy, past Chair of the Board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, former National President of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, President of Kehillat Ohel Nehama and a member of the board of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment