One of my first assignments as a reporter, in 1981, was at the press gallery of a local legislature. The standard of debate was not high. One politician asked, “When are we going to start treating government like a commercial operation?” His point was that fiscal discipline was needed. An opponent aptly retorted, “Why would we treat it like a commercial operation? Isn’t a commercial operation.”
This came to mind during another lamentably low-quality debate last week between Democratic presidential candidates. Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana — yes, he’s running — said foreigners arriving at the U.S. southern border should be treated “as one of our own.” The obvious response, after a light laugh or eye roll, is, “Why? They’re not one of our own.”
The Left now insists that, for virtue’s sake, we accept what we know isn’t true: that this tolerant country is systemically biased against racial minorities, that women are men or men are women if they say they are, that it’s tolerant to extirpate religious convictions as soon as they are out of fashion, and so on.
Most Democratic candidates support open borders, even Sen. Bernie Sanders. But, as Batya Ungar-Sargon lays out in her essay on nationalism (P.12.), Sanders held precisely the opposite view when he ran for the presidency only four years ago. Open borders, he then said, meant “doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don’t think there’s any country in the world that believes that.”
True, Bernie, but that is so five minutes ago! Get with the program. The Sanders of 2015 agreed with President Trump. People used to say Sanders was dragging the Democrats to the left. Now, the opposite is true. The party has hurtled so far leftward that Sanders is trailing in its dust, struggling to catch up. His septuagenarian rival, Joe Biden, has decided not even to try, separating himself from the pack on this and other issues. That Biden can present himself as the voice of moderation shows just how radical his party now is.
Another Democrat who sees himself as a suitable occupant of the Oval Office, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, looks a little like Alfred E. Newman but is perhaps more perilously reminiscent of Michael Dukakis. Like the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, Mayor Pete is a technocrat presenting himself as a good manager. The danger of that is that past failures hole your campaign below the waterline. As Nic Rowan’s cover story, “The Pete Principle” (P.18), shows, the mayor’s record is one of failure after failure. He’s smooth-talking, plausible, likable, even. But he can’t even run a small city successfully.
Elsewhere, we have a marvelous read about quicksand (P.24), and we sit down with uber-Brexiteer Nigel Farage for a gin and tonic (or five) in the lobby of the Trump hotel, the Trumpiest acre in all of Washington. Let me invite you to that circus; admission is free. Plus, Eric Felten goes to battle for outdoor grilling (P.51) and Tiana Lowe finds women excluded from the history of camp (P.7).
