President Trump doesn’t want to run against Joe Biden. His efforts lately included Spanish-language attack ads in Nevada to prevent a comeback by the ex-veep against Bernie Sanders.
Biden wears Trump’s electoral calculation as an honor, banging on about beating Trump like a drum. At which point, listeners tune out and seek a better candidate. Hence Biden’s tanking numbers.
Let’s ponder Trump’s hope of facing Sanders. Couldn’t the overlap of their supporters mean the old socialist appeals in the Rust Belt, where Trump secured his victory last time?
The answer is in the word “socialist.” Young voters, for whom the Cold War is antediluvian history, like the idea of socialism and “free stuff.” Shouldn’t Trump be careful what he wishes for? Democrats yearned to run against him in 2016, and look how that turned out. But Trump sees a perfect antipathy between his own message of American renewal and socialism’s incompatibility with what made America great.
I once heard a European expressing perplexity that Americans don’t regard socialism as just another political choice, as Europeans do. What he didn’t see is that socialism, whether of the Soviet or any other variety, is anti-American or, to put it unfashionably, un-American.
Sanders tellingly refers to “democratic socialism.” But just as with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the German Democratic Republic, the word “democratic” is misdirection. “Democratic socialism” starts as a well-intended idea, but ends as an oxymoron. Socialism is antithetical to freedom, and freedom is the heart of America.
Sanders dismisses references to communism as “cheap shots,” as he did to Mike Bloomberg in the Nevada debate. But they’re not wrong. Trump will assuredly deploy that rhetoric if, as he hopes and looks likely, Sanders is the last Democrat standing this summer.
Our cover story, “Caught in the Act,” focuses on another big election story, and that is about the misdeeds of the deep state in trying to end the Trump presidency since before it began. Andrew McCarthy lays out the disaster of intelligence community interference in politics, and how to fix it.
Jay Cost argues that Bloomberg’s billions should force voters to decide how they want election campaigns funded. Meanwhile, Liz Mair says it’s time the “Never Sanders” crowd got busy, and Eddie Scarry disembowels social justice ideology in an essay from his new book, Privileged Victims.
In Life & Arts, Robert Gerwath reviews The Fortress, Alexander Watson’s account of Europe’s bloodlands, and Ian Marcus Corbin turns to The Decadent Society, Ross Douthat’s diagnosis of our cultural ills. Jibran Khan reviews The Gentleman, a new British gangster film, Daniel Ross Goodman lays bare the triumph of Rembrandt, Eric Felten gets fleeced, and Rob Long gets beautified.
