Dear Weekend Jolter,
The day he was convicted in Manhattan, Donald Trump led President Biden in the RealClearPolitics average by nine-tenths of a percentage point. Since then, the voting public has had time to ruminate on the significance of the presumptive Republican nominee’s legal straits, even the possibility he could be sent to jail, and figured: Meh.
As of publication time, Trump’s lead in the RCP average has dipped — to eight-tenths.
This newsletter noted the possibility a couple weekends ago that the polls might not really move in the wake of the Bragg-case convictions, despite Democrats’ political success in affixing the “felon” label to their rival for at least the duration of this race. For now, the impact indeed looks to have been negligible. As CBS News relayed in reporting the results of its recent poll, while a few more Biden voters are “activated” in opposition to Trump, the guilty verdict “pales in comparison to issues like the economy, inflation, and the border — all items on which Trump maintains advantages. As such, the verdict has not dramatically reshaped the race.”
Noah Rothman cautions that we still need to see more post-verdict polling, but what we’ve seen so far reflects no more than a modest shift toward Biden. In a race this tight, a modest shift could determine the outcome in November. The problem for this president is that it’s unlikely he’ll enjoy a post-verdict, anti-Trump-backlash bump lasting through Election Day. Here’s Noah (and Rich Lowry has a bit more on the polls, here):
The marginal impact Trump’s conviction has had in the race suggests its trajectory will soon revert back to the status quo that has previously defined it, and that dynamic favors Trump. But the CBS News/YouGov poll’s findings also suggest the possibility that the race for the White House may not be static for long. Beyond the top-line numbers in its latest survey, this poll also shows that voters are more likely to default to Trump than Biden as Election Day nears.
In that poll, Trump maintains commanding margins among voters he needs — white voters without a college degree, seniors, and self-described Republicans — while holding his deficit among independents and women voters to single digits.
Charlie Cooke asks the big-picture question, lest we in the media attempt to overanalyze trifling matters like one candidate’s Rikers residency or another’s reputation as “the next big thing” among Werther’s ad casting directors: “What if, by early June, we’ve already had all the weeks that we’re going to have?” By this, he means:
All coverage of the impending 2024 presidential election presumes that something is going to change. If Trump is imprisoned, then A. If interest rates come down, then B. If persuadable voters start to pay attention, then C. But what if that’s all nonsense or wishful thinking? What if the cake is already baked? What if Trump is Trump is Trump, irrespective of the label “felon”; and Biden is Biden is Biden, irrespective of the attempts to revivify him; and the issues are the issues are the issues, having been absorbed by the public over the last three years and cemented into a stable view of the world? Elections are typically too complicated to reduce to a simple equation, but, in this case, it seems possible that the key variables are all already here, and we are just waiting for the voters to run the math in whatever order they see fit. Trump bad. Biden old. Inflation unpopular. Abortion popular. Border disaster. World on fire. On November 5, solve for X.
Charlie wonders, as I do, if our shared assumption that Biden narrowly pulls out a victory in the end needs revisiting, “given that nothing that happens in the real world seems to have any effect on the polling whatsoever.”
Post-Bragg, the phenomenon endures. What about this race, and these two candidates, has been able to transcend the ordinary rules of political operating? Rich Lowry theorizes that Trump is becoming something of a folk hero to his fans and followers. Thirty-four felony counts have only grown his legend.
Every time he walks away from some trap — whether Russiagate or the Bragg trial — seemingly unscathed and breathing fiery defiance, it makes him bigger. Every time he memorably confronts a member of the establishment, whether Angela Merkel, Jens Stoltenberg, or Lesley Stahl, it makes him more iconic. Every time he’s in a fix, which happens a lot, and doesn’t blink or show the slightest self-doubt, it makes his supporters more attached to him.
This isn’t necessarily healthy for a republic, to put it mildly. Perhaps the well-known deficiencies in Bragg’s novel criminal case blunted the political impact for the defendant. But would anyone bet the homestead that a conviction for, say, on-camera spaniel-maiming would hurt his numbers? Democrats should be almost thankful that Trump’s other cases could be pushed off until after the election.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
On the Hunter Biden verdict: The Fall of Hunter Biden
Incredible that this needs to be said, but: Rescuing Hostages Is Good, Actually
Good intentions aren’t good enough. California shows why: The California Minimum-Wage Disaster
Who’s the real villain here? The DOJ’s Persecution of a Trans-Medicine Whistleblower
ARTICLES
Jeffrey Blehar: The Media Directive Is Clear: Israel Can Do Only Wrong
Thomas McKenna: Protesters Surround White House, Call for ‘Intifada Revolution’
James Lynch: Hunter Biden Convicted on All Counts in Federal Gun Trial
Rich Lowry: The Hunter Conviction Undermines MAGA Claims — If You Forget Everything That Preceded It
Andrew C. McCarthy: Garland Contempt Clash Only Proves Special Counsel Was Never Independent
Ryan Mills & Brittany Bernstein: ‘A Slow-Rolling Nightmare’: Inside the Revolt at the Wall Street Journal
Dan McLaughlin: Supreme Court Silly Season, Alito-Ambush Edition
Charles C. W. Cooke: Joe Biden’s Decoy Presidential Candidacy
Christian Schneider: Joe Biden Is a Weird Liar
Zach Kessel: Why Universities Are Retreating from the Culture War
Madeleine Kearns: The Lonely Crowd’s Digital Dependency
Daniel Buck: We Should Worry about What Columbia Is Teaching Teachers, Too
Jay Nordlinger: Something about Caitlin, &c.
Itxu Díaz: What Drove the Historic Defeat of the Left in the European Elections
Will Swaim: A California Campus Brings Anti-Israel Activism to Its Jewish Studies Program
Yuval Levin: To Fight Polarization, Look to the Constitution
Haley Strack: Activists Find Out, after Storming the Congressional Baseball Game
CAPITAL MATTERS
Dominic Pino has the latest on the mess at the UAW: UAW President Shawn Fain Is under Investigation for Financial Misconduct and Workplace Retaliation
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Armond White checks in on what little remains of a franchise: The Acolyte Bastardizes Star Wars
Brian Allen, on something completely different (in a good way): Mending Our Ways, at the de Young in San Francisco
FROM THE NEW, AUGUST 2024 ISSUE OF NR
Audrey Fahlberg: Glenn Youngkin Hears the Clock Ticking
Joseph Bottum: The Hollowing Out of an American Church
Mario Loyola: Our Coming Energy Famine
John J. Miller: A Conversation with George Orwell’s Son
Luther Ray Abel: Ghost Ships of the Great Lakes
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Sebastian Junger’s Return from the Brink of Death
JUST NEED THE GIST? HAVE AN EXCERPT
The state of play on the Hunter Biden cases in the wake of this week’s convictions, per NR’s editorial:
With the help of David Weiss, the indulgent prosecutor (named a “special counsel” by Biden DOJ Attorney General Merrick Garland after years of undermining the investigation of the president’s son), Hunter avoided prosecution for almost five years — i.e., nearly until the expiration of the statute of limitations. But Weiss’s sweetheart plea deal with defense lawyers unraveled when Noreika asked a few basic questions about it and discovered that the prosecutors had left key terms out of their submission. With the implosion of this effort to make the gun charges disappear (and to resolve the serious tax crimes as wrist-slapping misdemeanors with no prison time), Weiss had no choice but to file indictments.
A jury has now convicted Biden of the gun charges. Trial on the tax charges is slated to start on September 5 — just two months before Election Day, with early voting getting underway — unless a more realistic plea bargain is worked out. . . .
All that said, this is not an occasion for spiking the political football. The president’s son is not on the ballot. This sordid episode has nothing to do with how the Biden family has cashed in on Joe’s political influence. Along with his share of heartbreak and loss, Hunter has been given singular advantages and opportunities. He has squandered them — a living, breathing wrecking ball of arrogance, substance abuse, betrayal of his duties to his children, not to mention trading his father’s political influence for big paydays from agents of corrupt and anti-American regimes. His crash is a human tragedy.
Hunter Biden now faces not only sentencing later this summer on the gun charges and a reckoning on the tax charges, but also a referral to the Justice Department from the GOP-controlled House regarding what appear to be strong allegations of perjury — allegations that would still be ripe for prosecution if the DOJ is under new management come next January.
President Biden has publicly vowed that he will not pardon his son. We’ll see whether that commitment is still operative after November 5.
NR intern Thomas McKenna reported from last weekend’s anti-Israel protest outside the White House, and found an atmosphere of menace:
The activists dressed in red and encircled the White House to create a two-mile-long line, representing the “red line” they say Biden allowed Israeli forces to cross by entering Rafah last month. The president had previously said he would withhold aid from Israel if its military entered the city on the south side of the Gaza Strip.
Protesters chanted “Globalize the intifada,” “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” only steps from the White House. The protest was organized by a range of pro-Palestinian organizations, including CODEPINK and the Council on American–Islamic Relations.
A group in keffiyehs and black ski masks held a banner that read “Jihad of Victory or Martyrdom” and “Al Qassam.” They chanted “Hezbollah, Hezbollah, kill another Zionist now.”
A man wearing a black ski mask and holding a megaphone approached me and asked if I was “Zionist” or “Israeli.” When I did not respond, he followed me and shouted through a megaphone, “Stay away from the Zionist.” He told me he was “with the H-Team, the people who start with ‘H.’”
Another man nearby pointed to my nose and asked if I was Jewish (I am not of Jewish heritage). A third asked me if I was Jewish and said “mazel tov” and “l’chaim.”
Words of wisdom from Yuval Levin, who’s out with a new book on the Constitution:
In reality, the Constitution was designed for exactly the kind of problem we face. The frustration it produces should spur us to reacquaint ourselves with the lost art of coalition-building, which lays at the heart of the Constitution’s vision of American political life.
Coalition-building is how majorities emerge and grow, and how people act together when they don’t think alike. It requires a willingness to work with fellow citizens with whom you share some common need or commitment even if you don’t share other views. Our culture-war politics implicitly finds such cooperation across difference illegitimate or even morally unserious. Each party’s primary voters want their politicians to remain firm and vehement in disagreement. Even in Congress, an institution plainly intended for coalition-building, many members now recoil from this basic purpose of their jobs.
Our constitutional system stands as a rebuke to such shallow obstinacy, and our very desire for unity should move us to rediscover its logic. It should remind politicians that productive negotiation, not performative sloganeering, is the way to effectively fight for their constituents.
And it suggests that contemporary America’s problem is not that we have forgotten how to agree, but that we have forgotten how to disagree. Even the most politically active Americans today spend very little time engaged in any way with people of opposing views. Instead, we spend all our time with people we agree with talking about the people on the other side. Our elected leaders too rarely see themselves as empowered to negotiate. Instead, they show open contempt for their political opponents, and even for the constitutional order itself, and are rewarded for it by their voters.
That means our system is falling short. It requires reform. And pointing to the Constitution’s aims and insights is not an alternative to such reform, but a way to make it more effective. It can show us what problem needs solving.
Many political reformers today, especially on the left, want to make our system less dependent on bargaining and negotiation, and more pliable by narrow, momentary majorities. They want to make Congress more like a European parliament, to consolidate more power in the presidency, and even to make courts more amenable to public pressure. They often argue that such reforms would serve democracy by making public officials more accountable to majorities.
But the fact is that we are living in an era of deadlock. We have not had a durable majority party in three decades. We need help from our system of government not so much in empowering majorities as in creating and broadening them. Reforms of our system should therefore strive to make factional competition, negotiation, and coalition-building more likely, not less necessary.
Ryan Mills and Brittany Bernstein have a deeply reported piece on turmoil at the Journal. It begins like so:
A dragged-out series of slashing job cuts at the Wall Street Journal paired with the new leader’s intense focus on growing online readership and charges of eroding editorial standards have led to mounting concerns among current and former newsroom staffers about the direction of one of the nation’s preeminent news organizations.
Eleven current and former newsroom veterans, who spoke to National Review on a condition of anonymity, said that Emma Tucker, the Journal’s new editor-in-chief, appears to lack a basic understanding of American government, politics, and culture. They say she seems to be prioritizing less serious lifestyle stories with snappy headlines over hard-hitting accountability journalism.
And they worry that several moves she’s made — including cutting jobs from the team responsible for editing sensitive stories and weeding out any hints of bias, and hiring a Washington, D.C., bureau chief who just published a book highly critical of former president Donald Trump — could lead to readers losing confidence in a paper that has historically been unique for having high levels of trust from across the political spectrum.
Tucker, who came to the Journal from the United Kingdom, has painted the changes she’s implemented as part of a new “reader-first” strategy aimed at modernizing the highly profitable but sometimes stodgy paper, in part by diversifying its readership beyond its core audience of wealthy, white businessmen. Her team argues that there has never been a push for “less serious” stories. And they say that while change is hard, it is necessary.
Everything Tucker is doing at the Journal is aimed at one goal: “to best position it for the future and to ensure that it will continue to thrive,” according to a spokesperson.
But current and former staffers who spoke to National Review say they’re baffled by Tucker’s decision to dispatch dozens of the Journal’s best newsroom employees, including axing dozens of journalists in the D.C. bureau ahead of the 2024 election. And they object to the drawn-out nature of the layoffs, calling them “indefensible” and “like a death by a thousand paper cuts.”
Working at the Journal under Tucker has “turned from a dream job to just a slow-rolling nightmare,” said one former staffer. Another called morale at the paper, particularly in the D.C. bureau, “the worst of any workplace I’ve ever been in my career.”
“People are fearful of their jobs,” the staffer said. “They don’t know who’s next. They have no confidence in the new leadership.”
Shout-Outs
Olivia Ward-Jackson, at UnHerd: Beware the AI leisure class
Adam Kredo, at the Washington Free Beacon: Iran’s Ties to the ‘Palestine Chronicle’
Emanuel Fabian, at the Times of Israel: ‘Operation Arnon’: How 4 hostages were freed from Hamas captivity in central Gaza
CODA
A friend sent me this video the other day of English jazz drummer Yussef Dayes and several more very talented musicians. I’d never heard of him, which is a shame. The interplay between Dayes and the guitarist in the midsection is explosive, and gorgeous. He cites the great Billy Cobham as an influence, and that explains a lot.
Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.