Dear Weekend Jolter,
Not two months into the Republican primary elections, Nikki Haley can look out upon the vast expanse of the American electoral landscape and see only darkness.
Her home state went to Donald Trump by a 20-point margin; Michigan’s primary on Tuesday was even worse for her. As Audrey Fahlberg reports, in the upcoming March contests, Haley “faces a wall of opposition from Trump-loving grassroots activists and state party apparatuses.” Polls in the Super Tuesday states show her getting trounced, despite several of them featuring the kinds of voters who are friendly to her. Haley recently told reporters the campaign plans to “keep going all the way through Super Tuesday” — in other words, midweek looks like a safe bet for when the anemic 2024 primary race effectively ends.
It sounds almost anti-democratic to question why a candidate who is losing continues to run. She has the right, and Donald Trump deserves the headwinds. But of all the Trump challengers, Haley has prompted the most speculation about her endgame.
At this stage, it is not to win the Republican nomination by ordinary means. Over at RCP, Sean Trende recently ran through plausible answers to the question of what Haley is doing. The “charitable explanation” — that she’s giving establishment Republicans a chance to be heard — at least tracks with her public comments in South Carolina last weekend. “I know 40 percent is not 50 percent. But I also know 40 percent is not some tiny group,” she said, referring to her share of the vote. “There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.” As MBD notes, her performance reflects a split in the party still, pointing to the need for the likely nominee to appeal, somehow, to suburban/college-educated voters.
There’s, of course, the possibility that Haley is staying in to better position herself for some combination of a prestigious posting somewhere, a TV gig, and/or a role with Trump, though she seems to have crossed lines that, say, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy never did and, in so doing, made the latter possibility unlikely.
But perhaps the most likely explanation is the one that is most difficult for her or anyone in her orbit to say out loud: that Trump’s health/age or the criminal-justice system might take him out of contention (this week’s developments are a mixed bag there) and, as Trende wrote, “it wouldn’t hurt Haley to have some actual delegates in her pocket at the convention.” As of this writing, she’s got 20 to Trump’s 110 — not a lot, but more than anybody else.
Another scenario, one that Haley on Friday seemed to rule out and her campaign previously denied interest in, is her joining a No Labels “bipartisan unity ticket.” Jim Geraghty weighs the pros and cons of that idea, in theory, here. Yet another explanation for Haley’s persisting, courtesy of John Podhoretz, is that she’s running to say “Told you so” should Trump win now and lose later — and maybe position herself as a future alternative. Still, as Rich Lowry explains, “it’s hard to see Haley’s warnings accruing to her benefit in 2028.”
No matter Haley’s aims and reasons, Noah Rothman gives her credit for doing what most of her rivals didn’t:
Haley should be commended for — finally and at long last — giving it to Republican voters straight, even at the cost of her reputation in the GOP. That is lamentably rare courage. And because she devoted herself so wholly to that project, Republican voters now cannot say in good faith that they were not warned.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
Farewell, Mitch: Mitch McConnell’s Exit
Setting the record straight: Supreme Court Is Right to Take Trump Immunity Case
At several stages dating back to 2022, this murder could and should have been prevented: The Laken Riley Tragedy
ARTICLES
Rich Lowry: The Day Joe Biden Blew Up the Border
Audrey Fahlberg: With McConnell’s Announcement, the Race for Senate GOP Leader Emerges from behind Closed Doors
Audrey Fahlberg: At CPAC, the Veepstakes Take Center Stage
Charles C. W. Cooke: Outrage over the Killing of Laken Riley Is Completely Justified
Andrew McCarthy: Supreme Court Will Review Trump’s Immunity Claim
Andrew McCarthy: Trump Tells New York Appeals Court He Can’t Post Full Bond
Michael Brendan Dougherty: Google Search Becomes Google Hide
Jim Schwartzel: Separating Fact from Fiction on Florida’s Defamation Bills
Caroline Downey: Groundbreaking Finnish Study Undermines Gender Activists’ Suicide Narrative
Bethel McGrew: A Detransitioner Takes Her Stand
Craig S. Lerner: The Political Prosecution of Douglass Mackey
Noah Rothman: The Left Discovers Victimocracy’s Downsides
Noah Rothman: Hamas’s Death Cult Comes to America
James Lynch: Hunter Biden Implies Joe Was ‘the Big Guy’ but Denies His Father Got Involved in China Deal
Zach Kessel: ‘Open Season on Jews’: Not Much Has Changed on Campus Since Post-10/7 Antisemitic Uproar, Students Say
Jeffrey Blehar: Brandon Johnson’s Incompetence Spiral
Jay Nordlinger: The Meaning of $51.80
CAPITAL MATTERS
Jon Hartley reports on a welcome resurgence in support for a clean-energy power source whose image suffered for decades: The Long-Awaited Nuclear-Energy Revival Shows Progress
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Brian Allen gives dealer exhibitions, and one in particular, their due: Veteran Dealer Betty Cuningham Mounts Her ‘Last Picture Show’
Armond White examines the story behind what he calls Beyoncé’s “faux country-western” hit: Anatomy of a Phony-nomenon
THESE EXCERPTS NOT POWERED BY AI
Andrew McCarthy has provided a very helpful explainer on what to expect now that the Supreme Court has agreed to review Trump’s immunity claim:
It is expected that the Court will schedule the immunity case for argument in late April — probably the week of April 22. That makes it likely that the justices will decide the case in late June.
This makes the prospect of a trial prior to Election Day of Biden Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election-interference charges against Trump more remote — though not impossible. . . .
The case is frozen.
Now, it will almost certainly stay frozen until late June. Even if the Court rules against Trump on the immunity claim, as I expect it will, it is hard to see how the trial could start before August or September, given how much pretrial work will need to be done. To my mind, it would be unseemly for the Court to commence a two-to-three-month trial that close to the election.
So in that sense, even if Trump loses on immunity (and I am far from alone in believing he will), the high Court’s agreement to review his appeal is a major victory. . . .
He hopes to push the trial beyond Election Day and, if he wins the election (and he is, of course, the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination), to have a new Trump Justice Department terminate Smith as a special counsel and dismiss the indictment.
So, yes, Trump is very likely to lose on immunity. But what he’s really playing for is time. The Supreme Court has now given him three more months of it, and the ramifications of that delay may make a pre-election trial impracticable.
NR’s editorial, on McConnell’s big announcement and his legacy:
He will be remembered as one of the most skilled Senate leaders ever. At a time when institutions are often considered merely platforms for personal advancement, McConnell deeply imbibed the history and practices of the Senate and was protective of its norms and traditions. Because he knew so much about his institution, he was able to operate within it with incredible deftness. He won the trust of most of his caucus and was always cognizant of their political needs. Even with narrow majorities, he was able to muster an extraordinary degree of party unity and had a knack for knowing when to cut a deal and when to draw a line. At the top of his game, his Democratic counterparts, Harry Reid and then Chuck Schumer, couldn’t come close to matching him as a political chess player or legislative tactician; sometimes it didn’t even seem fair.
McConnell had his share of critics on the right, ever more so as the party became Trumpified. It is true that McConnell could be too cautious at times, present his caucus with unpalatable last-minute deals, and sometimes back the wrong horse in Senate primaries. But, overall, his judgment was sound, and anyone who thinks Republicans could have accomplished more with a more aggressive leader congenial to the bomb throwers now has the cautionary example of the post–Kevin McCarthy House GOP to consider.
MBD gets at the heart of the problems with Google’s Gemini and other aspects of the company’s products:
Google’s search service used to feel like a portal to every bit of important information. Dimly remembered news stories from years earlier were instantly recalled in its search results if you could remember a single unique word or quotation. You could regularly find what you were looking for even if your search terms were roughly synonymous with the content you sought out. It felt like a genuinely enabling appendage to the human brain.
That was a long time ago, though. Then Google started messing with it. My ability to find what I want quickly atrophied as Google “improved” the algorithm for its ad business and then made “recency” an important component of every search, under the assumption that you couldn’t possibly be searching for old information. It added auto-complete so that you were more likely to search what other people had searched before you. But it started to become obvious that Google’s coders were hand-coding in exceptions and even inserting their biases. My friend noticed that you couldn’t get auto-complete to finish Pat Buchanan’s name; as you typed it out, it would suggest that you search for the far more obscure character actor Pat Buttram.
This was the first sign that Google Search was becoming something more like Google Hide.
Google Gemini, marketed as artificial intelligence, is Google Hide as a finished project. As hundreds of other journalists have demonstrated, Gemini scours all the world’s information and then tells you that you are a bad person for asking the wrong questions. Ask Gemini to praise Ross Douthat’s columns on abortion. Douthat is pro-life, and, consequently, Gemini will explain to you that it cannot praise his work because abortion is a contentious issue and it won’t express personal beliefs. But ask it to praise Douthat’s colleague Michelle Goldberg’s abortion columns, and it will praise her clarity and compassion and claim that her writing “shines a light on the human cost of anti-abortion policies.” So, Gemini is not only biased, but it lies about its biases to its users. . . .
We are slowly discovering that the digital age is a race to program the internet with a set of human values and to enact those values through machines whose inhuman ferocity and consistency we can never manage ourselves. Perhaps it’s time that Americans learn that computing is a little bit like weaponry. We must either learn to compute with our own values in hand or we will be programmed by others.
Florida Republicans are pitching a misguided crackdown on the media. Jim Schwartzel, who heads a local radio-broadcast company, explains:
Ironically, the laws would threaten the very center-right outlets — including my family-owned radio station — these Republicans rely on to communicate their message and circumvent the chokehold that liberal media would otherwise have on the state. While the bills are intended to go after outlets such as the New York Times, conservative outlets would be hardest hit.
The sponsors of these bills, H.B. 757 and S.B. 1780, have downplayed their impact. But an examination of the legislators’ claims against the facts, and the text of the legislation, reveals a stark reality: These proposed laws, under the guise of fairness and accountability, threaten to erode fundamental conservative values and the very essence of free speech.
Here are some claims that state representative Alex Andrade and other supporters of the bills have made, followed by the facts. . . .
Claim: Anonymous sources would not be compromised.
Andrade’s assertion that the bills respect the role of anonymous sources in journalism is misleading. By presuming malicious intent behind the use of anonymous sources, the legislation would effectively nullify decades of journalistic practice and methods that are essential for whistleblowers and investigative reporting.
This is exceptionally dangerous. This presumption against anonymity would not only chill investigative journalism but also signal a departure from our nation’s storied tradition of protecting the identity of those who expose wrongdoing.
Claim: Anti-SLAPP provisions would prevent abuse.
While existing anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) provisions are designed to protect speakers from frivolous lawsuits intended to silence them, these would be rendered toothless given the broad avenues for litigation opened by Andrade’s legislation. The additional hurdles to demonstrate that a lawsuit is frivolous would leave defendants vulnerable to bankrupting legal battles, despite the eventual possibility that a case is deemed meritless. . . .
H.B. 757 and S.B. 1780 are well-intended. Conservatives are rightly frustrated by the way liberal outlets cover and portray them. But opening up every media outlet in the country to costly lawsuits isn’t the answer.
Shout-Outs
Aaron Sibarium, at the Washington Free Beacon: Columbia University Hospital DEI Chief Is Serial Plagiarist, Complaint Alleges
Adam Rubenstein, at the Atlantic: I Was a Heretic at The New York Times
Peyton Sorosinski, at the Washington Examiner: Colorado town declares itself a non-sanctuary city as Denver grapples with immigrant influx
CODA
Sticking with last weekend’s theme of kind of strange ’90s music that’s still very enjoyable, the California band Dredg is one that probably deserves more appreciation than it gets. One can make out similarities between the sound they were sculpting at the turn of the century and that of much bigger contemporaries such as Queens of the Stone Age. Their raw and meandering debut is worth a whirl, but their follow-up in the early Aughts saw the group cleaning up and tightening their sound, resulting in, for instance, the exuberant “Whoa Is Me.”
Enjoy. Catch you . . . in exactly a week.