NATIONAL REVIEW
◼ Katie Ledecky’s Friday newsletters arrive on Thursdays.
◼ Having worried for years that Kamala Harris’s political radicalism would make her a poor candidate for office should she be obliged to replace Joe Biden, the Democrats have hit upon a clever way of getting around the problem: They are simply not going to tell the public what she stands for. While in the Senate, Harris built up a voting record that put her to the left of Bernie Sanders. Among the positions that Harris endorsed in her failed 2020 primary campaign were the abolition of private health insurance, the prohibition of fracking, the confiscation of modern sporting rifles, the expansion of Medicaid to cover illegal immigrants, and a “jobs guarantee” program. Simultaneously, she endorsed reparations, talked approvingly of defunding the police, and was comfortable enough with devastating riots to encouraged donations to a bail fund for their perpetrators. Now, all that is gone. In a series of terse statements, Harris’s campaign has summarily confirmed that she no longer believes any of that. Why not? Because she doesn’t, that’s why. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?
◼ We are told that history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce—and how else might we think of the Democratic Party’s decision to host a series of fundraising calls for Kamala Harris that are segregated by race? In July, the party hosted both a “White Women for Kamala” call and a “White Dudes for Harris” call, during which participants flitted wildly between transmuting the proceedings into group therapy and condescending to racial minorities. On the “White Women for Kamala” call, a TikTok influencer named Arielle Fodor instructed her fellow participants: “As white women, we need to use our privilege to make positive changes. If you find yourself talking over or speaking for BIPOC individuals or, God forbid, correcting them, just take a beat. And instead we can put our listening ears on.” That, suffice it to say, is not what Frederick Douglass had in mind when he demanded equality. It is, however, what you will inevitably get when you conclude that the problem with racial discrimination is not the discrimination per se, but whether those who practice it have their hearts in the right place.
◼ Donald Trump deserves credit for fielding questions from the National Association of Black Journalists. His opponent was conspicuously absent. What he did with that opportunity was another story. Bristling at the hostile reception he received, Trump repeatedly called his interlocutors “rude.” The headlines were dominated by his claim, backed up by his campaign, that Kamala Harris only recently started identifying herself as black after previously identifying as Indian American. It is true that like many people and especially politicians, Harris has emphasized different aspects of her ethnic background at different times and in different situations. Trump’s approach will offend some voters, reasonably, while not winning him any new supporters. He should be working to define Harris by her record, character, proposals, and personality—quickly.
◼ His running mate, Senator J. D. Vance (R., Ohio), is on the defensive for his years of remarks about the “sociopathic” influence of “childless cat ladies” on our politics and culture. He has said that taxes should be higher for childless adults and that parents should be given additional votes to cast for their children. The first proposal is debatable—U.S. tax policy has long included it, with bipartisan support—but the comments were obnoxious. Many good citizens have no children, not all of them voluntarily. There are many ways that government policy could and should be changed to enable families to form and thrive. Attacking and shaming those without children should play no part in that effort.
◼ It seems that many of Vance’s economic views come from his ruminations on kitchen appliances. He has said that an old refrigerator he used to have proved that “economics is fake” because it could keep lettuce fresh for longer than newer fridges. Now he says, in his stump speech, that “We believe that a million cheap, knockoff toasters aren’t worth the price of a single American manufacturing job.” A single one? Republicans should be cooking with a little bit more gas than this.
◼ Paul Dans got a raw deal. The former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management under Trump, he will be leaving his role as director of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The project became a left-wing bogeyman but also an irritant to the Trump campaign, which issued a statement relishing its role in ending it. Trump may yet, if elected, draw on the project and Heritage’s personnel files. But his campaign is determined to run on a policy agenda even more scant than the one he ran on in 2016 and to broadcast that all his next White House’s actions will spring from Trump’s own brow. It’s his party, his potential administration, and his (lack of) ideas. Message received.
◼ Stephen Richer is a key election official in Arizona—specifically, the recorder of Maricopa County, whose seat is Phoenix. A Republican, he was elected in 2020. He has a classic Republican background: the Federalist Society, ISI, AEI, our Burke to Buckley program, etc. But he would not say that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. That put him in the crosshairs of many of his fellow Republicans—and “crosshairs” is all too apt a word. Four people have been arrested for threatening Richer’s life. Trump lied about him. Rudy Giuliani lied about him. Kari Lake lied about him. Richer sued Lake for defamation, and she capitulated quickly. Damages are yet to be determined. Richer’s reelection bid has now been defeated in the GOP primary. One day, perhaps, the Stephen Richers will be appreciated in the GOP, and in America at large: appreciated as “guardrails”—human guardrails—of our constitutional order when being one was dangerous and important.
◼ A prisoner swap brought 16 people out of Russian custody and returned eight Kremlin agents to Putin. It involved seven countries. Among the prisoners released from Russian custody were Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian democracy leader. American politicians, starting with Biden, emphasized the stark difference in values between the United States and Putin’s Russia. There is a lot to say about democracies and how they should respond to tyrants’ hostage-taking. For now, however, we recall what Mrs. Thatcher said after a good day for Britain during the Falklands War: “Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces.”
◼ Ismail Haniyeh, who was the political leader of Hamas, was killed in Tehran on a visit to attend the inauguration of new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian. Good riddance. The media branded Haniyeh a “moderate,” but that was a relative term. He supported terrorist attacks, embraced Hamas’s goal of destroying Israel, and helped raise money from Iran to further that objective. It is widely believed that agents of the Jewish state pulled off the attack. Haniyeh’s death came within 24 hours of the elimination of top Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr, the mastermind behind Hezbollah’s rocket campaign against northern Israel, which resulted in the massacre of twelve children playing soccer in the Israeli Druze community Majdal Shams. Shukr was also believed to have played a key role in the 1983 Marine-barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. service members. These two assassinations come within weeks of a strike in Gaza that is believed to have killed Mohammed Deif, the terrorist group’s military commander. Israel is sending a powerful message: It knows where the leaders of Iran’s terrorist proxies are and can send them to their graves at will.
◼ White House national-security spokesman John Kirby affirmed the government’s assessment that Iran has financed and otherwise provided support for the anti-Israel campus movement in America. The administration deserves credit for going public with this vital information. But its release is also a reminder of the White House’s proximity to an Iranian influence operation that it is trying to sweep under the rug. More than a year after Biden’s Iran envoy, Robert Malley, was suspended from the State Department, U.S. officials have yet to provide Congress with a full accounting of the events that led to his sidelining. Malley, reports revealed last year, was close to a network of sympathetic Iran experts in the West that the country’s foreign ministry cultivated. Americans deserve to know exactly how pervasive is the regime’s malign influence in the anti-Israel mobs on the streets—and in our government.
◼ On Sunday, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro did what dictators do. He lied, cheated, and stole another election. Exit polls indicate that opposition candidate Edmundo González won 70 percent of the vote. The Maduro government’s electoral council published a result claiming that Maduro had beaten his opponent by seven points. Late Thursday, the United States government recognized González as the legitimate winner—a notable and correct move by the Biden administration. It should now apply maximum pressure by reversing course on a failed deal with Maduro that saw the removal of some U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in return for guarantees of a free and fair election. He was never the partner that Biden officials deluded themselves into believing he could be. Now is the time to throw America’s full and unequivocal support behind the Venezuelan people as they embark on protests that could change the country’s sulfuric regime.
◼ Observing the still-unfolding French Revolution from across the English Channel, Edmund Burke summarized its animating spirit: “All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off.” The organizers of the opening ceremonies for the Olympics in Paris apparently took that as a mission statement. The celebration of French culture included a headless Marie Antoinette and a casual reference to ménage à trois. But most egregious was a travesty featuring barely clothed drag performers assembled in imitation of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic mural of the Last Supper. The organizers initially defended the scene, tying it to a more obscure Dutch painting, before admitting their original intent. The display’s honest fans agreed all along with its critics on what it meant, but they defended it all the same. Now video of the ceremony is being scrubbed from the internet. It will linger in the memory as a reminder that the Left’s version of culture is parasitic on the traditional one it reviles.
◼ Last time in the Olympic Games, the decision of Simone Biles to remove herself from competition shortly after beginning Team U.S.A.’s entry in the women’s gymnastics team final threw an intense spotlight on her and the issue of athletes and mental health; Biles had cited her own to explain her withdrawal. Detractors (none of them having to perform themselves) harangued her for not sticking it out for team and country. Biles and her teammates have now earned gold in the very contest Biles bowed out of three years ago. It was the fourth gold for the United States in this event but the first since 2016. And it was another triumph for Biles, who now has nine Olympic medals, the most ever won by an American gymnast, after winning gold in the individual all-around on Thursday. Good for her, her teammates, and for the United States of America.
◼ The United States Postal Service has produced a new stamp. It asks a question, in a distinctive form: “This naturalized U.S. citizen hosted the quiz show ‘Jeopardy’ for 37 seasons.” In small print, upside down, we read: “Who is Alex Trebek?” Very well done.
◼ In a life devoted to print journalism, Lewis Lapham fancied himself an heir of Twain and Mencken. He lacked their gifts but occasionally gave space in the magazines he edited to those who had them (see Tom Wolfe). He deserves credit for helping keep the venerable monthly Harper’s afloat. He pioneered the use of short items, often lifted from other sources, like found objects (e.g., Hustler’s style book: how to copyedit pornography). After leaving Harper’s, he pursued an interest in history in a quarterly forthrightly named “Lapham’s Quarterly.” His left-of-center politics were the sneer of a disgruntled Roman senator; his great-grandfather founded Texaco, his grandfather was mayor of San Francisco. In his last years he could be seen, exiled to smoke on the sidewalk, well turned out in blue blazer and white pants, sometimes practicing his golf swing. Dead at 89, R.I.P.