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The ADVANCE, December 1, 2021/Page 6A
(Tl?e Ahumtce
A free press is not a privilege but
organic necessity in a great society.
—Walter Lippmann
COMMENTARY
out of
CONTEXT
A compilation of quotations on a variety of
issues by national, state and regional writers,
well-known personalities, just plain everyday
people and from various publications
collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.
Quotes for our Times:
Leah Barkoukis, online features edi
tor at Townhall.com: Liberal magazine
sounds the alarm: Biden's presidency on
'brink of failure.'
According to (Jonathan Chait for
New York magazine), Biden hasn't aban
doned his moderate roots. Instead, "he
found himself trapped ... between a
well-funded left wing that has poisoned
the party's image with many of its former
supporters and centrists unable to con
ceive of their job in any terms save as
valets for the business elite. Biden's party
has not veered too far left or too far right
so much as it has simply come apart."
Guy Benson, Townhall.com's Politi
cal Editor: Wharton Analysis: True cost of
House democrats' spending bill is actu
ally $4.6 trillion.
I'll leave you with the painful reminder
that none of this would be happening if
tens of thousands of Republican voters
hadn't allowed themselves to become
convinced that their votes didn't matter
in Georgia this January, allowing Demo
crats to sweep a pair of Senate races. All
of this garbage would be dead on ar
rival in the Senate. But the political winds
are blowing in a rightward direction. If
Republicans nominate palatable can
didates and right-leaning voters turn out
en masse (as they did in Virginia), Demo
crats could very well lose both chambers
in less than a year:
Dennis Prager, nationally syndicated
radio talk-show host, columnist and au
thor: Fear is deadlier than viruses.
Most fears are stoked by governments
and their allies in mass media and in Big
Tech, who in turn suppress contrary opin
ions. Therefore, please understand that
when you hear only one opinion, and
that opinion is designed to make you
afraid, there is a good chance that your
fears are irrational.
Determining whether your fears are
rational or irrational is one of the most im
portant things you will ever do. The qual
ity of your life and the life of your society
depend on your making that distinction.
Greg Gutfeld, host of Gutfeld! and co
host of The Five: Looking at issues through
prism of race takes real thinking off table.
So we know why this is happening. We
see how life works effectively through fil
ters on incentives, reciprocity, responsibil
ity, self-defense and family. Like a good
wedding photographer or a good porn
director, we can view every issue from
different angles. But if all you see is race
- then you can't see anything else com
ing.
All you see is just what's fuming in your
narrative-corrupted brain. Which is why
MSNBC and others are melting like a
popsicle being eaten in a tanning bed.
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Harris v. Buttigieg would be
the GOP’s dream primary
RICH 1
LOWRY
COLUMN |
The GOP has had plenty of
reason for good cheer in recent
months.
Nothing can compare,
though, with the glad tidings of
a potential showdown between
Vice President Kamala Harris
and Transportation Secretary
Pete Buttigieg to be Biden’s
successor in 2024 should he
decide not to run for reelection.
Surely, there would be
other serious candidates in that
circumstance, but there is no
doubt that Harris and Buttigieg
would be high on the list of
potential contenders, as various
journalistic outfits have noted
over the past week.
As it happens, they
exemplify the contemporary
Democratic Party’s electoral
deficiencies, while bringing
their own flagrant personal
political weaknesses to the
equation.
If this is really the choice
Democrats would face should
Biden decline to run, they
better hope he defies age,
bounces back to robust political
health, and is prepared to serve
again well into his 80s.
Harris flamed out in the
2020 Democratic nomination
well before the Iowa caucuses,
unable to settle on a message or
political identity. Her staff was
obsessed with the progressive
hothouse of Twitter, which is a
powerful device for creating a
false sense of what real voters,
even Democratic primary
voters, care about.
As vice president, she’s
basically picked up where her
desultory campaign left off. In
the latest USA Today/Suffolk
University poll, Harris had a
dismal 28% approval rating. It’s
difficult to rate that low without
getting indicted or suffering
some other embarrassing
scandal.
Her allies, of course,
complain that she’s being
treated unfairly because she’s a
woman of color. This fixation
on race and gender plays much
better with the left-wing activist
class than with the public. The
simpler explanation for Harris’
woes is that she’s a below-
average politician serving under
an unpopular president.
Pete Buttigieg has had a
happier tenure. With his
surprising success in the 2020
Democratic primary, he
bootstrapped himself into a
Cabinet position and is now
enjoying a windfall of resources
thanks to the infrastructure bill.
He embodies, to a fault, the
party’s growing strength among
college-educated whites. He’s
smooth, credentialed, hyper-
articulate and a quick study
who knows enough —
sometimes just enough — to
charm and impress journalists
and other white-collar creative
types.
If a management consultant
were to design a progressive
white Democrat in a bottle, the
result would look a lot like
Buttigieg, himself a former
management consultant.
It’s become increasingly
clear, though, that the
Democratic Party’s new base
among college-educated voters
is a trap if it is pursued to the
exclusion of an appeal to
working-class voters. The
party’s poor standing with non
college-educated voters has
begun to show up in eroding
support among Latinos, a
constituency that was presumed
to be a key pillar of the Obama-
crafted “coalition of the
ascendant.”
A successful post-Biden
Democratic future is more
likely to be found in the likes of
New York Mayor-elect Eric
Adams than Harris or Buttigieg.
He is an African American
former cop with a hard-knocks
upbringing that gives him
working-class street cred. He
knows that woke bromides
aren’t the way to appeal to
African American voters, who
put him over the top in the
Democratic primary. He’s a
standard progressive in many
respects, but he has proven
Please see Lowry page 8A
GRITTY
Saule Omarova
Shouldn’t Be
Overseeing our Banks
It is ironic when
Democrats complain
about sensational use
of language.
Thanks to pro
gressives, practically
every white person in
America has been la
belled a racist.
But now Demo
crats are screaming
because Republican Sen. John Kennedy
suggested that Saule Omarova, whom Pres
ident Joe Biden has nominated to head the
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
— the nation’s top banking regulator —
might be a communist.
Kennedy opened his questioning of
Omarova at her Senate Committee on
Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs con
firmation hearing asking if he should call
her “professor or comrade.”
Distinct from the labels and charges we
regularly hear from progressives, there is
substance to the senator’s suggestion about
Omarova’s proclivities.
No, it’s not that she was born in Soviet-
controlled Kazakhstan, or that her degree
is from Moscow State University, or even
that her doctoral thesis is entitled “Karl
Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory
of Revolution in the Capital.”
It is about how she views the world.
This is someone who will oversee our
nation’s banking system that wants to “end
banking as we know it” and transfer vast
parts of it to government control.
Maybe we must read Omarova’s doc
toral dissertation to get a handle on the fine
points of what we call communism.
But if turning our financial services
system over to government control is not
communism, suffice it to say it certainly is
not what America is supposed to be about.
She proposes that the Federal Reserve,
the least accountable entity in the federal
government, take over a vast swath of pri
vate banking functions, with private bank
ing accounts being replaced by accounts
Please see Nitty page 9A
By Star Parker
COMMENTARY
Leftists Panic,
Redouble
Effort to Keep
Minorities ‘In
Their Place’
By Derek Hunter
When the leader of your party
can only be viewed as popular when
compared to the number 2 person
in your party, your party has prob
lems. That’s where Democrats find
themselves right now. The only per
son voters like less than President
Joe Biden is Vice President Kamala
Harris. It couldn’t happen to a nicer,
more deserving group of humans.
The panic it has started is not only
something to behold, but something
Republicans had better prepare for.
Republicans need to pay atten
tion because Democrats painted into
a corner will become more desper
ate than usual, and desperate Demo
crats are capable of some truly hor
rible things (think Bemie Bro James
Hodgkinson).
Short of attempted mass mur
der, leftists are launching an effort to
make sure that any black or brown
person who looks at the generational
failure of Democrat policies and con
siders a different path forward learns
their place. The minority vote is the
only voting bloc, aside from rich
New York or Los Angeles liberals,
that Democrats have been able take
for granted. If even a small percent
age of that vote entertains voting Re
publican, or even simply sitting out
elections, it’s over for Democrats.
They know it, and leftists are
scrambling to prevent it.
Business Insider reported this
week about how progressive group
“Stung by a gubernatorial loss in Vir
ginia and a close call in New Jersey,
progressives are getting impatient
with the Democratic Party’s organiz
ing efforts and taking matters into
their own hands, according to an in
ternal memo seen by Insider.”
A leftist group “is getting more
skilled organizers on the ground ear
lier to ensure Democratic message is
resonating in communities of color,”
according to the story. It’s essentially
activists putting people of color on
notice that they’d better learn, know,
and obey their place in the Demo
cratic Party... or else.
The story reports, “A strat
egy memo the nonprofit Re Tower
shared exclusively with Insider con
cluded that unless Democrats do so,
they will continue to bleed support
from single parents; Black, Latino,
and Asian voters; and young people
from underrepresented communi
ties.”
Feel the sense of entitlement and
ownership.
As if the “owning” of the minor
ity vote weren’t enough, the story
pretty much lays it out in plain lan
guage. Karundi Williams, executive
director of Re Tower, told Business
Insider, “The message continues to
be against this villain versus what are
you actually going to do for me and
my community. Somehow I feel like
the Republicans have found these
bread-and-butter issues that are reso-
Please see Guest page 10A