Townhall Review | Commentaries

Why does it matter so much to rule-of-law conservatives that Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler win their January 5 runoffs in Georgia?

Because control of the Senate depends on it.

If Perdue or Loeffler win—preferably both—Senate Majority Leader McConnell keeps his job.

If Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock both win, Charles Schumer becomes the majority leader. And he’s made his agenda very clear:

“Now we take Georgia, then we change America!”

If Schumer wins Senate control, he can indeed “change America” by beginning the undoing of the capstone achievement of McConnell’s steady, disciplined six years as majority leader: confirmation of three Supreme Court justices and 53 appeals court judges.

With Schumer as majority leader, expect a liberal assault on the Trump-McConnell legacy of a federal bench bolstered by constitutionalism.

Watch those contests in Georgia closely.

The future of the Senate and the course of the nation under a Biden administration will be decided there.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly called on Californians to come together and make sacrifices to fight COVID-19.

The request would have been better received if, at the same time, Governor Newsom wasn’t off violating his own public health guidance by dining with a group of lobbyists at one of America’s most posh restaurants. Or, sending his kids to a Sacramento private school, in person, while many California schools remain closed for in-person learning and millions of students slog their way through online classes.

The problem with Newsom’s hypocritical actions is that they undercut the very health care professionals and scientists whose advice he is asking Californians to follow. It makes those of us who live in California wonder who we can trust, and what guidance we should be listening to. At a time when we need leadership and clarity, Newsom has given us hypocrisy and confusion.

California’s voters won’t soon forget his shortcomings.

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Donald Trump’s legacy will be framed by his actions between now and the inauguration.

He won in 2016 against all odds—and went on to four years of knockdown battles with the political, media and legal establishments.

He awakened the American people to the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, brought new peace and alliances in the Middle East, isolated the rogue regime in Iran and rebuilt the U.S. military.

He saw through three—count them, three—Supreme Court justices and more than 220 judges total. He can claim the first realignment since Ronald Reagan in 1980—all in the face of the most partisan impeachment in U.S. history.

His actions over the next 60 days though can frame his legacy and secure that place in U.S. history.

They ought to be focused on Operation Warp Speed delivering vaccines and therapeutics while the nation and the world witnesses a smooth transition of power.

It will be a glorious pivot in the story.

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In the wake of the contentious 2020 election, the battle for the majority in the U.S. Senate looms large. That majority will be decided in the two run-off elections in the state of Georgia on January 5th.

Both of the Republicans are incumbents: Kelly Loeffler was appointed by Governor Kemp, replacing Johnny Isakson who had resigned for health reasons.

And David Perdue is running for his second term representing Georgians.

Neither of the candidates reached Georgia’s requirement of 50-percent plus one in the November 3rd election.

All of this matters tremendously:

Holding the majority in the Senate determines who sets the agenda. To put it this way, nothing can come to the Senate floor if the majority leader does not allow it to be presented for a vote.

Turnout is going to be key. It will likely be a very partisan vote, which means that one party or the other is likely to win both seats.

As we understand the issues that will come before the Senate, that matters immensely.

Keep your eyes on Georgia.

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We all know that a radical minority holds sway in corporate culture today, but retail giant Target has generously shown us just how far this madness has gone. 

After a single complaint from a Twitter user, Target removed Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage” from its shelves. The book in question was smeared as “transphobic.” It is not. Shrier courageously points out the incredible damage radical transgender ideology can inflict on our children. While Target eventually reversed the ban, it is still a cause for outrage that a corporation of this size is so easily controlled by so few.

Banning books which object to sex changes for children is only possible in an organization beholden to the radical left. Shareholders need to demand viewpoint diversity in our corporations. If conservative shareholders fail to show up at annual meetings, or vote for (or against!) board members,  book banning may be the least of our worries.

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Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito recently made a startling point: “religious liberty is in danger of becoming a second class right.”

Alito said as much to the Federalist Society:

“Just as the COVID restrictions have highlighted the movement toward rule by experts, litigation about those restrictions has pointed up emerging trends in the assessment of individual rights. … It pains me to say this, but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.”

Alito argued that not only religious liberty, but free speech, is imperiled:

“Support for freedom of speech is also in danger. And COVID rules have restricted speech in unprecedented ways.”

This is a timely and prescient warning. Religious liberty is the very foundation of American freedom, and free speech is part of what makes America great.

We cannot sit passively by as our cherished freedoms are whittled away; we must pay attention and take action where we can.

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Political analyst and poll watcher Nate Silver recently mocked political prediction markets, accusing them of being delusional and out of touch with reality.

But when you look back at the 2020 election, the prediction markets were a better gauge on the outcome than nearly all of the elite polling outlets. While pundits pointed to polls that showed a massive Biden lead, prediction markets thought the election outcome was close to a toss-up.

In Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, Biden’s support was vastly overstated by the polling industry. In Florida, Polls said Trump would lose. The markets said he would win. He won by over 3 percent.

The success of betting markets is not some great mystery: They harness the power of the profit motive. Pollsters and pundits almost never get fired for bad predictions. But futures markets punish bad predictions.

It’s time we pay less attention to pollsters and more attention to markets.

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It’s now become a normal event on Twitter. President Trump tweets something about election results, and Twitter leadership attaches a disclaimer to it: “This claim about election results is disputed.”

Most everyone is aware that the President has a lively presence on social media. Every citizen in this country is free to evaluate the President’s claims as they see fit. But Twitter should not be moderating the President’s tweets. Doing so is a weakening of free speech.

Twitter is a publicly held company but is still free to set its own rules. That does not mean that they don’t have a responsibility to promote free speech. Like higher education institutions, liberty either flourishes or goes to die in such settings.

Twitter should not act as the President’s self-appointed Big Brother. Twitter should let free speech be free, and leave it to citizens to figure out the rest.

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The ACLU has effectively switched teams, again, on another issue.

Beginning in the late 1960s, the civil rights organization consistently argued for the rights of female athletes in sport, and that meant to compete with other females in sport.

Eventually, Congress passed Title IX legislation in 1972, and that eventually meant an entire structure of women's sport alongside men's sport in university intercollegiate athletics.

But the ACLU has now joined the transgender revolution, meaning that it's now arguing the opposite of what the organization argued on behalf of freedom just back in 1972. The entire Title IX system only makes sense if you know that there is a difference between males and females, and by the way, it's biological.

Sandra Bucha, a former competitive swimmer who was helped by the ACLU in the courts in the past, explained the results of this turnabout in the Wall Street Journal. She writes, "Women and girls are being displaced by biologically male athletes who have a clear physical advantage. Again," she writes, "It is the female athlete who's being denied a spot on the team and the pursuit of her dream, and now is being told to watch from the sidelines."

As Bucha says, “that's regression, not progress.”

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The polls have been way off for two straight presidential elections now—and it matters.

The failure of our elite polling industry is politically important and very rich with worldview implications as well.

Now, some of these polls have been off in the past, but the problem is that we're in the second election cycle when they have been off again—and not by a little bit. They’re off by a lot—and in the same direction.

Pollsters do seem to know where to find conservatives and maybe they don’t care. Why does it matter? Because the pollsters and the parties and the elite media all understand that voters are not only being analyzed about how they are likely to vote, but the announcement of a poll does itself often change voting behavior—or at least it can change that behavior of voters.

It’s not just a problem with pollsters, we’re looking at a problem with the entire political class. Again, I ask, do they care?

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