Townhall Review | Commentaries

Joe Biden and his team must prepare to face tough questions in the first presidential debate on September 29.

For instance:
• You’ve supported nationwide demonstrations for racial justice, but would you want them to continue after you’re president? How would you scale down the occasionally violent protests?
• In the primaries, you moved sharply left—on abortion funding, free college, climate policy and more. As president, would you continue that shift as demanded by your party’s progressive wing?
• Did you grow up with “white privilege”—the advantages that purportedly benefit people of European descent? How would you erase such privilege in the future?
• Many Christian and Jewish friends of Israel appreciate the pro-Israel policies of President Trump. Would you build on those policies, or alter them and, if so, how?
• Would you appoint a 78-year-old as a top Cabinet official and, if so, how would you make sure that candidate was up to the job?

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President Trump’s record on foreign policy over the course of his first term in office boasts some significant accomplishments and noteworthy gains.

But there’s unfinished business to do—and nowhere is that business more critical than in the efforts to redefine America’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China, tackling the single biggest geopolitical challenge America faces today.

In a potential second term, Trump should establish a single, overriding goal for his foreign policy: how America can win the “strategic competition” we are engaged in with the People’s Republic of China.

More broadly, we need to work with our friends and allies to ensure a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, the region where the most is at stake for us in the coming decades.

But it all starts with the right approach to China.

President Trump has the right team assembled to do this. The American people can give him that opportunity.

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The California legislature finished its 2020 session by passing Senate Bill 145, which seeks the reduction of penalties for those convicted on charges of pedophilia. The bill’s author, Senator Scott Wiener, said the bill corrects past unfair retribution for homosexual sex with a minor. But a fellow Democrat, Lorena Gonzalez, disagreed:

“Any sex is sex. I don’t care who it is between or what sex act it is. … I cannot … as a mother understand how sex between a 24-year-old and a 14-year-old could ever be consensual … We should never give up on this idea that children are not, should not be in any way subject to a predator.”

The nation needs to be aware of what is happening.

This piece of legislation erodes a key legal reality that the country still overwhelmingly supports: Our kids deserve protection. A 14-year-old does not, and should not, grant consent.

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The normalization of economic relations between Kosovo and Serbia marked yet another significant foreign policy success for the Trump administration. In the aftermath—when Trump presided over a very important set of handshakes commemorating the deal—the elite media all but ignored the story.

To have Kosovo and Serbia put aside generations of enmity and normalize economic relations is a big deal of and in itself. But both countries also agreed to take steps to support the momentum for peace in the Middle East generated by the peace treaty between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. More dominoes were falling toward peace. Another may follow soon.

So when Ambassador Richard Grenell, the special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, teed off on a seemingly disinterested media, his frustration was understandable.

The electorate is weary of the non-stop anti-Trump alarmism.

The American voter needs to pay attention to Trump’s real successes, not the media’s distraction.

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During the worst of the shutdown of our nation’s economy at the front end of the pandemic, America’s elite media outlets were quick to tell us about the largest increase in unemployment in American history.

But they seem far less interested in telling us about the largest decrease in unemployment ever recorded since the recovery has begun.

As of this week the unemployment rate has dropped from a peak of almost 15 percent to about 8 ½ percent. That puts unemployment at levels which we saw during most of Obama’s first term. After the great recession of 2007-2009, it took three years for the labor markets to bounce back to the levels we see now—only three months into a recovery from the pandemic.

Policy matters, and pro-growth policies make a country much more resilient—even in the face of horrendous setbacks.

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President Trump has record of accomplishments that’s pretty easy to compile.

Most significantly, he has brought the existential threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party into the sunlight.

Trump has buttressed the constitution—with two justices on the Supreme Court, 53 judges on the federal courts of appeal and over 140 district court judges.

President Trump’s tax cuts—along with his massive deregulation—led to 3.5 percent unemployment until the regime in Beijing acted with criminal recklessness towards a virus that has devastated the world.

Trump’s brawling, slugging, tempestuous approach has worn down many, but his road is marked by these accomplishments.

The elites are convinced he must be beaten. But Americans want their jobs and security back. They like the police. They like civil order.

Yes: Polling shows him behind 50-year D.C. insider Joe Biden.

We’ll see.

I feel pretty good about President Trump’s chances.

I’m Hugh Hewitt.

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The term “Latinx”, has become the increasingly common substitute for the terms “Latino” or “Hispanic” in the politically correct, prestige press. The “For Kids” section of the New York Times helpfully explained that “the X is an effort to make the word more inclusive, because it accounts for a wider spectrum of gender identities than just male and female.”

The problem for this self-proclaimed “inclusive” approach is that Hispanics themselves overwhelmingly reject it. In an August Pew Research Survey, 61 percent preferred the word “Hispanic” while another 29 percent chose “Latino”, amounting 90 percent of Hispanic Americans. Only 3 percent said they used “Latinx” to describe themselves, while 12 percent who had even heard of the word, said they actively disliked it. The crushing disregard for the clumsy formulation “Latinx” provides a reassuring reminder that the cutting-edge activists of the radical left won’t make easy headway in the Hispanic community, with its solid, more traditional, cultural values.

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The Trump Administration is proposing two major actions to add political balance to the stock market environment.

First, labor secretary Eugene Scalia is reforming pensions—looking at what are called “Environmental Social Governance Funds.” They purport to be about better investing, but in reality they are a clever way to advance a progressive ideology. Secretary Scalia wants to refocus pension funds so that they actually fund pensions—and not pander to climate change activists.

Second, the SEC is going after shareholder advisory services—where annual meetings include opaque votes on issues shareholders know nothing about. The bias—no surprise—is to the left. Now they’ll be required to disclose their recommendations to public companies and publicize the companies’ responses.

The new rules are a serious challenge to the dominance of progressive partisans in the world of finance.

It’s a welcome pushback from the Trump administration all Americans ought to support.

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A new study by Pew Research uses tricky language to exaggerate differences between Trump and Biden voters when it comes to views of America’s past. The report shows nearly all Biden voters agreeing with the statement: “It makes the U.S. stronger when we acknowledge the country’s historical flaws.”

Meanwhile, nearly half of Trump voters support the alternative view: “The U.S. may not have been perfect, but focusing on its historical flaws makes the country weaker.”

Actually, reasonable people should embrace both formulations: sure, it’s healthy to acknowledge shortcomings in our history, but focusing on those flaws, at the expense of all America’s worthy accomplishments, can be sick and destructive.

The Pew survey actually indicates that conservatives and liberals agree that it’s appropriate to recognize the nation’s imperfections.

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These are tense and unsettling times for our nation—with ongoing protests in many of our major cities and a sense of unease about how the next incident may further inflame things.

So: How should we respond to protestors who are either violent or aggressive to the point of interfering with normal life?

Certainly not by returning violence for violence. Not by aggressive counter-demonstrations. And not by any sort of vigilante activity.

We can’t fight evil with evil.

Lasting social change always comes from peaceful appeals to the broad middle class in America.

So when they riot, let’s focus on the wise response.

Instead of filling the streets with angry counter-protests, let’s fill the ballot box with our protest vote.

When they riot, we register.

When they vent, we vote.

And when they slap us on the right cheek, let’s cast the right vote—head to our polling station or home to our absentee ballots … and we vote for law and order.

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