Townhall Review | Commentaries

The respected research firm The Morning Consult just released new findings about how Americans want the business community to respond to our current crisis.

At the top of the list, they want businesses to set up a fund to help small businesses recover from looting, with a net positive approval of almost 50 percent.

Towards the bottom of the list we see things like supporting protestors on social media.

There’s no real consensus on statements of support—whether for protestors or for the police.

The bottom line is that people want companies to actually help, not to pose, and the group they want helped are the victims of the looting and rioting.

Facile expressions of woke solidarity are not taken seriously by customers. The people see past it.

Businesses should shift towards more even-handed and constructive responses or they risk losing the respect of their customers.

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When the headlines in major newspapers around the world all communicate the same message, something “huge” has indeed happened. And, indeed, the peace accord of Israel with the United Arab Emirates is huge.

The role of modern trios linked in Middle East history by the title “peacemaker” has now expanded to three: There was Egyptian President Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Begin and President Carter in ’78; Jordan’s King Hussein, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Clinton in ’94; and now Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed—MBZ—of the United Arab Emirates, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump.

It’s an enormous win for peace in the region.

If the Nobel committee is truly seeking to encourage—and not merely applaud—peace, they’ll give the prize to all three leaders for this enormous and unforeseen breakthrough on one of the most intractable problems and delicate regions of the world.

Bravo to all involved.

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The three presidential debates that begin September 29th may shape the election’s outcome, but don’t expect deep insight on America’s problems. For the future, the debate commission should upgrade the format, recalling the celebrated oratorical combat that electrified the country during an 1858 Illinois Senate race.

Incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, and the underdog Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln, debated seven times, with no panel of journalists asking “gotcha” questions. Instead, the gladiators went directly at each other and the issues.

The first debater spoke for sixty minutes, his opponent responded for ninety minutes, and the first candidate finished with a thirty-minute rebuttal. These exchanges drew cheering crowds of 20,000 people, listening without microphones. Lincoln lost the Senatorial race, but his persuasive arguments, captured in newspaper transcripts, made him president two years later. It may be hard to imagine, but wouldn't it be glorious if today’s televised encounters could approach those old levels of substance and eloquence?

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Laws matter. Yes, Americans may sometimes exceed posted speed limits, but that doesn’t mean we’re “systemically” a nation of reckless drivers.

By the same token, the fact that racism and discrimination remain a stubborn factor in American life, doesn’t mean that such hateful behavior represents the norm—or qualifies as systemic. Discrimination in employment, housing, education and criminal justice has been unequivocally illegal for more than a half century.

The people, working through our elected representatives, consistently choose to prohibit and punish racism, not to permit or promote it. The American system of justice isn’t built around oppression and bigotry. It promises “equal protection of the laws”—guaranteed by the 14th Amendment as a Constitutional right, regardless of race.

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Which agenda do you prefer for the next four years?

President Trump’s? Or Joe Biden’s?

That’s a helpful way to aid voters in their choice this November.

President Trump believes in the Constitution, as proved most obviously by his two Supreme Court Justices and 53 federal circuit court judges.

Trump will continue his military buildup and his push for enforcement of rule of law—as demonstrated by Attorney General William Barr.

Trump will continue his massive deregulation of the American economy.

Biden, on the other hand, will almost certainly raise taxes—and raise them significantly.

Biden judges will be activist judges, likely seeing nothing wrong with the return of race-based rewards.

And there’s a very real potential that Biden will pack the Supreme Court—increasing the number of justices in a replay of FDR’s failed effort in 1937.

And under a Biden presidency we’ll see some sort of Green New Deal.

That’s a fair statement of the expectations.

I’m voting for Trump.

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The current anguish over “racial justice” has been punctuated by intensifying demands for monetary reparations to the descendants of enslaved Americans.

The prospect of arranging appropriate compensation for uncompensated slave labor that ended 155 years ago remains wildly impractical, but it also goes against the nation’s highest ideals.

America has always been the land of fresh starts and new life, where you’re not judged by who your grandparents were or where they came from. To the greatest extent possible, your progress in life should reflect your own efforts, and not your family’s past.

Slavery reparations emphasize the opposite idea: assigning tax-funded payouts based not on who you are, but on who your great-great-grandparents were. Joe Biden has already expressed support for a commission to evaluate slavery reparations. If this ill-advised effort becomes a major issue in the campaign, the American people will rightly reject a program designed to accentuate, not narrow, racial differences.

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The fabulously successful play and now film “Hamilton” is now under a lot of criticism. On race, Alexander Hamilton was ahead of his time—but not 200 years ahead of his time, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that the film about him is now in the crosshairs of cancel culture.

I can see another reason why violent extremists might be opposed to the play. In a rap battle in which Thomas Jefferson pressures George Washington to support the French Revolution, Washington rejects the idea of street violence:

“The people are leading!”

“The people are rioting! There’s a difference! Frankly it’s a little disquieting you would let your ideals blind you to reality!”

In the play and in reality, Hamilton and Washington were both skeptical about violence in the streets. Maybe all those who are either celebrating or sympathetic to the violence today should worried about the movie’s popularity as well.

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The Supreme Court has ruled that religious schools have the constitutional right to employ teachers on the basis of their religious beliefs.

The 7-2 decision is really important. The decision underlines the fact that religious schools have the right to be religious—and to be free from government or legal action based upon their employment decisions when it comes to teachers.

The two cases before the Court presented hard situations, but the underlying principle was clear. Religious schools have the right to operate on their religious convictions, without judicial review. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority: “Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge [their] responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate.”

It’s a big win for religious freedom, and this 7-2 decision sends a very loud message indeed.

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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.

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The mainstream media reflexively praise the civil unrest afflicting major cities across the country, using the term “peaceful protest,” without even acknowledging that the phrase is an obvious contradiction in terms. A picnic can be peaceful. A yoga conclave can be peaceful.

But a protest cannot—its very purpose is disturbing the peace, shattering calm and complacency, heightening tension and conflict, not resolving it. Dictionary definitions for the word “peaceful” are, number one, “peaceable”, and number two, “untroubled by conflict, agitation or commotion; quiet, tranquil.”

There’s nothing quiet or tranquil about what’s going on today. Yes, protests can be non-violent—Dr. King and the late John Lewis always stressed non-violence, even in the face of violent provocation. But the current demonstrations emphasize no positive goals or programs of reform, amounting only to angry expressions of unfocused rage. Naturally, there’s nothing “peaceful” in this process—a process which, in most cases, leads inevitably to violent destruction.

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